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The other cabin passengers were all three Anglo-Saxons a young Englishman and an American missionary and his wife. These last, I found, were convoying a flock of noisy Siamese youngsters, pupils at an American school in Bangkok, to a small bathing resort at the mouth of the Menam, where, it was alleged, the mercury had been known to drop as low as 90 on cold days.
Very recently the relations between France and Siam were very much strained over a disputed boundary question. France had ships of war at the mouth of the Menam, and sent some of the smaller craft up the river.
The villages and the houses reminded them of those they had seen on the Menam in the vicinity of Bangkok. "Do you notice the horned cattle?" asked Mr. Webb. "They call them buffaloes here." "They are what we should call broad-horns at home," replied the captain. "I never saw any such wide-spreading and long horns as I see here."
The buildings were very unusual, as were the sights on the water. We then went on the river Menam, to visit certain temples. Among these were Wat Saket, which stands on the summit of an artificial hill and commands a fine view; and Wat Kanayat, where there was a collection of porcelain-trimmed temples and pagodas. We attended a short, intoned Buddhist service in one of the temples.
The next day, then, saw me on the bridge of the Chutututch, smoking for politeness' sake one of the genial captain's villainous cigars, as we steamed slowly between the palm-fringed, temple-dotted banks of the Menam toward the Gulf. On many kinds of vessels I have voyaged the Seven Seas.
The forts at the mouth of the Menam fired upon the gunboats, whereupon the French instituted a blockade of the Siamese capital and at the same time enormously increased their demands. England, which had long professed to be a disinterested friend of the Siamese, shrugged her shoulders whereupon they yielded to the threat of a French invasion and ceded to France the eastern marches of the kingdom.
In May, 1874, a political constitution was adopted. The King began his reign by decreeing that slavery be abolished, and he instituted several other reforms. For many years troublous times with France ensued; this finally aroused the indignation of England, and in 1896 an Anglo-French agreement was signed in London, by which both countries guaranteed to maintain the integrity of the Menam valley.
The Bonite swung at her moorings in the Menam, opposite my hotel windows, so, made cautious by previous experiences on other coastwise vessels, I went out in a sampan to make a preliminary survey. But I did not go aboard. The odors which assailed me as I drew near caused me to decide abruptly that I wished to make no voyage on her.
Bangkok, which, with its suburbs, has a population about equal to that of Boston, is built on the banks of the country's greatest river, the Menam, some forty miles from its mouth.
Nature, in many cases, resorts to a similar process. Most great rivers divide themselves into several arms in their lower course, and enter the sea by different mouths. In India, the Cambodja and the Menam are connected by the Anam; the Saluen and the Irawaddi by the Panlaun. There are similar examples, though on a much smaller scale, in Europe.
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