The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1890-06-11
SLAMS FLOATING CAPITAL
PICTURESQUE BANGKOK, THE
VENICE OF THE ORIENT.
A Populous and Magnificent City
Built Upon PiIings, Above the
Water-Floating Houses.

aces ard gardens Of the King must be
place picturesque beyond description;
but it is the capital of a country where
the brutal system of slavery for debt con
tinues to curse the poor, aud where the
women are drudges for the men, wto are
themselves the property of the King.
Frank Carpenter, the veteran journal
ist, gives in the Cosmopolitan the follow
ing description of Bangkok, the floating
city, with a few Introductory words
about Siam
"Siam is the Holland of the Orient.
During part of the year the best of its
lands lie under water and the people
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
piled cities of Amsterdam and Rotter-
dam, and its 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, and
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 beauti-
full daughter, is soothed during the day
and lulled 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, fat country filled
with the mcst luxuriant of tropical vege-
tation. The wind sighs through the
palm trees Birds of the gayest plumage
fill 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 its
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. As
you 90 on from out the palm trees on
each side shine little one-story houses,
their roofs matched with palm leaves,
and their foundations apparently rising
from the water itself. None of these
houses are large. The average house is
not more than fifty feet square, and the
roofs sharp ridged and bellying inward,
are not more than twelve feet from the
floor. They have neither windows nor
doors, and their fronts open in vcrandas
directly on the water. Coming nearer
you see that they float, and that their
foundation is a raft of bamboo poles,
ID each about three inches thick, and piled
closswise, one on top of the other, like
the corn cob house of r country urchin.
"There are no cellars in Bangkok, and
each home has hole in the floor through
which the sweepings are thrown. AT two
or more corners of each of these dwellings
a pole has been driven down into the
mud, and the house is anchored to these.
Its owner pays a ground rent to the per-
son owning the land on the banks in front
of which the house rests. But in case of
dispute the moorings are cut, and the
house, family and all float away TO
another location. There are fifteen miles
of these floating houses. They line both
banks of the river and the canals back
into the Jungle. 1t is not uncommon for
the owner of floating dwelling to
anchor his house in the middle of one of
the narrowest of the water avenues, and
boats passing by must get through as they
can. The native houses of the land are
built high up on piles, so that one could
almost walk under their floors. Some of
them have picturcsquely pointed ridge
roofs, but like the floating homes, they
are as a rule small, and their interior ar
rangements are the same.
at is estimated that five hundred
thousand out of the seven hundred thou
sand people of Bangkok live thus upon
the water. There are thousands Of chill
dren here who have never had play
ground bigger than the fifteen feet veran-
da in front Of their homes, and whole
families live through generations in one
Of these three-roomed floating houses
without having spent a night upon the
land. The people go from one place TO
another in boats, and the streets and
highways of this floating city are filed
with all sorts of craft, from the ocean
steamer, which carries passengers and
freight to Hong Kong and Singapore, to
the little canoe, ten feet long and two
feet wide, which is sculled by Siamese
urchin. There is the itinerant peddler,
with his goods piled on the boat in front
Of him, padding his way from house to
house and crying out his wares. Here
are women by the hundreds standing up
and rowing or sitting down sCulliug boat
loads Of merchandise from one part of
the city 10 the other, and through them
an move the steam launches Of the Siam.
ese noblemen, and now aud then the
great barge Of the King, with its white
elephant dag floating in the breeze
The Siamese King, says Mr.. Carpen-
ter, is immensely wealthy, owning pri-
vate fortune Of fifty millions, with an an
nual income Of ten millions lie has
abolished the custom which required the
Siamese TO come into the Kings pres
ence on all fours, and shakes hands with
Americans in the American fashion. Be
fore travelling abroad he was instructed
by an English goyerness, and has used
his immense fortune TO develop the coun-
try, bringing telegraphs 10 the capital,
and Uuffin0r ont aurUaunra for -aiIrnoIe