The Florida agriculturist., 1889-05-22
THE CAPITAL OF SIAM.
BANGKOK AND ITS FIFTEEN
MILES OF FLOATING HOUSES.
A City as Large as Chicago. of which
Nine Out of Ten of the People Live
On the Water r. Something About
the Country Itself.

Siam is one of the out of the way coun-
tries Ot the world None OF the great
steamship lines of the Pacific or of the
Indian ocean stop at it Few globe trot-
ters visit it, and it is about 500 miles
out of the regular line OF travel around
the world The great Siamese peninsula
juts down from the east coast of China.
1t contains half dozen different coun-
tries. the chief of which are Burmah,
Siam and the French states of China.
Siam itself is at the lower end of the pc
ninsula and it bounds the greater part of
the mighty body of water known as the
Gulf of Siam 1t is 1900 miles long, and
at its widest part it is $50 miles wide. 1t
is almost as fiat as your hand, though it
has here and there few mountain chains
1t has many big rivers, and the country
is as much cut up with canals as is Hol-
land. During the rainy season it becomes
q mighty lake, and the people move here
and there from one city to another in
boats,
ON THE RIVER MENAM.
The greatest river is the Menam, which
the Siamese know by the same name as
the Indians knew the Mississippi It is
"the father of waters" and it forms the
great highway of the kingdom. This
river flows into the Gulf of Siam at its
head, and it is about forty miles from its
mouth that sit here on it's banks and
write this letter in this floating city of
Bangkok. Imagine city as large as
Chicago, of which ninety hun
dredths of the people live on the water.
There are fifteen miles of floating houses
on the two sides of this river, and these,
with the kings palaces and few foreign
buildings on the land, make up the capi-
tai of the Siamese people.
There are six millions and more of
these Siamese and their country covers
a territory of about twice the size of
Colorado, four times the size of New
York. and it is about five times as big as
Ohio. The cocoanut and the palm tree
line the banks of this Menam river and
the boats fit in and out of jungles which
remind one of the swamps of Florida.
! wish could give you a picture of
our ride up the Menam TO Bangkok.
The sides of the river are lined with
these small floating houses They are
anchored to piles and they lie half hid
den by the great palm trees on the banks.
Here and there canal juts off into
the jungle and the houses on it makes
this a floating street. These houses are
made of bamboo, with their sides and their
roofs thatched with palm leaves. They
are sometimes on piles high above the
water, but more often they rest on it's
surface. They are tied to poles driven
into the bed of the river, and they rise
and fall with the tide. Their average
height is not more than ten feet, and
eack looks like two large dog kennels
fastened together and covered with palm
leaves.
The river is winding 1t is perhaps a
quarter of a mile wide and every turn
brings new surprises AS we near Bang
kok the waters are alive with craft of all
kinds. Little, naked, brown, shock
headed youngsters paddle long canoes
not over two feet wide and SO sharp that
the least balance would unseat the