diff options
Diffstat (limited to '78626-h/78626-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | 78626-h/78626-h.htm | 12833 |
1 files changed, 12833 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/78626-h/78626-h.htm b/78626-h/78626-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a59a76 --- /dev/null +++ b/78626-h/78626-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12833 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>East of Siam | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + body { margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 10%; } + h1 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; } + h2 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; } + .pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver; + text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; + border: thin solid silver; padding: .1em .2em; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; } + p { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: justify; } + .fss { font-size: 75%; } + .sc { font-variant: small-caps; } + .xlarge { font-size: x-large; } + .small { font-size: small; } + .lg-container-r { text-align: right; } + .x-ebookmaker .lg-container-r { clear: both; } + .linegroup { display: inline-block; text-align: justify; } + .x-ebookmaker .linegroup { display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; } + .linegroup .group { margin: 1em auto; } + .linegroup .line { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; } + div.linegroup > :first-child { margin-top: 0; } + .ul_1 li {padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; } + ul.ul_1 {padding-left: 0; margin-left: 2.78%; margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; list-style-type: disc; } + div.pbb { page-break-before: always; } + hr.pb { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; margin-bottom: 1em; } + .x-ebookmaker hr.pb { display: none; } + .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } + .figcenter { clear: both; max-width: 100%; margin: 2em auto; text-align: center; } + div.figcenter p { text-align: center; text-indent: 0; } + .figcenter img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; } + .id001 { width:50%; } + .id003 { width:80%; } + .x-ebookmaker .id001 { margin-left:25%; width:50%; } + .x-ebookmaker .id003 { margin-left:10%; width:80%; } + .ic002 { width:100%; } + .ig001 { width:100%; } + .table0 { margin: auto; margin-top: 2em; } + .nf-center { text-align: center; } + .nf-center-c0 { text-align: justify; margin: 0.5em 0; } + p.drop-capa0_0_7 { text-indent: -0em; } + p.drop-capa0_0_7:first-letter { float: left; margin: 0.100em 0.100em 0em 0em; + font-size: 250%; line-height: 0.7em; text-indent: 0; } + .x-ebookmaker p.drop-capa0_0_7 { text-indent: 0; } + .x-ebookmaker p.drop-capa0_0_7:first-letter { float: none; margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; } + .c000 { margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .c001 { margin-top: 4em; } + .c002 { margin-top: 2em; } + .c003 { page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em; } + .c004 { margin-top: 1em; } + .c005 { page-break-before:auto; margin-top: 4em; } + .c006 { margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c007 { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c008 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; } + .c009 { vertical-align: top; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1em; + padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; } + .c010 { vertical-align: bottom; text-align: right; } + .c011 { font-size: 80%; } + .c012 { margin-top: 2em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + .c013 { font-size: .9em; text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA; + border:thin solid silver; margin:2em 10% 0 10%; font-family: Georgia, serif; + clear: both; } + .covernote { visibility: hidden; display: none; } + div.tnotes p { text-align: justify; } + .x-ebookmaker .covernote { visibility: visible; display: block; } + .figcenter {font-size: .9em; page-break-inside: avoid; max-width: 100%; } + h1 {line-height: 150%; } + div.footnote p {text-indent: 2em; margin-bottom: .5em; } + .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } + body {font-family: Garamond, Georgia, serif; text-align: justify; } + table {font-size: .9em; padding: 1.5em .5em 1em; page-break-inside: avoid; + clear: both; } + div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; } + div.titlepage p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 3em; } + .ph1 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; + margin: .67em auto; page-break-before: always; } + .ph2 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; + page-break-before: always; } + .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; } + .pageno {color: #585858; font-size: small; background-color:#ffffff; } + </style> + </head> + + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78626 ***</div> + + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_inside_front.jpg' alt='Endpaper' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_inside_front2.jpg' alt='Century VAGABOND BOOKS of TRAVEL' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>EAST OF SIAM</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div id='Frontispiece' class='c002 figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>There was a young lady of Laos</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='titlepage'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c003'>EAST OF SIAM<br> <span class='xlarge'><i>Ramblings in the five divisions of French Indo-China</i></span></h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>BY</div> + <div><span class='xlarge'>HARRY A. FRANCK</span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='small'>Author of “A Vagabond Journey Around the World,” “Roving through Southern China,” “Vagabonding Down the Andes,” “Four Months Afoot in Spain,” etc.</span></div> + <div class='c004'>ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS</div> + <div>OUT-OF-THE-WAY PHOTOGRAPHS</div> + <div>BY THE AUTHOR</div> + <div class='c004'>GROSSET & DUNLAP</div> + <div><i>Publishers</i>    ::  ::    <i>New York</i></div> + <div class='c004'>By arrangement with the D. Appleton-Century Company</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='small'>Copyright, 1926, by</span></div> + <div><span class='small'><span class='sc'>The Century Co.</span></span></div> + <div class='c002'><span class='small'>Printed in U. S. A.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='sc'>To</span></div> + <div><span class='sc'>The Hospitable French Colonials</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> + <h2 class='c005'>PROLOGUE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Those of us who had the good fortune to take part +in that great adventure known as the World War +can scarcely have failed to notice, among the many kinds +of French colonial troops, some little men in khaki and brass-topped +mushroom hats, most of them with black teeth. It +was not until five years after the Comedy of Versailles that +my perpetual wandering over the face of the globe brought +me to the land from which they came—Annam, “Kingdom +of the Eminent South.” There was not only the motive +of satisfying, by seeing them at home, the curiosity raised +by these little brown men in the French army; as far back +as I can remember I had felt inquisitive toward that +strangely shaped spot on the map, that slender country which +drips like a stalactite of candle-grease down from the southeast +corner of China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Besides, during all my two years of roving about the +once Celestial Empire I heard frequently of the wonders +of the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia. So one day in early +January, a propitious season, I dropped down to Saïgon, +visited those astounding remnants of the past, and returned +overland all the way to Canton. Later, toward the end +of April, I brought my family to Hanoï for a month of +Parisian change on the way to Yünnanfu, and took advantage +of the opportunity to journey through Laos, largest, +most interesting, and least known of the five divisions of +France’s Indo-Chinese empire. So in the end I traveled +<span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>not merely the length and breadth of Annam but saw all +five parts of that dumb-bell-shaped land east of Siam which +the French consider their most important colony in the Far +East.</p> + +<p class='c007'>So unusual was my luck during those travels that only +my overwhelming modesty has kept me from entitling this +unpretentious tale of them “Hobnobbing with Kings”; and +so very interesting a trip was it to me personally that in +the face of my hard-earned knowledge that our ever more +herd-minded general public is as fearful of the unknown +and the unfamiliar as the most superstitious of wild tribes, +and would much rather read of the deeply tourist-trodden +streets of Rome and Paris, I have insisted on performing +this unassuming task.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Those two well separated months were more than a mere +vacation from Chinese travel. To jaunt through French Indo-China +is to see a sample of what China itself would probably +be under European control, white-man rule—were any +nation powerful enough to accomplish that many times larger +task—as Formosa suggests what it might be under the +Japanese. I hope I have at least made it clear that Indo-China +is not in any sense China, but the living line of +division between two ancient and very different masses of +Oriental civilization, even as its name signifies.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Harry A. Franck.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c008'>CHAPTER</th> + <th class='c009'> </th> + <th class='c010'>PAGE</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>I</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Equatorward</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>II</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>On into Cambodia</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>III</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Jungle-Guarded Ruins of Angkor</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>IV</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Cambodians at Home</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>V</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Northward from Saïgon</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_86'>86</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VI</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Through Annam to Its Capital</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_103'>103</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VII</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Marooned in Hué</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_124'>124</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VIII</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>An Imperial Happy New Year</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_147'>147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>IX</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The People of the Eminent South</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_166'>166</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>X</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Hurrying on to the Northern Capital</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_185'>185</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XI</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Hanoï and the Tonkin</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_201'>201</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XII</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The French in Indo-China</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_219'>219</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XIII</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Over the Mountains to Laos</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_244'>244</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XIV</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>En Panne!</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_260'>260</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XV</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Down-stream to Luang Prabang</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_278'>278</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XVI</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Knighted in the Kingdom of the Divine Buddha</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_296'>296</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XVII</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Speeding Southward</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_323'>323</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>XVIII</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Vientiane and Back to Hanoï</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_347'>347</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span> + <h2 class='c005'>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>There was a young lady of Laos</td> + <td class='c010'><i><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></i></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th class='c009'></th> + <th class='c010'>FACING PAGE</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Cholon architecture is neither exactly French nor Chinese</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_018'>18</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A funeral procession in Cholon, Chinese suburb of Saïgon</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_018'>18</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A decreasing form of conveyance in Cochinchina</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_019'>19</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Unlike China proper, great sections of Indo-China are covered with magnificent virgin jungle-forests</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_019'>19</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>One may still crawl about Angkor by elephant, though Fords are much more à la mode</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_082'>82</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Buddhist priests took their saffron-clad ease in the shade along the great moat of Angkor-Vat, beyond the tourist bungalows in the background</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_082'>82</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A rural Cambodian family at home</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_083'>83</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Motor-buses link together the railways of Indo-China, crossing broad sandy river-banks on strips of woven bamboo splints</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_098'>98</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>In Annam prisoners working in the streets wear a light remnant of the old neck-torturing Chinese <i><span lang="fr">canque</span></i></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_098'>98</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>In the “Marble Mountains” are many grottoes, some of them elaborately fitted up as temples</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_099'>99</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>An Annamese summoning a ferry from across one of the many rivers which still offer no bridges to automobiles</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_099'>99</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>An Annamese girl, chaperoned by her small brother, sells her wares in the market-place of Hué</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_114'>114</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>When it rains in Annam, as it does on every provocation, a simple straw raincoat covers either sex among the masses</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_114'>114</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Like the southern Chinese the Annamese are expert boatmen because they learn their calling long before they reach the dignity of clothing</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_115'>115</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Swinging in the village squares is a favorite diversion of the Annamese populace during the lunar New Year’s season</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_115'>115</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Overlooking, from his flagpole, the palaces of the emperor of Annam</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_130'>130</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>China itself cannot outdo the old bronze urns before the main palace of the Annamese emperor</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_130'>130</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The throne-room of the emperor of Annam, on the afternoon before the New Year’s ceremony</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_131'>131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The waterfront of Hué, capital of Annam, offers a contrast between its native craft and the French bridge</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_146'>146</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Once a visitor surreptitiously snapped this glimpse of the mandarins of Annam kowtowing before their emperor on New Year’s Day</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_146'>146</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The scores of homes of mandarins within the “citadel” of Hué were all richly decorated for the lunar New Year</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_147'>147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Inside the “citadel” and near the sumptuous palaces of the emperor of Annam are the perhaps more comfortable homes of his humble subjects</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_147'>147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>An Annamese mandarin all dressed up for his New Year’s honors to his emperor; his servant behind</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_162'>162</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Servants of the mandarins carry home after the ceremony the ancient Ming accoutrements of their masters</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_162'>162</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Emperor Khai-dinh of Annam on his French-supported throne</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_163'>163</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Some of the most effective of Annamese tombs are covered with pictures and designs made of broken porcelain dishes set in cement</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_163'>163</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>With each new year the Annamese clear of vegetation the graves of their ancestors, back to remote generations</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_194'>194</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>I asked a living caretaker to fill the place of one of these of stone which guard the entrance to a royal tomb of Annam</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_194'>194</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>In the heart of Hanoï, northern capital of French Indo-China, stands a delightfully picturesque lake of goodly dimensions</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_195'>195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Annamese girls hold Sunday morning flower-market at this corner of the city-girdled lake of Hanoï</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_195'>195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The ladies of Annam lose any claim they have to beauty when they open their mouths on black-enameled teeth</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_210'>210</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Thi-ba, who did her best as guardian of our children, was equally set against bobbed hair and skirts</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_210'>210</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>For days one may steam in and out among the fantastic rock islands of the Bay of Along</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_211'>211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Tropical vegetation sometimes commandeers sustenance on the rock peaks</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_211'>211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The women of Tonkin combine hat, sunshade, and umbrella in one unwieldy contraption</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_258'>258</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Muong women wear little above the waist, except the loads they carry</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_258'>258</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The guard turned out to greet my companion, the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> of Vinh, at the first village on the way to Laos</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_259'>259</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Muong chief of our noonday village came in state, bringing eggs and native fire-water</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_259'>259</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The chief sport of the mountain-dwelling Miao of Laos is the making of assorted neck-rings of silver dollars that might better be spent for shirting</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_274'>274</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Miao woman of Laos take no back seat for their men</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_275'>275</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A Kha woman of the semi-wild tribe that is said to be the aboriginal race of mountainous Laos</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_275'>275</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Wind-sieved rice is the principal food of the rural inhabitants of Luang Prabang</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_306'>306</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>With a silk scarf worn loosely over a shoulder the women of Luang Prabang capital are more coquettish than their waistless sisters of the country districts</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_306'>306</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The palace of the king of Luang Prabang sits placidly on the bank of the upper Mekong</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_307'>307</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The king turned out his chief dancing-girls and masked male entertainers for my approval</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_307'>307</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Knighted in the Kingdom of the Divine Buddha</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_322'>322</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Two royal elephants saw me off from the palace, the youngster showing a desire to make me depart on the run</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_323'>323</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A Miao woman on her travels carries bed and food</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_323'>323</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A Kha home in the mountains of Luang Prabang</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_338'>338</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Grandfather and grandmother of the primitive Khas tend the children while the intermediate generation seeks the family livelihood in the hills</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_338'>338</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Wherever his habitat, the water-buffalo is happiest when immersed to the nostrils in a mud-hole</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_339'>339</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>One group of the many Laosian carriers who bore my few belongings across Luang Prabang</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_339'>339</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>This ancient monument in Vientiane, French capital of Laos, is the most curious remnant of its regal days</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_354'>354</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>A door of a ruined palace or temple of Vientiane</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_354'>354</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Within the ruined temple the Buddhas sit, in the infinitely patient attitude of the East, crumbling away under the rains and disappearing beneath the encroaching jungle</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_355'>355</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Though the French have brought automobiles to Vientiane, this ancient form of conveyance still predominates</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#i_355'>355</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>EAST OF SIAM</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I<br> <span class='c011'>EQUATORWARD</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>One of my jaunts up-country in Kwangtung Province +dragged, and I missed the French liner at Hong Kong. +Luckily the <i>Panama Maru</i>, bound on one of the trips around +the world that bring her back to her home berth in Kobe +every seven months, also made Saïgon her next stop. We +sailed early in the afternoon of one of those brilliant days +that double the blue intensity of Hong Kong harbor. The +Japanese freighter served no free wine with her meals and +had none of that interior ornateness that suggests the Paris +Opéra gone to sea. But perhaps for that very reason she +was more successfully mopped and dusted; and the Nipponese +atmosphere aboard was more interesting than the +cosmopolitan scent of the fortnightly Messageries steamer to +Marseilles. True, she made barely ten knots an hour. But +the French could hardly have served better food; the two +“boys” were unspoiled, and Captain Ichikawa was a friendly +little soul, even inviting me to make free of the chart-room. +The quiet, all but noiseless, efficiency of his crew was a +startling contrast to the incessantly shrieking chaos of +Chinese craft. The three or four first-class cabins opened +abruptly upon the dining-room rather than upon the deck; +yet even the baby in one of them was Japanese, like everything +and everybody on board except myself, and seemed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>never to cry. A lone Japanese would certainly not have +been more courteously treated on an American boat than +was the sole non-Nipponese being on this.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is often said that the Japanese are not individualistic +in personality. There were certainly as many types as passengers, +however, gathered about our table. The energetic +son of Tokyo, now in business in Saïgon, who shared my +cabin, was tall and handsome, as agreeable a companion in +cramped quarters as any American man of commerce, and +he spoke both French and English perfectly. On the other +hand the peanut-headed undersized youth across the table +looked and acted like the “nut” his cranium suggested. Then +there was a medical graduate going out, with the assistance +of the mikado’s government, to practise upon the Japanese +laborers on the coffee plantations of São Paulo—who one +evening managed to tell me in near-English that he had +read, both in my tongue and his own, all the published plays +of Eugene O’Neill. He would give much to see them played, +he added, but had never seen a Western drama on the +stage. The two women who sometimes graced our board +were as different as were the quiet brown and gorgeous-figured +red kimonos they respectively wore on such occasions. +Even the half-dozen officers rounding out the tri-daily +gathering were divided by as distinct lines of demarcation +as are their colleagues of any nationality.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Gently we rolled southward, with a drift to the west, +over a densely blue tropical sea. It grew too warm, first +in our open-on-the-dining-room cabins, then on the deck +itself. Summer curtains and awnings appeared; electric +fans took up their duties once more, and in one cabin at +least spun all the night through. The third morning brought +one of those lazy perfect days when loafing in a deck-chair +<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>seems the nearest tangible approach to heaven. We sighted +the coast of Annam that afternoon, hazy, almost mountainous, +apparently as treeless as China itself, and had it always +in sight thereafter, a lighthouse winking at us all through +the evening. If possible the weather was even more peerless +on the fourth day; the sea, flat as a floor, blue as if +saturated with indigo, was covered with light ripples that +made it look like a vast piece of watered silk.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Unfortunately it had not turned tropical quickly enough +to save one of our fellow-passengers. A youngster who +had taken pneumonia during the crossing from Japan to +the coast of China died during the third night. Another +child had gone the same way, two days out of Nagasaki, +and many in the general quarters below the main-deck still +had heavy colds. This boy of three had been the only +son of one of the score of families going out third-class to +Brazil. The funeral, at which the captain personally requested +my presence, took place on the fourth evening. Most +of the passengers and such of the crew as could be spared +stood about a kind of altar improvised on the poop. First +the captain, then others stepped up and bowed low before +this, repeating some sort of litany that ended with the +sprinkling of incense. Last of all came the parents, to go +impersonally through the same ceremony. They did not +weep, though their drawn faces showed that they had given +way in private to grief to which it would be bad Japanese +form to yield in public. The Buddhist service was as +simple as it was quiet, wholly un-Chinese, without a sob +or a loud voice, even as the little box wrapped in the flag +of the rising sun floated away astern in the moonlight. It +was as much that atmosphere of the uselessness of giving +way to the inevitable, I think, as the fact that I had left +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>behind in Canton a three-year-old son of my own, which +made me so depressed that I was still pacing the deck at +midnight.</p> + +<p class='c012'>By that time we had anchored at the mouth of the Mekong, +near a lighthouse. Off again at dawn, I sat, after a last +salt bath, wearing the few garments that Japanese custom +permits, in a delicious tropical morning breeze as the steamer +made its way up a tide-water river with dead-flat banks of +low, apparently uninhabited jungle stretching as far away +as could be seen in any direction. The stream was as +wide as the misnamed Pearl River at Canton, but clean +and blue, flecked here and there with a tiny boat top-heavy +with its clean-white pointed sail; and it wound so +constantly all the fifty miles from the mouth to Saïgon that +we headed again and again to every point of the compass. +The low jungled banks gave way to brown plains with +patches of palms, low thatch houses, and what looked like +haystacks scattered far and wide. The inevitable Socony +plant appeared, and some distance beyond we ran down at +last the flat evasive town, the steeples of which had betrayed +its location, now to port, now to starboard, again +over our stern, like the ears of some startled jack-rabbit +trying in vain to dodge its pursuers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was a reminder of Martinique about the already +sweltering city half seen beyond a wharf dotted with white +helmets. I had rather expected to be called upon as interpreter, +but the fat, bored-with-the-tropics French doctor +who sweated up the steep gang-plank knew some English, +though he spoke it more laboriously than did our captain +and several of my fellow-passengers. There was something +amusing in seeing these people of two nations which +have no overwhelming love for us of the English-speaking +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>races forced to use our tongue in their intercourse. In his +perpetually bored way the port doctor was very insistent +that every Japanese on board show proof of a recent vaccination, +though only my cabin-mate was landing; but when +I began to do likewise he waved me politely aside and +took my word for it in a way that implied that as a Caucasian +I was in a class by myself. An equally courteous, if +less bored, official pocketed my passport and gave me the +freedom of the half-way station between Hong Kong and +Singapore.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Before the dock lay behind me I regretted the habitual +lack of foresight that had led me to bring only an extra +winter suit instead of half a dozen white ones, and was +praising the superior wisdom of the thoughtful wife in +Canton who had insisted on my taking along a tropical +helmet in January. Luckily other travelers seem to be +in the habit of misjudging the winter climate of Saïgon, +and Chinese tailors at the foot of the principal street are +used to correcting such oversights in a hurry. Though it +was Sunday they promised me a <i><span lang="fr">complet</span></i> or two of duck +within two days, at twelve <i><span lang="fr">piastres</span></i> each—and while I am +on the subject let me mention that the piastre of Indo-China +is equal to the “Mex” dollar of Hong Kong and China, +averaging a little more than half our own, and not given +to fluctuating with the franc.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Rue Catinat, grilling now beneath the late morning +sun, drew me inland. Mingled with its all too plain evidence +of propinquity to the equator was that of a considerable +relationship to Paris. Between window-displays that +might have come almost intact from the Rue de la Paix, +black and brown fellows in red fezzes, locally known as +Malabars, squatted in booths raised well above the narrow +sidewalks—money-changers, sellers of tobacco, and the like. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>Here and there a Hindu merchant stared out into the white +light of the gently yet perspiringly mounting street. Here +Sunday was no British Sabbath. Annamese waiters bustled +about the marble tables of hotel cafés well peopled with +white men and women instantly recognizable as French. +Business as usual seemed to be the motto of all but the +most important establishments. Yet even the diaphanously +clad Oriental strollers of various origins shuffled along in +the narrow streak of shade before one row of shop-fronts.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Saïgon’s main street flowed out before long into a sun-stewed +square with a cathedral trebly hot in its red brick +garb. The view from its tower across the well streeted +city, almost forested above the section of wharves and commerce, +would have been worth a less perspiring climb. +Farther on, the American to whom I had a letter lived in +simple bachelor splendor in a low house of thick walls and +disproportionately large rooms. Languid with long tropical +residence, this former captain in the Philippine constabulary +who now represented our great oil corporation seemed +to recognize no pastime except the lolling in a reclining-chair +with a cold drink within easy reach. I am no suitable +companion in the consumption of British whisky—that could +be had in this stronghold of its French rivals only by something +closely resembling smuggling—and I drifted down +toward the port again.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All Saïgon sizzled now in noonday repose. Not merely +on Sunday, I later learned, are all offices, all shops except +those of the heat-impervious Orientals, closed from eleven +until two for the daily siesta. One of the shocks due the +rare hurried business man or tourist from the West who +drifts into Saïgon is to find it virtually dead daily from +the early French lunch-hour until the sun nears the western +tree-tops. Here and there an enervated rickshaw-man +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>dragged his empty vehicle slowly behind him. A few dozing +Hindus, a fez-wearer or two asleep with open eyes on his +haunches among his wares, were visible in the unbroken +rows of shops. Heaps of coolies reposed under the trees +of other streets, under raised porches, their thin legs tangled +together, open-mouthed like dead fish. Otherwise the streets +were empty; not a European was outdoors. All the governing +race were asleep in the breeze of electric fans, such +garments as they still wore pasted to their bodies. Had +one of them spied me wandering the streets at this hour +I should no doubt have been taken for mad.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The new-comer soon finds that he too is better for his +siesta, and that there is nothing to be gained in going without +it, for there is little that he can do and no one whom he can +see. No wonder the white residents all seemed tropicalized, +if I may coin a word greatly needed in any attempt to +describe life in Saïgon. Two or three hours of broken +nap, and they must get up again, wearier than ever, spirits +and body alike languid and stiff; for work or its substitute +begins anew. One by one each leaves his house, jumps into +a rickshaw with burning cushions, and goes to shut himself +up once more in office or shop. There only the tropically +experienced and the well-to-do can manage a comfortable +coolness in which those not used to the equator as a close +neighbor can either think or work. The streets begin again +to swarm with <i><span lang="fr">pousse-pousses</span></i>—for in spite of the all too +evident fact that it is pulled the French insist on calling +the rickshaw a “push-push,” perhaps in memory of the +converted baby-carriage from which this now widespread +vehicle was fashioned. Thinner, more washed-out in appearance +than more northerly men of their laborious calling, +the pullers nevertheless charge madly down upon every +possible client, just as in China. But here they are more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>orderly, a trifle cleaner perhaps, with an air of being kept +closely within bounds by foreign rules as well as by the +climate. Less cheery than their Chinese prototypes, they +seem more optimistic. The rickshaw-man of Indo-China +holds out both hands at the end of his run, as if expecting +such a fortune for his services to one of the dominant +race that one hand would not hold it. But his optimism +rarely materializes, and no dispute with one of the race that +rules over his land seems to be worth the effort in such a +climate.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Meanwhile, unable to adapt myself so quickly to the do-nothing +of tropical midday, I had wandered to the end of +the town. It was the same old France, even this far afield—outwardly +imposing buildings generously adorned with +plump naked females in stone, and within, dusty bureaucracy +where the buying of a postage-stamp is a transaction, +with much bookkeeping involved. Saïgon is in theory the +capital of all Indo-China, though in practice the governors-general +have all preferred somewhat more northerly Hanoï. +Their palace here, like the cathedral, the Postes et Télégraphes, +the Municipal Theater, and all the other examples +of elaborate French architecture misplaced in the tropics, +is set off in its grass-covered square at the end of some +broad avenue. Palatial European residences with an atmosphere +of lavishness emphasize the conspicuous scarcity of +native buildings, whether towers, temples, ancient gates or +palaces, or high-class dwellings. For that matter the native +residents seem few, at least until one reaches the outskirts, +though Saïgon was an important center before the French +came.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Farther out are big brick barracks, where young French +soldiers conscious of no color-line mingle freely with colonial +troops ranging from black Malgaches to pale-yellow +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>Annamese. Wide tree-lined roads lead on to the Botanical +Gardens, in which men and women Parisian in dress and +manners drive or stroll in the semi-coolness of evening; +and just across the arroyo bounding it on the farther side +is the bush—jungle and thatched huts and primitive living, +where one glimpses hammocks in hovels of faded thatch on +bare ground among banana-plants that carry the mind back +to rural tropical South America.</p> + +<p class='c012'>European health used to be so bad in Saïgon that French +residents often had the experience of playing baccarat with +a friend one evening and accompanying him next morning +to Bangkok—not the capital of Siam but the Saïgon cemetery +for foreigners, popularly so-called among them from +the street that leads to it. The story is still told of a misinformed +French journalist in France who was moved to +protest at the extravagance of sending all the dead to Siam, +“in order not to alarm the population.” To-day conditions +are better, as healthful as could be expected for wine-drinkers +in an equatorial country. But the French seem less +at home here than the Annamese in their black two-piece +garments, shiny as oil-cloth, their wooden clogs scraping +noisily on the cement sidewalks, on the stone-faced roadways +beyond, splotched with the red saliva of this race +of betel-nut chewers. Their hair, usually in topknots that +peer from beneath black band-turbans, the black-enameled +teeth they consider so becoming, and the betel-nut that drips +blood-red over their lips they have in common with their +more wealthy compatriots in coats of transparent black gauze +over light-colored gowns.</p> + +<p class='c007'>With sunset comes the great French rite, <i><span lang="fr">l’apéritif</span></i>. Men +in fresh white and women in their best summer frocks +gather on the terrace—in other words most of the public +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>sidewalk, with slight respect for pedestrians—of the Hôtel +Continental, a scene suggesting the Café de la Paix of Paris +in a tropical setting. The awnings are trussed up, and +the night life, the chief life of Saïgon, at least of the visible +variety, grows with the evening. The very common-sense +custom of the European men in going bareheaded after +sunset is a delightful relief from the heavy sweat-begetting +cork helmet. All the Frenchman’s comforts of home, from +creamy curaçao of oil-like texture to rich green <i><span lang="fr">absinthe +frappée</span></i>, are trotted forth by Annamese “boys” in white +gowns, topped by their inevitable band-turban, jet-black as +the coarse hair most of them wear in a Psyche knot. All +manner of French colonial types join the appetite-seeking +throng—the anemic rounder, the sturdy colonist in his +black shovel-beard, the humped bureaucrat in his pince-nez. +Rare indeed is the man who is not accompanied by at least +one member of the fair sex who could have come from +nowhere but France, garb, manner, and all, in spite of her +pallor and reduced vivacity born of tropical residence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As a hostelry the Continental was full. But one of the +most agreeable surprises about Indo-China, at least to the +man who comes there from wandering in China itself, is +the number of its hotels with all the comforts of Paris. +They are very French hotels indeed, from the menu to +the thrifty eagle-eyed madame behind the bottle-flanked zinc +counter, even though the midday <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> cannot of course +be served out on the sidewalk. Rooms may be spacious +or small, but they are always furnished with a big double +bed, symbol of the Frenchman’s horror of sleeping alone. +This is unfailingly flanked by the <i><span lang="fr">bidet</span></i>, in enameled tin on +loose wooden legs or of the latest bath-tub style. Bath-tubs +themselves are rare, but in a land where perspiration +drips at every crook of a finger the shower-baths, often in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>a cement-paved corner of the room itself, are alone worth +the price of admission. All this and more I found at exceedingly +reasonable rates at the Hôtel de la Rotonde, just +across the street from the starting-place of the biweekly +steamer to Pnom Penh.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Autobuses leave Saïgon in various directions; toy-like +French automobiles may be had for the hiring. Where +the former, and sometimes the latter, leave off, one may +descend to thatch-topped carts behind humped cattle, or climb +into queer little vehicles something like the jaunting-cars of +Ireland. The well-to-do natives of Cochinchina seem still +to prefer the <i><span lang="fr">malabar</span></i>, a horse-drawn box on four wheels, so +named from the Indian immigrants who appear to have +brought it with them. The bus ride to Thudam disclosed +an industrial school where the old Annamese arts that show +signs of dying out, such as inlaying furniture and bric-a-brac +with mother-of-pearl, are being retaught under French +principals. Annamese boys of the working class are recommended +to it by the village elders and are paid a bit while +learning. In such matters as these, and the good roads +leading to them, French rule is visibly an advantage. The +rather dusty ride out to the Falls of Trian is also one of +those worth while among the radiating routes covering little +Cochinchina. On almost any of them mangosteen trees +stand forth to make one’s mouth water, though it has +never been my luck, thanks to persistent off seasons, to taste +this untransportable vegetable ice-cream, reputed the finest +fruit in captivity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Smallest and oldest of the five divisions of French Indo-China, +Cochinchina is the only colony among them. The +others are “protectorates,” though the difference is hardly +visible to the naked eye. But at least its strictly colonial +status simplifies the task of its governor. He came from +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>Mauritius and was part negro, according to the official +propagandist for more tourists who insisted on taking me +to call on him. I should hardly have suspected it in his +cool and deeply shaded offices, and certainly not from a later +glimpse in more social circles of his beautiful French wife +of queenly dignity. A colonial governor ranks high in the +matrimonial market of France, whatever his complexion. +But if I fancied there was no color prejudice in this motley +dependency I was disabused by the secret scorn my companion +expressed, as we left the palace, for the African +strain in the superior to whom he had been so deferential +in official intercourse, though he himself seemed to go out +of his way to mention his own Annamese wife and half-caste +children. To each nationality its peculiar point of view.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Trains, trolleys, autobuses, automobiles, rickshaws, <i><span lang="fr">malabars</span></i>, +and boats, not to mention pedestrians, ply constantly +between Saïgon and Cholon, its rich Chinese suburb. Tiresomely +Chinese in many of its details, this wealthy city +testifies to French tutelage. Instead of shoulder-wide +streets garnished with roaming pigs and untended garbage, +there are good pavements, and a modern water-supply in +place of the bucket-brigades from river or mud-hole. Still +no Elysium, it is immaculate compared to China proper. +Here live Chinese who own costly automobiles; here diamonds +and other valuable jewelry are widely worn in public; +here where it is safe to indulge such inclination under foreign +rule, is altered the impression one carries away from the +bandit- and soldier-ridden old empire to the north, that the +Celestials are the antithesis of the Hindus in this matter of +personal adornment. In every shop, whether of a grocer or +a seller of porcelains, of medicines or of silks, there is a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>mighty heaping up of wares, and six clerks where we would +have one. Among them an old man fat and cheery of aspect +as the Laughing Buddha at the entrance to Chinese temples, +naked except for thin cotton trousers and slippers, sits +manipulating the balls of his calculating-board. Flat, dry, +lacquered ducks, transparent at the edges, hang along cords +like bats taking their day’s repose. Pigs blown up like +their toy counterparts of rubber, lie at their ease, polished +and hairless, with outstretched legs, grinning their deathly +grin at the passing throng. Now and again a funeral goes +by, gaudy and noisy as if the chief actor were among the +graves of his ancestors, but more richly ornate and lacking +the usual tawdriness, like the town itself compared to old +China. But those who have been there then say that the +time to see Cholon is during the week of Têt, as the lunar +New Year is called in Indo-China, when the canvas and cardboard +dragon is promenaded through the streets, opening his +enormous maw and twisting his long disgusting body, in +which a score of sweating coolies are hidden.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In Indo-China one seldom speaks of going to the grocery; +it is rather, “I am going to the Chinaman’s.” The Annamese, +and still more so the other races that make up the +native population, are lazy, or at least languid as merchants, +and the Chinese get the business and the riches. +To speak of retail commerce is to mean the Chinese, and +in larger matters they are by no means outsiders. For a +hundred and fifty years they have been installed at Cholon, +and from there they have spread over all Cochinchina, all +Indo-China for that matter. They arrive thin and in rags, +and leave, if at all, fat and placid; and as fast as they +get rich other gaunt wretches take their places at the foot of +the ladder. It is as if they were being perpetually passed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>through a fattening-machine; and if some of them have no +luck, lack sufficient cuteness, there is the recompense of +opium to make a plank as comfortable as a rich man’s bed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>More or less respected by the people they feed upon, they +are discreetly or insolently superior to them, depending on +their individual status of the moment. Formerly they made +great fortunes quickly in rice. That way is hampered now, +because the government sends out rice quotations that reach +even the peasants. But still they get rich. So greatly +are they the gainers that Indo-China has been called a +“Chinese colony administered by Frenchmen.” Economically +the Celestial is master of the country; his activity, his intelligence +in business affairs, his commercial cleverness, his +very temperament would make him so, even without the +great advantages of a population given to gambling and +gifted with a lack of forethought that make for usury +at high rates. Thirty-six per cent is legal interest even in +the French courts of Indo-China, and the wily Chinese often +gets everything merely for lending ten piastres—land, house, +furniture, sometimes the whole family as slaves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A gambling game known as “the thirty-six animals” +sweeps through all the villages, especially of Cambodia, +like <i><span lang="fr">o bicho</span></i> in Brazil. In Cambodia, as in Siam, as in +China, slavery has been legally abolished, but it continues +to flourish. In the old days the work of the slave for debt +covered only the interest; it never paid the principal and +set him free. To-day the peasant who borrows in a lean +year or after a bad wager may hope that at least his children +will get out of the meshes of the spider-faced Chinese +lender.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Even from the political point of view the Chinese are a +privileged class in Indo-China. Though they have no diplomatic +representatives of their own, they virtually have the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>rights of extraterritoriality under the protection of the +French. Every Chinese in the colony must belong to a <i><span lang="fr">congrégation</span></i>, +a kind of association that is responsible to the +state for all its members, civilly and pecuniarily. Each man +between the ages of eighteen and sixty pays a tax of from +6.60 to 200 piastres, depending on the category to which he +belongs. There are six of these categories, with bankers +and merchants in the highest class and coolies in the lowest. +Though they pay this to the “congregation,” it really goes +to the government. This is no bright French idea, but was +the lot of all Chinese living in Annam long before the +French came. Besides this varying head-tax there is a +“prestation tax”—whatever that may be—of from two to +fifty piastres a year; and any Chinese who wishes to travel +beyond the town in which he is registered must pay for a +<i><span lang="fr">laisser-passer</span></i>, good for two weeks and twice renewable, so +that those who are always traveling contribute considerably +to the government during the year. Women, children, the +sick, and men over sixty pay only a yearly tax of one +piastre, and may travel when and where they wish; but even +the son of a Chinese by an Annamese woman, and born in +the colony, remains a Chinese and must belong to some +“congregation.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Chinese of Cholon and of Indo-China in general +rarely speak a word of Annamese or of French and of +course no English; nor for that matter do they speak +Chinese, for they all come from the southern coastal country +where dialects reign. Canton, Amoy, Swatow, and +Hainan furnish the chief “congregations.” Such intriguing +names as Hai Chin and Hung Long Tom are to be seen +on their shop signs. Except for the Cantonese, who usually +bring wives with them, nearly all these happily expatriated +Celestials take temporary native wives, usually Annamese. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>But they <i>never</i>—the italics are those of a French writer—leave +temporary wife and children behind without assuring +their livelihood. The same cannot be said of the French +in Indo-China—nor, the French might retort, of Americans +in the Philippines.</p> + +<p class='c012'>If I had come too early to see Cholon in the throes of +the Chinese New Year, at least I was just in time to attend +the most important annual celebration of another alien +group that fattens on the native population. Every January +the Chettys, a Hindu caste of bankers and usurers to +be found in all the ports of the Far East, give a great +fête in honor of their protectress, the Goddess Souppramanya. +It was the most barbaric spectacle I have ever +seen in many years of globe-trotting. In the evening all +Indians of this class in Saïgon, from mere street-booth +money-changers to big bankers, enveloped themselves in +their curtain-like muslin costume, with a spongy towel about +the neck, and formed a procession to their temple in the +Rue Ohier. This Pagode des Chettys—one must get used +to the French way of saying <i><span lang="fr">pagode</span></i> for temple and <i><span lang="fr">tour</span></i> for +pagoda—is rich and elaborate for its setting, though only +mildly so compared to such structures in India. The contrast +between its ornamental tower and the <i><span lang="fr">défense d’afficher</span></i> +signs lavished upon its bright pink walls is not likely to +escape even the languid passer-by lolling in his <i><span lang="fr">pousse-pousse</span></i>.</p> + +<div id='i_018' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_018a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Cholon architecture is neither exactly French nor Chinese</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_018b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A funeral procession in Cholon, Chinese suburb of Saïgon</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_019' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_019a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A decreasing form of conveyance in Cochinchina</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_019b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Unlike China proper, great sections of Indo-China are covered with magnificent virgin jungle-forests</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>Unlike what would have happened in India, here there +seemed to be no objection to my presence; the worshipers +in fact gave me subtle hints that they were rather pleased +at my attention, though the stern watchman at the door +waved away natives of the colony. There may have been +great inner meaning, plethoras of mysticism quite beyond +my simple ken, in the ensuing ceremony, but to me it +was rather a shock to know that what are popularly accepted +as our fellow-Aryans could be so crassly superstitious. +Yet such things no doubt are all a matter of +degree and inherited point of view; the unfamiliar always +has a hint of the grotesque, even of the hideous.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Great Hindu bankers naturally wear many diamonds; +otherwise these overfed worshipers were only in white flowing +loin-cloths, some with a fold of cheese-cloth over one +shoulder. With three fingers each further prepared himself +by smearing on his forehead, his flabby arms, and the +hairy chest that attested his Aryan blood, whitish stuff +mixed by low-caste members of his race from cow-dung +and other ingredients. Hindu musicians supplied an absolutely +unbroken caterwauling splendidly in keeping with the +rest of the insane ceremony. One of them in particular +should easily have won the world record for long-windedness. +For a full hour, if not indeed much longer, he kept +his cheeks blown out to their capacity without an instant +of interlude, thereby keeping a barbaric kind of fife miauling +without cessation and at the same time beating a drum +incessantly with his fingers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One by one the fat, bediamonded, all but naked bankers +stood before the opened shrine, itself a vision of untold +riches, sometimes singly, sometimes in small groups, and +with their hands high above their heads shook and twisted +and contorted themselves like madmen suffering the extremes +of torture. The object of these revolting attempts of all +too solid flesh to resemble a snake in the throes of pain +or anger were, as nearly as I could gather, to deceive the +goddess into the belief that the worshipers were acutely +suffering at sight of her divine splendor, or that they were +ready to suffer any agony in her honor. One by one +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>they threw themselves on the cement pavement laid in small +brightly colored squares and writhed and squirmed, twisting +their heads fiercely from side to side, rolling over and +over, in a way to make mere groveling a pastime, the sweat +of torture and of an equatorial climate pouring from their +brown bodies until the floor was wet beneath them. The +paunchiest creature of them all, his fingers covered with +diamonds large enough, in the vernacular of the day, to +choke a horse, his dough-like face riddled with the marks +of smallpox, doubly repulsive with his great hairy naked +paunch, went through contortions nauseating to the hardiest +stomach. His voluntary convulsions suggested that he was +the chief of the caste, as his diamonds implied that he +was the leader in successful usury. If only our bankers +and money-lenders had to do some such penance annually +instead of merely going to church weekly in a silk hat and a +limousine!</p> + +<p class='c007'>At length their divinity, Souppramanya, which like any +American worthy of attention looked easily worth the million +repute and her incredibly bejeweled appearance credit +her with, was taken down from her niche. A dozen men in +loin-cloths carried the idol to her silver chariot; two great +cream-colored sacred bulls, or, more exactly, steers, wearing +fancily embroidered robes over their single humps, were +led forth from their sumptuous stables within the temple, +and the second phase of the ceremony began. Between two +rows of torches, surrounded by oriflammes, sacred parasols +in gay colors, and inexhaustible musicians, the extravagant +equipage of the goddess set out around the walled inclosure +of the altar. Huger than water-buffaloes of the fields, +their sleek fawn-colored hides shining, their expression that +of their human prototypes haughty with generations of +adulation, the sacred cattle trod slowly at the head of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>worshipers, their spoiled-aristocrat dignity unruffled by the +frequent slipping of their silver shoes on the smooth hard +pavement, or at the sometimes painful pulling at the cords +attached to their perforated nostrils. Sacred as they were, +such coercion by their idolizers was evidently necessary to +keep them in order, and this they endured as if even sacred +beings were not wholly free from the pull of circumstances. +Behind, surrounded by a milling throng of naked smeared +Hindu men and boys writhing with religious fervor, came +the martyr without whom the ceremony would be in vain. +He had prayed and fasted for a week in order to be able +to endure his suffering. Lances pricking his feet, an +enormous pin thrust through his tongue, he drew a little +chariot fastened to him by traces ending in silver hooks +that dug deeply into his flesh. His eyes twisted in their +orbits, foam driveled from his lips, a figure horrible to behold, +urged on by the clamors of the frenzied money-lenders, +who now and then still threw themselves in abject contortions +on the pavement. The crowd jostled and pitilessly +crowded upon a second martyr, who had transformed himself +into a pincushion, with needles and pins sticking out of +his flesh in every direction. It was an astonishing as well as +a revolting spectacle, a vision of fanatical India such as I +had never seen in India itself, doubly surprising because of +the freedom with which we two white men and a Frenchwoman +were allowed to mingle with the worshipers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Two, three, four times the barbaric procession made the +circuit of the temple. A curious noise that seemed to come +from within the chariot puzzled me, until I managed to +crowd closely enough to discover that the ambulating altar +contained a little motor which lighted it with electricity! +The gaunt Hindu in charge of this howled and writhed with +the others; but in a fold of his loin-cloth bulged two or +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>three electric-light bulbs to replace those that might burn +out.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Then quickly the whole performance subsided. The regal-mannered +steers were led back to their stalls; the swollen +cheeks of the musicians deflated in a final piercing yowl; +the goddess was carried back to her permanent throne. In +a twinkling the frenzied bankers returned to the placid every-day +behavior of their calling, and went to squat on the +floor in a raised place too sacred for ordinary beings, where +low-caste Indians began to pass trays of food among them. +This consisted mainly of cocoanuts cut in two and filled +with bananas, red fruits, and several unrecognizable forms +of Hindu delicacies. The hairy-paunched favorites of fortune +helped themselves more than generously; the small fry, +and the children scattered among them, got only handsful +of sticky rice, carelessly tossed to them by the servers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This spectacle was repeated every evening for ten days. +It was very easy to guess what might have befallen those +who had dared to wear such diamonds or publicly parade +such idols in China, or for that matter in our own expensively +policed land. Here no fear of robbery seemed to +trouble the pious Chettys, most opulent of the thousands of +castes of India. All the evening there had hovered near +me a man from Pondicherry, that tiny patch of India still +ruled by the French. Dressed in the tailored garb of Europeans +in the tropics, his decidedly Aryan features merely a +glossy brown instead of white, speaking perfect French, +he seemed far removed from the men of his race who writhed +on the floor in their diamonds and loin-cloths. The ceremony +was evidently commonplace to him, for he showed no +surprise even at the height of it. His fervor seemed to +be political rather than religious, and like many a man of +color in the French colonies he was almost boisterously +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>Francophil. A dozen times during the evening his voice +rose high enough above the fanatical tumult to assure me +in as many ways of expressing it that India would be the +happiest land on earth if only France rather than England +held it.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The ease with which I got permission to visit the Saïgon +establishment where opium is prepared for sale implied that +the French made no secret, whether or not they saw anything +wrong in it, of their official sponsoring of this traffic. +Opium is a government monopoly in Indo-China, with a +similar establishment in Tonkin to the north. In a big airy +room of armory-like ceiling, a hundred or more feet long +and half as wide, a score of Annamese were at work. What +with the heat of caldrons and of the climate, and the sickeningly +sweetish smell of the drug, their labor with heavy +ladles was no sinecure. In fact the whole personnel works +only three hours out of the twenty-four, eighteen hours a +week. The poppy-juice comes from India—at the northern +establishment especially southwestern China now supplies +great quantities, but this is of course not officially +admitted—in balls of the size of a cocoanut, or resembling +still more closely the Brazil-nut in its native state, for the +shell is nearly an inch thick—but made of leaves. These +leaves are eventually sold to the natives, who chew them with +their betel-nut, no doubt getting some opium-like effect from +the soaking of poppy-juice.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The brown jelly-like substance inside is dumped into huge +brass pans over fires and ladled constantly as it boils, sweat +running literally in streams from the workers. When it +has cooled and been well kneaded the resultant dough is +placed in other such pans and rubbed down into a concave +cake two or three inches thick. This in turn is placed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>upside down over a very hot charcoal brazier, and every +minute or two a workman peels off a skin of the thickness +of leather and throws it into still another pan. When +all the cake has been skinned away, the leather-like layers +in the new pan are treated with water, for they would +otherwise be brittle as glass, and are worked again into a +very brown dough which gradually swells to fill the pan. +Handfuls of specially prepared interior of bamboos, soft +and resembling vermicelli, are then thrust into the mass, +and brown water runs slowly from these through cloth +filters into buckets. Only this liquid is of any value, the +residue being thrown away, useless even as fertilizer.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Reduced to a semiliquid form once more, this final product +is placed in iron barrels, a single one of which is worth +twenty thousand piastres. The stuff may now be sold at +any time, though if possible it is allowed to settle six +months or more, for like wine and marriage the longer it +is kept the better it becomes. Then in the form of a paste +closely resembling russet shoe-blacking it is put up in tins +of five, ten, twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred grams each. +The first retails at barely two piastres, so that every rickshaw-man +and errand-boy may afford it; the largest, at +twenty-five. The de luxe opium is put up in purple boxes, +a special mark on the very best of them indicating that +they are reserved for the king of Cambodia. Great quantities +of this best purple variety are sent to the old Cambodian +sovereign each December, as the Christmas present of the +government. His royal colleague, the emperor of Annam, +is supplied from the Hanoï establishment. The ordinary +tins, with no marks upon them except a cryptic number, are +placed in heavy wooden boxes simply marked “Benares”—other +code names distinguishing the better grades—and go +out in great loads to all parts of the colony. The stuff is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>sold in these tins to any one who can pay for it, in every +little <i><span lang="fr">débit</span></i> distinguished by an “O.R.,” for “Opium Régie” +on signs similar to those indicating authority to retail for +the French tobacco monopoly. What with government +preparation, license fees, and the like, the drug brings an +enormous profit to the government; that is, to France.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The official who took it upon himself to get me started +right in my sight-seeing called the opium monopoly “the +shame of Indo-China”; and some other French residents +felt, or professed to feel, the same way about it. But +even he insisted that if it were not thus openly sold and +regulated the people would smuggle it in; and if it were +prohibited entirely there would be a revolution! So there +would be, though perhaps not in just the sense the speaker +meant to imply.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We all know that France takes a somewhat different +view of “vices” than do we of the English-speaking races. +The French attitude seems to be, let vice flourish and abound, +that each may learn to save himself from temptation, or +decide for himself how much indulgence he can allow without +serious personal harm. There are hints that this may +perhaps be as effective in the end as our own growing custom +of forcible suppression. Even in novels based on life in +Indo-China the French attitude toward opium seems to be +about what ours as a nation is toward tobacco. Many, +some say three fourths, of the eighteen thousand French +in the colony smoke opium, as do most of the various indigenous +races, many Chinese, and some Hindu residents. +There are not a few French residents of the better class +who contend that it does no great harm. Among the +natives, men with the opium habit are treated with indulgence, +but the women “never” smoke it; any who did so +would be considered the lowest of human creatures. On +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>the whole the Japanese seem to have handled the problem +better in Formosa, for they at least strive to keep their own +people free from the habit, and are systematically reducing +consumption within their own territory, rather than trying +to increase it. The smoking of opium, a Chinese importation, +was not a common vice in Indo-China, unless perhaps +among the Annamese, before the French came. In +Cambodia and among some of the other gentler races that +make up the protected federation, market-days and big +gatherings are needed to overcome the inertia toward the +habit even to-day. But the government forces it upon the +people for the benefit of the treasury; and the development +of obligatory military service has spread it everywhere. +Lists of villages are sent out by diligent functionaries with +the information that they are not consuming their pro rata +of opium, just as great business houses in other lands protest +to their agents that such and such territory should +take more of their goods, and local officials are told to +urge shopkeepers with the “O.R.” license to add to their +stocks and push them over the counter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The opium monopoly in Indo-China is by no means airtight. +In Laos there are many Miao who grow the poppy +up in their hills far inland, and as they can get little more +than half as much for their product from the French +monopoly officials as from the Chinese constantly engaged +in illicit opium traffic, only a fraction of that grown and +really sold by the Miao is ever reckoned in government reports. +The Chinese smugglers have their own <i><span lang="fr">pirogues</span></i>, +slender swift boats for the inland rivers, and with these +they are constantly getting opium out of the country, mainly +by way of Siam. Luang Prabang reports only eight hundred +thousand piastres’ worth of opium a year, yet every +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>one knows that far more is smuggled out of that kingdom +than is sold to the government monopoly, and so easily +that customs officers are kept on the Laos-Siam and Laos-China +frontiers chiefly for appearance’s sake.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II<br> <span class='c011'>ON INTO CAMBODIA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>The French move freely in and out of Indo-China +without passports, but all “foreigners” are tightly +bound with red tape. Germans and Russians are not yet +admitted at all, and even harmless tourists are treated as +suspicious characters. In these days of rapid transmission +of information, and its more exciting sister, misinformation, +it was something of a surprise to find, five full years after +the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, that news had not +yet reached the colonial bureaucrats even of this far-flung +dependency that the World War was over. Having been +officially robbed of my passport upon landing, as happens +to all <i><span lang="fr">étrangers</span></i>, I could recover it only by appearing next +morning at a police office and filling in on both sides a +large form designed to bring out in elaborate detail all +the past, present, and future history of the signer. One +question in particular was puzzling: “Have you ever been +in the enemy country?” Since I had been laboring under +the impression that France was just then at peace with all +the world, I asked the official in charge of my case to +elucidate. He seemed to betray a hint of annoyance +beneath his perfectly Gallic exterior, and finally explained +that the forms were still those used in war days. “The +high cost of printing, you know....”</p> + +<p class='c007'>One question naturally leads to another: were a few +months of helping his countrymen to hold the bridge-heads +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>on the Rhine to be counted against me? But he seemed +to be growing suspicious of my straight face; besides, since +he was the one functionary in the passport division who +flattered himself on speaking some English, his attention +was largely taken up with seeing that I did not address +him in French, or that I at least should not sully the carefully +Anglicized form by answering some of its questions +in that tongue. How could that one of his colleagues whose +laborious monthly duty it is to translate a dozen or more +of these forms for foreigners back into French, as the +beginning of a lengthy <i><span lang="fr">dossier</span></i> on each such individual +admitted to the colony, meet any suspicion that his berth +should be abolished, if foreigners were allowed to do their +own translating? The expense of putting those forms into +English, back in war days, would moreover hardly be justified +if they were not used for foreigners as intended; hence +nothing more natural than that even those foreigners whose +French is far more fluent than their English should be +compelled to give their history on these translated forms, +even though the official beside me had to help them to turn +their French into English.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I had been too long familiar with French bureaucracy +to suppose that my passport would be returned at once, +merely for a bare hour of filling in a questionnaire. Naturally +this had to be taken to men higher up, “for study,” +before so final an action could be taken. But I could prepare +to take the evening steamer to Cambodia “in all tranquillity,” +the philologist of the passport bureau assured me—in +his own tongue now, no doubt because the information +was unofficial. My passport would be handed me on the +steamer before she sailed, he confided. His manner was +such that it was hard to keep from flattering myself that +my notoriously honest face had led him to make an admission +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>to me which he would never have dreamed of making +to an ordinary traveler.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He had spoken truly too; the passport was returned, +even as he had foretold, and the manner of its returning +showed how valuable are the services rendered by the swarms +of officials who look after such matters. I had strolled +across from my hotel to the steamer <i>Mekong</i> long enough +before to be already deep in deck-chair conversation with +the charming young American lady and her merely more +elderly chaperon, whom our tropic-emaciated consul had +told me to expect among my traveling-companions, when a +young man in what looked like a disguised uniform began +pacing the deck shouting for “Monsieur Ügh,” as nearly +as his cross between a grunt and a word can be rendered +in English. The fourth or fifth time he disturbed the absorbing +pleasure of meeting one’s own people, of the preferable +sex at that, unexpectedly in a far distant land, I noticed that +he waved in one hand an American passport. About the +same moment my returning wits confided to me that the +noise he was making so incessantly was the Frenchman’s +most sincere attempt to pronounce the name “Hughes.” In +a whole-hearted desire to help him out of what was evidently +on the verge of becoming a troublesome duty, I rose +and asked the shouter’s permission to look at the document. +It was my own passport. I thanked him cordially for the +two forms of relief this discovery brought, and returned +to my conversation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Before long my attention was distracted once more by +another stentorian voice, this time calling for “Mademoiselle +Ügh!” I offered my services again—and retrieved the +passport of the young lady beside me, whose name was +no more Hughes than is my own. Barely had she stowed +it away in that intricate way ladies have of risking their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>valuable possessions when a third voice, paging “Madame +Ügh!” began to punctuate the summer night. I recognized +the man who had despoiled me of my passport before allowing +me to land from the <i>Panama Maru</i>. It was natural +that the same official could not be expected to hand out +more than one of the documents that evening, with so few +to go round. Besides, this man had hardly had three days +in which to recover from the task of receiving me into the +country. It caused me no great surprise to find that the +paper he now flourished about his head belonged to the +elder of the two ladies beside me, though her deceased +husband had borne a name not even remotely suggestive of +the prolific family Hughes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Priceless sources of information must the voluminous +<i><span lang="fr">dossiers</span></i> of visitors to Indo-China be, so carefully compiled +by the division of police inspection charged with drawing +up and “studying” them. It was not until I had time later +to do some studying of my own that I examined my passport, +with its square yard or less of stamping and annotation +by the French authorities, in an effort to solve the +mystery of the name under which we had evidently all +three been registered in the annals of Indo-China. Only +then did I notice that even more prominent, on the face +of the official permissions so generously granted by our +Department of State for American citizens to proceed abroad, +than the name of the holder, was that of one Charles E. +Hughes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Ah, well, what are colonies and “protectorates” and mandated +territory and spheres of influence for if not to provide +posts for more officials? The episode might soon have been +forgotten in the glories of a tropical night, had not so much +surprise been shown by the passport officials and the ship’s +company that Monsieur and Madame Hughes had booked +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>separate cabins. Our passports were again taken away from +us in Pnom Penh, restamped and returned to us there, +stamped and registered once more upon our return to Saïgon, +and my own was manhandled I know not how many more +times in sundry places before my travels in Indo-China were +over; but I neglected to obtain exact figures on the increase +of the Hughes family before finally leaving France’s rich +Far-Eastern possession behind. In contrast to all this, I +was asked to show my passport once during two years of +roving in China, and the asker was quite contented with +a visiting card instead.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was a noisy night about our frail little cabins on the +<i><span lang="fr">Mekong</span></i>, and dawn found us anchored at Mytho, to which +we could easily have taken a train from Saïgon that morning +in time to board the craft before she pushed off again. Because +the Messageries Fluviales have a monopoly on the +rivers of Indo-China against which even the French, of unofficial +standing, protest loudly but in vain, travelers pay +high for the thirty-six-hour journey from the capital of +Cochinchina to that of Cambodia on these rather uncomfortable +little river steamers. But again, why trouble with +colonies and protectorates if they give no monopolies? For +that matter the French steamers between Marseilles and +Shanghai charge more for the passage from Hong Kong +or Singapore to Saïgon than between those two British ports, +where competition reigns.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All day we plowed our way, with frequent stops, up a +wide river through a dead-flat palm-tree and banana country. +Between halts there was little of interest except our +fellow-passengers, and even they were not particularly unique. +Eight travelers lolled in the breeze under the tarpaulin above +the first-class deck, to which our complexions confined those +of us of so-called European race. Besides the young American +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>lady and her chaperoning compatriot, there was an English +couple to whom tropical travel was an ordeal to be +endured only because Angkor is something one must see. +Made miserable by every deviation from the accustomed ways +of their foggy native land, Mr. and Mrs.—shall we say +Piffton-Smith? no matter what, so long as we do not forget +the hyphen and disgrace them by the mere name of Smith—suffered +acutely from everything: the French food, the +French meal-hours, the French language, the delightful climate, +even the friendly little ants in the cabins. What a +pity one cannot find everything just as it is at home when +off on one’s travels in quest of the strange and the different! +Only by constant mention of their youthful daughter, Lady +So-and-so, recently married to the far from youthful governor +of—er—a British crown colony, could Mrs. Piffton-Smith +endure the martyrdom at all. One must not forget +that daughter any more than the hyphen, though for that +matter there was little danger of doing either; trust Mrs. +Piffton-Smith for that. It was evident that no one in the +family had ever been a Lady before.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But let us be charitable; perhaps it is not merely the women +of foot-bound China who have more cause for complaint +than the favored sex. While we mere men had to use our +oven-like little cabin only as dressing-rooms between a day +of loafing and a night of sleeping on the cot-provided deck, +the ladies were cruelly confined during their nightgowned +hours. Three lively young French officers on a furlough +from their regiments, one of whom spoke excellent English, +completed the cabin passenger list. French soon came to +seem the natural tongue, so that the Piffton-Smiths had new +cause for complaint in being left out of the conversation. +Under the back awning behind the orange-box “staterooms” +was a much larger collection of passengers, untroubled with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>cabins, cots, or the fear of creasing their garments. As +the day wore on, the human type there gradually changed. +The throng grew less Chinese as Annamese travelers wandered +ashore at the frequent stopping-places, became more +Hindu, more Aryan, the eyes large and straight, with well +defined eyebrows, mustaches shading the lips of the men, +some with almost Russian beards. Those rare inhabitants +of the banks, half seen through the trees and reeds, also took +on Aryan features, for all their chocolate color.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Daylight found us at Pnom Penh, capital of the French +protectorate of Cambodia. It was a calm, well kept little +city, with hardly any of the hubbub of China and none of +its filth—at least within sight. The air was less deadening +than at Saïgon, less charged with electricity and water-vapor, +though still so hot that there was no joy in doing +anything equal to the joy of doing nothing. Half a dozen +wide streets, much shaded by trees, invited the stroller about +a town in many ways quite up-to-date, pleasant as it was with +tropical languor. Pnom Penh has been called the Little +Bangkok, as Saïgon is the Little Paris. I was at last completely +beyond Chinese civilization, though there were some +Chinese residents, mainly merchants; most of the commerce +of Cambodia is in Celestial hands. White people were not +numerous, but there were plenty of other foreigners—black +and brown French soldiers from other colonies, representatives +of nearly all the lands of the Far East. Yet all other +races stood out merely as individuals among the Cambodians, +so closely related to the Siamese in clothing, language, the +uneven pompadour hair-cuts of the women. With rather +stupid faces from the mouths of which dripped betel-nut +juice, above perhaps the ugliest female costumes in the +world, ending in the inevitable <i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i>, a kind of pants-skirt +<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>drawn up between the legs and tucked in behind, they were +far from attractive. Gentle effeminate-looking men with +long bobbed hair or black tresses wound together in a knot +at the back of the neck meandered about between the shafts +of rickshaws or toiled slowly about the steamer-landing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The first men in the flowing saffron robes of Gautama +whom I had seen in the two decades since my Siamese journey—though +I had seen Buddhist priests and to spare—stood +out against the less gaudily garbed laymen. The +bonzes are the bosses of the country—always of course after +the French. There had been sixty thousand of them in +Cambodia the year before, for the Cambodians are very religious. +But they pay no taxes, and under the French they +are gradually being <i><span lang="fr">supprimés</span></i>, so that now they were reduced +to 42,250, according to official statistics. Still, these +languid beings in bright yellow robes, often set off by red, +rose, purple, and other draperies, with shaven heads and +Hindu skins, were by no means scarce. Groups of them with +their begging-bowls stood before many a shop and house +while the sun was still low, sauntering on to make their silent +plea to others after a handful of rice or a saucer of cooked +fish had been poured into their bowls by the pious inmates.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was something very French about Pnom Penh, for +all its very Oriental aspect. French bread was on sale +everywhere; the “Grand Hôtel, N. Manolis, Propriétaire,” +might, like all the others in Indo-China, have been in Paris—except +for the heat—tourist prices and all. Here again were +the same marble-topped tables, the same zinc <i><span lang="fr">comptoir</span></i> presided +over by a sharp-eyed and caustic-minded matron, the +same flimsy newspapers in awkward holders, the same letter-paper +headed by an advertisement of the Maison Dubonnet. +Fortunately we were sailing again that evening and needed +its monopolistic accommodations only in the way of food +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>and drink. Midday, with its lassitude, its invincible somnolence, +followed so closely upon the déjeuner, however, +that its shelter, and at least the repose offered by its chairs, +with the marble-topped tables serving as props, were essential. +The most ardent sight-seer could hardly have found +pleasure in roaming about Pnom Penh with the unclouded +equatorial sun directly overhead. Dinner in the evening +was to the strains of a native orchestra that might have +done worse, and a veritable stage-lighting effect was produced +by the swirling wings of the big electric fans suspended +from the ceiling amid clouds of insects.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Pressed by his more belligerent neighbors, Norodom, king +of Cambodia, placed his country under the protection of the +French in 1863, and since then the nominal ruler is merely a +play king. The real boss is the <i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i> sent out +from France. It goes without saying that the royal figurehead +is surrounded by all the riches and sumptuous state +which the French and his own doting subjects can supply +him, while the “protector” does all the work. The arrangement +seems to be much like that between the couple who +agreed that one should decide all the small questions and +the other all the large, and so far there have been no small +questions in Cambodian affairs. Old pagodas of the Burmese +rather than the Chinese style stand forth here and there +in the older part of the capital as a reminder of independent +days when a head fell at the motion of the kingly finger. But +most of Pnom Penh dates from the years of the protectorate. +Little more than half a century has passed since Norodom +confided his country to France, and already much that the +French built in the capital has taken on an air of age, under +the perpetually burning sun and the seasonal rains that +drive vegetation to super-vegetable performance. The beautifully +straight streets traced by the French, so out of proportion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>with the population that passes along them, are +green with grass outside the busiest section. In the far outskirts +hover the thatched huts, often on stilts, of the mass +of the population.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The gilded steeples of the throne-room, however, within +the great royal inclosure, infallibly draw the eye that catches +them. This and several others of the palaces are so new +that they were not finished when the World War broke out, +and two of them still had scaffolds about their needle-pointed +spires and along their swift golden roofs. Inside the outer +wall of the inclosure runs a long series of life-sized paintings +from the sacred texts, before which groups of pilgrims bow +down in worship, and squat in contented repose during the +hours of siesta. One of the palaces has a silver floor thirty-six +by a hundred and twenty feet, the solid silver <i><span lang="fr">dalles</span></i> half +an inch thick. A gold Buddha, studded with diamonds, that +is said to be worth sixty million piastres is among the many +precious things, as well as much tinsel, inside the plain +bright-yellow walls of the palaces, to which there are no real +barricades. Cases containing jewels of great price in the +Silver Temple are not locked, but are protected merely by +pasted strips of paper, with the name of the guardian written +on them. The Cambodians still consider their king so +sacred that they never steal his possessions, and alien thieves +seem never to get this far afield. Of the far-famed Footprint +of Buddha within its own special pagoda there is nothing +to say except that it is about six feet long, in solid rock, +studded with jewels, with the toes all exactly of the same +length.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Our day in Pnom Penh was well chosen, for in the afternoon +the king had a dance performed in the wall-less pavilion +of the palace grounds for the pleasure of visiting French +and British officers. It was a far different dance from those +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>which kings of Europe give in honor of visitors. While the +white strangers in town sat as at a tennis tournament beneath +the shade of the pavilion roof in seats provided for +those who do not naturally squat, two girls, the youngest +hardly in her teens, appeared in the center of the floor. +Among his other playthings the octogenarian king chooses +annually two hundred and forty girls from the prettiest of +the upper class, to be trained to dance before him. But +either his eyesight is poor, the choice extremely limited, or +he had deliberately set out to insult these guests foisted upon +him by the French rulers, for even a popular novelist could +not have called this chosen pair beautiful. Flour, or some +white powder closely resembling it, covered their faces in +ghastly thoroughness, faces in which not the suggestion of +an expression seemed to be permitted by the rules of Cambodian +dancing, and flour in which streams of sweat cut +strange arabesques during the ceremony. On their heads +were replicas of the very pointed steeples of the throne-room; +costumes gaudy with gold and many colors, quite +unlike the every-day dress of Cambodian women, somewhat +resembling in fact the garb of a Spanish toreador, covered +them from neck to knees. Two big silver anklets clinked +above each of their bare feet. It was a costume by no means +scanty enough for the climate, and if the truth must be told +at all costs there was a conspicuous call for soap and water +just where their floured faces joined the gaudily garbed +bodies.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Dancing? Yes, perhaps, for want of a word more exactly +descriptive. It really was posturing, more or less to the +rhythm of an orchestra of native players on strange instruments +squatted on the floor at one end of the open pavilion. +There was never a quick movement, not a hint of animation +in the white faces, though there was considerable expression +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>in the lithe arms and posturing bodies; more, no doubt, than +we ignorant Western spectators suspected. But it was impossible +to picture the youths in an American dance-hall even +suspecting, to say nothing of admitting, that this was dancing. +Through it all an old woman tossed from the side-lines, +like a football coach, hints to the perspiring and apparently +stiffly embarrassed performers. Little by little all the rabble +in town sneaked up, noiseless on bare feet, and squatted just +within the shade along one side of the pavilion. Cambodia’s +king, one gathered, was democratic in his attitude. The +only element of the population lacking before the ceremony +ended were the priests in their yellow robes; like their colleagues +of Spain on the day of the bull-fight, they may not +morally mingle with the laymen during such ceremonies.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Old King Sisowath himself was not there, except perhaps +in spirit. His eighty-four years made him chary of excitement. +But before we went off to the later afternoon band +concert in a park at the other side of town we had seen his +crown, his seven parasols in as many different colors for each +day of the week, his two even more gaudy ones for fête days, +his two palanquins for state and ordinary occasions, and all +those other baubles which the tourist so often mistakes for +the rewards of travel. The Cambodian sovereign mounts +his throne only once in his life, even so long a life as +Sisowath’s—at his coronation. On other days he holds audience +sitting on a cushion at the foot of it. Yet barefooted +servants wandered about dusting and fingering everything, +reminding one that even emperors must have charwomen. +Crude, violent colors were much in evidence. When the king +goes forth in state both he and his chair are so covered with +gold and precious stones that the eye quails before him in +this equatorial sunlight. Poor old figurehead! Little did +Norodom dream to what depths his demand for French protection +<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>would so soon sink his successors. Nothing is more +symbolical of the real position of old Sisowath than the +well known story of how his favorite concubine yielded to +the urgings of a young French official on the steamer bringing +his Majesty back from Paris a few years ago, and of +the king’s impotence to punish either of them.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The <i><span lang="fr">Barsac</span></i> was somewhat more comfortable than the +<i><span lang="fr">Mekong</span></i>, though the mother of Lady So-and-so would not +admit it. No doubt this was because it confined itself almost +entirely to carrying visitors to Angkor rather than making +its passengers adjuncts of its freight. A pilot in the head-dress +of a Chinese nurse-maid, a sailor adorned with a West +Indian bandana, short-haired women and all but naked men +paddling about in dugout canoes of very fat belly and narrow +upturned ends, sometimes with a supercilious drone in +a yellow robe among them, mildly enlivened the early hours +next morning. The larger boats were pushed along by one +oar in the hands of a standing boatman, or boat-woman, as +in China, and Venice. Flocks of white birds almost like seagulls +skimmed across the yellowish water; all was pleasant +as long as we kept moving; only the breezeless halts were +painful.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was in fact a beautiful day’s sail up across the Tonlé +Sap, the Great Lake formed by the Mekong in high-water +time, now nearing its close. This mid-January excursion was +indeed probably the last to Angkor for the season, unless +later travelers succeeded in making the journey by automobile +along the new road soon to be completed. In place of +houses on pole legs, twelve or fifteen feet above the ground, +there came floating villages, scores of houses tightly bound +together. Enormous quantities of fish are taken in the receding +waters, and as the lake at its height covers vast areas +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>the population is reduced to this form of earning a livelihood. +The fish heads are boiled for oil, the highly offensive +scent of which now and then reached our nostrils, and the +fish, gutted and salted, are sent to China and Singapore. +Once the sea covered this region, with only an island where +there is now a part of the mainland, so that salt-water fish +are still caught in the lake, and in the flood season freshwater +fish are taken far out in the ocean.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All day we steamed through a veritable Gatun Lake, now +with jungle and an occasional floating village on one side, +now with a hazy range of hills far off on the left, sometimes +with nothing but the yellowish waters as far as the eye could +see. Occasionally there was not even a junk in sight, no +more trace of man than before his appearance among the +terrestrial fauna; at other times the great expanse, broad as +a sea, was flecked with sail-boats with almost diamond-shaped +sails. But the flooded forest was not dead or dying +as at Gatun, for the waters recede in time each year to save +it from extinction.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We were to have reached Angkor toward the noon following +our evening departure from Pnom Penh; but I for one +was glad we spent all the day sailing across the Great Lake, +if only for the sunset. The lake was flat as glass, one side +lost on an ocean-like horizon, the other a low distant endless +line of trees. A delicate lilac spread along all the rim +of the sky; then on the western side the limpid air became +pink, and almost suddenly everything was tinged with this +color: the surface of the lake itself, the entire circle of +horizon, every tiniest fleck of cloud in the sky above. Ahead, +a line of beautiful green showed the endlessness of the +drowned forest; on the west, in contrast, there came a quick +heaping up of masses of dark, chaotic, terrifying, gigantic +things which stood upright and seemed to weigh upon the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>waters, like fantastic blocks of mountains, standing out as +clearly as if their summits were painted along the clear sky, +yet looking as if they were preparing for a formidable crumbling +away, such as one might fancy the end of the world to +be. Gradually, like some mammoth holocaust, the blood-red +sun burned its way down into the clouds massed along the +western horizon, clouds which outdid themselves in strange +shapes, from impossible crags, on which trees seemed to be +falling in rapid succession, to snow-clads farther off; and +then, after it had been gone entirely for a while and one +thought it had disappeared below the edge of the earth, the +sun reappeared, a demon face red with rage peering forth as +from a cave, from which it advanced down to the very water’s +edge, spilling blood far out across the lake. Then red chaos, +and purple, and lilac, and finally soft mauve night.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Not long afterward we got off into sampans with happy +laughing rowers and went away through the inundated forest, +among great trees bathing clear to their upper branches, the +water under their armpits, or only their heads emerging, like +modest women. Higher rose the ever thicker forest close +about us; we found ourselves ascending a narrowing stream; +and at length, soon after the moon appeared, we bumped +against something more or less resembling a pier. It was +the end of an excellent road, raised high on an embankment +for some distance, and we climbed into—ah, well, it is a +small commonplace world at best, this twentieth-century +globe, even in its most distant recesses—into what our English +friends called motor-cars, though they were those more +than familiar things built by an inventive and once eccentric +but now widely known ex-Sunday-school teacher of Detroit, +and were off for a moonlight ride behind a careful chauffeur +who wore no shoes. It was a tepid night, dotted with fireflies, +the musical silence forming an undertone to the droning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>of the cars broken now and again by the soughing of big +water-wheels raising water from the small river that turned +them. In the palm-tree jungle on either side we made out +many little houses on slender legs, the inhabitants of both +sexes lolling or strolling in a single piece each of Scotchy +plaid wrapped about them like a short skirt.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was nearly eleven at night when we reached the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>, +a comfortable spreading bungalow erected by the French for +the accommodation of the fussy modern visitors to Angkor. +Two decades ago Pierre Loti took all day along that road +in a jolting two-wheeled ox-cart, and put up in the stilt-legged +shack of Buddhist monks. But we had arrived at a +lucky moment, as was evident from the sounds of revelry +by night that came to us from beyond the moat just across +the road from the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>. It was a supernaturally broad moat, +looking at least a hundred yards wide in the light of the full +moon that drifted lazily across a great building rising to +pointed towers that bulked forth out of the night far beyond. +An ancient stone causeway across it led to this gigantic structure +of Angkor-Vat, before the partly ruined front doorway +of which a torch-lighted throng was gathered. Visitors who +had come before us, headed by a French novelist and the +queenly wife of the governor of Cochinchina, had sent to +Siem Réap at the edge of the Great Lake for Cambodian +dancers, and with them had come fifty boys bearing torches +and most of the native population of the district.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were a score of girls in the gaudy garments and +the steeple-shaped head-dress of the calling, chewing betel-nut, +and giggling like a bevy of New York typists as they +danced, though the rules call for silence and wholly expressionless +faces. Banked behind a dozen seated Europeans +in white, and forming a compact circle around them and +the dancers, two or three hundred natives of both sexes +<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>squatted or stood, many with naked youngsters between their +knees. Small boys with blazing torches outlined the inner +arc of the circle; the little torch-bearers squatted on the flagstones +formed an enchanted circle of flames tapering upward +to smoke about the dancers. Some of the spectators had +taken places on the steps and the balustrade of the bridge; +other half-naked Cambodians, and Annamese with their +effeminate knots of hair, gave the gathering a ragged fringe. +The ancient temple seemed to have returned to life, the days +of very long ago to live again; it was easy to imagine these +living dancers the descendants of those carved in stone on +the pillars in the background, for all their black teeth and +what looked like blood-dripping mouths.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Annamese spectators were solemn, like men so impressed +with their own importance that they dare not break +their dignity; the Cambodians were simple happy children, +taking the joys of life as they come and giving no more +thought to to-morrow than to stone-dead yesterday. The +croaking of frogs in the broad shallow moat mingled with +that of some loud-voiced species of cricket; birds of the night +passed overhead with a startled cry—or was it applause?—at +the strange scene below, profaning the great doorway of +the dead temple. Beneath the brilliant tropical moon that +all but blotted out the Southern Cross well above the horizon, +the floured faces of the dancers took on, now a ghastly, now +a clownish aspect, as they posed and postured, moving noiselessly +in their bare feet slowly to and fro on the century-worn +stone pavement. Dressed like the Hindu gods they +seemed to be impersonating, they undulated back and forth +on the glass-smooth stones, their supple arms waving as if +they were mere antennæ without rigidity anywhere, in contrast +to their stiffly immovable bodies.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was a story to be read, evidently, in their deliberate +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>pantomiming, a solemn if not a tragic tale, for all the occasional +bursts of embarrassed or prankish giggling, like plantation +darkies at a cotton-field celebration. One gathered that +a demon with several faces wished to carry off Siva, beautiful +lady-love of Rama, and when the two rivals of the ancient +legend faced each other with threatening gestures all the +childish part of the audience began to shriek, as at the meeting +of hero and villain in a Punch-and-Judy show or at the +movies. Indeed the spectacle was insured against flagging +interest by the behavior of the rapt happy throng in the +flickering light before the ancient temple more than by the +dancers it encircled. Young and old seemed to follow the +story easily; to us Westerners without their background of +ancient legends and Oriental symbolism it was merely a +picturesque scene, made doubly fantastic by the circle of +torches and weird with the thump of tom-toms that lasted +deep into the night.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III<br> <span class='c011'>THE JUNGLE-GUARDED RUINS OF ANGKOR</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Soon after sunrise next morning Fords carried us off to +some of the more distant ruins of the ancient city buried +in tropical forest. With the heart of the day unbearable in +the sunshine, it is wise as well as customary to get under +way early at Angkor, and French breakfasts are brief, if +not quite to the point. An excellent road, considering the +place and the climate, set off close along the sides of the +moat, then shot off at a tangent at the second corner. An +abnormally broad moat it still seemed, wide as the Panama +Canal even by sunlight; and it was all but covered with water-cress +and beautiful white and pink lilies, or their tropical +counterparts.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To visit Angkor is no longer a proof of prowess, except +of the Ford-endurance needed to make the circuit of ruins +covering forty kilometers of throttling forest-jungle. Even +as recently as the beginning of the present century visitors +had to scramble through the wilderness about Angkor as +best they could. To-day there is a network of good roads, +French even to their sign-boards, to all the important ruins, +with so few ox-carts or other native traffic on them now +that they are almost as commonplace as our national highways—until +suddenly they burst out again upon some other +mammoth ruin.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Described by a Chinese traveler two hundred years before +America was officially discovered, and many times since, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Angkor is still little known to the world at large, though it +is perhaps the greatest collection of ruins on earth. Neither +Java nor India can show so extensive and so perfectly preserved +an architectural ensemble; Machu Picchu, similarly +lost in dense tropical forest, though high up among the great +ranges of the Andes instead of down at the dead-flat sea-level +of Angkor, is a mere village by comparison. Once +this Khmer city, buried for centuries and long left to desolation, +was one of the splendors of the world. Its monuments +still tell the story of the luxury of its royal and military +life; its carvings give an inventory of its riches, from +jewels to dancing-girls. The least observing must soon +realize that this was once the heart of a magnificent kingdom; +and what an immense city it was—and is. Angkor-Thom +was larger than the Rome of Augustus; the great +temple of Angkor-Vat alone has a space four times as large +as the Place de la Concorde, which is larger than Columbus +Circle.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It seems that about the time of Alexander the Macedonian +a people apparently detached many centuries before from +the great Aryan race migrated from the direction of India +and came to plant itself on the shores of this great river, the +lower Mekong. Others say that when India and Burma were +being conquered by barbarians at about the time of Christ +these Khmer came down from northeast Burma, hillmen +with a virility that has since died out, so that they in their +turn have now long since been conquered, as they subjugated +and mixed with the unspoiled aborigines of this region, “men +with little eyes who worshiped serpents.” On what queer +bases are civilizations built! Just as the old Nile, with its +silt alone, caused a marvelous civilization to grow up in its +narrow valley, here the Mekong, spreading out its waters +year after year, deposited the richness that prepared the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>wealthy empire of the Khmer. The city of Angkor-Thom +(Angkor the Great), capital of this empire, reached the +nadir of its glory between the ninth and twelfth centuries +of our era. The Khmer brought with them the gods of +Brahmanism, the beautiful legends of the Ramayana, which +seem to have come to them through the Hindus at about the +time of Christ, and as their opulence grew in this fertile +delta of the Mekong each king vied with his predecessors +in clearing away the forest and in building everywhere +magnificently decorated palaces, and gigantic temples +chiseled with thousands of figures.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Some centuries later—no one knows exactly when, for +the existence of this once important people is largely effaced +from the memory of man—the powerful sovereigns of +Angkor saw arrive from the West missionaries in bright +yellow robes, bearers of a new light at which the Asiatic world +was just then marveling. The savage temples of Brahma +became Buddhist temples; the statues of their altars changed +their attitudes, lowering their eyes and softening their faces +with gentle smiles. The Khmer empire of the Mekong delta +appears to have started on the downward path during our +thirteenth century. The history of its rapid and mysterious +decline has never been fully written, and the invading forest +guards the secret of most of it. There are evidences of a +connection between it and the history of China; for it was +not long after the Tai or Laos race that we commonly call +the Siamese, masters even of Canton until 1053 <span class='fss'>A.D.</span>, were +driven out of what is now southwestern China by a series +of battles along the West River, that the Khmers were in +their turn dispossessed by this hardier though fleeing people. +Time had moved swiftly with them. At least in the art of +their monuments the Khmer were at their height during the +twelfth century, and by the fourteenth they were so weak, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>perhaps because of the softening influence of tropical living, +that they fled before the Siamese and founded a new capital +to the southward. The little Cambodia of to-day, conserver +of complicated rites the sense of which is almost completely +lost, is the last remnant of this once powerful empire of the +Khmer, which for more than five hundred years has ebbed +away, until it has been all but extinguished under the silence +of trees and mosses.</p> + +<p class='c007'>From the end of the fourteenth century Angkor belonged +to Siam, which changed its name and set over it a king of +its own. Since then the great palaces and temples had been +left to time and tropical vegetation, until little more than half +a century ago the first European discovered, ruin by ruin, +this marvelous city lost in inextricable jungle. This rediscovery +is credited to Henri Mouhot, in 1861; but it was +not until 1910 that the uncovering of the ruins began. Annamese +armies had long invaded Cochinchina, then a part of +Cambodia, and to save herself from complete destruction +the weakened nation became a protectorate of France, barely +a year after Mouhot’s explorations. Angkor still belonged +to Siam; but some wise Frenchman seems to have discovered +that it was formerly a part of Cambodia and insisted on a +return to the ancient <i><span lang="fr">status quo</span></i>; or on applying that doctrine +of “self-determination” on which unimperialistic France is +so strongly set. At any rate Siam was “induced,” by the +treaty of 1907, to “give back” to Cambodia all Battambang +Province, including the Angkor region. Then communication +was opened to the ruins, which had been at the mercy of +the elements for nearly a thousand years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Yet they were not so badly ruined as they might have +been. When the Khmer fled before the Siamese of the fourteenth +century they could hardly have expected that their +architectural marvels would merely be swallowed up by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>voracious forest, but rather that they would be destroyed +root and branch; and probably for generations they thought +this had happened. But even the destroying of such massive +works of stone is hard labor in an equatorial land, and the +Siamese confined themselves to the destruction of the buildings +of a political nature and left untouched the temples and +other religious monuments. Buddhism was less respectful, +for all its gentleness, and caused many of the Brahman glories +to disappear, or replaced them with Buddhist statues and +tawdry trappings.</p> + +<p class='c012'>There are monuments vying in size and artistry with +the best the ancient world has to offer, scattered through all +the forest-jungle over nearly twenty square miles. The +French have done a splendid job in uncovering and restoring +these marvels of the past. We of the land of boasted +efficiency would probably have cleared away and restored +too much, for comfort and convenience’ sake, and spoiled the +effect. In places even the French archæologists have in +their professional zeal driven off the forest too ruthlessly, and +left some ruins in the sad state of nudity of a stone quarry. +But in most cases they have been thoughtful as well as careful. +Great green plumes waved high over our heads as we +sped along by road or strolled by side-trail to mammoth ruin +after ruin. Trees that would be giants beside any of those +of northern climes except our redwoods carried without apparent +effort mighty loads of vines and parasites that would +have stifled the sturdiest elm or oak. All this vegetation gave +one the feeling of being so completely surrounded that he +might never get out of it again; yet it was not such a forest-riotous +wilderness as I had expected, and it was hard to believe +that herds of wild elephants were trampling it down +only a few miles away. Here and there were expanses of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>natural half-clearing; white birds in flocks escorted water-buffaloes +through swamps that might almost have been +passable by Ford.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Yet there was a greater rage for destruction among the +plants than had ever been shown by the Siamese. The Prince +of Death, Siva of the Brahmans, has given to each beast the +special enemy which eats it, to each creature its destroying +microbes; and he seems to have foreseen that puny man +would try to prolong himself a little by constructing durable +things, and imagined a thousand destructive agents to annihilate +his efforts. Huge trees which the French call <i><span lang="fr">fromagers</span></i>—though +I saw no cheese upon them, and our own +name of “silk-cotton tree” seems more justified—their trunks +as if whitewashed, or spotted with leprosy, or, more exactly +still, as if they had been painted in lilac and cream by some +fantastic-minded artist, roam the ruins with their buttress +roots. Queerly grown in and over the great stone piles like +inquisitive serpents, these roots have in some cases wandered +thirty yards away in search of sustenance. Laocoön roots +lifted great stones in their embrace; one had disdainfully +shoved aside a huge pillar and taken on the job of supporting +the mass of masonry itself. The banyan, with its aerial roots, +does not overthrow the ruins; it gathers them, strains them +to its bosom, as it were, so that enormous heaps of rocks that +would otherwise long since have fallen apart still maintain +the form the Khmer gave them. Trickery rather than force +characterizes even the vegetation here in the tropics, though +the trees too have learned to fight when necessary. The more +brutal <i><span lang="fr">fromager</span></i> bursts walls asunder by the slow force of its +growing trunk, squeezes ancient buildings to death like the +boa-constrictor, swallows them in its great maw. Especially +what the French call the “fig-tree of ruins” is irresistible; it +reigns as master to-day at Angkor. In the beginning it was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>only a little seed, sowed by the wind on a frieze or the top +of a tower. But from there its roots, like steel cables, have +insinuated themselves between the stones, descending by a +sure instinct toward the earth; and having at last reached it, +they have grown quickly from its nourishing soil and become +enormous, disrupting, unbalancing everything, opening thick +walls from top to bottom, sometimes completely destroying +the edifice. Among the palaces, above the temples it has so +patiently disintegrated, it spreads its pale smooth branches +with their serpent spottings, and shades the débris with its +superb broad domes of foliage as with great green parasols.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Here and there along the roads and trails magnificent trees +have been mutilated by man, rare and furtive as he is in +these parts. Deep holes are burned in many a trunk in order +to collect in earthenware pots resin for the making of candles, +as the Landais of France gather pitch from their pine-trees. +Now and then the road is straddled by stone gateways above +which smile huge human faces with long tresses of lianas. +But for all the centuries they have had free play, neither the +slow encroachment of the forest and jungle nor the heavy +dissolving rains have been able to wipe out the impression +of Angkor-Thom as a city of splendid architecture, or the +ironic bonhomie, as Pierre Loti calls it, of these mammoth +stone faces, much more disquieting than the grimaces of the +monsters of China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Though they were remarkable architects, the Khmer were +rather poor masons. They knew no more of how to build a +vault than by piling up huge stone after stone in horizontal +layers, each reaching a little farther out toward the center. +Their arches are crude, made of immense stones laid one on +top of another, and instead of a keystone they simply placed +a larger stone on top. Their total work is all the more surprising, +and its duration that much more marvelous, their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>roofs, though they must always have leaked, as they do now, +all the more wonderful because the Khmer so little knew how +to build them. Some have been shored up by the French; +some of them were evidently repillared by the builders themselves. +Yet scores still stand, after nearly a thousand years, +without any such assistance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Most of the stones themselves are not so well fitted as at +Machu Picchu in the Andes; but the decorations on them +outdo anything the ancient civilizations of the Western Hemisphere +have to offer. The greatest art of the Khmer was their +taste in sculpture, the finish of their execution, their treating +of colossal things with the care and delicacy of jewels. +Everywhere are figures, bas-reliefs, carvings without end, so +delicately chiseled that one might think them lace pasted upon +the stone, façades as carefully worked as the most patient +embroideries. The stones all have round holes in them, suggesting +how they may have been carried to the places they +were needed. The reddish, comparatively soft, sandstone or +composite of which much of Angkor-Thom was built is common +in this part of the world. A French geologist asserts +that it is old lava. Yet the task of building such a city even +with that was a task indeed in such a climate.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All that first morning, and the next, we kept coming upon +new masses of striking architecture in the forest. Now and +again the modern road ran beneath towers bearing on each +of their four sides mammoth human faces, always alike and +said to represent Brahma. Many single faces were carved on +eight, ten, a dozen huge stones awkwardly put together. +These Cambodian <i><span lang="fr">préasats</span></i>, as archæologists call them, +whether or not they are adorned with the quadruple face of +Brahma, are as characteristic of Khmer art as the palm-tree +is of the Cambodian landscape. In one place the road was +flanked by a great stone balustrade, a hundred yards long, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>and by the remnants of what was once another, each in the +form of a gigantic cobra with raised head, upheld in the +arms of a score of mammoth stone men. The cobra-head +motif everywhere suggested a former ardent worship of +snakes; human figures with a beak in place of a nose were +almost as common. One great wall was covered with a procession +of life-size elephants; beyond were walls formed +inside and out of thousands of closely set Hindu figures. +Here and there were suggestions of the Maya ruins of Central +America, but this probably proves merely that minds which +have reached a similar development run in similar channels, +rather than that tropical people of a millennium ago crossed +the great ocean.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The tourist-minded Fords rushed us about all the Saturday +and Sunday mornings following our arrival, but left us to +our own devices the rest of the four days. The <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> where +they duly deposited us again after each flight outdid the best +hotels of Indo-China, except that the roosters housed just +behind it might have been spared. But guests of course must +have their eggs and their roast chicken, and no Frenchman +would be so cruel as to deprive even a hen of its mate. Every +living being, European or native, retired immediately after +the eleven o’clock <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> and did not rise again until two +or three in the afternoon. To think of doing anything else +was all but impossible, to say nothing of actually doing it. +Not even the Cambodians, used to this climate at least for +centuries, seemed able to endure those burning hours out of +doors. For all my tropical experience I soon found that the +only way to bear life during that atrocious period was to revert +to the reputed costume of Adam before the unfortunate +apple episode, turn the electric fan squarely upon my recumbent +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>form inside the mosquito-net, and succumb to the +fond hope of perhaps getting a nap.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Those of us who knew nothing of real hardships also +fancied we suffered one other terrible infliction in that otherwise +comfortable bungalow. The French food naturally was +good, with neither wine nor ice lacking, but the principal meal +was made so miserable by swarms of mosquitoes under the +tables that poor Mrs. Piffton-Smith—though of course she +would violently resent the adjective—had to wear even at +dinner the oven-like riding-boots she endured among the ruins +out of an abject fear of “reptiles,” though, except for the +stone cobras, the less imaginative of us never saw so much +as a fleeing serpent’s tail. If there were duly presented newcomers +at table she mitigated her martyrdom somewhat by +frequent references to her daughter Lady So-and-so, wife of +Lord So-and-so, governor of—and so on. But few travelers +came after us; Mrs. P.-S. naturally knew no French, and +obviously she could not speak to strangers without the formal +introduction that was often lacking; and those of us who +had long since learned that extraordinary daughter by heart +were not, I fear, very sympathetic listeners even to new +anecdotes concerning the Lady of the family. Those of the +women who had no such antidote for those mosquito-tortured +hours wrapped napkins, newspapers, anything at all, about +their legs, and burned under the table joss-sticks enough to +supply a Chinese temple, being unjustly denied the male privilege +of relieving their nerves by such remarks as now and +then rose from a man who, driven beyond endurance, tried a +slap or two—and left a splotch of blood on his white trousers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After my first drenched nap I set out to roam through +Angkor-Vat, most striking of all the ruins scattered over +that twenty square miles of tropical forest. Vat, by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>way, is the Cambodian and Siamese word for temple. Just +across the lake-like moat, with its shimmering watery carpet +of lilies and water-cress, on the outer shore of which the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> +sits, the mighty building was heaped into the sky in the +center of the only real clearing in the region. From the big +stone doorway of long ago through which one emerges upon +the great stone bridge and causeway leading to it, the central +mass ahead bore a certain resemblance to the Kremlin; yet +that is small beside it. The enormous stone slabs of the +causeway were worn smooth as polished marble, in places +even hollowed out, by the feet of men and women and elephants +already dead a thousand years. For the few shod +tourists who have followed it during the past decade can +scarcely have made more impression on those cyclopean +blocks than do the bare feet of pilgrims and of the bonzes +in their yellow robes who still patter along it. Strange processions +indeed must have trodden this aged causeway, +flanked by a massive railing of gigantic stone cobras standing +sentinel with raised heads—seven heads each, spread out +like fans, the necks swollen as when the deadly snake is +ready to strike.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Life had become endurable again, yet the afternoon heat +from the stones blazed upon all day by an unclouded equatorial +sun was a succession of physical blows as distinct as +my heavy Western footsteps along the causeway toward the +basilic phantom ahead. Once inside the inner inclosure, +this gigantic edifice dominated everything, a more impressive +sight, in its way, than the Taj Mahal itself, as beautiful, +almost as symmetrical, losing mainly by over-elaboration. +Nowhere in the world perhaps has man piled up so many +stones as in this mountain-temple. Crushing masses of sculptured +rocks, terraces, stone-carved bas-reliefs, stairways leading +swiftly upward into towers that seem to scrape the cloudless +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>heavens, gave me a feeling akin to depression. At first +sight all one’s impressions were jumbled together; disorder +and confusion seemed to emanate from this hill of chiseled +blocks. It is not simple in its lines, like Thebes and Baalbek, +like Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, but has the exuberance, +the dismaying complications of Hindu art, so that it +is not merely by its enormity that it staggers the beholder. +He who tries to see it all at once suffers the fatigue so common +in museums; one must come back often, each time studying +a little of it in detail, and then gradually a perfect symmetry +asserts itself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Two monsters, darkened by centuries and bearded with +lichen, though under the French they are now shaved from +time to time, guard the front entrance to the temple itself, +like dragons stationed before legendary grottoes. The base +of this mighty pyramid of a structure is more than a kilometer +square, and completely about it runs a great gallery that +stretches far to right and to left from the four entrances on +as many sides of the building. Beneath the tropical sky without +a fleck of cloud that never for an instant left us during +those four Angkor days the mountain-temple glowed with a +golden-brown radiance, so that the greenish demi-day that +suddenly replaced the glaring sunshine outside gave one the +impression of entering a subterranean passage, though on the +outside there are merely massive pillars. Those galleries surrounding +the main structure are nearly three quarters of a +mile in length, and for the entire circuit every inch of the +wall is carved with an endless bas-relief giving the whole +history of the Khmer up to the building of Angkor-Vat, the +whole story of the greatest Hindu legend. For the incredible +chiseled painting along the four outer walls of the temple +has for its inspiration one of the noblest and most ancient +epics conceived by the men of Asia, those Aryan ancestors +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>of ours—the Ramayana. The uninterrupted bas-relief unrolls +as long as the legs will carry one, an inextricable series +of battles, warriors gesticulating with fury, combatants by +the thousand, caparisoned elephants, ancient engines of war, +war chariots with wheels strangely up-to-date, interminable +scenes fleeing forever ahead in straight perspective, until +they seem still more infinitely long than they really are.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This wall of endless carvings looks like a single piece for +hundreds of yards. One must look closely to discover the +joints between the enormous stones put together without +cement, yet adjusted with a precision as rigorous as in the +monuments of Egyptian antiquity. I found myself often +comparing with Machu Picchu this gigantic heap of sculptured +stones, and at least in this encircling wall of Angkor-Vat +the stone-fitting was equal to that at which the few +visitors to the long lost city of the Andes have marveled.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are indeed two miles of galleries in the Vat, twenty-six +thousand feet of bas-reliefs chiseled in stone, archæologists +tell us. All these pictures were formerly painted or +gilded, but they have been at the mercy of the elements for +nearly a thousand years, and have lost all the brilliancy of +the original colors. Sweating with the eternal humidity of +the tropics, the panoramas have taken on a sad blackish tint, +with, in places, the gleam of wet things. Then, too, up as +high as the puny mankind of to-day can reach, the bas-reliefs—five +meters high on those outer walls—are worn +glass-smooth by the rubbing of secular fingers. In times of +pilgrimage the whole multitude makes it a duty to touch +every figure it can possibly reach. Here and there, in the +parts lighted by the beautiful little windows with thick +carved-stone bars that are among the chief glories of Angkor-Vat +one may still see tracings of the original coloring, on +garments or faces; and sometimes, in the tiaras of queens +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>or goddesses, a little gold spared by the weather continues +to gleam after all these centuries.</p> + +<p class='c012'>In the middle of the face of each quadrilateral a portico +opens in this great gallery and gives access to a central court +in which the temple itself, properly speaking, rises, a prodigious +heap of sculptured sandstone climbing into the blue +sky. The grandiose spreading out of the courts of the second +story and the formidable upward surge of the central mass +all but take the breath away. Such a complication of lines, +what a beauty for all the heaviness in the silent ensemble! +The infinity of decorations is incredible; the Khmer certainly +did not pay their workmen the union wages of to-day; for +one thing there would not have been so much care and +artistry in the work. The building seems to have been done +by Cham and Tai prisoners of war and by regular levies of +the Khmer populace itself—much as black Christophe built +his citadel in Haiti. Evidently we must have some species of +slavery to produce monuments of this kind; “free” workmen +cannot furnish the constant enthusiasm and infinite care in +details that they require. But in a way those tropical toilers +so long since returned to dust had things better than our +trade-union bricklayers of to-day, impossible as that may +seem. For the story goes that there was one architect for +every five hundred builders, and each of the builders had a +hundred coolies to keep him supplied with stone! Then +artists came to cover every available surface, with the care +of painters working on canvas. For the Khmer were of the +Hindu point of view, abhorring simplicity and uncovered +surfaces.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are no obscenities among the myriad carvings of +Angkor-Vat, even from our Puritan point of view, though +somehow one expects them. But the Khmer kings evidently +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>liked their musical comedies, or at least their ballets, even +as does the tired business man of to-day. For there are +Apsarases carved everywhere, in infinitely repeated groups, +chiseled on every side of every stone pillar, not merely here +at Angkor-Vat but throughout most of the ruins of Angkor-Thom, +forever dancing before their long departed masters. +These perpetually virgin though constantly violated nymphs +of the Hindu paradise, everywhere sculptured in stone, under +the porticos, in the verandas, in the clear-obscure of the galleries, +beneath the hard sunshine that falls through crumbling +vaults, make the dead walls live. Everywhere they +dance, among the falling lianas, on the bases of temple altars, +their arms supple, their busts stiff and upright, as millenniums +ago on the shores of the Ganges for the amusement of +Indra, as at Pnom Penh their living descendants dance before +the octogenarian king on the silver pavement of his palace-temple. +The artists of ancient times chiseled and polished as +lovingly as any modern sensuous denizen of the Latin Quarter +these dancing virgins—who can say what has become of +the beautiful women from whom these perfect torsos were +copied?—and all these figures in bracelets and rich adornments +rather than clothing have been so often caressed in +the course of the bygone centuries that their beautiful bare +throats shine like polished marble. It is the women especially +who, during their pilgrimages, touch them passionately, +begging from them the gift of becoming mothers. Unfortunately, +like those on the bas-reliefs of Egypt, the feet of +these lovely creatures are badly done, being always drawn +in profile even when the dancer is facing forward, so that +what might seem art to the followers of the reputedly funniest +of our “movie artists” merely testifies that the myriad +beautiful stone goddesses of Angkor were the work of a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>primitive humanity, still struggling with the difficulties of +design.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I raised my eyes to the mass above me, and almost without +volition my neck craned to its utmost that I might gaze +upon the four giant towers, topped by a central one still +larger, in which the temple rises. Nothing lives up there—except +flocks of bats—and the stairways of startling height +fall under the ardent sun like a cascade of sandstone. The +Khmer were no more expert at making stairways than with +roofs and arches and the feet of their dancing-girls, and +Angkor-Vat has the steepest stairs in the world—even we +who so love superlatives will not deny them this. Stairs +that are all but sheer walls lead to the lofty heights of this +mountain of a temple, stairs so steep that the knee-caps strike +on the step above, and so narrow that the foot can only be +set down sidewise; and even then there is many a slip, especially +in descending. The bygone architects should have +been more thoughtful toward dizzy tourists; the Piffton-Smiths +never got above the ground floor at all—which was +like coming to Rome and going home again without seeing +the Colosseum. Even the surest-headed of us clung to the +hand-polished old walls in descending, losing our footing +often on the worn and sometimes wet steps.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One must climb these cascades of stone, too, between +recumbent lions, beasts suggesting Assyrian sacred bulls in +stone, cobras spreading out their seven heads like a fan +above their angrily swollen necks, as well as between smiling +Apsarases, perpetually dancing for their long dead masters. +A hard climb, even for me, whose strength lies mainly in +legs, and I found myself on the first of three platforms, +with a second story, of a height double that of the first, defying +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>me with still more abrupt stairs, still more closely guarded +by smiles and grimaces in stone. Then when I certainly had +the right to think that at last I had arrived, there suddenly +sprang up before me the third story, of a height double that +of the second! It was like climbing the Andes, like fronting +life and discovering to one’s astonishment that what at first +looked like a struggle, perhaps an insurmountable obstacle, is +only the easy preliminary to ever harder and higher tasks +beyond. This progressive doubling of the heights, from +one story to another, was a clever architectural discovery, +enlarging the temple by an illusion from which one cannot +escape. The Khmer were clever architects, as I have said +before; and the memorable stairway that leads to the topmost +platform, with its narrow worn steps on which grass grows +even while the French are striving to keep this most magnificent +of the monuments of Angkor clear of it, while pilgrims +and tourists are constantly going up and down them, for their +respective motives, is steep enough to give any one vertigo; +even the sailor we know as Pierre Loti found it so. “One +would say that the temple grows larger, prolongs itself indefinitely, +straining itself toward the heavens, so that climbing +Angkor-Vat is like those fatiguing nightmares in which +one strives toward a goal that forever flees on ahead. The +gods no doubt wish to make themselves more inaccessible the +more one tries to approach them.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are four of these stairways, watched over by the +enigmatically smiling Apsarases, one on each side of the +temple. As I mounted, the forest seemed to mount with me, +spreading out on all sides to the horizon, unbroken as the +sea clear to the circle of that horizon. The topmost platform +must be at least a hundred feet above the plain, yet the great +monument seems submerged, drowned in the midst of its +verdure. It is the greatest extent of forest I have ever seen, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>except perhaps from the eastern slope of the Andes, where +South America falls away into the enormous Amazon basin +that stretches to the Atlantic. Formerly, in place of this +silent sea of vegetation below, stretched the city of Angkor-Thom, +perhaps no more forested then than Peking or a New +England city to-day. If one could only push aside the roof +of interlacing branches one could still see beneath them the +walls, terraces, temples, the long paved avenues flanked by +divinities in stone, balustrades, gigantic serpents with raised +heads, Brahma-faced towers, all now swallowed up in the +jungle. But the forest has become again what it was for +incalculable centuries before the beginning of man, so that +nothing visible remains of the work of those Hindu-like +adventurers who many hundred years ago came here to tempt +fate and clear the space of a city of nearly a million inhabitants. +It endured only a millennium and a half, that episode +of the empire of the Khmer; in other words a very negligible +period compared with the longevity of the vegetable kingdom. +The scars are reclosed, nothing now appears for all +their labors, and the “fig-tree of ruins” spreads everywhere +its parasol of green leaves. It is true that in our day other +adventurers, from far off to the West, have founded near +here the semblance of another empire; but it is small and +puny compared to that of the Khmer, not likely to rival it in +duration any more than it has in lasting monuments. When +these pale-faced conquerers shall have gone their way also, +they will merely have cleaned up a little the works of a +greater race, and will be remembered only as the charwomen +may be in the ruins of our sky-scrapers of to-day, by a +charred broom or a broken dust-pan left here and there +among the débris.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All afternoon I climbed and loafed about that mighty pile +of masonry. In the immense clearing within which the giant +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>temple sits enthroned, defended by moats and walls, one +had the impression of perfect security, quite unlike the feeling +among the other ruins, for all the nearness and immensity +of the great forest that hangs its black curtain all about it. +Tigers do not cross the great stone bridge, even though the +doors are never closed. The Vat was never finished. When, +at the end of our thirteenth century, the Khmer empire fell, +for no good reason that has ever been discovered, it was +still in process of construction. As this great work of theirs +surpasses any of our own, at least when we consider the +tools they had, it is little short of presumptuous to suppose +that we will endure longer than did that doughty empire of +the tropical forests.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The Chinese scholar who visited this mysterious empire on +the eve of its decline and left the only known documents +on its splendor tells us that the fifth tower of Angkor-Vat, +rising above all the rest and most imposing and complicated +of all, seeming to give the temple a mountain summit when +seen from afar off, but dwarfed by the very size of the +edifice when one is close beneath it, was crowned with a +golden lotus so large that one could see its sacred flowers +gleam in the air from all parts of the city that is to-day +buried in the jungle. Leaning over from the upper platform +at the base of this tower one looks down upon an entrancing +scene below, most of it a hundred feet below. From up +there one sees that what with the tropical sun and rain and +long abandonment each of the superimposed layers of the +temple has become a sort of suspended garden in which +the immense leaves of the banana mingle with white tufts +of the fragrant jasmine. The comfortable French bungalow +across the moat is no larger than a dove-cote. Scattered +about the temple clearing are slender palm-trees up which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>men climb by single bamboo poles tied with vines to the +trunk, carrying over their shoulders bamboo buckets that +they exchange for others hanging from cut fronds until they +are filled with a sap from which is made a brown sugar. +Even the almost naked men among the giant leaves of these +trees that looked so high from below were far beneath me +here. In the forest that surrounds the temple hundreds of +parrakeets shrieked; one might think they had come from +the four corners of the forest to enliven the solitude of the +little stone dancers, who in their turn give the ruins life, +and they never leave off chattering until night settles down +upon them, as no doubt the dancers themselves chattered +when the forest was a park and the ruins a palace.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Under the trees at the edges of the clearing are the shacks +of monks where Admiral Viaud, alias Pierre Loti, slept, almost +twenty-five years ago now, when he came to Angkor +in his two-wheeled cart and went away on an elephant. The +frail little houses, to which tiny stairs that are barely ladders +lead, are made of wood and mats; some have little festooned +windows from which shaven skulls peer now and then, and +they stand on poles, well above the ground. All the inhabitants +are dressed alike, in bright yellow robes set off by a +drapery of orange and other colors that stand out against +the old walls, gray with age, sometimes reddish, especially +near sunset, as it was now, startling flashes of color against +the dense curtain of greenery beneath the clear sky. Too +accustomed to Europeans to be curious toward them, they +seem to take us as unavoidable nuisances, and when they +sing in a low voice and monotonous rhythm they gaze at us +without interrupting their tranquil litany. Now some of +them are walking abroad, languidly and without haste, their +hairless heads shining beneath the low sun. Theirs are curious +villages, where there are no women, no animals except +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>mongrel curs, no tillers of the soil, nothing but these +monotonous singers, yellow of face and dressed in two +brighter tones of the same color. For furniture their simple +dwellings have nothing but an old Buddhist altar, with gods +in faded gold, before which little heaps of ashes testify to +the constant burning of joss-sticks to their tawdry divinities. +About two hundred of these bonzes of Cambodia and Siam +guard the sacred ruins, and nearly that number live here +perpetually, psalming day and night about this pile of titanic +blocks of stone heaped up by their more hardy ancestors, or +by those whom their more hardy ancestors defeated and +drove away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sunset, quickly followed by a bright full moon, came, and +the lighting of the immense stage-setting about me diminished +until the forest, already full of shadows under an ashen +sky, in which a yellow phosphorescence mingled with an ever +darker green, died down to a great spread of vacancy without +details or distinctness. In the last light of the day, leaning +over the edge of the uppermost platform, I had seen a procession +of multicolored women drawing away along the great +causeway across the moat, a saffron-clad priest with a rolled +parasol across his back leading them. Cruder Buddhas have +here and there replaced broken or fallen Brahman figures +in the great temple, especially within the base of the central +tower in the lofty third story. They are ugly things of +mud and wood compared with the ancient Khmer deities, +and to look upon them gives one the feeling one sometimes +has toward the crude missionaries from our own land who +are trying to replace the more fitting as well as older beliefs +of the East with their own. A quantity of Buddhist idols +of all sizes sit on thrones in this upper story, smiling at +nothing, and pilgrims go about, bowing down before statue +after statue, indifferent, and no doubt unaware, whether they +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>are praying to Vishnu or to Buddha. Sometimes pilgrims +from far-off Burma come in the silence of the night to lay +a flower or burn a joss-stick before each of these figures, +with a musty smell now, that are crumbling away into the +dust from which they, like the rest of us, came. A word +from the leader, which one can guess to be some such warning +as, “Let us hurry or the hour of the tiger will overtake +us,” and they make their devotions more hastily, cut even +shorter their reverences, and soon their barefoot tread is +lost in the drone of a Buddhist service below as they descend +the steep stone stairways.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Whatever else one may see at Angkor, one always comes +back to the great temple, and that not merely because it is +so near the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>. I found myself almost unconsciously wandering +there in the moonlight every evening after dinner. +For one thing it gave a respite from the prattle of tourists, +very few of whom ventured into the structure after dark. +On the first day I had met two childlike monks in their +yellow robes going along the gallery with a broom and a +scoop of woven bamboo strips. They were picking up the +wherewithal to fertilize some little monastic garden, no doubt +for the growing of flowers, since the pious laymen furnish +them their food, and the tilling of the soil for useful purposes +is not one of the duties of their calling. There is no +lack of fertilizer to be had in Angkor-Vat. The pavements +that are not open to the sun are everywhere carpeted with +the droppings of bats, so thick in many places that one seems +to be walking on felt. An almost intolerable odor permeates +all the interior, and the squeaking of what the French so +fittingly call “bald mice” up under the sharp vaults of the +crude massive roofs is always in the ears even of the visitor +by day. Then, if one’s eyes are sharp, they may make out +myriads of the repulsive creatures hanging head down by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>their claws to the rough stone ceiling, looking during these +their sleeping hours like sacks of dark velvet.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By night, clouds, avalanches of these flying rats, aggressive +and tireless, greet the intruder. As my steps resounded +in the obscure corridors, along which I advanced feeling +my way foot by foot, for all the brilliant moonlight outside, +sharp little cries multiplied to a concert, as of thousands of +angry rats above my head. The horrible odor seemed to increase +as one after another of the sleeping creatures unfolded +its hairless membranes and joined in the general movement. +It is always half-night up there under the vaults and roofs, +and perhaps they do not sleep too soundly, or know the +hour exactly, even by day; with the night the least intrusion +turns chamber after chamber into swirls of the squeaking +creatures. They descended to touch my hair; the wind of +their wings was like the breeze of electric fans running riot in +the darkness, cold in the tepid night as the breath of death. +They swirled about me in swarms on their silent wings, +uttering their angry little cries, as if banding together to +repel an invader. One might have fancied them the unappeased +spirits of the Khmer gods of long ago, or the +unsaved souls of those who built the mountain-temple, resenting +the profaning of the sacred edifice in the solemn +hours of the night by the crude, heavily shod being of the +modern world. If I stood perfectly still for some time, the +chorus decreased, died down, disappeared, as if they had all +gone back to sleep again. But with the first step forward +they detached themselves once more, one after another, and +soon the same noisome gyrations of unseen squeaking things +was all about me again. My flesh crept at the damp contact +of their wings, at the very thought of their touching me, and +for once I was almost afraid of the dark, a feeling I had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>not known since early childhood. I kept myself with difficulty +from fleeing headlong out into the moonlight.</p> + +<p class='c007'>No longer paled by the excess of sun, the bas-relief of the +gallery, the figures on the terraces, the dancing Apsarases +everywhere took on a nebulous clarity that in a way made +them all the more beautiful. The moon shone in silver +streams through the carved stone bars of the narrow windows; +out in the courtyards the massive block of Angkor-Vat +with its five towers seemed more gigantic than ever, too +enormous to be merely the work of pygmy mankind. The +more than steep stairways had about them something so +uncanny that it took more exertion of the will than of the +thighs to climb them; I had the feeling of entering a mammoth +burial-vault from which there would never again be +any escape. As if fearful of having to accuse myself of +cowardice I climbed the first story, doubly high to the second, +forced myself up to the third. A light like a fallen star +twinkled at the top of the highest stairway, at the door of +the sanctuary beneath the central tower. It was the votive-lamp +of the Chettys, the Hindu money-lenders of Cholon +and Saïgon, who offer this eternal flame to the abandoned +gods. Then suddenly the squeak of swirling bats became +more than my nerves could bear, and I retreated, slowly only +because of the indignity of frankly running away, and the +likelihood of tobogganing down those long cascades of narrow +slippery steps at a false movement made in haste.</p> + +<p class='c012'>On Monday I set off on foot to Bayon at the crack of +dawn, knowing how painful walking becomes soon after +the sun rises above the tree-tops. The Elephant Terrace +and Bayon, with some of the striking old ruins in their +vicinity, about which I spent the morning, I had already +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>hastily seen as we were Fording bungalow-ward on the first +morning in order not to delay Mrs. Piffton-Smith’s luncheon +and nap. Now, alone and at leisure, I found them second +only to Angkor-Vat. Bayon, impressive as a cathedral, is +the oldest sanctuary of Angkor-Thom, two centuries older +than the great temple in which the genius of the Khmer +terminated. In its day it had half a hundred towers, each +and every one of them bearing on all its four sides the face +of Brahma, the highest rising nearly fifty meters above the +plain. Now many have fallen, been destroyed, or been removed +by the French to save the others; and still there are +so many of them that one feels the futility of trying to get +out of sight of their myriad-faced god. Those enigmatical +faces of Brahma, or Siva, some of them two men in height, +crowned by diadems in stone, gaze so multitudinously down +from even what remains of the pyramidal mass that one has +a feeling of self-consciousness as when one is the focus of +the eyes of a living multitude. Those visages with the +enigmatical smile, the half-closed eyelids, the great flat noses, +all with the selfsame expression of ironic pity, are not merely +on every face of every tower; they gaze even from worn +stones, no larger than a fist, picked up in the underbrush.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Toward the end of the ninth century, four hundred years +before the decline of the Khmer, Bayon, ruder and even +more enormous than Angkor-Vat, was in its glory. The +fifty towers of different sizes formed several stories, and +the topmost could be seen from any part of the now abandoned +city. To-day most of it has to be reconstructed by +the imagination, including the vast cleared space that made +it possible to see the crushing stature of the ensemble. In +fancy one can rebuild the successive terraces, the great stairways, +the sumptuous avenues which led to it, bordered by +so many columns, balustrades, divinities, rampant-headed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>cobras, and monsters, now crumbled away in the grass. But +even the faces of Brahma that remain gazing to the four +cardinal points of the compass seem to affirm, to force upon +the beholder, the omnipresence of the god of Angkor.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A shower-bath, lunch, and a nap, and I was off again, +for a three-hour elephant ride. There are two of these great +beasts attached to the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>, but like the goat-cart at the zoo +they are now rather curiosities than useful means of transportation. +Akin to all holders of sinecures, they stood before +the door lazily swinging their trunks and watching with cunning +little eyes the Fords that have taken nearly all their +work away from them. The American ladies mounted one +of them, Mr. Piffton-Smith and I the other. The mother +of Lady So-and-so would not risk her precious life in such +an adventure, and how her husband persuaded her to let him +undergo this terrifying experience is a domestic secret to +which I have no key.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I shall forevermore think of the elephant as a synonym +for caution, for slowness and docility too, for that matter. +The <i><span lang="fr">cornacs</span></i>, as the French call what we know as mahouts, +drove these pacific monsters more easily than we do a horse, +nay, as easily as one can drive an automobile, except that +nothing would induce them to move faster than two miles +an hour. Like domesticated man, there was nothing whatever +wild about them, and with every step up the only hillock +in all the region the prudent beasts felt every stone before +trusting their weight to it, until they seemed to personify the +precautious mother of a Lady whom we had left behind. +Little by little we dominated the immense sea of absolutely +flat forest. Here where once there were innumerable palaces +gleaming in the sunshine, little more was visible above the +endless spread of vegetation than the block of Bayon and +the five towers of Angkor-Vat. The view across the vast +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>forest-jungle left even that great temple like a needle lost in +a haystack, so tiny was it in its immense setting in the midst +of what looked like an endless and a trackless wilderness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>So terrifying was this experience of rising a hundred feet +or two above sea-level on these cautious monsters that poor +Mr. P.-S. had to be helped down at the summit like an infant, +and only the impossibility of covering on foot the mile or +two back to the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> induced him to mount again. Cambodian +workmen, under orders of the French, still toil in several of +the ruins, and here they laughed and shouted as they threw +blocks of stone down the slope with insulting words. Then +we went slowly, more than slowly, back, and across the mammoth +bridge over the moat for a circuit of Angkor-Vat. It +was as if, knowing they could not compete in speed with the +Fords that have replaced their fellows, the beasts had no +intention of trying; or it may be that there is an elephant +union. That would even better account for their skill in +wasting time at every movement, at every moment, making +their journey the shortest possible within the three hours +allotted us. The foundation of Angkor-Vat and the bridge +leading to it are raised two or three meters above the +ground, to facilitate mounting and dismounting from the +elephants that were once the only beasts of burden in this +region. But there was no time to dismount and mount +now; the hour of the tiger would indeed have come before +the lethargic animals took up their funereal march again. As +we crept slowly round the temple, the elephants tore large +branches from some of the tropical trees high above our +heads, and munched them as languidly as a plumber eating his +lunch on some one else’s time. Men in breech-clouts were +still walking up the frail palm-trees with bamboo buckets in +which to gather their sugary sap; the bonzes were chanting +their monotonous litanies from their stilt-legged huts; and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>then the sun disappeared swiftly in the sea of jungle and +gave us that brief fleeting twilight of the tropics.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On Tuesday morning I mounted a tiny horse and rode +away alone through the woods, the delightful freshness of +an early tropical morning all about me. A light two-wheeled +cart was also to be had, but I preferred the miniature sample +of the equine world—until the blazing of the sun began in +earnest. Though there are on the whole few feathered creatures +in the forest that has swallowed up Angkor-Thom, as +if even they were afraid of the denseness of the jungle, the +singing of birds and insects made a mild ceaseless music. +Sometimes it sounded as if a bird was whispering a cordial +invitation to me from the bush—or was it merely whistling +to keep up its courage? There was such a wall of verdure +on either side that, like will-o’-the-wisps, they were never +really visible. Monkeys dashed from branch to branch, +scores of monkeys, though not one had we seen during the +official trips by Ford. Evidently they keep out of the way +of tourists, perhaps because they cannot endure their inane +chatter. But now they played by the dozen about the ruins, +as freely as if they recognized in me a close relative, and +indulged in a pantomime, worthy of any stage, that was +plainly an imitation of the workmen among the remains of +Angkor-Thom. A Cambodian legend assures us that monkeys +formerly talked like men, until the men made slaves of them +and forced them to work. The monkeys did not like this, +and as they are timid but intelligent they simply ceased to +talk like us and pretended not to understand, so that from +that time forth they have lived in peace, gathering nothing +except for their dinners, and gamboling among the trees to +their hearts’ content. The thin Cambodian coolies who toil +for the French about the ruins have not been so clever.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV<br> <span class='c011'>THE CAMBODIANS AT HOME</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>The efficient French manager of the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> at Angkor, +and those few of my fellow-guests who saw me set out +on foot for Siem Réap that Sunday afternoon, gave me +credit for being at least half mad. I have often suspected +as much myself. The native town was nearly five miles +away along that almost excellent French road by which we +had come from the edge of the flooded forest on the evening +of our arrival, and obviously it would be at least as great +a distance back to the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> again. But it was a delightful +walk, even while the sun was pouring its rays like a molten +flood of gold down into the roadway, and with every step +forward its aim became less exact, so that the infinitesimal +streak of shade along one dense forest wall gradually grew +to be worth attention.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were road-signs as in France, now and then an ox-cart +with two wheels drawn by as many oxen. On the whole, +though, the road was deserted, and for a long distance there +was nothing but the Chinese wall of unbroken forest close +on either side, with frequent visions of lianas in blossom, +and in the streak of sky above, occasional flashes of strange +tropical birds. Then there came scattered villages, water-buffaloes +at pasture, more bourgeois birds sitting serenely on +the spines of the beasts as on a telegraph-wire, naked children +who live in the water, their gleaming skins mirroring +the sun like the scales of a fish. At length, some little distance +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>from the ruins of the ancient city, there began an almost +endless succession of thatched huts back among the trees, +stilted villages, so to speak, for every one of them was raised +head-high above the ground on more or less haphazard posts +that had once been the trunks of small trees. None of these +simple homes had a clearing about it. The inhabitants had +wisely cut away only enough of the underbrush to give themselves +room to move and to plant a little, and they lived completely +in the shade of the great forest about and high above +them. Steps were cut in the earth bank of the little river that +more or less followed the road, down to the water’s edge and +what seemed to be fish-traps. There were also some simple +but ingenious nets, and strangely shaped boats, the smaller +ones paddled, the larger poled. A quiet Sunday-afternoon +languor that was probably perpetual rather than only weekly +hung over everything. The leisurely splashing of water called +attention every little way to a large wheel, made of now age-blackened +bamboo, that forced the river to lift itself by the +scoopful into the little gardens beyond the houses. The +slow regular thump of a wooden pestle worked by foot-power +betrayed here and there woods-dwellers caught in the act of +having to hull rice for their evening meal, in the hollowed +upright section of log that serves them as mortar. Otherwise, +there was only the forest and its natural noises.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Siem Réap, of which I had once before had a fleeting +moonlight glimpse, was almost a city, in the Cambodian sense. +For the Cambodians are not a townspeople, but prefer the +woods, which, with a bit of tilled soil, gives them all they +need. The place was entirely Siamese, its little houses all +perched on piles and its temple decorated with golden horns; +and even these were tucked back into the forest that crowded +the wider place in the road closely on either side. Evidently +the inhabitants sleep on the openwork bamboo-splint floor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>of their porches, as some of them were already, or still, +doing now, with the sun barely touching the tree-tops. It +was not always easy to tell the sexes apart at a glance, for +girls and younger women cut their hair in the ugly Siamese +pompadour fashion, slightly longer than that of the men. +Grandmothers, old men, and priests dispensed with theirs +entirely, having more or less recently shaven skulls. Both +sexes wore like a short skirt a mere piece of cloth wrapped +about the hips and thighs, a costume so simple that most +Cambodian girls never learn to sew. Some of the younger +women, especially if they were far from the family clearing, +had a cloth thrown carelessly over their breasts; but about +the house and in its immediate vicinity they had nothing +above the waist to hamper them from working, or from +suckling one of their interminable infants, carried on the +hip, Hindu fashion. There seemed to be much bathing and +washing of clothes, such as they were, reminding one of +Ceylon. Bougainvillea hung in purple masses about the +wooden house of the French <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> and some of the other +better buildings. Police in half or full khaki uniforms, +topped by a kind of tam-o’-shanter, seemed out of place in +this languid Eden.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The Cambodians are a slow and quiet race compared with +the Chinese, even with the Annamese, so gentle that even the +shoulder-poles of their oxen are seldom weighted down with +heavy loads. The Tai, as the race to which they belong is +better known, are about equal in civilization, under equal +circumstances, to the Chinese, according to those who know +them well, except that the Tai are superior in personal +cleanliness and the lack of monkey-like curiosity, and the +Chinese in foresight and industry. Here there was none of +the crowding of staring or chattering throngs about the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>foreigner, so common an experience in China. The Cambodians +seemed to have a greater sense of personal dignity. +As a people they appeared a little surly toward the French, +therefore toward white men in general, though this may only +have been bashfulness. Physically the individual type is more +sturdy, and observers agree that they are much more reserved +in their personal habits, than the surrounding peoples. +In situations where the Annamese squirms and howls the +Cambodian shows neither fear nor excitement. Simple timid +souls, however, manly and infantile at the same time, they +are too naïve to be any match for the world of to-day. +Though they are physically stronger, laborious in their +leisurely way, intelligent, and not easily swayed from their +purposes or beliefs, they will let a puny Annamese chastise +them without any attempt at retaliation, because they are +afraid of the tricks this more sophisticated fellow might +play upon them if they dared to resist. For though the +Annamese really look down upon, even hate, the French, +they are regarded by the other races comprising Indo-China +as the special pets of the foreign rulers. Being nearer in +their own sophistication to the modern wisdom, or trickery, +of the Westerner, they know much better how to turn the +presence of the French to their own good than do these +isolated woodsmen of Cambodia, a prey to all sorts of rascalities. +The spirit of tolerance, renunciation, non-resistance, of +this timid forest-dweller who ornaments his body with symbolic +tattooings is so great as to make what in the Chinese +seems to be that quality appear none at all.</p> + +<p class='c007'>So while Cambodia is rich, the Cambodian is poor. +“Wealthy as Cambodia” was for centuries a byword among +the Chinese. The yearly flooding of the Mekong, the Nile +of Indo-China, annually brings down a new covering of rich +soil for all the delta. Yet even the hasty traveler notes the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>far greater prosperity of less fertile Cochinchina. There is +only thatch in Cambodia; in Cochinchina, inhabited by all +the races of Indo-China, including the Cambodians, there +are tiled wooden houses, always a sign of prosperity, for the +fear of fires causes any race to get beyond the thatch stage +as soon as possible. Not merely the Chinese, with their +special privileges, but the Annamese, so easily outdone by +the Celestials in commerce, become in their turn the harsh +commercial exploiters of their simpler neighbors, not only +the Cambodians but the Moï, the Muong, and the Laosians. +Even the recently arranged export of Cambodian cattle to +Manila has proved of no real help to the people themselves, +for they are often cheated out of their working cattle by the +tricky Chinese or Annamese traders.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Cambodian is exclusively an agriculturist. Even +though he makes his own tools, carts, and houses, that is +merely an adaptation to his isolated life. In whatever he +does he works with the spirit of the genuine artist, which +means that he gives too little attention to getting all possible +material benefit from his labor. Thus during the past several +centuries this little people—they are barely a million +and a half—has been terrorized, vanquished, despoiled, +forced to fly, in the dry season, before the Siamese, at the +mercy, in the wet, of the Annamese flotillas. The first were +looking for slaves, and deported people en masse to cultivate +their lands of the Menam; the second came killing the +people off and driving them out in order to take their lands +for themselves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To come through the forests and see so low a type of +humanity, at least in so far as ambition and the ability to +build lasting things go, and then suddenly see the towers of +Angkor-Vat, through the half-cleared vista of the old cart +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>road, is to refuse to believe that the ancestors of these built +that. It shakes one’s belief in the equality of man; for +surely without masters of higher type than these hut-dwellers +of to-day this people could never have produced such things. +But no, one reflects, peoples, like individuals, have their day, +their prime, their productive years. They develop for centuries, +then at a certain level accomplish rapidly for a time, +then sink into old age. All our own real progress has been +during the past few hundred years; we may soon cease to +be productive, perhaps not even remain static, like the +Chinese, but drift back down-stream, like these simple gentle +Cambodians. Possibly some of their once great creative +ability might be revived; more likely not. Besides, it is +better to let others have the next chance, just as we each +give way in turn to the rising generation, than to try to +resuscitate what is past, as we sometimes try with the individual. +For it is impossible to backwater in life.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Though they have lived more or less intermingled for +centuries, there has been little racial intermixture of the +Cambodians and the Annamese. They are too nearly like +oil and water, the real dividing-line between the Chinese +and the Hindu world which makes the name “Indo-China” so +fitting. It is only recently that Cambodian girls have not +been forbidden to marry foreigners, and there are far fewer +<i><span lang="fr">mariages à terme</span></i> with the French, and the resultant +half-castes, than in Annam. Yet it is said that the Cambodian, +interbred with some other race having more aggression +in its fiber, makes an excellent human specimen. +There is little repulsion between the Tonkinese and the Cambodians, +for those two groups are historically little acquainted. +But the two discordant races are so different +<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>that to train a French official in Annam, or even in Cochinchina, +and then send him to Cambodia, is almost as bad +as to send one from Algeria to Madagascar.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Whereas the Annamese language is a singsong of many +tones, like the Chinese, and they use, or did at least until the +French came, Chinese characters for their writing—so that +Japanese and Annamese, Korean and Chinese, could all read, +though not speak, together—the Cambodian tongue is in one +tone, like our own, and their writing is similar to that +of Siam and India. Cambodian music seems such to Western +ears. Their freedom from the cacophonic hullabaloo +of the rest of the Far East gives the traveler ground for +hoping that here at last he is running into our own Aryan +influences again. The Cambodians accompany themselves +on a kind of guitar, and are the only people in Indo-China +who have so far been taught to play band music well.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The favorite game of Cambodian boys is to keep a ball +made of bamboo splints in the air as long as possible, kicking, +striking, butting it with any part of the body except +the hands—real football, which of course ours is not. Their +dances, of immemorial tradition, are a kind of drama of +pantomine ballet, perpetuating the old Hindu epics, given +only by troupes of imperial dancers from the royal harem. +The people themselves do no dancing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Once from the north, influenced by the more mystic +Buddhism of Tibet, with Sanskrit as the language, the Cambodians +are now of the Ceylon or southern Buddhist school, +the language of which is Pali. The Annamese, on the other +hand, inherited the harsher northern Buddhism by way of +Mongolia and China. Thus the clergy, as disdained in +Annam as in China, has great prestige in Cambodia. The +monks are very simple, and in their piety at least are +worthy the profound respect with which they are surrounded. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>Though they live only on what they can beg, they are +not hermits and anchorets, as in the Chinese atmosphere of +Annam, but live the monkish life in common in the numerous +temples of the country, quite independent of one another. +Priests become laymen, and vice versa, very easily; +all Cambodians are in fact expected to don the yellow robe +at least once in their lives. Most of them being country +people, the monks do not find it repugnant to engage in +manual labor. There are many woodsmen, brick-makers, +even clock-menders and other industrious “artists” among +them. Personally I saw none of this, but only meditation +and begging; and I am quite ready to admit that I am +hopelessly prejudiced toward those who withdraw from +their share of the world’s work and troubles the world over. +During the three months of the rainy season the monks +of Cambodia practise “the retreat” and refrain from all +pilgrimages; the rest of the year they go and come almost +at will. Their five commandments are: thou shalt not kill, +steal, lie, drink intoxicating beverages, or take the woman +of another—which is not, be it noted, celibacy in the Christian +sense. It is said that at least they never drink strong +liquor, and so careful are they to avoid killing that they +have a special word (“Bahboh!”) and gesture to drive off +the militant mosquito without injuring it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There have long been <i><span lang="fr">salas</span></i>, or public houses maintained +by the government for travelers, along the principal roads +of Cambodia, for the same reason that there are <i><span lang="fr">dak-bungalows</span></i> +in India. They do not want strangers in their houses, +which are semi-sacred; and from that to the Hindu belief +in caste pollution by so much as an alien shadow is no great +step. Suicide, as common among the Annamese as with the +Chinese, is rare among the Cambodians, not because they +are greater cowards or more generally happy, but because +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>of their fear of vile reincarnations. They burn their dead, +like the Hindus and the real Buddhists farther west; the +Annamese practise the loathsome Chinese and Western custom +of burying their corpses and keeping them as long as +possible.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Cambodians have a feudal Hindu civilization, entirely +distinct from the mandarinic, communal, oligarchical civilization +of the Annamese and Chinese. In theory all land +belongs to the king, and any that lies uncultivated for three +years may be demanded by some one else as a concession. +Only the produce is taxed, the assessments being +gathered by royal delegates quite independent of the provincial +authorities. In reality the French have not greatly +changed the ancient order of things during their sixty years +as the “protectors” of Cambodia. They have improved the +ways of communication, beautified the old royal city of +Pnom Penh. They have done much against smallpox: +formerly those who had never had this disease were considered +“not yet born to existence.” They were exempt +from taxes; a girl could not marry, a boy could not claim +the rights and duties of an adult, until a pock-marked face +could be presented as a certificate of maturity. The French +have given the country peace, external peace, that is; old +residents say there is piracy in the provinces as usual, even +more of it the past twenty years than a century ago. The +French are impotent to stop criminal violence against the +natives, and the local authorities have every interest in +coming to an understanding with the robbers instead of +fighting them. The Chinese merchants of Cambodia pay +pirate insurance.</p> + +<div id='i_082' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_082a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>One may still crawl about Angkor by elephant, though Fords are much more à la mode</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_082b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Buddhist priests took their saffron-clad ease in the shade along the great moat of Angkor-Vat, beyond the tourist bungalows in the background</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_083' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_083.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A rural Cambodian family at home</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>The French have kept the old forms of kingly rule; and +“beneath an appearance of order there still reigns the old +anarchy,” said a French doctor long resident there. Under +cover of the French the ancient injustices of despotic Oriental +rule have been perpetuated and modernized. It is +next to impossible for an ordinary Cambodian with just +cause for complaint to get satisfaction. The mass of the +people dare not tell the wrongs done them, even were there +some one both willing and able to listen to them, because +of the fear of reprisals. In a forested Oriental country +very few would risk giving testimony, even if it were not +the Hindu-Buddhist temperament not to complain; for +vengeance is easy. Native functionaries stick together; they +are closely related to the ministers of Pnom Penh. Even +if a case is taken directly to the French <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i>, about all +he can do is refer the matter to the governor of the province +involved, “for information.” There are many clandestine +tariffs for legally gratuitous formalities. By law registry +of birth is free; in practice it costs all that those +concerned can be made to pay. There is a tax on furnaces +used in the production of fish-oil; but because the +same Cambodian word also means a little portable stove +made of glazed earth, on which all Cambodia once did its +cooking, tax-gatherers have laid by great personal fortunes, +and most of the people have gone back to the three sticks +stuck in the earth used by their ancestors to hold their +rice-pots over a fagot fire.