Connecticut western news., 1889-05-01
AN AQUATIC CITY.
Slams Capital and Its Fifteen
 Miles of Floating Houses.
Glimpses of a Country About
 Which Little is Known.

Glimpses of a Country About
 Which Little is Known.
 Siam, says Frank G. Carpenter in a letter from Bangkok, is one of the out of-theway countries of the world. None of the great steamship lines of the Paci- fic or of the Indian Ocean stop at it. Few globe trotters visit it and it is about fifteen hundred miles out of the regular line of travel around the world. The great Siamese peninsula juts down from the east coast of China. It con- tains half dozen different countries, the chief of which are Burmah, Siam and the French States of China. Siam itself is at the lower end of the penin- sula and it bounds the greater part of the mighty body of water known as the Gulf of Siam. It is 1900 miles long, and at its widest part it is 450 miles wide. It is almost as flat as your hand, though it has here and there few mountain chains. It has many big rivers, and the country is as much cut up with canals as is Holland. During the rainy season it becomes a mighty lake, and the people move here and there from one city to mother in boats.
 The greatest river is the Menam, which the Siamese know by the same name as the Indians knew the NIissis- sippi. 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 it's 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-nine hundredths 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 capital of the Siamese people.
 There are six millions and moro of these Siamese, and their country covers 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. It is tropical country, and the click of my typewriter falls upon my ears mixed with the songs of thousands of birds which sing in the branches of the trees outside of the Oriental hotel. The doors and the windows are all open, and the lightest of white duck linen is oppressive as clothing. It is too hot to go out in the middle of the day, and we have all the surroundings of the tropics. 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, save that you may see the mon- keys upon the trees, and the plumage of the birds is more splendid.
 wish could give you picture of our ride up the Menam to Bangkok. The sides of the river are lined with these small floating houses. They are an- chored to piles and they lie half hidden by the great palm trees on the banks. Here and there canal juts off into the jungle, and the houses on it make thi floating street. These houses are made of bamboo, with their sides and their roofs matched with palm leaves. They are sometimes on piles high above the water, but more often they rest on its 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 each looks like two large dog kennels fastened together and covered with palm leaves.
 Here and there is an opening in the palm trees and you get glimpse of the country; it is flat as the waters of the river and where it is ploughed it looks as black as your hat The only beasts upon it are ugly water buffaloes. There are no fences, no barns, and only these matched houses on pies.
 The river is winding. It is perhaps a quarter of 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 head ed youngsters padd'elong canoes not over two feet wide and so sharp that the least balance would unseat the rower. There are women with great hats of straw, which look like inverted work baskets, sitting in boats which they paddle along, and boats of all sizes are worked by all ages and sexes from babies of six to wrinkled old men and short, gray haired women of sixty. As you enter Bangkok the crowd increases. Instead of one line of floating houses along the banks there are three and sometimes four. The whole liver is alive and you turn your eyes this way and that, meeting a maze of new ob- jects at every turn.