A woman brought in a cocoa-nut, and poured the
milk into a gourd calabash, and the man handed
Me the dish of bananas,
so I had an epicurean repast, and realized that I was in Cochin China!
They were courteous people, and not only refused the quarter dollar
which I pressed upon them, but gave me a handkerchief full of bananas
when I left them, being pleased, however, to accept a puggree.
The neat gravel area, the covered walls, and neatly tiled roof, the
lattice work, the boards suspended from the door-posts, with (as I
have since learned) texts from the Chinese Classics in gold upon them,
and the large establishment, show that the family belongs to the upper
class of Anamites, and leave one quite unprepared for the reeking,
festering heap of garbage below the house, the foul, fetid air, and
swarming vermin of the interior, and the unwashedness of the inmates. I
bowed myself out, the gate was barred behind me, and in two minutes I
had lost what I supposed to be my way, and having left the maze of
cactus-walled paths behind, was entangled in a maze of narrow village
paths through palms and bananas, flowering trees covered with creepers
and orchids, and a wonderful profusion of small and great ferns.
Getting back into the cactus hidden village I found groups of pretty,
dark-skinned children, quite naked, playing in the deep dust, while
some no bigger were lounging in the shade smoking cigars, lazily
watching the clouds of smoke which they puffed out from their chubby
cheeks.
Finding my own footsteps in the deep dust, I got back to a pathway with
a monstrous bamboo hedge on one side, and a rice-field on the other, in
which was a slimy looking pond with a margin of pink water-lilies, in
which a number of pink buffaloes of large size were wallowing with much
noise and rough play, plastering their sensitive hides with mud as a
protection against mosquitoes.
With some difficulty, by some very queer paths and with much
zigzagging, I at last reached Cholen,* a native town, said to be three
or eight miles from Saigon, and was so exhausted by the fatigue of the
long walk in such a ferocious temperature that I sat by the roadside on
a stump under a huge tropical tree, considering the ways of ants and
Anamites. Children with brown chubby faces which had never been washed
since birth, and, according to all accounts, will never be washed till
death, stood in a row, staring the stare of apathy, with a quiet
confidence. They had no clothes on, and I admired their well-made forms
and freedom from skin disease. The Mongolian face is pleasant in
childhood. A horde of pariah dogs in the mad excitement of a free
fight, passed, covering me with dust. (By the way, I am told that
hydrophobia is unknown in Cochin China.) Then some French artillerymen,
who politely raised their caps; then a quantity of market girls,
dressed like the same class in China, but instead of being bare-headed,
they wore basket hats, made of dried leaves, fully twenty-four inches
in diameter, by six in depth. These girls walked well, and looked
happy. Then a train of Anamese carts passed, empty, the solid wooden
wheels creaking frightfully round the ungreased axles, each cart being
drawn by two buffaloes, each pair being attached to the cart in front
by a rope through the nostrils, so that one driver sufficed for eleven
carts. The native men could not be said to be clothed, but, as I
remarked before, the mercury was above 90 degrees. They were, however,
protected both against sun and rain by hats over three feet in
diameter, very conical, peaked at the top, coming down umbrella fashion
over the shoulders, and well tilted back.
[*Cholen, i.e., the big market, has a population which is variously
estimated at from 30,000 to 80,000. I am inclined to think that the
lowest estimate is nearest the mark. - I. L. B.]
After laboriously reaching Cholen, I found far the greater part of the
town to be Chinese, rather than Anamese, with Chinese streets, temples,
gaming houses, club houses, and that general air of business and
industry which seems characteristic of the Chinese everywhere; but
still groping my way about, I came upon what I most wished to see - the
real Anamese town. There is a river, the Me-kong, or one of its
branches, and the town - the real native Cholen - consists of a very
large collection of river-dwellings, little, if at all, superior to
those which we passed in coming up. I spent an hour among them, and I
never saw any house whose area could be more than twelve feet square,
while many were certainly not more than seven feet by six. Such
primitive, ramshackle, shaky-looking dwellings I never before have
seen. As compared with them, an Aino hut, even of the poorest kind, is
a model of solidity and architectural beauty. They looked as if a
single gust would topple them and their human contents into the water.
Yet, if it were better carried out, it is not a bad idea to avoid
paying any Anamese form of rent, to secure perfect drainage, a
never-failing water supply, good fishing, immunity from reptiles, and
the easiest of all highways at the very door.
These small rooms with thatched roofs and gridiron floors, raised on
posts six or eight feet above the stream, are reached from the shore by
a path a foot wide, consisting of planks tied on to posts. The
river-dwellings, I must add, are tied together with palm fibre rope.
One of average size can be put together for eleven shillings. In front
of each house a log canoe is moored, into which it is easy to drop from
above when the owner desires any change of attitude or scene.
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