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is the old story of a very alien race unable to help, +whatever its good will, except in superficial things that are +easily understood, because it cannot get down into the +deeper facts. In the French courts the interpreter reigns +as absolute master, and erects a stone wall between the best +judge and the parties before him. Even the making of +good roads has augmented rather than decreased the helplessness +of the people, for now French officials, often +changed, dash to and fro between their posts, whereas in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>the days of slow native travel they got perforce some clear +idea of the needs of the people. The French of course +see to it that their rule is treated with full honors, whatever +the results of it. There is a costly series of splendid +fêtes at Pnom Penh in honor of each new <i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i>, +which contrasts sadly with the poverty-stricken people whom +he comes in theory to help, and who must pay for all +such festivities. The fact is that he rarely comes for +any such purpose, but to follow his career with the least +possible trouble and the greatest possible advancement. But +in the eyes of the Cambodians the French are merely a +passing phase, as the Siamese and their other conquerors +were before them, and they endure this brief affliction as +true fatalists do any other misfortune.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The minister of the palace is the real power in Cambodia. +A former interpreter—all who knew a little French when +the French took upon themselves the “protection” of Cambodia +naturally got in on the ground floor—imposed first +upon Norodom as secretary-general of the Council of Ministers, +is now a kind of political comprador. An intelligent +hard worker, supple, well informed, speaking French fluently +now, he has made himself indispensable to the superficial +and unstable French administrators and is richer than +old King Sisowath himself. Naturally he drew a marvelous +personal advantage out of a situation that he was no doubt +stupefied to find falling into his hands, and with an almost +Chinese point of view toward political matters he tends +to perpetuate himself, every day perfecting his double game +between the king and the French <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i>, peopling posts +with his relatives and retainers, keeping his political fences +in order. It is the story of the rise of Charlemagne’s forebears +all over again, in an Oriental setting. Some <i><span lang="fr">résidents</span></i> +have tried to outwit this now richest and most powerful +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>man in the kingdom, but he always comes out best. He +is the real master; the other ministers, the crown prince, +even the octogenarian king himself tremble before him, mute +and resigned.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To this have the descendants of the mighty Khmer sunk +in the millennium since they were forced to abandon Angkor-Thom. +Yet after all the Cambodians are the only people in +the peninsula who have left enduring works of their intellectual +past. Their great art, in which the grandiose perfection +of the ensemble is combined with the most delicate +finesse of detail, is their certificate as one of the great races +of mankind.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V<br> <span class='c011'>NORTHWARD FROM SAÏGON</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>On a blazing Sunday late in January I was off at six +on a little train that carried me, not uncomfortably, +from daylight until dark, through a jungle country of few +villages and no towns. Bienhoa, half an hour from the +Cochinchina capital, has rubber plantations of some extent, +the well spaced trees still small but already adorned with +sap-gathering tin cans. Beyond, jungle and forest soon +began again, endless jungle-forest, so that there are countless +acres available for rubber, and before the century is +over this form of exploitation will no doubt have reached +vast proportions. The wilderness, broken only by little clearings +for occasional stations, was so dry in this hot prelude +to the rainy season that it had almost the autumn colors of +the north. Most of the land was deadly flat, but there were +low hills now and then, densely wooded and brushed, especially +after little Cochinchina lay behind us and we entered +the great coastal strip known as Annam.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For all the wilderness, a splendid road, with huge native +trees well spaced on either side of it, followed the railway. +Train and highway used the same bridges, which custom I +found to be common throughout Indo-China. A horn manipulated +by a loin-clothed coolie at either end warns the automobile +driver whether or not it is best for him to proceed. +For the bridges are only wide enough for one train or one +vehicle at a time, and though the trains of Indo-China are +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>not large, nothing short of a motor truck could dispute the +right of way with them with any great prospect of success. +There are of course no unprotected grade-crossings even in +this faintly inhabited region, where an automobile a day is +an event, and where there are few ox-carts and fewer +pedestrians. As in France, the bridge and gate men govern +themselves by the time-table rather than by the facts, +though here it is a languid Annamese coolie instead of an +old woman or a crippled war-relic who holds up traffic so +much longer than necessary.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The government owned and operated railways of Indo-China, +destined some day to be joined together in one +system, are not yet continuous. The eight hundred miles +just then in running order were broken up into three isolated +jumps along the coast, not to mention the line from +Hanoï up into China that has been leased for a term of +years to private interests. All are of meter gauge, burn +wood, and make very good speed, considering their difficulties, +as was proved by this day’s feat of covering the +more than 260 miles between Saïgon and Nhatrang—longest +of the three sections, even without counting the branch +from the Cochinchina capital to Mytho—in the twelve hours +between equatorial dawn and darkness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The French have evolved a curious type of train to fit +the peculiar division of humanity in their Far-Eastern possession. +The last car is divided into first-, second-, and +third-class compartments. First-class accommodation consists +of two crosswise seats facing each other in the center +of the coach, and the second, with twice that capacity, +differs mainly in the color of the leather upholstery. Third +class, occupying half the car, has bare wooden seats of +American arrangement. The rest of the train, unless it +includes also a few freight-cars, is made up of fourth-class +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>box-cars innocent of springs and with four rudimentary +benches fore and aft the full length of them. Officials +armed with government <i><span lang="fr">réquisitions</span></i>, or passes, usually +monopolize the first class, and even with their boxes and +bags rarely fill it. Europeans with purchased tickets, an occasional +Eurasian, and now and then a wealthy native, go +second-class. Well-to-do natives, and the poorer French +residents, endure the hard seats of the rest of the car, and +only in the more populous regions do they fill them all. +There are no color-lines, except that Caucasians are not +allowed to travel fourth-class. This rendezvous of the +Oriental masses is often packed to rush-hour proportions, +and is so free from cramping rules that even rickshaws +may be dragged in as baggage.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The half-dozen of these springless box-cars for every +first-second-and-third-class coach is symbolical of the proportionate +division of classes in the population of Indo-China. +To the simple countryman who occupies the rough +<i><span lang="fr">wagons</span></i> making up the bulk of the train, even the third-class +compartment represents such luxury that he comes to +gaze in awe and what may be envy at the <i><span lang="fr">richard</span></i> who can +afford to ride there. Yet even in the deeply upholstered +center of the last car, fares are not so high as on our own +railways. There are no sleeping-cars, for the simple reason +that the trains of Indo-China do not venture forth at +night. The back end of the last fourth-class car is commonly +taken up with a makeshift buffet-kitchen, in which +the privileged occupants of the rear coach may partake of +not particularly Parisian food, salted with such a jolting as +may or may not be an aid to digestion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All through the hotter hours the train twisted and squirmed +its way among jungle-clad hillocks, the shades drawn, electric +fans whirling. Farther north were sandy half-arid +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>patches; then, two hundred miles or more above Saïgon, +hills appeared and grew to be almost mountains, fairly +well wooded and thick with underbrush. At length the forest +gave way to scattered-bush land, resembling parts of +Texas, untilled, perhaps because it is too arid for cultivation. +There were almost no inhabitants, at least in sight. +Here and there huddled half a dozen miserable time-blackened +and dilapidated huts made of palm-leaves; now and +then a garden-patch with a plastered house of dull-red tile +roof, and outhouses suggesting plentiful servants, testified +to the presence of some isolated French official or railway +man. Perhaps there are towns along the edge of the sea +not far away, since fishing and farming are the principal +Annamese occupations.</p> + +<p class='c007'>From Phanrang near the sea a branch railway that degenerates +into a motor-bus carries passengers with time to +spare up to the plateau of Langbian. For high up in the +distant mountains to the left toward which the sun was +descending is Dalat, an expensive hotel and hill-station which +the European residents of southern Indo-China call their +Darjeeling. All this mountainous region back of the narrow +strip of rice-growing coast-land is inhabited by Moï, +“savages” who wear breech-clouts and look at life accordingly. +There are several undomesticated tribes scattered +throughout Indo-China, some of them dangerous even to +the white man who claims to rule over it. Many parts of +the hinterland are unexplored by the self-styled rulers, and +portions of it are impossible without a wild-man guide, +who may not consent to lend his assistance. Queer claims +are those of the Caucasian and Japanese races of ruling over +this or that country when they only control the modernized +edges of it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These Moï in their loin-cloths, most savage of the wild +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>tribes of Indo-China and looking not unlike our Indians, +hold some clusters of mountains where it is still not entirely +safe to go. Some have renegade Annamese leaders; +one tribe lives in trees, in which it builds little houses, out +of wholesome respect for tigers. The visitor to the Moï +is expected to announce his arrival and friendly intentions +by beating on a drum set up at the entrance to every village, +as we knock at a door. If his visit is agreeable, a +man bearing rice comes out to escort him, and if he is +prepared to give salt in return, he is made welcome. Though +they have little or no intercourse with the rest of the world, +the Moï suffered greatly from the recent epidemic of “flu,” +and fevers and smallpox have often ravaged them. The +average Moï woman has ten children, of whom only one +or two reaches maturity. Thus the estimated three hundred +thousand Moï are constantly decreasing. It is curious +how many savage tribes have less success in raising their +young than do most wild animals. Perhaps it is nature’s +way of keeping down an intermediate creation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Moï language, with no tones in the Chinese sense, +sounds almost European. At the age of puberty boys and +girls alike undergo the formality of having their teeth filed +down to the gums. With some kind relative sitting on +the chest of the sufferer, lying on his back with his head +between the legs of a primitive vise, and with a wooden +bit forced into his mouth, a medicine-man breaks off the +teeth with stones and hacks and chips them away. It is +their idea of making themselves beautiful, and the boy or +girl who has not undergone this punishment is not considered +marriageable or otherwise of adult status. After a day of +this frightful work the operator leaves his victim covered +with blood, his gums in ribbons, his lips like hashed beefsteak, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>and incapable for a fortnight of eating anything but +liquids. Nor is this all, for the patient is then given a +stone with which to continue the beautifying process himself, +when he has a moment to spare, until not a sign of +tooth remains above the level of the gums. Among some +of the tribes the lower teeth are given a saw shape, so that +the open mouth suggests that of an aged shark that has +lost its upper plate.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Dalat is the chief hunting-ground for tigers in Indo-China. +So well are these hunts organized by the French that the +brave hunter bags his beast as safely as royalty does. +There is a French colonial official whose chief duty it is +to oblige those who wish to boast that they have killed a +tiger. One orders a tiger by telegraph—tiger <i><span lang="fr">à la carte</span></i>, so +to speak; the official sends out coolies to lay a bait that +has reached just the right degree of olfactory attraction +to the great cats, and in due season the bold hunter lays +one low without the slightest risk. Thus Indo-China is full +of successful tiger-hunters, without a scar to show for it. +The Annamese down on the coastal plain live in such dread +of the tiger that they never mention their greatest four-footed +enemy except by the respectful title of Ong Kop +(Lord Tiger), and in the woods your coolie will make a +clawing sign rather than speak openly of the fearsome beast. +Children have been carried off by tigers within a mile or +two of the Annamese capital. Yet the Moï hunt them +with primitive weapons that are hardly more effective than +a sharpened pole. “Moï,” by the way, is simply the Annamese +pronunciation of the Chinese character “man,” meaning +barbarian, a term much used by these two races to +designate the despised peoples who have not the honor of +being of the same blood as they.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>Heavy clouds, and one gust of rain, as from the swiftly +passing nozzle of a celestial hose, swept over the train late +in the afternoon, though in Saïgon rain is unknown at that +season. Near Tourcham real mountain ranges climbed down +to the edge of the plain and crowded the railway so close +to the sea that we caught several glimpses of it, and of +waterways beautiful at high tide. The name of this all +but isolated station is taken from the great Cham tower +that stands on a hillock near it. The Cham were an ancient +people, of Hindu civilization also, who occupied this coastal +strip many centuries ago, long before the Khmer swept +down into the peninsula, and they left behind them gray +stone towers that stand forth weirdly in the wilderness of +to-day. Mammoth rocks heaped themselves up into half-jungled +hills as we raced onward between low mountains—the +coastal group on one hand and the forerunners of the +great Annamese chain inland on the other. Toward sunset +the arid landscape grew green again, some paddy-fields +and scattered villages appeared; then the region as far as +the eye could see turned frankly to rice culture, though +with cattle grazing now in long brown stubble. But this +fertility did not last, even where there was evidence of +plenty of rain recently; in its place came bush, primitive +unpeopled jungle, trees in white flower shrouded with vines, +kapok trees shedding their vegetable cotton, flatlands, or at +most low hills. Patches of Indian corn and tobacco flashed +by, clusters of miserable wattled mud huts with old straw +or palm-leaf roofs that looked like beggars’ caps, but there +were no people at all compared to almost any part of +China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Nhatrang had a booming beach and a constant sea-breeze, +and seemed spacious and pleasant, a trifle cooler than Saïgon. +But this I take partly on faith, for I never saw it by daylight. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>Thick tropical night had fallen when the train came +to the end of its rails, and almost before I knew it I had +been whisked into the stopping-place provided for Europeans. +This was a cross between a government <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> and a +public inn, exactly what a French establishment in the +tropics run by a slippered Alsatian who had completely +forgotten his native land, except for its German accent, +would naturally be. It seemed that I, the only European +to whom Nhatrang was to play host that night, had broken +a fixed rule of travel in these parts. Of two Annamese +youths who had boarded the train some miles away to +drum up passengers for two rival motor-buses, I had come +to terms with the least respectable, whereas all Europeans +hitherto had patronized the official mail-bus belonging to +vested interests. But the terms were favorable accordingly, +and as between outsiders and vested interests my sympathies +are inclined to radicalism.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I was called at three, and we were off again in the +bootleg autobus that had clinched our agreement by carrying +me from station to inn the evening before. It was +still dark when we crossed a broad estuary or river by a +<i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> and struck off into what seemed to be mountains. A +<i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i>, as all diligent students of French know, is a ferry, +but the genus that abounds in Indo-China is worthy a +name of its own. How many times during my gasoline-propelled +travels throughout the colony my eyes fell upon +that capital T on its back like a helpless turtle, which meant +one more river to cross by the precarious Annamese method, +I refuse even to try to guess. As a special concession I +might admit that there are at least a thousand bridges in +Indo-China that have never been built, some of which I +fear never will be. One is rolling serenely along a smooth +French highway, swathed in that delight which comes from +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>swift comfortable motion, so long as it is uninterrupted, +when “Brrgrrum!”—another sign-board with the overturned +T. The vehicle slithers down a steep and probably +slimy bank, all but sinks a collection of ancient planks +criminally put together, and stops just in time to keep from +sliding off the farther end of them. If it is daytime, two +or three or half a dozen Annamese of either sex and any +age have been aroused from their siesta by the overworked +horn and the compact of automobile and their disjointed +sleeping place, which they begin forthwith to pole or gondolier +across the fluid interruption to traffic. If it is night, +profanity and slapping on the part of the chauffeur and his +assistants may also be necessary to metamorphose the several +huddled sacks about the intrepid raft into living beings and +to move them to indulge in similar exertions. Sometimes, +if the expanse of water is not too great, there is a rope +or chain from shore to shore. The boatmen use chain-handles +weighted at the end with a block of wood by means of +which they wrap themselves easily about the transfluvial +cable as it is dragged up from the slimy bottom. But +whatever the method of propulsion, the craft is sure to run +aground or meet some other form of delaying mishap before +the crossing is completed, and to creak and groan +and rend itself in a way to assure the inexperienced that +his trip is about to end at the bottom of that particular +strip of water. Nothing is more adaptable than the human +spirit, however, and within a week a <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> meant no more +to me than entering the ring does to a bull-fighter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I traveled first class, at two thirds what the same privilege +would have cost me in the regular conveyance of the +<i><span lang="fr">poste coloniale</span></i>. That is, I sat wedged into a corner of +the front seat with the driver. His assistant, having yielded +his usual place to me for whatever reward may have been +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>promised him by his chief, rode for two days on the running-board, +one bare foot hooked over the front door or one +skinny hand clutching a support of the baggage-laden roof. +It was a place convenient for his duties anyway, for these +consisted in catching sight of the next kilometer-post in +order to compute the fare of each new passenger, clambering +along the side of the car like a chipmunk on a wall to +collect it, slapping or booting with a bare toe pedestrians +who did not speedily give the vehicle the widest possible +berth, and watering the radiator wherever time and water +were to be had, as if it were some jungle beast perpetually +dying of tropical thirst. Behind me rode an average of +fourteen Annamese, with a few babies usually thrown in. +These second-class passengers enjoyed the privilege of being +less likely than I to catapult through the wind-shield at +one of the sudden stops that were always imminent; but no +doubt the honor of my position, and the lesser likelihood +of being sprayed with betel-juice by some garrulous fellow-passenger, +made my double fare worth while.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The chauffeur, like his understudy, was dressed in +tropical French fashion, as was proper to his honorable +calling, a soft felt hat crushed down over his head, his +shirt-collar wide open, after the latest fashion of European +beaches. Once he abandons the comfortable and pleasing +garb of his own people, the Annamese jumps to the most +ultra-modern mode of his rulers. Until I had met others +of his clan who seemed to have learned the chauffeur trade +in a tailor-shop, I considered this driver the last word +in perpetual homicidal intention; looking back upon him +from the vantage-ground of uninjured escape from Indo-China, +I grant him perfection among Annamese wielders +of the steering-wheel. For one thing he wore shoes, which +is by no means common among his brake- and clutch-stepping +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>compatriots, and the little French he tortured when +there was no visible way out of it was at times within reach +of an attentive understanding, in itself a rare virtue. His +chief amusement was the crushing of dogs, those thin yellow +dogs that are almost as numerous in Annamese villages +as children and pigs. It was a kindness to the gaunt +curs perhaps, but I never reached the point of taking +great pleasure in seeing one of them disappear beneath us +with one short helpless yelp. When he could not find +enough of these pitiful animals within reach, he brushed +against frightened <i><span lang="fr">nha-qués</span></i>, the leisurely peasants of Annam, +in order to see how far they could remove themselves in +a single jump. Not a few of them made the records of +mere athletes seem the performances of babes in arms.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To be the driver of an automobile is to the Annamese +more than a trade, it is a title. The first chauffeur of the +<i><span lang="fr">Résidence Supérieure</span></i> at the capital of Annam wears the +dragon decoration of his emperor, and other chauffeurs +passing through Hué go to his garage to kowtow before him. +The ease with which Orientals adapt themselves to our inventions +is one of the wonders of the East. One would suppose +that a people quite incapable of understanding, much +less inventing, such a mechanical contrivance as the automobile +would stand in awe of it, and of those who had +contrived it. Not at all; on the contrary they take it as +calmly as they do the growths of nature, as they do the +miracles with which they credit their demons and invisible +spirits, showing the same rage or surprise if it does not +respond to their senseless chastisement as at their gaunt +sore-backed domestic animals refusing to work under their +heartless lashings.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thanks perhaps to French discipline, or because the Annamese +are by nature a more quiet leisurely race, my companion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>on the front seat was not so wild as the average +Chinese chauffeur. Yet on the whole it was no great +pleasure to ride beside this solemn little brown man in his +misplaced near-European clothes. Though it was always +passable, the road was in places atrociously surfaced, for +all the road-gangs along the way. Especially among the +mountains that often came down to the edge of the sea +it is no joke even for such famous road-builders as the +French to keep up a highway in a land of tropical rainy +seasons. An autobus of the same bootleg line, lying upside +down in a creek where a bridge had broken down a +week before under its thundering impact, did not give me +that reassurance of complete safety at his high speed which +the fellow himself seemed to have. It was bad enough to +see one of the mangy yellow mongrels that slink about +every Annamese hut disappear under our wheels every hour +or two. I could comfort myself that these at least should +be glad to be so suddenly put out of their lifelong misery. +But in the course of the morning the nerveless Asiatic +at the wheel succeeded in running over a handsome foreign +hunting-dog loping along beside its shotgun-armed French +master on a bicycle. Perhaps he did not deliberately overtake +the animal—unsuspecting, because of the kindly European +atmosphere it lived in, any such treachery as the +orphaned mongrels of Annam are constantly on the lookout +for—but he could at any rate easily have avoided it. +The Annamese passengers, gazing back at the writhing corpse +in the dust as we sped away, seemed to look upon +such incidents as one of the pleasures of travel, due them +in consideration of the high fare on these strange foreign +vehicles. One had the feeling that they grinned and chattered +and nudged one another not so much because of a +certain more or less natural antipathy toward the race to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>which this particular dog was attached as out of sheer +Oriental joy at beholding suffering. On the tanned mask +of the driver’s face there was just the hint of two conflicting +emotions; one the satisfaction of having added another +dog, better than the average, to his score; the other +a possibility of vengeance on the part of the Frenchman +kneeling in the dust beside his dying pet, that transferred +itself into a more deafening roar and breakneck speed than +ever.</p> + +<p class='c012'>That autobus trip from Nhatrang to Tourane was through +much prettier scenery than the one by train the day before. +For one thing the highway runs much closer to the +coast than does the railway. Outcroppings of the great Annamese +chain came down to the edge of the China Sea +every little while, especially during the first day’s stage from +Nhatrang to Quinhon, and our road wound and twisted, +buckled and climbed, over high rocky spurs, along the sheer +edge of breath-taking slopes, up and down between sea-level +and several thousand feet above it, often with hair-pin +turns high up along precipitous cliffs on the very edge of +the densely blue ocean. It opened many magnificent vistas, +of weird indentations, bold headlands, charming little beaches, +now and again an unbelievably blue bay thickly speckled +with the sails of tiny boats dancing in the whitecaps as +to Pan’s pipes, yet seeming to have no fear. They were +mere cockle-shells, these sea-going canoes of the Annamese +fishermen, made of bamboo splints tightly woven together +and covered with pitch. Scores of them, baking bottom up +in the sun on raised frameworks and gleaming under a +new coating as with varnish, lay along the road through +Annam. Sometimes the road itself was made of bamboo +splints, woven together into great mat-like strips six feet +or more wide and in some places half a mile long. These +carried the heavy autobus across deep sand, at either end +of leaky <i><span lang="fr">bacs</span></i>, in which it would otherwise have floundered +almost as quickly as in the water itself.</p> + +<div id='i_098' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_098a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Motor-buses link together the railways of Indo-China, crossing broad sandy river-banks on strips of woven bamboo splints</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_098b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>In Annam prisoners working in the streets wear a light remnant of the old neck-torturing Chinese <i><span lang="fr">cangue</span></i></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_099' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_099a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>In the “Marble Mountains” are many grottoes, some of them elaborately fitted up as temples</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_099b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>An Annamese summoning a ferry from across one of the many rivers which still offer no bridges to automobiles</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>Deeply green wet jungle surrounded us much of the +time, cactus stretching out spiny arms toward us. Blinding +white salt marshes contrasted with a road in places so red +that the saliva of a nation of betel-chewers did not spot it. +Striking peaks of the coastal group alternated with tame +stretches of dusty highway down at sea-level, gusts of +rain from mountains of black clouds with blazing tropical +sunshine. Wherever mountains and foot-hills receded +enough to leave a suggestion of plain, however narrow, rice-fields +filled every level space. The young rice of the first +crop of the year was deeply flooded now, peasants plowing +thigh-deep in it behind ponderous water-buffaloes that seemed +to be in their element wading in slime. Some men and +more women were clawing in the mud up to their biceps; +others paddled about the fields in the light canoes of woven +bamboo. Stones were so rare in some sections of this +ancient route that the well-sweeps used for irrigation were +weighted at the short end with balls of mud and straw. +Along the road there was no more suggestion of fences +than in China itself, but the smaller foot-hills were here +and there cut up into green fields by thin lines of greener +bushes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>With an hour’s hot halt for refreshments for man, woman, +and gasoline-consuming beast at a village boasting a tolerable +Annamese imitation of a French restaurant, we rode +on through scorching midday into the slightly cooler afternoon, +ending the first day’s stage with sunshine enough left +to photograph pretty Quinhon. In the last few miles big +rice-plains had opened out; we had bisected a scattered +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>town of some size; files of coolies had increased until the +road became an almost continual procession of them. Quinhon +is beautifully situated on a spit of sand and earth +projected out into a bay surrounded by mountainous +shores. Thus there are both mountains and sea on all sides +of it, except where the road enters the one long street of +the native town, merging beyond into shaded drives and +foreign houses in garden-groves, none of them a hundred +yards from either beach. The French suppress somewhat +more successfully than the English-speaking races the tendency +to insist on erecting in the tropics dwellings exactly +like those at home, and the houses they build in Indo-China +are not entirely unfitted to the climate.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The ruling race monopolizes this tongue of sandy land +running out into the densely blue, very deep harbor surrounded +by high hills, where one small ocean steamer, flying +the British flag, now rode at anchor. The native town +is little more than two unbroken lines of shops, and between +them and the French residences stood a whitewashed +market building of modern lines, even at this late hour +half filled and all but surrounded by squatting women in +the woven palm-leaf hats of parasol shape that are the most +prominent feature of every Annamese market. They sold +all manner of native foodstuffs, fish from the sea, long +rolls of dark-brown sugar wrapped in leaves, arec-nuts and +the betel-leaves and lime that go with them, recalling the +Indian women of the Andes selling cocoa-leaves and similar +ingredients of an analogous mild vice. Though French +paper piastres, fractional silver, and big copper sous are +the ordinary Indo-Chinese medium of exchange, in the +markets the masses still use <i><span lang="fr">sapèques</span></i>, as the French call +Chinese “cash.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was at Quinhon that I saw for the first time in Indo-China, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>though by no means the last, prisoners wearing the +<i><span lang="fr">cangue</span></i> once so common and now so rare in China. Instead +of the great planks of Manchu—and Puritan—days, however, +these contrivances about offending necks were a very +light frame of wood, as if the French, though unable to do +away entirely with an old Annamese custom left over from +the centuries of Chinese rule, had insisted on softening this +form of punishment. Native justice prescribes leg-irons +too, and sentences men to hard labor even for not paying +taxes, but French rule seems to temper Asiatic cruelty +by wrapping bands of cloth about the ankles so that irons +shall not chafe the skin. Most of the convicts also had +an iron band about the waist, and this was connected with +the leg-irons by two chains that clanked constantly with +the prisoner’s short steps. Yet the fellows could even climb +cocoanut-trees in these, and they did not seem to have any +difficulty in getting permission from the soldier guards to +step into a shop and buy cigarettes or the makings of +the betel-nut cuds with which the black teeth of both prisoners +and guards driveled. The men who thus dropped behind +soon caught up again with their fellows, pushing and +pulling two-wheeled carts of sanitary purposes and drawing +loads of broken stone.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For all its French colony, the people here gaped at a +foreigner almost as much as in China—though perhaps it +was merely because I was out in the sun and on foot at +such an hour. They gathered to watch me write wherever +I drew out my note-book and gaped open-mouthed at my +antics with the camera that few of them seemed to recognize, +but with more respect, or fear, than Chinese crowds +show under similar circumstances, remaining quietly at some +distance, like well trained children. Frenchmen, even +women and children, began to appear when the sun neared +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>the horizon, strolling under the trees and along the edges +of the blue bay out on their breeze-cooled sandspit. At +the more or less French hotel where Europeans passing +through Quinhon spend the night I was joined that evening +by the only man of my own tongue I met between Saïgon +and Tourane. He was thin and lanky with long tropical +living, but filled with Scotch humor, and announced himself +the chief engineer of the steamer in the harbor. He +did not seem to believe my tale that I had come all the +way from Saïgon by land, much less that I hoped to go +clear on into China without taking to the sea, though he +had sailed into this and all the other little ports along the +coast of Annam half his life, during which his chief pleasures +were a meal and a “berth” ashore now and then.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI<br> <span class='c011'>THROUGH ANNAM TO ITS CAPITAL</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>We were off again by the same conveyance at four +next morning. Long before daylight the road was +alive with files of coolies, two loads bouncing at the ends +of each shoulder-pole, the same familiar lines of jogging +carriers as in China, with the difference that here there were +as many women as men, for the bound foot is one advantage +of Chinese civilization that was never adopted in +Annam. All up and down the long slender kingdom of +the Eminent South endless miles of coolies of both sexes +come trotting to market to sell to one another. Always +they jog in Indian files, even on the wide modern roads, +unable to cast off centuries of training along the narrow +trails of old Annam. All wore palm-leaf hats; some carried +parasols also, even before daylight, perhaps as a protection +against the setting moon. With the first rays of sun, +flung horizontally across the already tepid world, double +lines of pole-bearers stretched ahead and behind, on both +sides of the road, as far as the eye could see, the women +carrying with a floating motion, many of the men not +carrying at all. New lines, cut out in fresco against the +brightening horizon, came jogging in along the dikes of +the paddy-fields. As both sexes dressed and carried alike, +and the men wore their long hair in Psyche knots, it was +not easy to distinguish man from woman until we were +close upon them, sometimes not even then. Evidently the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>Chinese found this annoying, for when they conquered +Annam, centuries ago, they ordered the women to wear short +garments with wide sleeves. China’s power over the kingdom +of the south virtually ended during the Ming dynasty, +however, and the Manchus did not succeed in introducing +the queue.