The Opelousas courier., 1890-07-05
FLOATING CAPITAL
.vrsrrprsorTr BANGKOK, THE
VENICE OF TIE ORIENT
A populous and Magnificent o,ss
Built Upon Pilings, Above the
Svotax Floating Houses

with the temples of Buddh anu JIG PEA
aces and gardens of the King must De a
Mace picturesque beyond d~escrlptlon'
hit It is the capital of a country Where
the brutal system of slavery for Geo' coh.
tinues to curse the poor, and where Inc
women are drudges for the men. WIZ "0
themselves the property of the King.
Frank Carpenter, the veteran ]oulhas-
;st oives in the Cosmopolitan the loilo"-
;ro descriotion of Bangkok, the 1oatlng
s;tv, with a few Introductory WoFos
about Siam ou.
siam is the Holland Of the Orient
Turing q mart of the year the best OF ITS
lands lie under water and the Peop.e
move from one village to another IN
boats. The rivers and canals are the
highways of the kingdom, and the city
Of BANGKOK, the royal capital, has more
houses built upon piles than have the
ni,ed cities of Amsterdam and Rotter-
dam. and it's canal streets surpass in NUM-
Der the liquid avenues through which the
Venetian gondola glides. Bangkok is
even more the daughter of the waters
than is the famed queen city OF the
Adriatic. Venice rises from the sea, ana
its foundations reach down into its sand.
Bangkok floats upon the bosom OF the
mighty Menam River, and its hundred
thousand dwellings rise and fall with the
tide, The Menam is called the mother
of waters and Bangkok, its most beautl-
full daughter, is soothed during the day
and iulled to sleep at night upon the
bosom of this mighty mother.
"Bangkok has few things in common
with its sister city of Italy, and it differs
from Venice as the savage maiden OF the
tropics laden with barbaric gold differs
from the fashionable girl of our modern
| civilization, clad in her latest Partisan
dress. Imagine a low, fiat country filled
with the most luxuriant of tropical vege-
tation. The wird signs through the
palm trees. Birds of the gayest plumage
I'LL the air with their tropical songs. In
the Jungle is heard the chatter OF the
monkey, and along the fat streams bask
the alligator. A low, clear blue sky, IN
which the sun Of the tropics shines It's
hottest, hangs over it, and at night the
moon and stars shine with an untold
brightness. Sailing up this river, from
the Gulf of Siam, at about thirty miles
from its mouth, you note in the distance
the spires of temples and palaces. A
YOU 60 on from out the palm trees on
each side shine little one-stQy houses
their roofs matched with p i'm leaves
and their foundations apparently rising
from the water itself. None of thest
houses are large. The average house IL
not more than fifty feet square, and tn
roofs sharp ridged and bellying inward
are not more than twelve feet from tne
floor. They have neither windows no
doors. and their fronts open in veranda'
directly on the water. Coming nearel
Won see that they float, and that thel
foundation is a raft of bamboo poles
each about three inches thick, and pllec
c,osswise, one on top of the other, like
the corn cob house of a country urcnln
"There are no cellars in Bangkok, ant
each home has a hole in the floor through
which the sweepings are thrown. At
or more corners of each of these dwelling
q pole has been driven down into tn
mud, and the house is anchored o these
It's owner pays a ground rent to the per
son owning the land on the banks in iron
of which the house rests. But in case O
dispute the moorings are cut, and tn
house family and all float ava t
another location. There are fifteen mile
of these floating houses. They line bot
hanks of the river and the canals hac
into the Jungle. 1t is not uncommon &c
the owner of a floating dwelling t
anchor his house in the middle of one {
the narrowest of the water avenues, an
boats passing by must get through as the
can. The native houses of the land al
built high up on piles, so that one coul
almost walk under their floors. Some
them have pi~cturesquely pointed rlde
f5ofs, but like the floating homes, the
are as a rule small, and their terror a
rangements are the m
.tIt is estimated that five hundre
thousand oat of the seven hundred tho
> sand people of Bangkok live thus upo
, the water. There are thousands OF chi
! dren here who have never had a pla.
i. ground bigger than the f~ifteen-feet vera'
! da in front of their homes, and who
!. families live through generations in Oh
y of these t~hree-roomed floating hous
. without having spent a night upon I'll
land. The people go from N place
4 another in boats, and the streets ar
: highways of this floating city are file
= with all sorts of craft, from the oce;
!. steamer, which carries passengers al
= freight to Hong Kong and Singapore,
= the little canoe, ten feet long and tv
, feet wide, which is ID by a Shame
i urchin. There is o herant peddle
. with his goods piled on the boat in fro
!. of him, padding his way from house
!. house and crying out his wares. He
= are women by the hundreds standing
- and rowing or sitting down sculling be
loads of merchandise from n part
= the city to the other, and through the
, all move the steam launches of the Slal
- csc noblemen, and now and then t
great barge of the King, with its VIII
= elephant flag floating in the breeze"
!; The Siamese King, says Mr.. Carpe
: ter, is immensely wealthy, owning a p
vate fortune of fifty millions, with an 9
nual income of ten millions! He /
abolished the custom which required I
siamese to come into the Kings pr
ence on all fours, and shakes hands wi
- Americans in the American fashion.
"a fore travelling abroad he was instruct
~ by an English governess, and has us
his immense fortune to devotion the COZ
try, bringing telegraphs to the capt.