Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: April 30, 2025
Comrades they might be, but he held a vested right in her, whether he chose to assert it or not. They returned at length to their little gimcrack bungalow the Match-box, as Puck called it on foot under a blaze of stars. The distance was not great, and Puck despised rickshaws.
Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one's luck except her own!" I laughed aloud at this point; and my laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of 'rickshaws after all, and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?
In fact, so unusual was my performance that at first I had fairly to clear myself a way with my kiboko. After a few experiences they concluded me a particularly crazy person and let me alone. Rickshaws, however, are very efficient and very cheap.
Though the streets of Bangkok are crowded with vehicles of every description ramshackle and disreputable rickshaws, the worst to be found in all the East, drawn by sweating coolies; the boxes of wood and glass on wheels, called gharries, drawn by decrepit ponies whose harness is pieced out with rope; creaking bullock carts driven by Tamils from Southern India; bicycles, ridden by natives whose European hats and coats are in striking contrast to their bare legs and brilliant panungs; clanging street cars, as crowded with humanity as those on Broadway; motors of every size and make, from jitneys to Rolls-Royces the bulk of the city's traffic is borne on the great river and the countless canals which empty into it.
A sum total of about fifteen dollars is charged for the entertainment; each one bears his share of the cost. It was a rainy evening, rickshaws were in order. About thirty drew up before the Nagasaki Hotel.
From one direction came a camel-train from Mongolia; from another, three or four blue-hooded, long-axled, Peking carts. Along a third street came a group of water-carriers and wheelbarrows, and from the fourth half a dozen rickshaws. All met, and in a moment became thoroughly mixed up.
The main street was not more than six to eight feet wide, and so filled with such a jostling, busy crowd of people as surely could not be seen anywhere else on earth. Even rickshaws are not allowed to enter, there being no room for them. Progress can only be made on a donkey, and then with much shouting and discomfort. What a busy people the Chinese are! Some day they may people the earth.
Perhaps you spy the inevitable tennis-court, swarming with players, and bordered with tables covered with tea and sweets. Red-turbaned Malay kebuns, or gardeners, are chasing the balls, and scrupulously clean Chinese "boys" are passing silently among the guests with trays of eatables. Dozens of gharries dodge past. Hundreds of rickshaws pull out of the way.
The smart Americans went in motors, as was fitting, but the rest of us made a long procession of rickshaws, and jogged happily along the dusty streets, out through the gates of the legation quarter, past the North Glacis, through the gates of the Imperial City, and finally, after half an hour's run, reached the Pei Hei Gate, leading into the old and abandoned Winter Palace.
As I came into Seoul three nights ago I found it hardly less fascinating than the country through which I had travelled during the day. Through ancient streets, unlit by any electric glare, strangely robed, almost spirit-like white figures were gliding here and there in the moonlight, singly or in groups, and but a few minutes' ride in our rickshaws brought us to the old South Gate.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking