CHAPTER XXI
ON THE VOYAGE TO SAIGON
The steamer was obliged to descend the Menam at less than half speed, toavoid running down any of the multitude of boats and vessels thatthronged the river, and because the stream was so crooked.
"How far do you think Bangkok is from the Gulf, Captain Ringgold?" askedthe general, at the close of the session.
"About twenty miles," replied the commander.
"One description of the city that I have read makes it forty miles,another twenty-six, and three others make it twenty miles," added thepacha; "and I suppose the last is the right distance."
"I have come to that conclusion after consulting all the books we haveon the subject. You have said the second king of Burma had beenabolished, General; are you confident that such is the case? Wecertainly did not see him, and I did not hear anything about him," addedthe captain.
"In the first place, I consider Chambers excellent authority, and youhave the latest edition in the library, and the date is last year; andit says in so many words that the second has been done away with. Theking who was the father of Chulalongkorn died in 1868. His primeminister was a progressive man, who introduced many reforms in Siam; andI am sure that he could not have helped seeing the absurdity of thesecond king. The present king is well educated, and also a progressiveman, as his father was not. I am sorry we did not look the matter up,which we might easily have done with the assistance of the missionaries.But I am satisfied that I was correct in regard to the statement."
In the course of another hour the ship came to the mouth of the river.Crocodiles appear to prefer the mouth of a stream, and a considerablenumber were seen at the entrance to a canal or cut-off. The pilotstopped the screw, and backed it, in order to avoid a collision with acouple of vessels in the channel. As the two vessels were under sail, itlooked as though it would be some time before the channel was clear; andthe "Big Four" hastened to their staterooms for their repeating-rifles.
Their appearance thus armed created a sensation on the upper deck, andall the party secured positions where they could see the sport. Mrs.Belgrave manifested some anxiety when she saw the arms, for she wassomewhat afraid of such weapons.
"What are you going to do, Louis?" she asked as her son passed her.
"Don't you see that there are a dozen crocodiles at the mouth of thatcut-off, mother?" replied Louis. "We are going to shoot some of them."
"But you can't get them if you do kill them."
"We don't want to get them. They are not good for anything to us."
"Then, why do you want to kill them? They do you no harm," protested thelady.
"But they would if they got the chance. Suppose by any accident some oneshould fall overboard; those brutes would snap the person up as a fishsnaps the bait," answered Louis. "In Borneo they are regular man-eaters,more dangerous than sharks; and I have no doubt they are the same here.As I told you, they pay so much a foot for killing them in that island.Ask the pilot how it is here, mother."
Achang was called, and was asked to inquire of the Siamese if thecrocodiles were dangerous. He promptly replied that they were not onlydangerous, but a nuisance; for they went ashore and swallowed all smallanimals, and even attacked a cow. The lady offered no further objection.She only hoped the Nimrods would not shoot each other; and theydescended to the platform of the gangway, which had not yet been hoistedup, and the crack of their rifles was soon heard.
Each of the rifles could send out nine bullets, fixed ammunition,contained in cartridges, nine of which was the capacity of the magazine.Those on deck watched the group of saurians; but Louis fired the firstshot, and immediately there was a sensation among the reptiles. One ofthem made a spring, and came over on his back.
"Mr. Belgrave fired that shot," said Achang to the hunter's mother. "Heis dead shot, and he never miss his aim."
"There is another turning over on his back," added the lady.
"I think Mr. McGavonty fired that one; for he is a dead shot too, butnot quite so sure as Mr. Belgrave," said Achang; and he was correct inhis supposition. Both of them hit the crocodile in the eye.
The next report that reached the ears of the party was followed by fivemore in quick succession; and the Bornean explained that the hunter hadmissed his aim five times out of six, but his victim turned over afterthe last one.
"Mr. Scott is better with lasso than with rifle," criticised Achang,with a smile.
The next shot caused the fourth of the reptiles to upset himself on thewater, and then the screw of the ship began to turn again. Thecrocodile's reasoning powers did not seem to be well developed, as Mrs.Belgrave suggested when she saw one of their number killed; for theymight have known there was mischief in the air. The Nimrods came ondeck, and then carried their rifles to their staterooms, where thecommander required them to lock up the weapons in their closets.
The third officer was ordered to have the gangway hoisted up when hereturned to the deck, and the ship proceeded to sea. The weather waspleasant, and not very warm for the tropics; in fact, they had sufferedmore from the heat in New York and in Von Blonk Park than in Bangkok,though it is sometimes extremely hot there. The south-west monsooncooled the air where they were, though the sun poured down itsblistering rays.
There was an awning over the platform where the conferences were held,and another over the after part of the promenade deck. But the former,with its arm-chairs, was the most desirable location to be had; and in ashort time the company had seated themselves there without any call toattend a lecture. As soon as deep water was indicated by the soundings,the pilot was discharged, and the captain then gave out the course southby east. Everything was in working order on board; and the commanderjoined the party on the promenade, as it had always been called beforeConference Hall was located there. It commanded the best view on bothsides, though not forward, where it was obstructed by the pilot-house.