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The country was now perhaps a bit less mountainous than +the day before, the strip of plain wider, certainly more +densely populated, and all its products were bound market-ward. +Here and there in the files a mother carried a child +at one end of her pole and a small pig at the other. The +hasty glimpse as we dashed past was not enough to decide +whether the youngster or the pig had been brought +along as a counterweight. Like their near relatives in +China, the pigs of Annam refuse to walk to market. Coolies +carry them in baskets—“like foreigners in chairs”—or merely +with a band from their jouncing poles about their bellies, +which would seem to the disinterested observer to be more +painful than walking. Who would be so bold, however, +as to claim to grasp the point of view of a pig?</p> + +<p class='c007'>Often that morning the road ahead looked like a flowing +river of coolies, parasol-hats and jogging poles forming +a kind of scum on the surface. We dashed through this +endless stream like a steamer through a narrow waterway, +our incessant horn always clearing a passage just soon +enough to escape doing the ceaseless multitude of dodging +pedestrians bodily injury, the chauffeur’s assistant striking +a resounding thwack, with a whip that he seemed to carry +for no other purpose, on every palm-leaf hat he could by +any stretching reach. We dashed as peremptorily through +markets squatting along and, so rare is wheeled traffic, +even in the road at the frequent villages, markets noisy +with bartering, gatherings that recalled Haiti in other ways +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>than the pell-mell with which they scattered as we rode +down upon them without so much as slackening speed. +Annamese markets are always a broad vista of whitish palm-leaf +hats, so that they look like an individually roofed +congregation. There were hat factories beside the road +where more of this ubiquitous head-gear was being fashioned, +of other materials as well as palm-leaves, it seemed, for +the brass top of one soldier’s hat came off in my presence +and disclosed the filling to be the apartments-to-let columns +of a New York newspaper, yellow with several years of +tropical service. In certain movements and when the wind +is blowing the Annamese must keep his mouth open to +hold his hat on, by tautening the ribbon under his chin. +Wanderlust in Annam takes the form of going to market, +especially among the women and girls. They like the sense +of freedom it gives them, the company, the gossip, above all +the bargaining, at which the women of Annam are past +mistresses. In the afternoon we met these same files of +women, or at least their exact counterparts, jogging homeward +as heavily laden as they came, for they often buy as +much as they sell.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In this section, all through southern Annam in fact, every +one not in mourning wore black. Compared with those of +Cambodia and of some other parts of Indo-China, the +women were almost prudish in their dress. Like the men +they wore thin cotton pantaloons as voluminous as those +of the modern college youth, and a jacket barely disclosing +the neck, and more often than not all this was covered with +a flowing cotton coat reaching almost to the ankles. Rarely +was a breast revealed even during the frequent nursing of +children that in many cases should long since have outgrown +that form of nourishment. True, in the hottest +hours of the sea-level day many of the women, especially +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>the older and less attractive ones, wore in their own villages +nothing between hat and pantaloons except a diamond-shaped +breast-protector, tied on with cross-strings across +the back, outdoing from the rear the most extreme of +Western evening-gowns. But on the road and in the market +even the flowing coats seemed almost <i><span lang="fr">de rigueur</span></i>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Among the coolie class these overcoats of both sexes were +of thin cotton. The better-to-do men in the towns and in +the autobus wore jet-black ones, thin as gauze, transparent +as mosquito-netting, with flowered designs of the same hue +woven in them, like the pattern in lace, and fastened together +down the side with little gold buttons. Beneath +this the well dressed man wore a white jacket-shirt and +very loose cotton trousers, and thrust bare feet into black +slippers or wooden clogs. A black cloth carelessly wound +about the head distinguished most coolies, but all men above +that class wore that most unique item of the Annamese +costume, a black band-turban permanently arranged in many +little folds, rising in stairway fashion up the forehead +and descending in the same manner at the back. This mere +head-band, without top, is worn indoors and out, even, one +suspects, during sleep. In place of the male turban the +women wrap black cloth about the long single thick braid +of their generally luxuriant hair, and wind this about the +head. Out in the sun the palm-leaf hat sits on top of +turban or its feminine counterpart. At least along this +main route of French railway and autobus highway both +men and women of the well-to-do class wore gold and other +valuable ornaments openly. Long necklaces of grains of +gold of the size of peas are the favorite adornment of the +women who can afford them; there were bracelets, sometimes +several on one arm, earrings usually of gold, and +miscellaneous jewelry to suit the individual taste or purse.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>Rice lands stretch for many miles north of Quinhon, +some so broad that they looked like great inundated wheat-fields. +In other places the hills closed in like interested +spectators, but still left room for a broad strip of cultivation. +Sunk to the knees in this slime, pantaloons rolled to +the tops of their thighs, men and women clawed about the +roots of the young rice. Here a laborer up to his—or +her—middle in mud and water toiled feverishly to stanch +an overflowing pond by slapping hasty handfuls of oozy +black mud on a broken dike. On another such division +between the paddy-fields two Annamese of indeterminate +sex were alternately pulling and letting loose in rhythmic +cadence the two ends of a cord bearing in its middle a +pail made of straw, the simplest Oriental form of lifting +water from an overflooded field into a thirsty one above. +Farther on, a coolie condemned to hard labor to earn his +rice, turned with his bare feet a primitive wheel that set +in motion an endless chain of simple buckets. To protect +himself from the sun he held in one hand an open +umbrella, and no doubt dreamed himself a mandarin. Right, +left, sometimes everywhere as far as the eye could see, +were rice-fields, mirroring the sun so brightly that the +eye quailed before them. Yet there was little color to +make gay this landscape of the plains; it is green or nothing, +except for the bluish tinge of masses of the Japanese lotus +or hyacinth. The Annamese planted this in a few selected +spots to celebrate the victory of the yellow race over the +white at Tsushima; and now, as if to punish them for their +seditious thoughts, it has spread far and wide, invading +their ponds and rice-fields, obstructing their watercourses. +To-day the peasants of Annam spend much of their time +laboriously digging out and carrying away this prolific and +troublesome plant, good for nothing, not even as fertilizer. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>In so narrow and intensively cultivated a land it is a +great problem even to find space on which to throw the +stuff, yet their food is just so much decreased until they +can rid themselves of this disastrous invasion of flowers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A few red humped cattle lolled under wayside trees, or +grazed on dikes where they were mirrored in the flooded +fields, as were the mountains in the background and the +huts in cocoanut-groves against the more or less distant +foot-hills. Clusters of water-buffaloes on vacation lay immersed +to their nostrils in mud-holes or swung their mammoth +horns with an inhospitable air along the mud ridges +between the paddy-fields, or fed on the edges of the uncultivated +hillocks in which the great mountain range +always bulking clearly or hazily to the west gave up its +contest with the sea. A pair of birds stood blithely on +the backs of some of the amphibians; on others a boy, at +times even a girl, lay at full length, head pillowed on rump +or withers. Among the trees especially these ponderous +beasts resembled, exactly as to color, that other survivor of +the dinosaurian age, the elephant. Some of them were of +that dull creamy hue of the sacred “white” elephants of +Siam and vicinity. For a semi-albino buffalo is common +in Indo-China, its eyes red, a rough red skin showing +through scarce whitish hairs, as if it were half roasted in +the Annamese sun—perhaps it is only because it is not +rare enough that this abnormal beast is not also regarded +as sacred.</p> + +<p class='c012'>A whole population was toiling in the rice-fields, or +trotting elastically along the dikes, two pole-balanced loads +bouncing from every shoulder. The rural Annamese are +not lazy; on the contrary they are very hard workers, +though they have some of the natural indolence of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>tropics. Agriculture is laborious under the best of conditions, +to say nothing of those of the Orient; with his +seldom lacking flock of voracious children the <i><span lang="fr">nha-qué</span></i>, the +peasant of Annam, can rarely rest. Small, but of great +endurance, the countrymen of the Eminent South are forever +on the run, like ants in haste to provide themselves +against a drouth or a famine. Both sexes can trot indefinitely +under great loads; even a six-year-old boy can +propel a sampan, though he may not yet have reached the +dignity of clothing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Rice is by far the principal product of Annam, fish or +fruit being a slow second. Thanks to its rice, Annam is +rich; all Indo-China is rich, else why this Western form +of “protection”? Low as they seem to us from the land +of exorbitance, prices are high compared to China. There +were a few beggars, now and then one obviously leprous, +yet few indeed measured by the rows of them along any +important Chinese route. A visiting French novelist, angry +at the exchange between its real currency and his poor +paper francs, entitled one of his chapters on Annam, “Under +the Sign of the Piastre.” There are so many piastres in +Indo-China that the Chinese and the Chettys, the “usuricultors” +who lend to the unforesighted peasant at highwayman +rates of interest, and even French officialdom and +monopolists, cannot take them all; there remain some for the +<i><span lang="fr">nha-qué</span></i>, the toiling peasant who earns them all by the sweat +of his brown back—and those of his women-folk.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Since almost all the Annamese are agriculturists, there +is no aristocracy between the emperor and his mandarins +and the <i><span lang="fr">nha-qué</span></i>, little exploiting of any other than the agricultural +resources of the country. Whatever wealth it has +comes from the soil, almost entirely from these flooded +rice-fields mirroring the ever near-by chain of mountains +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>that shuts off this laborious people close on the west. For +the real Annam is only this very narrow strip of fertile +lowlands on the eastern slope of the Siamese peninsula. +Like the Nile in Egypt, this main highway, close as it +is to the sea, takes in all the narrow country. The Annamese +chain crowds the toiling peasant so close to the +sea in many places that he is often driven into it as a +fisherman to escape starvation. He cultivates only the valleys, +both because he knows little else than rice and because +the Moï, the barbarians of various tribes, make it uncomfortable +for him back in the hills. Yet narrow as their +country is, of the eighteen or twenty million people in +French Indo-China two thirds are Annamese. For as if +to make up for its slenderness, that strip of flatland between +the mountains and the sea is incredibly fertile, so +fertile that its overcrowded toilers trouble themselves far +less with fertilizing than do the Chinese.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Bamboo of all sizes, palms ranging from mere fans to +great masses of leaves, magnificent trees, some of them +bearing the jackfruit on their trunks, cocoanut-palms +hugging the coast-line, banana-plants all but hiding thatched +huts, above all the straight and slender arec-palm up which +climbs the clinging betel-vine, broke the monotony of the rice-fields. +There were miles of hedges gay with what looked +like a small pink rose, and large flowers made up of many +tiny ones, care-free, unconstrained bushes, not the domesticated +hedge-rows of England. In places a shock of colors +like an explosion emphasized the landscape. Then, after +so long a stretch of rice-fields that they grew wearisome, +we went high up over a spur from which spread out another +great vista, more than half of it the dense, very +green tops of cocoanut-palms. Beyond came miles of waste-lands, +with sand white as snow piled up over sterile hillocks.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>There were hundreds of graves among these barren sands, +strewn as closely together as are the green unmarked grave-mounds +that emerge everywhere from the rice-fields, where +agriculture gnaws at them year after year, century after century, +yet never destroys them. Though January was not yet +done, and the lunar New Year was still a week off, preparations +had almost everywhere been completed for that important +date. Here and there a man was still touching up his +family graves, giving them a new top of sand or earth, +weeding and clearing them of all vegetation, before the +Annamese New Year should overtake him and bring reproach +from the spirits of his ancestors. But most of this +work had already been done, so that the rounded knolls, +such as stretch in hundreds of millions from northern Korea +to southern Annam, were bare and smooth now, all showing +some sign of recent care. Here in the waste-lands +the graves looked like sand-mounds left by playing children; +farther on came queer coffin-shaped ones of cement +or baked mud, just as if a coffin above the ground had +merely been plastered over.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Annamese live and keep shop on a wooden platform +a couple of feet above the earth floor; and generally mere +boards laid on two sawhorses, covered with a thin reed +mat, serve them as beds. Rarely has a native house more +comfort than that. As all houses should be redecorated +at New Year’s, there is a great market then for new reed, +grass, or fiber mats, and whole processions of them were +coming in from the country districts on the shoulder-poles +of men and wives. Some were plain, some had simple +designs, some had streaks of color running through them, +and I saw many rich with red and purple and lush-green +hues that no doubt would grace the hard couch of the +wealthy. To the Annamese the mat is the symbol of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>bed, of the couple, the household; and believing as firmly +as the French that it is not well for man to sleep alone, +they always sell these mats in pairs. If a family buys only +one mat at New Year’s renewing-time, say the wiseacres, +some member of it is sure to die within the year. From +the moment that two persons are gathered together they +should buy two mats, and as there is very little single +blessedness in Annam, merchants do not wish at any price +to divide a pair and run the risk of never selling the odd +one. Bachelors and old maids, one gathers, are as badly +off at New Year’s time as a one-legged man in a shoe-store—and +it serves them right, any native of early-marrying +Annam would no doubt answer, were his attention called +to one of those rare and unnatural beings.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Every little while during that all-day journey from +Quinhon to Tourane gusts of rain sprang up, between +stretches of blazing sunshine, and then men, women, and +children, every one of the outdoor class, slipped on palm-leaf +rain-coats that were shaped like opera-capes, or like +barrels with one stave removed so that the wearers could +get into them, and which they turned in any direction against +the slant of the rain. Scores of boys in these leaf rain-coats +sat their water-buffaloes or their red humped cattle +and let it drizzle. A real shower brought out so many rain-coats +that the whole landscape—people and houses, buffaloes +and hillsides—were covered with palm-leaves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the slimy pond at the entrance to every village the +inhabitants were washing their rice, their clothing, their +water-buffaloes, their night-buckets, themselves, everything +that is dirty, and dipping from the same spot water for +their kettles. They live with their cattle, their sway-back +pigs, their chickens, ducks, and orphaned curs; at noon-time +everybody in the villages, even the yellow mongrels, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>black pigs, the wilt-tailed fowls, slip into the cai-nha, or +thatched hut, for the siesta; and by night there is a similar +congregating. Yet they are not so filthy as the Chinese; +all things are relative. It behooves a more southern people, +eager to live out its allotted span, to show less innocence +of the meaning of cleanliness than do the incredible +Celestials.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Once that day we met an elephant. He was being slowly +driven along by a nonchalant coolie dozing astride his neck, +grazing as he went. Somehow an elephant strolling down +a modern highway, marked with kilometer-posts and traveled +by autobuses, daintily picking a bit of weed or a tuft +of grass here and there, and attracting no more attention +than a cow or a water-buffalo, was more impressive than +one all dolled up in a circus-parade.</p> + +<p class='c012'>When it was not clambering over a spur of the ever jostling +mountain chain to the west, this road through Annam +was always the same—a dike between two rice-fields, dusty +or muddy in the country, filled with people, pigs, and dogs +in the towns and villages. Then suddenly, frequently, inevitably, +another <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i>, an ancient floating contrivance that +leaks and creaks with age, which Annamese push across +some river or inlet of the sea with poles that seem too +heavy for their meager arms. Sometimes the commander +of the <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> is a woman, strongest of all the crew, not only +in will-power but in muscle. Once in a while we crossed +a woven-bamboo bridge that gave with a groan under our +cruel weight and regained its shape as an invalid knocked +down regains his feet. But the short rivers of narrow +Annam are often so wide and so erratic that they discourage +the building of bridges. For the stream rises or +falls, according to the season, disappears, comes back in a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>towering rage; and red with anger some morning it carries +away not only bridges, where any exist, but dikes, roads, +villages, the very railways, anything that dares to loiter in +its imperious path. Then, too, Indo-China has terrific +typhoons, which tear down her forests, to say nothing of +destroying roads and bridges and the other puny works of +the French usurpers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The French do their best to keep the highways of Indo-China +up to their own far-famed standard, especially this +ancient route through Annam that is still sometimes known, +in memory of the days when Chinese officials went over it +in chairs, as the Mandarin Road—though now it is Route +Coloniale No. 1. A French <i><span lang="fr">ingénieur de routes</span></i> lives in +every stretch of a hundred kilometers or so; there was +much road-mending all along that two-day autobus journey. +An army of <i><span lang="fr">congaïes</span></i>, the supple young women of Annam, +trotting like black ants along the dikes, carried stones, mud, +and other materials in little baskets at the ends of their +shoulder-poles; at frequent intervals we dashed past long +heaps of broken stone; men and women, boys and girls, +the two sexes working and looking incredibly alike, and +showing no sign that they recognized any difference in sex, +toiled to keep the road passable.</p> + +<div id='i_114' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_114a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>An Annamese girl, chaperoned by her small brother, sells her wares in the market-place of Hué</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_114b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>When it rains in Annam, as it does on every provocation, a simple straw raincoat covers either sex among the masses</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_115' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_115a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Like the southern Chinese the Annamese are expert boatmen because they learn their calling long before they reach the dignity of clothing</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_115b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Swinging in the village squares is a favorite diversion of the Annamese populace during the lunar New Year’s season</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>The roads of Indo-China, even this principal highway of +Annam, are constructed for one vehicle at a time, as are +the <i><span lang="fr">bacs</span></i> and the narrow cement bridges across the slighter +streams that were constantly breaking through from the +mountains on this journey up the eastern coast of the +China Sea. There was little reason for them to be wider, +for few automobiles take advantage of the Frenchman’s +expensive road-building, though there were then more than +four thousand motor-cars in Indo-China, and any one who +has recently traveled in continental eastern Asia knows that +means a great many. We passed a private car or two during +the day, the south-bound autobus of our own line, and +the rival mail-carrying government buses, the one bound +in our direction constantly racing past us or being in turn +left to swallow our dust or wallow in our mud. A few +big clumsy carts drawn by water-buffaloes brought rice to +market; further than that there were almost no other +vehicles, except rickshaws. No wonder road-filling markets +and startled villagers, to say nothing of pigs, curs, urchins, +and chickens, were not prepared for us when we roared +down upon them out of the south and on like an avalanche +into the north. Nearly all the carts of Indo-China are +drawn by man-power; even massive machinery is hauled by +human muscle, though there are a few stout little horses. +A hammock slung on two poles, with a woven-reed or +split-bamboo cover over it, were the only survivals of the +sedan-chairs once so numerous along the Mandarin Road. +To-day you can scour all Indo-China, from Bac-Lieu to +Laokay, and never meet, at least on a main road, a single +palanquin, nowhere find a chair porter, once so numerous, +but only a thin line of autobuses and automobiles, and many +rickshaws.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We met rickshaws everywhere, plying even between towns +far apart in the well inhabited sections of this Shoestring +Country. Red rickshaws rattling with the iron-tired wheels +of our buggy of a generation ago, nearly all carried two passengers, +and freight or baggage enough to sink an ox-cart. +Yet the little runner, seldom as large as either passenger, +trotted mile after mile across the country, rarely falling into +a walk. Even in hard-working China two adults are hardly +ever seen riding in the same rickshaw, but in Annam it is so +common as to be almost the rule. It is of course nice and +cozy, romantic and unoriental, to see a man riding along +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>with his wife half in his lap—granting that it always is his +wife; certainly it is some one’s wife, for nothing is so rare +in Annam as old maids. Sometimes there is a half-grown +child also, for good measure, giving the skinny puller the +task of dragging three persons and all their movable belongings +along mile after mile of highway, until you wonder +whether even the dull-witted human horses themselves do +not realize that it might have been better for them if the +French had never come to build roads capable of two-wheeled +vehicles.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Tourane, where the autobus ended its northward task +some time before sunset on the second day out of Nhatrang, +is a “foreign concession.” One suspects that the “protected” +emperor of Annam lost little time in conceding this much +to the French when they expressed a desire for a <i><span lang="fr">pied à +terre</span></i> in Annam, with a status similar to those they hold in +Shanghai and Tientsin. As a matter of fact Tourane, the +best harbor in Annam, was given to the French, along with +the islands of Poulo Condore and Touron off the coast of +Cochinchina, in return for their help to Gia-long in consolidating +the claims of the present dynasty at the beginning +of the nineteenth century. Tourane bulks larger +on the map than on the spot. It suggests a real-estate +boom in some aristocratic old hamlet that died out long +before the “plotting” by its optimistic sponsors reached its +justification. In area it vindicates its conspicuousness on +paper; on the spot it is even more roomy than the average +town of Annam under the French, straining itself to cover +as great a space as possible, like some of our largest American +cities, like a squatter who fears that anything he may +not claim will be taken away from him. Grass-bordered +roads rather than streets, broad rural highways among +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>widely scattered French tropical residences in spacious yards, +each with the atmosphere of a private park, the necessary +official buildings of a French headquarters, shops and market-place +enough to supply the wants of the residents, and +the Hôtel Morin, half grocery and half <i><span lang="fr">pension</span></i>, for the accommodation +of transient foreigners, just about complete the +inventory. Scattered at the end of a short wide river where +it empties into an excellent blue harbor in which ocean +steamers can anchor close to the town, it is no city at all +compared even with obscure Faifo a few miles south; but +as a residence of foreigners it takes on a false importance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By the same token it has some of the comforts of home, +or at least their tropical counterparts. The expenditure of +two piastres a month brings daily to those householders +capable of appreciating such luxuries two large bottles of +sterilized water from the French government hospital. Ice, +without which the French refuse to live for a day in their +Far-Eastern empire, is brought every morning from Hué, +sixty-five miles away. I was reminded by contrast of the +endless individual tasks of boiling all water that passes +the lips of any but the most foolish foreigners in China, +and that four fifths of the foreign residents there know +ice only from homeland memories, while thousands of them +never enjoy the luxury of a really cold drink from the +time they leave their transpacific steamer until they embark +for home again. Wherever half a dozen Frenchmen are +gathered together in Indo-China there is an ice-making +machine, or at least some means of getting a daily supply +from some more fortunate group. The most constant cry +in any French hotel dining-room in the colony is “<i><span lang="fr">Nuoc-da!</span></i>” +Natives who have become sophisticated in such matters +have much sport in startling the Moï and other wild tribes +back of the sea-level strip with the “water-stone” produced +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>by their French masters. A piece of it passed from palm +to palm until it disappears like a few drops of perspiration +produces more astonishment among the hills than does an +automobile or airplane. It is pure magic to the naïve wearers +of the loin-cloth, and by such things have the people of +the West won their prestige among them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Until I reached Tourane I had not seen a Christian missionary +in Indo-China—that is, not a Protestant missionary; +the French do not admit that their own priests are +missionaries in a land over which their own flag waves. +Glad as the traveler always is to meet his own people in +very foreign parts, I had been half conscious of a feeling +of relief at the scarcity of avowed soul-savers, compared +to the swarms of them in China itself. This paucity of +workers in the spiritual vineyard of a race in some ways +more Christ-like than we is not an indication that Protestant +missions have wilfully overlooked Indo-China but that +the French do not fervently welcome them there. In all +the colony-protectorate there are only a few proselyters +from the English-speaking world, and they are confined to +three or four stations. In activity as well as in territory +they are forced to be very circumspect, and thereby hangs +the sad tale they have to tell the traveler who will listen.</p> + +<p class='c007'>They came first in 1911, a bit of pollen wafted southward +from the great mission-field of China. At first they +were allowed comparative freedom, or at least were graciously +ignored. Then came the World War, and in due time +the discovery that the United States might not after all +join the Allies. Neutrals were rated little better than +enemies in this far-flung slice of the French empire. All +American missionaries in the possession were ordered to +leave. The Canadians might remain, since they were allies; +but as they were merely individual workers in what was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>virtually an American mission-field, they had little choice +but to leave also. When the war was long enough over +for its bitternesses to have become somewhat diluted, the +missionaries were allowed to return, but only to find their +goings and doings more hampered than ever. They were +almost freely admitted to Cochinchina, because it is rated +a colony, in which the laws and customs of France apply +in most matters. They were allowed in Tourane, because +it is a “foreign concession.” But the rest of Indo-China +being merely under the “protection” of France, missionary +work there is a different matter. The authorities had discovered +that the treaty of 1877 between the emperor of +Annam and the Western world, by which Christian missionaries +were granted the right freely to propagate their +doctrines in the emperor’s realm, applied only to the Catholics, +“because they are the only Christians within the meaning +of the text.” Moreover the startling fact was unearthed +that “the emperor and his ministers are against the teaching +of the Protestant doctrines to their people”—as if the +poor little puppet on the throne of Annam would dare to +be against anything unless his French guardians suggested +it. Similar difficulties developed against admitting missionaries +to Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos, and to-day the saving +of souls in the Protestant fashion is not a flourishing enterprise +in that part of the peninsula east of Siam.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On the other hand the Annamese are converted to +Catholicism by whole villages, particularly after some priestly +assistance in the courts, a communal loan, or some other +legitimate Catholic form of propaganda. One great inducement +is that the converts are allowed to retain their +ancestor worship, under a slightly different guise. But +then, the Protestant missionaries permit their rare converts +to keep all the wives of whom they are possessed at conversion, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>so long as they do not add to them afterward. +“What,” the missionaries quite properly ask, “could be done +with cast-off wives if their converted husbands found Christianity +a means of getting rid of their support?”</p> + +<p class='c007'>In Tourane there was a Protestant church—though the +French deny such false places of worship any other name +than <i><span lang="fr">temple</span></i>—and a school. But those great educational and +medical institutions so common in China with its thousands +of missionaries of who knows how many sects are not a +feature of the Indo-China landscape. The French have +many hospitals, but they are government- rather than priest-operated. +They have found it uphill work to encourage +the Annamese to go to them, and only of very late years +have they attracted any great percentage of the population, +though clinical service is free and even in-patients pay +very little—lying-in cases, for instance, are charged about +a piastre a fortnight, just enough to pay for native food. +But when the French doctors go to call on patients outside +the hospitals they ask fees of five piastres a visit +of French and Annamese alike. Naturally an Annamese +earning ten piastres a month cannot call in the doctor often, +so they fall back upon their own medicine-men. “<i><span lang="fr">Mais quoi +donc!</span></i>” cry the French; “A doctor must have his pay +like any one else, <i><span lang="fr">n’est-ce pas?</span></i>” True enough no doubt, +though after two years of associating with the foreign missionary +doctors of China, whose fees amount almost to nothing—unless +the patients are non-missionary foreign residents—one +begins to dream of some more ideal method in +matters of health than the competition of the market-place.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I coaxed one of the few Americans engaged in saving +souls in Tourane to take a needed holiday and visit the +“Marble Mountains” with me. These farthest-south outrunners +of the great rock hills that become so numerous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>and so fantastically individual in form farther north, dotting +by thousands the Bay of Along and stretching far on down +the West River in the Chinese province of Kwangsi, seem +wholly out of place here protruding from the flat sandy +coast-land. It is as if the gods, carrying these absurd +heaps of molten rock from their equatorial melting-place +to their allotted destination, had dropped a few of them +unnoticed on the way. Across the river, by native boat, +we walked for hours along the beach toward them, close +as they look to the town. The sea, stretching away to +the eastward like a sheet of molten steel, rolled great breakers +in at our feet. Had they swept over us we should +probably have been less drenched than we were with perspiration +from that endless plodding through the sand.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The incandescent sun stood sheer overhead by the time +we reached that misplaced cluster of savage heaps of rock. +Jagged mountain peaks jutting out of the sand like islands +from the sea, the “Marble Mountains” of Tourane, taking +their name from the marble-like rock of which they are +formed, rise in thousands of pinnacles, nearly all of them +sharp as needles, the peaks themselves pointed as the head +of a Roman spear. Nature evidently did not intend man +to explore these isolated crags standing out so sharply +against the white sand all about them. For not only are +the myriad rocks themselves needle-pointed, but all the +vegetation that steals its scanty nourishment among them +bristles with thorns. No four-footed animal has ever been +known to venture up them; and only hardy climbers of the +two-legged species, with the price of a new pair of shoes +available, are wise to attempt the ascent, slight as is the +elevation. From the summit of the highest, once the climber +can find standing-space for both feet, spreads a brilliant +scene of beach and sea, of rice-green plain backed by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>endless Annamese range not far inland, and, dim in the +offing, the hogback island which the government rents to a +syndicate of Cantonese who gather there the ingredients of +bird’s-nest soup.