Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

title little less than regal-it is adorned with jewels, attended by numerous servants, and exempt from all employment.

Of the ruminating quadrupeds, Siam produces the goat, the ox, the buffalo, and seven species of deer. The cows give but little milk, which is chiefly supplied by the buffalo; nor have the natives learned the art of making it into butter. The goat seems to be turned to little account, and sheep are quite unknown. Animals of the monkey tribe are numerous, and similar to those usually described by naturalists as natives of the East Indian islands. Two white monkeys are kept in the palace of the Siamese king, and are objects of great curiosity. They are about the size of a small dog, and perfect albinos in every respect: thickly covered with fur as white as that of the whitest rabbit; the lips, eyes, and feet distinguished by the inanimate whiteness observed in the human albino; while the general appearance of the iris, the eye, and even the countenance-the intolerance of light, the uneasy manner-afford points of resemblance between them and that unhappy variety of our own species. They have little of the vivacity and mischief for which the monkey tribe is so remarkable; and it seems their use in the palace is to keep evil spirits from killing the white elephants!

The reptiles are numerous, and would afford an extensive and interesting field of inquiry to the naturalist. Tortoises and crocodiles are not so frequent in the Menam as in the Ganges, but the green turtle is found abundantly near some of the islands in the Gulf; and their eggs, which are in great request as an article of food, form a considerable branch of the royal revenue. The boa-constrictor here attains the enormous size of twenty and twenty-two feet; the snakes are numerous. Among the many beautiful species of lizards'is that known as 'the gecko of Siam,' though frequent also in Java and other East Indian islands. Its habits are nocturnal, and its loud, harsh, monotonous cry often proves a great annoyance. The only insect which deserves notice on the ground of its utility, is the Coccus lacca, which produces the gum called lac, and which has during the last thirty years become so important in Bengal from the discovery of a cheap process of obtaining from it a valuable colouring matter. This commodity is produced in the forests of Lao, and is very superior to the lac of Bengal and Pegu. It is said that in some parts of Siam the lac insect is bred as the coccus cacti. of Mexico, and affords a cochineal of similar value. The white ants are exceedingly troublesome, and the French missionaries had no mode of preserving their books from their ravages but by varnishing the edges with the gum called cheyram, which is as clear as glass, and cannot be eaten through by these animals. Happily the annual inundations of the river destroy a large number of insects which otherwise would become almost intolerable.

II.

Persons of the Siamese-their Dress-Habitations-Civil Condition.

The average height of the Siamese is about five feet three inches; the arms are long, the lower limbs large, and the figure inclining to obesity. The face is remarkably broad and flat, the great height and breadth of the

cheek-bones giving it rather a lozenge shape than the oval form of European beauty. The nose is small, the mouth wide, and the thick but not projecting lips are coarsely painted from the constant chewing of areca with betel and lime. The eyes are small and black, and the forehead remarkably low. The complexion is fairer than is usually observed beyond the Ganges, and inclines to a yellow hue, heightened by the use of a bright cosmetic, which gives to the smooth, soft, and shining skin a colour almost like gold. The general physiognomy, at least in the men, has somewhat of a gloomy, cheerless, and even sullen aspect; while the personal carriage and gait are sluggish and ungraceful.

The Siamese of both sexes dress nearly alike, and wear fewer clothes than any other even partially-civilised people in the East. The principal garment is a piece of silk or cotton cloth, called a pagne, about three yards long, passed round the loins and thighs, and secured in front, leaving the knees and legs entirely bare. Over this the wealthier people often wear a China crape or Indian shawl; and the only other essential piece of dress is a narrow scarf, about two yards long, either worn round the waist or thrown loosely over the shoulders, so that the upper part of the body is at best but very imperfectly covered. The favourite colours are dark and sombre, while white is worn only by the Talapoinesses, or religious recluses, and by the lay-servants of the temple, neither of whom are much respected. It is also the expression of mourning. Both sexes wear the hair close, except on the top of the head, from the forehead to the crown, where it is almost two inches long, and, being stroked back, stands erect. The rest is kept shaved by the men, and close cut by the women; but as the shaving is not very regularly performed, it is generally difficult for a stranger to distinguish a man from a woman. No European can be more solicitous about white teeth than the Siamese are for black; and at an early age they use an indelible stain, without however filing or destroying the enamel, like the Indian islanders. Nor do they disfigure the body with tattooing, like the Burmans and Peguans. But, like other Orientals, they allow the nails of the fingers to grow to an unnatural and inconvenient length, and those of the highest rank even put on artificial ones of metal.