"What have you seen in Bangkok, Miss Blanche, that the absentees havenot seen?" asked Louis, who had seated himself at her side, afterpatting Miss Mingo, whom she was holding in her lap.
"A great many things," she replied. "One was the royal barge, which theysaid was rowed or paddled by one hundred and fifty men; but a good manyof us did not believe it contained so many."
"I have read about it, though I did not see it. It is said to be onehundred and fifty feet long, and the book I read said it was paddled byone hundred and twenty men," added Louis. "But it does not make muchdifference, and the books do not agree in regard to a great many thingsin this part of the world. What did you think of the people you saw,Miss Blanche?"
"A lady and gentleman were pointed out to us by one of the kindmissionaries who guided us, and I could hardly tell which was the ladyand which the gentleman till I had studied them a while," returned thefair maiden. "Both of them wore what appeared to be trousers; but itproved to be a cloth as big as a sheet wound around the waist, and sodisposed about the legs as to look like trousers; but the garment wasthe same on both of them. The lady had something like a shawl, which waspassed over the left shoulder, and under the right arm, with some kindof a jacket under it. The gentleman wore a sort of tunic, which wasregularly buttoned up in front like a coat. The hair of each was shavedoff close to the head, except a tuft on the crown, which was bunched up.They wore no ornaments of any kind, perhaps because it was not a dressoccasion. I saw one woman who had a kind of necklace on the top of theshawl."
"I saw a woman's band of five pieces, and the music they made was notbad," added Louis.
"I heard a band like that; but I could not tell whether they played atune or improvised their music. The missionaries took us into the gardenof a nobleman, where we saw what was called a theatrical exhibition;but it was no more like a theatre than it was like a cattle-show. We sawthe king too, and he was a nice-looking man forty years old. He had whatlooked like a tunnel on his head. He was sitting in a kind of bigarm-chair on poles, and eight men were bearing him to a temple. All thenatives in the street dropped on
their knees as he passed, and some layflat on their stomachs. That is the way they always do before him. Buthe chews betel; and his mouth was as black as though he had just eaten apiece of huckleberry-pie, and it looked horrid. That is all the fault Ihave to find with him."
"It is a bad habit the people here have; but it is not so bad asdrinking whiskey, and we must be charitable while our country has itsfaults; and theirs only spoils their looks, though I have been toldthere is a 'kick,' or exhilaration, in the use of betel. I don't think Ishould ever fall in love with a girl who chewed betel-nut. Some Dyakmaidens would have been passably good-looking if their teeth and lipshad 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, withtheir heads shaven; the service consisted of the constant repetition ofa sentence, which a missionary told me meant 'So be it.' It reminded meof the howling dervishes we visited at their monastery, whose servicewas a monotonous repetition of 'Allah il Allah,' You went to some ofthe temples, Mr. Belgrave, and they seem to me to be all alike. Now canyou 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 FrenchCochin China, and we shall get there to-morrow," replied Louis. "Youmust brush up your French, Miss Blanche, for we have not used itlately."
"We are off Cape Liant now, and I must give out a new course," said thecommander, rising from his chair by the side of Mrs. Belgrave.
"South-east half-south!" called the captain at the side window of thepilot-house.
"South-east half-south," repeated the quartermaster at the wheel.
"We are going to Saigon, you said, Mr. Belgrave; but I cannot pronouncethe 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-go['n], I believe; but I have heard itcalled variously at Sarawak."
"But we want to know something about it before we go there," said theyoung lady. "We had to ask no end of questions about Siam because thelecture was postponed for the absentees."
"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 asthe speaker for the occasion, and promptly presented himself before hisaudience.
"I have very little to say, Mr. Commander, for General Noury has coveredthe whole subject under the head of Cochin China," he began. "What ismore particularly known as French Cochin China contains 23,000 squaremiles, and a population of 1,800,000. The part in the north is calledFrench Indo-China. The country is precisely that described so carefullyby the general, and I need not repeat it. The Cambodia, or MekhongRiver, 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 ofthe French possessions in the East, Lippincott says thirty-five miles,and Chambers sixty miles, from the China Sea; and of course both of themcannot be right, and you are all at liberty to take your choice. Thetown has grown up within the last thirty-two years; and, after the styleof French cities, it is handsomely laid out, with fine streets, squaresand boulevards. It contains numerous canals, with stone or brick quays;and perhaps it will remind you of Paris along the Seine. It is said tobe one of the handsomest cities of the East. It has a navy-yard andcitadel, and is the most important port between Hong-Kong and Singapore.The people are French, Annamese, and Chinese. It has a large trade, andcontains two colleges, an orphan asylum, a splendid botanical garden, tosay nothing of convents and other institutions. The population is put byone at ninety thousand, and by another at about half that number. I havenothing more to say."
Louis retired, and the next day the ship arrived at Saigon.