Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics by Oliver Optic (e book reader for pc TXT) 📕

called a theatrical exhibition; but it was no more like a theatre than it was like a cattle-show. We saw the king too, and he was a nice-looking man forty years old. He had what looked like a tunnel on his head. He was sitting in a kind of big arm-chair on poles, and eight men were bearing him to a temple. All the natives in the street dropped on their knees as he passed, and some lay flat on their stomachs. That is the way they always do before him. But he chews betel; and his mouth was as black as though he had just eaten a piece of huckleberry-pie, and it looked horrid. That is all the fault I have to find with him."

"It is a bad habit the people here have; but it is not so bad as drinking whiskey, and we must be charitable while our country has its faults; and theirs only spoils their looks, though I have been told there is a 'kick,' or exhilaration, in the use of betel. I don't think I should ever fall in love with a girl who chewed betel-nut. Some Dyak maidens would have been passably good-looking if their teeth and lips had not been blackened with this drug."

"The missionaries took some of us into the private chapel of a nobleman. There were about a hundred priests, all clothed in yellow robes, with their heads shaven; the service consisted of the constant repetition of a sentence, which a missionary told me meant 'So be it.' It reminded me of the howling dervishes we visited at their monastery, whose service was a[198] monotonous repetition of 'Allah il Allah,' You went to some of the temples, Mr. Belgrave, and they seem to me to be all alike. Now can you tell me how far it is to the place where we are going next?"

"It is about six hundred miles to Saigon, the chief town of French Cochin China, and we shall get there to-morrow," replied Louis. "You must brush up your French, Miss Blanche, for we have not used it lately."

"We are off Cape Liant now, and I must give out a new course," said the commander, rising from his chair by the side of Mrs. Belgrave.

"South-east half-south!" called the captain at the side window of the pilot-house.

"South-east half-south," repeated the quartermaster at the wheel.

"We are going to Saigon, you said, Mr. Belgrave; but I cannot pronounce the name," added the young lady.

"As to that, you pays your money, and takes your choice," laughed Louis. "The French call it Sah-gong, shutting out the full sound of the last g," added the speaker, pronouncing it several times with the proper accent. "The English call it Sy-goń, I believe; but I have heard it called variously at Sarawak."

"But we want to know something about it before we go there," said the young lady. "We had to ask no end of questions about Siam because the lecture was postponed for the absentees."[199]

"After lunch to-day a short talk will be given in relation to Saigon," replied Louis, as the bell rang for that meal.

When the company gathered in Conference Hall, Louis was introduced as the speaker for the occasion, and promptly presented himself before his audience.

"I have very little to say, Mr. Commander, for General Noury has covered the whole subject under the head of Cochin China," he began. "What is more particularly known as French Cochin China contains 23,000 square miles, and a population of 1,800,000. The part in the north is called French Indo-China. The country is precisely that described so carefully by the general, and I need not repeat it. The Cambodia, or Mekhong River, flows through it with many bayous or cut-offs. On one of these, which is called the Saigon River, is the city of Saigon, the capital of the French possessions in the East, Lippincott says thirty-five miles, and Chambers sixty miles, from the China Sea; and of course both of them cannot be right, and you are all at liberty to take your choice. The town has grown up within the last thirty-two years; and, after the style of French cities, it is handsomely laid out, with fine streets, squares and boulevards. It contains numerous canals, with stone or brick quays; and perhaps it will remind you of Paris along the Seine. It is said to be one of the handsomest cities of the East. It has a navy-yard and citadel, and is the most important port between Hong-Kong and Singapore. The[200] people are French, Annamese, and Chinese. It has a large trade, and contains two colleges, an orphan asylum, a splendid botanical garden, to say nothing of convents and other institutions. The population is put by one at ninety thousand, and by another at about half that number. I have nothing more to say."

Louis retired, and the next day the ship arrived at Saigon.[201]

CHAPTER XXII IN THE DOMINIONS OF THE FRENCH

It was not a long voyage from Bangkok to the mouth of the Mekhong River; and the sight of land was not as thrilling an incident as it had often been in the experience of the voyagers, and they were not in condition to appreciate the feelings of Captain Columbus when Watling's Island broke on his vision four hundred years before. It had been smooth sailing all the way; the Gulf of Siam had been as gentle and affectionate as a maiden among the flowers, and the China Sea was scarcely more ruffled.

Mr. Gaskette had finished up his new map of Cochin China, so that it was as creditable to his skill and taste as his former efforts had been; and it was displayed on the frame in Conference Hall, which was the usual sitting apartment of the company, though some of them did a great deal of walking on the promenade deck. The water was deeper inshore than farther out at sea, where several spots were marked at eight fathoms; and the passengers had a view of the land before they were within a hundred miles of the entrance of Saigon River.

"There is a broad opening in the coast, which must be the Cambodia, or Mekhong River," said Morris.[202]

"That is Batac Bay, with a large island in the middle of it," replied Captain Ringgold. "It is one of the mouths of the Mekhong; for there is a Delta here extending about a hundred miles, the Saigon River being the most easterly."

"Mekhong seems to me a new word, though doubtless it was the native name of the great river; but when I went to school we never called it anything but the Cambodia," added Uncle Moses.

"It is now called by both names, and both are usually found on the maps and charts," said the commander.

A couple of hours later he pointed out the mouth of the great river. All the land was very low, and much of it was sometimes under water. Felix had become the owner of an excellent spy-glass, which he had purchased at second-hand at Aden; and he made abundant use of it. It was too large to be worn in a sling at his side, and he always carried it in his hand when the ship was in sight of land. After lunch, in the middle of the afternoon, he stationed himself in front of the pilot-house, and kept a sharp lookout ahead.

"Saigon light!" he shouted, some time before it could be made out without a glass.

The steamer was headed for Cape St. Jacques, near the entrance to the river by which she was to reach the city. The light soon came into view, and a boat was seen pulling out of the mouth. The signal for a pilot had been displayed on the ship, and one of[203] the men in it was believed to be the person desired. The screw was stopped as he approached her, and the ladder lowered for his ascent to the deck. As usual, all the passengers wanted to see him. He was an old man, or at least well along in years.

"Good-day, sir," said Louis, who had gone to the main deck with the third officer to receive him; and he spoke to him in French.

He was conducted to the promenade deck, and presented to the captain. He said that he was born in France, but had been in Cochin China nearly thirty years. He was first sent down to Monsieur Odervie for a lunch after he had given the course, and the ship continued on her way. The cook was very glad to meet a compatriot; and, as he was getting dinner, he had several nice dishes, from which he treated his new friend. But the pilot's services were soon needed in the pilot-house. He spoke a little English, consisting mainly of nautical terms.

He took his place on the starboard side of the wheel, with Quartermaster Bangs on the other side, steering himself; perhaps because he was not willing to trust his English in giving orders. But the quartermaster seconded all his movements, and they steered together in silence. The ship was soon well in the river, and the passengers had enough to do in observing the shores on both sides.

There were many openings in the banks of bayous and cut-offs, and the land was as flat as it had been during the last hundred miles of the voyage. The[204] soil was very rich, and produced abundant crops where it was cultivated. A very few villages were to be seen; but each of them had its temple or pagoda, and the houses hardly differed from those they had seen in Siam.

"I suppose this is all an alluvial soil, Brother Avoirdupois," said Dr. Hawkes, as the ship was passing a rice-field.

"So say the books I have consulted, Brother Adipose Tissue. It is just the right land for rice, and that is the staple product of all this region," replied Uncle Moses.

Both of these gentlemen weighed about two hundred and twenty-six pounds apiece, and they continued to call each other by the appropriate names they had given each other even before the ship left New York on her voyage all over the world.

"What is alluvial soil, Doctor?" asked Mrs. Blossom, who had read very little besides her Bible and denominational newspaper.

"It is the soil or mud which is brought to its location by the action of water; and here it is brought down by the mighty river which spreads itself out into a delta where we are," replied the doctor good-naturedly, and without a smile at the ignorance of the worthy lady; for though her education had been greatly neglected, she was esteemed and respected by all on board, for in sickness she had been the nurse of the patients. "It is just the right soil for rice," he added.[205]

"I have seen so many rice-fields out here, that I should like to know something more about them," suggested the good lady.

"Naturalists class it as a kind of grass; but I will not vex you with any hard words. Rice is the food of about one-third of all the people on the globe. It requires heat and moisture for its growth, and it is raised in considerable quantities on the low lands of Georgia and South Carolina and elsewhere in our country. The plant grows from one to six feet high. I don't know much about the culture of this grain in the East; but in South Carolina they first dig trenches, in the bottom of which the rice is sown in rows eighteen inches apart. The plantation is prepared so that water can be let in and drawn off as desired. As soon as the seed is sown, the water is let in till the ground is covered to the depth of several inches. As soon as the rice comes up, the water is drawn off, and the plant grows in the open air rapidly under the hot sun. The field is again flooded for a couple of weeks, to kill the weeds, and again when the grain is ripening. The rice is in a hull, like wheat and other grains; and you have found parts of this covering in the rice when you were cooking it. It is threshed out by hand or machinery after it is dried, and then it is ready for market. There is a rice-field on your right; and you can see the channels which have been dug to convey the water to the plants, or to draw it off," said the surgeon in conclusion.[206]

"I see them, Dr. Hawkes; and I am very much obliged to you for taking so much pains to instruct an ignorant body like me," replied Mrs. Blossom.

"It is quite impossible for any of us to know everything, and I often find myself entirely ignorant in regard to some things; and I have lived long enough to forget many things that I learned when I was younger," added the doctor with a softening smile.

The villages increased in number and in size as the ship approached the city; though they were about the same thing, except