Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 22, 2025
The river near where we lay presented an animated scene, from the arrival and departure of native boats, with fruit, vegetables, and live stock, as well as from the numbers of neat sampans plying for hire, or attending upon the commanders of vessels; while at anchor were numbers of the Cochin-Chinese, Siamese, and Chinese junks, as well as the Bugis and other prahus from all the far-surrounding islands.
"I will tow you down, and you can sleep on board if you wish." "Thank you; my men will come down with the sampans to-morrow, and I gladly accept your offer," replied Mr. Eng. "But I must first go over to the pangah." "To what? Will it take long?" inquired the captain. "The pangah, or head-house of the village. I left my portmanteau there, and must get it." "The head-house!
The waitress, fiftyish, smiled at him as though she understood perfectly where he had just been. Life was so fine, in fact, that after breakfast he put off going home and wandered over to Fisherman's Wharf. He sat with his feet dangling over the water and watched a man fish. His line went out between two high-bowed sampans, the San Carlos and the Woniya.
"At Santo Mesa is a cordage manufactory; at Alcaicerfa the Chinese have a landing-place for their sampans; fishermen and weavers live at Tondo, whose gardens supply the markets with fruit and vegetables; Malate is the resort of the embroiderers; Paco is favored by artists and artisans; and Santa Ana and San Pedro Macati are health resorts."
Some seem only inhabited by a graceful waving burden of strange, tropical foliage, and by a band of chattering monkeys; on others you detect a Malay kampong, or village, its umbrella-like houses of attap, close down to the shore, built high up on poles, so that half the time their boulevards are but vast mud-holes, the other half Venice, filled with a moving crowd of sampans and fishing praus.
At dawn they could see the ragged flotilla of sampans stealing up-river on the early flood; but of the masts that huddled in vapors by the farther bank, they had no certainty until sunrise, when the green rag and the rice-measure appeared still dangling above the Hakka boat. Even then it was not certain as Captain Kneebone sourly pointed out that her sailors would keep their agreement.
He was interested in the ever-changing shipping, the crowds of strange craft lying by the wharves or moored to buoys in the great impetuous Irrawaddy, and the swarms of sampans darting in all directions. Overhead was the hot blue sky, blazing upon a motley crowd, which included the smiling faces of the idle, insouciant, gaily-clad Burmans most genial and most engaging of nations.
If the craft were used for purposes of piracy, as they were in the northern part of the island, in attacking foreign vessels, it could only be when the strangers were caught within a short distance of the shores. Mr. Eng came on board of the yacht when his sampans were taken in tow, and was seated with the cabin party on the forward seats.
"They have seen the Dyaks running to their sampans, sahib," he yelled, "and the second boat is being pulled in that direction. Yet another has just left the ship." A translation made Iris excited, eager to go down and see these wonders. "Better wait here, dearest," he said. "The enemy may be driven back in this direction, and I cannot expose you to further risk.
I stood up in the boat at this, and noted how rapidly the tide was running up as Mr Brooke gave the word to pull again. The movement of the boat brought me in full view of the two sampans which had followed us, each with a man and boy aboard; and now, as I looked, I was surprised to see a yellow head raised and begin watching us. Then another; and Ching said quickly "Lot men in both boats."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking