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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 56 of 229
Words from 29100 to 29616
of 120530
