If Civilization Were To My Taste, I Should Linger In Victoria For The
Sake Of Its Beauty, Its Stirring Life, Its Costume And Color, Its
Perfect Winter Climate, Its Hospitalities, Its Many Charming Residents,
And For Various Other Reasons, And Know Nothing Of Its Feuds In State,
Church, And Society.
But I am a savage at heart, and weary for the
wilds first, and then for the beloved little home on the wooded edge of
the moorland above the Northern Sea, which gleams like a guiding star,
even through the maze of sunshine and color of this fascinating Eastern
world.
To-day I lunched at (acting) Chief Justice Snowden's, and he
urges me to go to Malacca on my way home. I had never dreamed of the
"Golden Chersonese;" but I am much inspired by his descriptions of the
neighborhood of the Equator, and as he has lent me Newbold's Malacca
for the voyage, and has given me letters to the Governor and Colonial
Secretary of the Straits Settlements, you will next hear from me from
Singapore!
I. L. B.
LETTER VI
A Cochin China River - The Ambition of Saigon - A French Colonial
Metropolis - European Life in Saigon-A Cochin-Chinese
Village - "Afternoon Tea" in Choquan - Anamese Children - Anamite
Costume - Anamite River-Dwellings - An Amphibious Population - An
Unsuccessful Colony - "With the Big Toe" - Three Persecuting
Kings - Saigon
S.S. "SINDH," CHINA SEA, January.
This steamer, one of the finest of the Messageries Maritimes line, is
perfect in all respects, and has a deck like that of an old-fashioned
frigate. The weather has been perfect also, and the sea smooth enough
for a skiff. The heat increases hourly though, or rather has increased
hourly, for hotter it cannot be! Punkahs are going continually at meal
times, and if one sits down to write in the saloon, the "punkah-wallah"
spies one out and begins his refreshing labors at once. But we took on
board a host of mosquitoes at Saigon, and the nights are consequently
so intolerable that I weary for the day.
The twenty-four hours spent at Saigon broke the monotonous pleasantness
of our voyage very agreeably to me, but most of the passengers complain
of the wearisome detention in the heat. In truth, the mercury stood at
92 degrees!
At daybreak yesterday we were steaming up a branch of the great Me-kong
river in Cochin China, a muddy stream, densely fringed by the nipah
palm, whose dark green fronds, ten and twelve feet long, look as if
they grew out of the ground, so dumpy is its stem. The country, as
overlooked from our lofty deck, appeared a dead level of rice and
scrubby jungle intermixed, a vast alluvial plain, from which the heavy,
fever-breeding mists were rising in rosy folds. Every now and then we
passed a Cochin Chinese village - a collection of very draughty-looking
wooden huts, roofed with palm leaves, built over the river on gridiron
platforms supported on piles. Each dwelling of the cluster had its boat
tethered below it. It looked a queer amphibious life. Men were lying on
the gridirons smoking, women were preparing what might be the
breakfast, and babies were crawling over the open floors, born with the
instinct not to tumble over the edge into the river below. These
natives were small and dark, although of the Mongolian type, with wide
mouths and high cheek bones - an ugly race; and their attitudes, their
tumble-to-pieces houses, and their general forlornness, gave me the
impression that they are an indolent race as well, to be ousted in time
possibly by the vigorous and industrious Chinaman.
After proceeding for about forty miles up this mighty Me-kong or
Cambodia river, wearying somewhat of its nipah-fringed alluvial flats,
and of the monotonous domestic economy of which we had so good a view,
we reached Saigon, which has the wild ambition to propose to itself to
be a second Singapore! All my attempts to learn anything about Saigon
on board have utterly failed. People think that they told me something
altogether new and sufficient when they said that it is a port of call
for the French mail steamers, and one of the hottest places in the
world! This much I knew before I asked them! If they know anything more
now, no dexterity of mine can elicit it. There was a general stampede
ashore as soon as we moored, and gharries - covered spring carts - drawn
by active little Sumatra ponies, and driven by natives of Southern
India, known as Klings, were immediately requisitioned, but nothing
came of it apparently, and when I came back at sunset I found that,
after an hour or two of apparently purposeless wanderings, all my
fellow-passengers had returned to the ship, pale and depressed. True,
the mercury was above 90 degrees!
Arriving in this condition of most unblissful ignorance, I was
astonished when a turn in the river brought us close upon a
considerable town, straggling over a great extent of ground,
interspersed with abundant tropical greenery, its river front
consisting of a long, low line of much-shaded cafes, mercantile
offices, some of them flying consular flags and Government offices,
behind which lies the city with its streets, shops, and great covered
markets or bazaars, and its barracks, churches, and convents.
The Me-kong, though tortuous and ofttimes narrow, is navigable as the
Donnai or Saigon branch up to and above Saigon for vessels of the
largest tonnage, and the great Sindh steamed up to a wharf and moored
alongside it, almost under the shade of great trees. A French
three-decker of the old type, moored higher up, serves as an hospital.
There were two French ironclads, a few steamers, and some big sailing
ships at anchor, but nothing looked busy, and the people on the wharf
were all loafers.
After all my fellow-passengers had driven off I stepped ashore and
tried to realize that I was in Cochin China or Cambodia, but it would
not do.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 29 of 118
Words from 28726 to 29734
of 120530