The houses either float in the river on bamboo rafts moored to the shore, or they are erected on piles driven into the earth. Each dwelling stands alone, and may be described as a large wooden box of an oblong shape, thatched with palm-leaves. An outside ladder forms the entrance, and to every house is attached a small boat for the use of the family. These floating habitations display the most valuable merchandise of the town, the goods being arranged in the front on a succession of shelves like stairs, and the shopmen sitting alongside on the floor. The houses consist of one storey only, and are divided into several small apartments, of which the centre one is reserved for the household gods. The furniture is scanty and simple, consisting chiefly of the mats on which the inmates sleep and sit; their table, which is without feet, and somewhat like the head of a drum ; few culinary vessels of iron, copper, or tin; some bowls of porcelain or potter's clay, in which food is served, and buckets of bamboo closely enough woven to contain water. The better classes have a kind of bedstead, their walls are furnished with cushions to lean against, and various

ornamental pieces of European furniture adorn their apartments-lamps and mirrors being favourite articles. But of the people in general it may be said that they are rich in a general poverty, having few wants. Their food consists principally of rice and fish; and about a farthing's worth of each is sufficient for a man's daily sustenance.

Here, then, we have a country as rich perhaps in natural resources as India itself, and most favourably situated for commercial enterprise; yet inhabited by a people living in what we should deem abject poverty. Two centuries at least ago the nation had made some progress in civilisation; but the development of its powers has since made such feeble progress that the descriptions of Siam and the Siamese, furnished by Loubere and others in the seventeenth century, offer but few points of difference from those supplied by British visitors in the nineteenth. It is not a nation roaming through the land in the lawless rudeness of savage life, nor yet emerging, bold with conscious strength, from the miseries of barbarism, and seeking the blessings of social order and civilisation; but a mild, inoffensive, and sufficiently intelligent people, organised into a community, yet held from generation to generation in a state of childhood, spending their lives in the veriest puerilities, maintained in good order through fear of the rod, and never dreaming of the manhood of civil and intellectual independence which might be their happier lot. It is worth while to institute some inquiry into the civil and religious institutions by which this state of things has been maintained, and into the singular manners and customs which have thus arisen, as well as to examine what hope there is of these bonds being loosed, and what might be done to facilitate an emancipation of mind and body so much to be desired. Such an inquiry will not only present much that is interesting from its novelty, but it may give us occasion to observe in how many particulars we are indebted to the civil liberty which we are privileged to enjoy, and how much a constitutional government has to do with the everyday happiness of the individual as well as with the greatness of the community.

III.

Government-Civil Institutions-Commerce-Revenue.

The constitution of Siam is a pure despotism, there being neither a hereditary aristocracy nor legislative assembly of any kind to circumscribe the authority or control the actions of the monarch. There is a nobility indeed; but, with a few exceptions in the distant provinces, it arises only from the occupation of particular offices during the king's pleasure, and it expires with the service to which it is attached. There are laws also, but they are the laws of the king, not of the country; and it not unfrequently happens that a new sovereign on his accession publishes a new edition of the code, making such arbitrary changes as he thinks proper. monarchy does not exist for the people, but the people for the monarch: he is absolute master of their property, their liberty, and even their lives. The inevitable result is the repression of every effort at improvement;

The

for no man will exert his industry or ingenuity when he knows that a rapacious government may seize on the results, and himself prove a loser for his pains. The more obscure a man is, and the less known to his sovereign, the greater his chance of liberty and wealth.

One of the most odious features of Siamese despotism is the frequent infliction of corporeal punishment-the bastinado being the grand redresser of all evils, moral, social, or political; corrector of all faults, whether of omission or commission. The highest officers of the realm are liable to be beaten like children at the order of the monarch, and every superior officer has a similar power over his subordinates. So completely is the national mind subdued to this, that no disgrace attaches to the punishment after it is over, and an officer of state will resume his place on the day after such chastisement as though nothing had occurred.

The person of the Siamese king is peculiarly sacred. We have heard in other parts of the world of devout persons who never pronounce the name of the Deity without pausing; but here such reverence is exacted towards the earthly sovereign that his name may not be spoken at all, and it is said to be known only to a few of his principal courtiers. Nor must his health be inquired after; because it must be taken for granted that he is free from bodily infirmities. No heir to the throne is appointed during his lifetime; for to imagine the death of the king,' even in a literal sense, is treason. The people prostrate themselves in his presence, and preface their addresses with these or the like words: Exalted lord, sovereign of many princes; let the lord of lives tread upon his slave's head, who here prostrate, receiving the dust of the golden feet upon the summit of his head, makes known with all possible humility that he has something to submit.'

The most important feature in the government is the universal conscription, according to which every man above twenty years of age is obliged to serve the king personally for four months in the year, and this either in a civil or military capacity. He may be employed even in the most menial offices about the palace, and there is no redress. The persons exempt are the talapoins, or priests; the whole Chinese population, who are allowed to pay a poll-tax as commutation; all slaves; and every man who has three sons of serviceable age. Anciently these forced services amounted to six instead of four months, and they are so represented by French writers down to the end of the seventeenth century.

The whole population thus enrolled for the service of the state is divided into two classes, called the division of the right hand and that of the left. These are again subdivided into bands of thousands, hundreds, and tens, each of which has its own officer, who takes his rank and title from the number of persons under his authority.

It is customary with every king of Siam to give audience to his principal officers every morning and evening at ten o'clock. On these occasions he asks each of them a few questions respecting his particular department, and decides on the spot the few easy and trivial cases that are brought before him. He sometimes examines them as to their knowledge of the book called Pra-Tam-Ra, which describes their official duties, and orders chastisement to those whose answers are defective. If anything like a consultation is held, the ministers are much more anxious to dis

cover his sentiments than to express their own, for they may be punished for differing from his majesty.

Every public officer being intrusted with power to inflict summary punishment on those committed to his care, he is often made responsible for their faults; and so likewise parents frequently share in the punishments inflicted on their children, because they should have taught them better. Loubere saw an officer obliged for three days to wear round his neck the head of a man who had committed a capital crime-the fault of the officer being no other than that the criminal was under his jurisdiction, and should have been more carefully watched.

The odious task of informing is enjoined on all, under severe penalties: if any one sees a crime committed he must report it in self-defence, for if another should come to the knowledge of it, and give information, any one who is found to have concealed it is punished. The king maintains, besides, a number of secret spies, who are separately interrogated on all they observe. Still he is often deceived, for the great object of his courtiers is to keep him pleased, and to this end every unpleasant truth is concealed from him so far as may be done with any hope of impunity.

The idea of greatness in a Siamese monarch is not terribleness to his enemies, but to his subjects; and as a government so arbitrary and unjust can place no reasonable confidence in its subjects, there seems to be a constant dread of insurrection and revolution. This is the only explanation that can be given of the feverish alarm and distrust with which the visits of Europeans have ever been regarded; and not without reason, for there is little attachment among the people to the person of the sovereign: they consider him, indeed, as the adopted son of Heaven, and possessed of a celestial soul; yet if any of his subjects hazard a revolt, the rest can easily believe that the choice of Heaven has passed from the king to the rebel. The authority to which they defer seems to rest in the royal seal, and the people obey whatever bears this impress without serious concern about the person who holds it. The monarch understands this, and never allows the important instrument to pass from his hands for

a moment.

The palace has three enclosures, widely distant from each other, and no arms are admitted within the outermost. Such is the continual distrust that even the personal guards of the sovereign are disarmed. Except the hours spent in the council-chamber, as we have mentioned, the king passes his whole time shut up in his palace between the company of his women and the priests. All the officers of the private apartments are women; it is they who dress and undress the king, cook his food, and wait on his table. There are purveyors without, who bring provisions and deliver them to the eunuchs, and these hand them over to the women. So also there are male officers of the wardrobe, the highest being he who touches the king's bonnet.

The revenue of the Siamese government is derived from the following sources:-A tax on the consumption of spirits, which are distilled from rice throughout the country, and which amounts to about £57,500 per annum; a tax on gaming-houses, which realises at least an equal amount; another yielding about £8000 on the fisheries of the river Menam; a shop-tax levied on a rude and summary principle, and producing about £15,235.

No. 79.

9

« ForrigeFortsæt »