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We fell upon our wilted lunch at a temple cut into the +lower slope of one of the “mountains,” a temple quite like +those of China, even to the languid attitude of the priests. +Then we explored grotto after grotto, deliciously cool after +our infernal climb. In the largest of them the Annamese +have set up other Chinese-style temples, for the attracting +of pilgrims. Half-naked families peered forth from little +huts nearly buried in the sand as we skirted the bristling +waterless heaps on our way to the river, down which native +boatmen sculled us back to the town.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The mission stands so convenient to the railway station in +the outskirts of the widely scattered concession as to suggest +that the workers in this difficult bit of the Lord’s vineyard +wish to be prepared at any moment to abandon their +task at the behest of their powerful rivals. The train that +picks up there the broken end of what in a few years will be +a continuous railroad the whole length of Indo-China strains +its way for more than two hours toward Hué, the Annamese +capital. First there is a desert of brush and sand +from mountains to the sea, its blue bays dotted by so many +sails that one’s sympathy is rather with the hunted fish +than with the crowded people who must have them or +starve. Huge fish-nets on poles, pulled from the shore, leave +the denizens of the deep little chance for safety except +by taking to the far high seas. Then for twenty miles +the railway crawls along the face of a cliff, not a hundred +feet above chaotic heaps of rocks boiling in the surf of a +vast stretch of blue ocean, burrowing its way through many +tunnels. At length both rocks and sea disappear, some +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>densely jungled hillsides succumb in time to a plain, now +planted with rice, now covered with low brush, single +weather-faded thatched huts or clusters of them scattered +across it, and with the sudden tropical twilight passengers +blend into the chaos of rickshaw-men of the capital of +Annam.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII<br> <span class='c011'>MAROONED IN HUÉ</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>The river at Hué runs parallel to the sea, some twenty +miles inland, and there is a screen of mountains to +the south, the direction from which evil spirits come in +Annam—just as the north, the reservoir of bitter cold and +conquering Tartar tribes, is the quarter from which they +are to be guarded against at Peking. There are also two +islands near-by, known respectively as the White Tiger and +the Blue Dragon. Hence it is not strange that the royal +geomancers of several generations ago considered this the +proper place to establish a new capital.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is a very roomy town, like all those of any size and +importance in Annam, probably not so much from Annamese +custom as from French influence. On the foreign side of +the river, where the traveler is set down, are all those +things properly pertaining to the French superlords. From +the railway station a wide grass-sided boulevard along the +river-bank passes in its mile or more of existence a rather +imposing school, hospital, barracks, and government buildings, +many comfortable French residences, the <i><span lang="fr">cercle</span></i> where +the ruling race gathers of an otherwise empty evening +over its coffee and wine, its dominoes and cards, and brings +the traveler at length to another grocery-hotel named for +the tropically energetic Morin brothers. Just beyond, only +across the street from the French windows of the room assigned +me, stands the palatial residence and offices of the +<i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i>, real ruler of Annam.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>The whole machinery of the actual government of the +“protected” kingdom is confined to this side of the river, +the south side, direction of evil influences. Probably the +river was kept between the real and the puppet rulers purposely; +the French have as good reason as the emperor of +Annam to keep up the fiction of his sacredness and unapproachability. +Yet space is still so plentiful in this French +section of Hué that almost any official—and there are virtually +no other European residents—has his own garden +and greensward among trees, large enough to be called, with +a little stretching of the southern Gallic imagination, a private +park. In any habitable direction these shade away into +thatched huts that may be tailor-shops and the like as +well as native residences. Up a creek tributary of the +river bulks forth on its knoll the tropical-weather-worn old +cathedral, under a nap of fine vegetation, a contrast to the +low insignificant buildings of the missionaries of Tourane. +Not the least conspicuous thing on the French side of the +river is the Monument aux Morts, in Annamese style, the +names of the French heroes who went home from Annam +to die in the World War facing the boulevard, where the +passer-by can scarcely overlook them, those of the Annamese +who made the great sacrifice for the “mother-land” +around on the side facing the river. Of course he who takes +the trouble to go behind the monument can read those also; +possibly the emperor can even make them out with a powerful +field-glass from the flagpole of his citadel, if he ever +climbs so high; or it may be that the placid river is more +in keeping with their memory than the road with its broken +stream of Oriental and Western traffic.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I found the weather in Hué quite different from that of +Saïgon. When rain falls in Cochinchina it is dry in Annam, +and vice versa, thanks to a high range between them. Ever +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>since I had left Canton the weather had been bright and +equatorial in temperature, but as I came northward the +humidity had steadily increased in density, and now the +rainy season this so plainly augured overtook me in earnest. +For the first time since leaving Hong Kong I was comfortably +cool, though white was still my favorite garb. +It did not seem to be so with the French of Hué, however, +perhaps because of some connection between that color and +the sacredness of the emperor. There was an attention to +dress worthy of descendants of Beau Brummel and his +spouse, if he had one; but white suits for men were +rather looked down upon, and of course to so much as +step out of a bedroom without a coat on was almost as +incredible a breach of civilization as in Brazil itself. A +thick Scotch mist reigned all my first, and what I had +planned to be my only, day in the capital; and that evening +at the very height of the motion-picture tale on the wall +of the outdoor covered sitting-space in the grocery-hotel +courtyard tropical rains began to fall in earnest. Hardly +did it let up again as long as I remained in Hué—except +for the all-important day that justified my stay, during which +the weather behaved <i><span lang="fr">à merveille</span></i>. It poured without cessation, +confining me to my hotel room, making even a dash +across the courtyard to the other parts of the establishment +a shower-bath with mud foundation, forcing me to +put off my visit to the real Hué across the river, the “citadel” +with its palaces, bringing forth again the cloth suit +for which I had so roundly berated myself at Saïgon, and +leaving me none too warm at that. Everything took quickly +to mildewing, and in less than forty-eight hours pocketbooks +and the extra shoes of those who owned them were covered +with a delicate vegetation. Soon stories began to come +in of dikes giving way, of thousands of coolies being rushed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>to save this or that town, built several meters below the +river, so that a broken embankment would mean disaster.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Nowhere could the rainy season have overtaken me with +less cause for resentment, however, for I had to tarry several +days in Hué rain or shine. I did not know this when +I arrived, but found it out next morning, when I went +to present to the “résuper” the letter of introduction I +had won from some other official along the line. The +real ruler of Annam, less telegraphically known as the <i><span lang="fr">résident +supérieur</span></i>, received me in his palatial dwelling and +bureau a few steps beyond the grocery-hotel with a perfect +Gallic mixture of courtesy and that something which +leaves one no chance to presume upon one’s fancied importance. +Yet the writer of that letter must have been either +an important personage or the “résuper’s” boon companion +in school-boy days, for it certainly could not have been +my own virtues that won me the precious privilege the +superior resident of Annam offered.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the course of our official platitudes he mentioned that +the ceremony of the lunar New Year greeting of his loyal +subjects to the emperor of Annam across the river would +take place the following Tuesday morning. It was then Friday, +and by Tuesday I had hoped to be leaving Hanoï for +the Chinese border. But the most important personage of +Annam went on to mention that, while only French officials +were ordinarily admitted—which I found later not to be +sternly true—he thereby invited me to remain for this +crowning feature of the Annamese <i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i>. This very special +favor, I gathered from his meticulous deportment, was not +so much in my own honor as to that of the then still gratefully +remembered country to which I belong.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Expert as I was in my academic days at ministering to +the gastronomic demands of my fellow-students, I have never +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>been a good waiter. For some inexplicable reason the loss +of time brings me more bitterness than the loss of money, +though of the first I have habitually far more to spare than +of the second. Certainly I did not care to squander wantonly +in Hué the better part of a week that I had planned +to spend in hurrying back to my family in Canton, with +whom communication had been rare and precarious. Yet I +felt it a duty to my curiosity, if not to my country, to attend +one royal levee before the time comes to settle down +to a respectable life of immobility. There are few such +ceremonies left in the world, and still fewer of them are +open to Europeans—as the East insists on considering Americans. +I murmured a polite acceptance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But life is an incessant series of ups and downs in this +vale of tears. The next words of the ruler of Annam +turned my satisfaction into disappointment. When I—or +it may have been the “résuper” himself—brought up +the obviously important question of court costume, he remarked, +“Of course you have with you your frock-coat +and <i><span lang="fr">chapeau de forme</span></i>?”—in other words the ceremonial +head-gear of politicians and other successful exploiters of +the general public. Or if not, it seemed, I could get along +with <i><span lang="fr">le smoking</span></i>—which as a Frenchman he of course pronounced +“smocking.” Now <i><span lang="fr">le smoking</span></i> ordinarily means +our more modest form of dinner garb, disrespectfully known +as “soup and fish,” and not only that part of my wardrobe, +but the even more absurd long-tailed livery of night life, I +had left at Canton. The motive for this dreadful oversight +had seemed sufficient in the days when it occurred. I did not +care to have the Chinese bandits I was almost sure to meet +on my way home have just cause for wreaking Bolshevik +vengeance upon me by catching me in possession of such unsightly +things, or give them the false impression that I was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>worth holding for ransom, or, more likely still, endure +the painful experience of seeing one of them bedeck himself +in that unseemly garb. I could of course not weep openly +in so official a predicament, but it looked indeed as if for my +carelessness in packing, my failure to remember the oft-learned +lesson that the equatorial regions of the earth by +no means forgo the perspiring amenities of social intercourse, +I was to miss something which very few of my countrymen +have seen. True, the “résuper” murmured something to the +effect that some way would be found to <i><span lang="fr">me tirer d’affaire</span></i>, +but I took this to be merely a kind way of softening my +unavoidable disappointment, and having received official permission +to visit the palaces across the river under less interesting +circumstances I took my leave.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I had barely broken my first French roll and tasted my +wine at the eleven o’clock <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> when one of the black-turbaned +“boys” in snowy white laid before me the card +of the “Chef de Sûreté d’Annam.” Misfortunes certainly +come in clusters. The chief of the security of Annam, +police-head extraordinary of the land, suggested trouble, +with emphasis on such persons as spies and unwanted +visitors; hence it was with something akin to trepidation +that I hurried out to the grocery division of the hotel and +presented myself before him. Perhaps I had somewhere +neglected to have something done again to my passport, and +was to be ordered out of the country, which would not +greatly matter, now that I had lost the privilege of hobnobbing +with the emperor, except that they might send me +back the way I had come, or perhaps from Tourane as the +most convenient port, and spoil my plan of going all the +way from Angkor to Canton by land.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I found the bearer of the dreaded title an upstanding, +soldierly, yet genial fellow, in the act of sampling a newly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>opened keg of olives. The <i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i>, he remarked, +after the customary words of greeting, had sent him to see +me. So I was in for it, even as I had feared! But to my +astonishment and growing relief the chief of Annam’s security +showed no signs of official wrath. Conversation ran +along in a perfectly neutral manner until my fellow-guests +in the dining-room must have been nearing the sad French +substitutes for apple-pie. Then at length, in a very tactful +way—which was fortunate, since I am nothing if not sensitive—the +guardian of the security of Annam introduced the +apparently irrelevant and immaterial theme that he and I +were of about the same build; to which, so long as he did not +also charge me with rivaling him in manly beauty, I acquiesced. +In short, he interrupted himself in the midst +of some genial story based on the natural spiritual affinity +between republican France and my own Republican land to +say that he had come at the suggestion of his superior to offer +me clothing for the coming ceremony. He would be glad to +assemble the requisite outfit from his own wardrobe; he had +already done as much, some years before, for another <i><span lang="fr">journaliste</span></i> +from my country—what a barbarian and unprovided +nation he must have thought us!</p> + +<div id='i_130' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_130a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Overlooking, from his flagpole, the palaces of the emperor of Annam</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_130b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>China itself cannot outdo the old bronze urns before the main palace of the Annamese emperor</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_131' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_131.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The throne-room of the emperor of Annam, on the afternoon before the New Year’s ceremony</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>We began forthwith to take stock. For a moment it +seemed that I would after all need only to wear his trousers, +for the conference disclosed that in Annam <i><span lang="fr">le smoking</span></i> +means black pantaloons topped by a white tuxedo coat giving +up its duties abruptly at the waist, what is quite fittingly +known in the dancing circles of the Far East as a “monkey +jacket.” Nay, even a full-length white coat would do, and +that I had. I was even the possessor of black trousers—if +ever the baggage I had checked at Saïgon should catch +up with me. But further discussion brought to light the +annoying fact that those straying trousers had a faint stripe +in them, and that would never do; it would be almost equivalent +to <i><span lang="fr">lèse-majesté</span></i>. Then that white coat—did it have one +button or two? Two, as far as I recalled. “Sapristi!” The +chief of the security of Annam threw up his arms in a gesture +of dismay. A coat with two buttons would be worse than +no coat at all in Annamese court circles, I gathered from his +excited demeanor. Also I should have to have a vest,—beg +pardon, purists of the editorial function, I mean a +w’s’c’t—and that curse in any climate, let alone in the tropics, +a stiff collar. All these things the chief expressed his delight +to be able to furnish, and the day seemed to have been saved—until +he glanced down at my feet. They were incased in +brown shoes. Moreover, though I am not perpetually conscious +of that fact, they must be large feet, compared at least +with those even of athletic Frenchmen of my own build, +for the chief not only disclaimed any ability to provide me +with shoes of such a size from his own wardrobe, but doubted +the possibility of finding a pair as large as that in all Hué. +Plainly I have overlooked the opportunity of becoming a +great popular comedian and riding in my own limousine. +But surely Buddha would provide, in so small, or even large, +a matter as that, and I planned to settle down in Hué for five +days rather than wend my way homeward bitter with +disappointment.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Once I had reconciled myself to losing several days, Hué +was by no means the worst place on earth in which to pass +the time. My hotel room was more home-like than those +for which we pay several times as much in our own beloved +land; food, wine, and ice were in keeping with French standards, +and if the evening movies in the hotel courtyard were +not worth going to the Orient to see, the types of French +colonials and the natives they attracted were, not to mention +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>the numerous crosses between those two races. Then too +the rain did now and then slacken, though so weary did the +senses become of hearing it pour on the graveled road outside +that it never seemed to do so. One briefly clear evening +I took a walk in Hué itself, the walled but very much +Frenchified imperial residence across the river from the +newer foreign section. The river is so wide that seven big +incongruous steel arches are needed to lift the modern bridge +over it, and the town beyond proved to be extensive, though +from the farther bank it looked merely like a façade of shops +backed by forest. A whole village of queer boats, most of +which spend their lives in bringing produce to the big half-covered +market-place on the northern bank, were anchored +about that end of the bridge. At first there seemed to be +no great population. But gradually this impression gave +way, as the town, orderly with wide right-angled streets, +stretched leisurely on and on out various directions, long after +one expected it to succumb to jungle or fields, until I began +to wonder if there could be as much city scattered among the +trees here as in the forest of Angkor-Thom.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Whatever the French have left of shops and native handicrafts +is outside the wall and moat of the imperial residence. +Once, they say, these were labyrinths of narrow dirty streets; +now they are neither labyrinthine nor unclean, and much of +the picturesqueness one expects is lacking. In the wide-open +shops that lined the principal extramural streets one saw +Madrasis in little red fezzes, most of them with black-toothed +Annamese wives, and children with the luminous eyes of +the Hindu. But there seemed to be few Chinese merchants. +The Annamese themselves evidently kept shop here more +than is normal, perhaps because the capital with its swarms +of loafing functionaries had impressed them with the ease +of this sedentary occupation. Between the river and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>mountains that shield the capital from evil southern influences +there are many waterways, and sampans and humped +bridges were frequent. But on the whole the charm of the +Orient had been cleaned and modernized away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Much of the old atmosphere remained, however, within the +<i><span lang="fr">citadelle</span></i> which the native city partly surrounded. In Annam +towns of any importance are encircled by ramparts and are +known as citadels. Once, and in some cases still, the rather +roomy residences of native officials, the citadels of Annam +have little in common with the walled cities of China, teeming +with jostling humanity. The crenelated walls of Hué +inclose a space a mile or more square, but it is a newer, lower, +much less imposing wall than the ancient ones surrounding +Peking and most Chinese cities. A moat stagnant with +water-lilies and other broad-leafed vegetation protects the +wall, and short stone bridges older in appearance than they +probably are in years give entrance to it in three or four +places through Chinese-style gates. Inside is an astonishing +spaciousness, trees and greensward and shaded boulevard-wide +streets, a veritable park scattered with dwellings, as +if nothing were so plentiful as space. With overcrowded +China always in mind, I was constantly astonished at the +roominess of Annamese cities. Within the citadel, Hué is a +city of gardens, less a capital than a great inhabited park, +more an Oriental Versailles than a Paris, not so much a +center of hard official duties as a perpetual summer residence +of Eastern potentates. As those on this side of the +river really have very little to do with governing, the atmosphere +is in keeping with the facts, and the ostensible +rulers of Annam can spend their time growing flowers and +parading their singing-birds.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Never, surely, was another walled city so bucolic as this +residence of the sacred emperor of Annam. Quiet and calm +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>reigned everywhere along its wide roadway under trees that +joined together overhead into an almost concealing forest. +Lotus ponds, as covered as the moat with flowers and big +green leaves, lay here and there through the half-forest; +many of the houses—most of them, I was to learn later, the +homes of mandarins—were set in roomy gardens surrounded +by low walls with imposing gateways. With its broad river +and its canals, bordered with water-palms, its flower-decked +bungalows, its wide silent roadways, the chimeric roofs of +its palaces, the splendid circle of its forest, its quiet and +cleanliness, Hué was indeed a great contrast to China. One +day when for a little while the weather was clear—no, +not that, for the humidity was thick as cream, but at least +the sun was doing its best to shine through it—I evaded +the royal guards and mounted the iron ladder of the Eiffel +Tower of a flagpole, which stands at the front of the citadel. +From it the royal palaces stretched away among the trees one +after another in a straight line, impressive by their colors, +perhaps by their architecture, but never by their height, as +if their builders scorned to take advantage of that cheapest +means of exciting admiration. From this elevation little else +than the palaces and the tree-tops are visible, but down beneath +the foliage the stroller will find many humble huts +made of poles and thatch, not only within the citadel but +only a short walk from the palaces of the sacred Annamese +emperor. Yet about some of these simple, but probably on +the whole as comfortable, homes of the ordinary mass of his +loyal subjects, there were some fine clipped hedges, as if +these faded-thatch hovels were merely a means of disguising +wealth still naturally modest from centuries of envious +mandarins. Rich and poor have the same little squared garden, +the same dwarf trees growing in pots of baked earth, +the same water-jars sweating in the sun.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>He who is privileged to visit the home of a mandarin +enters the principal room directly from the garden, without +steps, and finds it furnished with a big bed of naked wood, +with no other bed-furnishings than a porcelain pillow and +a reed mat. Besides that there is a round table with stools, +and the altar of the ancestors. This now sometimes bears a +photograph of the deceased in the place of the ancient tablet—the +one evidence of progress, and an unpleasant one, for +it is far more agreeable to picture a bygone member of the +human race from no other data than his posthumous name +in Chinese characters on an upright stick than to behold +him photographically in all the moles and wrinkles he left +behind him in the grave.</p> + +<p class='c012'>All this I did not of course see in one day; the rain was +too incessant for that. Long as I remained I could not have +seen it all if I had not defied the rain, helped thereto by +the attitude of the natives toward it. A rainy day does not +keep the Annamese indoors; like the inhabitants of most +southern countries where deluges fall for days at a time, +they make the most of it. I had only to glance out my hotel +window to see scores of both sexes, bare to the knees, even +to the loins, all ages wearing their mushroom hats and the +palm-leaf rain-coats that turn so easily this way or that, +according to the slant of the storm. On they went, carrying +their shoulder-pole loads or doing whatever else the pursuit +of their rice required of them, quite as if the sun were +shining. It is so hot when it does that in some ways a rainy +day is a more pleasant time to work; and what is mud when +you can wash one foot with the other at any water-hole? +Thus Hué on those wet days was a vista of broad graveled +streets, lined by trees and grass and spaciousness, and dotted +with human figures dressed only in palm-leaves, so far as the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>eye could see, like some strange Eden that defied any but +the most practised eye to tell the sexes apart.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As there seemed to be no prospect of the rain halting, I +dived into a rickshaw one afternoon and went to visit the +palaces across the river. It was as well that I had brought +along my special permit from the “résuper,” for soldiers in +the now familiar Annamese uniform of khaki rompers and +blouse below a mushroom, brass-topped hat and above bare +feet—here however with imperial yellow rather than the +ordinary red wrap-leggings—expect a permit from Europeans, +though coolies of both sexes were going freely in and +out. A fine pretense this that the French are merely protectors; +and incidentally it keeps other Western nations from +finding out too much of what goes on in the privacy of the +emperor’s own department of the governing of Annam. +There is nothing very exciting about his palaces. So low +that they are not seen at any distance, they are few and unimposing +compared to the Forbidden City of Peking. Yet +small as they are beside their Chinese counterparts, like the +same thing not too exactly done in miniature, they are in +general artistic and in some ways perhaps superior to their +more pretentious Chinese models. One’s impression of them +and of the dynasty they represent improved with seeing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Workmen on a bamboo scaffolding were repainting the +exterior of the main audience-chamber, and Saturday afternoon +being pay-day, even as in other lands, a group of mandarins +with ladylike hands, on some of which cat-claw finger-nails +still remained, sat at a table keeping books in French +style and paying out French paper piastres to the men and +women as they filed past. Building after building, Chinese +wood-and-paper buildings under top-heavy tile roofs, all of +imperial yellow, stretched lengthwise one behind another, +like squads of soldiers with a passageway through the middle +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>of them, as do those of a Chinese yamen, back to the main +and finally the more private edifices. All these were inclosed +within a walled compound. Under the incessant rain +the polished tiles of the courtyards between them resembled +great lakes of uncertain depth, in which all the surroundings +were mirrored as in a broad horizontal pier-glass. The old +bronze lanterns before the palace verandas, exactly full of +rain-water, were as beautiful, as graceful, as any I had seen +in China; and being carefully preserved in this still imperial +land, they showed their fine points to better advantage. They +are hardly the favorite lanterns of his Majesty, however, +who is more French than Chinese in his tastes and thirsts.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The gaudy audience-chamber was on the whole more conspicuous +than lovely. The real throne-room, on the other +hand, was a gorgeous place well worth seeing, in spite of a +goodly supply of those chandeliers which seem to be Europe’s +chief contribution to the splendor of Oriental kings. From +a vast expanse of varicolored tiles gleaming as if they were +made of glass, rose a forest of red pillars with imperial yellow +five-clawed dragons climbing them. Decorations of +every conceivable Chinese form and color, but with red in +the ascendancy, added to the rich yet not chaotic ensemble. +There were many fine vases, quite evidently Chinese, though +the “guide” who saw to it that I chipped off no souvenirs +and slipped nothing into my pockets called some of them +French and contended that many of the others were made +by the Annamese themselves, in earlier days, before those +of his countrymen capable of such things had all died off. +But they looked to me so much like Kingtehchen ware, the +best of Kingtehchen at that, that for once I might have been +tempted into a wager if one had been offered.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Naturally there was the throne, and all the other things +that go with emperors’ throne-rooms, but all those I was to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>see better during the ceremony that was keeping me in Hué. +Suffice it to say that the throne-room of Annam was the +most gorgeous place I had seen in many a moon, on the +whole artistically pleasing, and—that the rank and file of +Americans may understand just what I am trying to say—worth +several million piastres, or about half as many +dollars.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Beyond came more long tile-covered rooms, shed-like in +shape, in which were many spirit-tablets and tables covered +with porcelain fruits. There were even some small baskets +of real fruit, perhaps because it was now New Year time, +when the spirits of the departed cannot be deceived with +pretended food, and when their descendants are surest to +remember them. All these things and many more stood in +imposing array before the six shrines of the present dynasty. +I fear, however, that with my incorrigibly plebeian mind and +tastes I found most interesting of all the flocks of ordinary +coolies with dusters and brooms, who roamed about all the +buildings among these king’s playthings and slept on mat-covered +boards beside them.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The story of the emperors of Annam, since Gia-long asked +through the bishop of Adran for the assistance of the French +against his dynastic rivals at the end of the eighteenth century, +is not an entirely happy one. Some of them have even +lost their jobs entirely for not behaving themselves, or for +disobeying the French. There was Thanh-thai, for instance, +deposed in 1907. He had been cutting up—among other +things one of his concubines, merely to try his hand at +surgery. So the French, not realizing perhaps that such +things happen even in Philadelphia, nay, in Paris itself, sent +him into exile and called in a doctor to help pick out one of +his many sons to take his place. The eldest they passed over +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>as a plain idiot, and chose a boy in prison, who howled because +he thought he was being led forth to have his head +lopped off. By the time they had washed and dressed him +in the imperial robes, however, and seated him on the throne +with the jade scepter in his childish hand, he had reverted +to type and was an emperor both in appearance and demeanor, +scorning already the common people among his +kowtowing subjects. But in 1916, coincident with a certain +busyness of the French at home, an independence movement +broke out under this youthful king, which the French naturally +insist was engineered by the Germans. The scheme +was to have servants poison all the foreigners in the colony +some evening, but some one “squealed.” So Jy-su, born in +1902, was also exiled to Réunion, a French island off the +east coast of Africa, which he still graces with his surgical +father and one favorite wife. There they are both very +happy, according to the French colonials, who regard Réunion +as a second Garden of Eden, and where the ex-Sons of +Heaven “have all the women they want”—a French as well +as a Mohammedan notion of paradise.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All this gave the then reigning emperor, Khai-dinh, his +chance. This French-ruled king of Annam, a rather distant +relative of the man and boy he succeeded, came to the throne +in 1916, when he was nearly thirty-five. He must have been +troubled with something akin to vertigo by his accession, +for until then, though he had been a kind of prince, he had +enjoyed by no means the income or the importance of a railway +station-master. If I have inadvertently called him +king I apologize; his official title is Koang-de, Son of +Heaven, written with the same characters as those for the +Chinese Hoang-ti, son of a similar celestial realm. In fact +the emperors of Annam claim descent from an imperial +family of China, which had descendants to spare. Khai-dinh +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>visited France in state in 1922, influenced perhaps by an +American president, for that was the first case of an emperor +of Annam leaving Annamese soil. It was even more important +for him to go, however, for in the Indo-Chinese pagoda +on the outskirts of the Bois de Vincennes he performed a +ceremony to release from the necessity of wandering perpetually +through eternity the shades of thousands of Annamese +who had fallen in the World War, unsaved either +because they had not been able to comply with the final rites +of their religion or because their bodies had not been recovered. +He also placed in a French school his son and heir—the +only one, I believe, for all the wives Khai-dinh +maintained.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Khai-dinh was nearing forty when I graced Hué with my +impatient presence, and was already anemic with tuberculosis. +The other day he died, and twelve-year-old Vinh-thuy, the +crown prince, ascended the throne under the name of Bao-dai +(Greatness Sustained). But he returned at once to France +to continue his studies, and Frenchmen will tell you that +Annam is now governed by a Conseil de Régence, presided +over by the mandarin Ton-that-tan. For in theory the emperor +governs. In Cochinchina, which is admittedly a colony, +a French lieutenant governor is the supreme functionary, +but in the four protectorates the native sovereigns are still +nominally the heads of the governments. Annam and Tonkin +are under the Annamese emperor; Cambodia and a part of +Laos still have kings. The native laws apply, unless a foreigner +is involved, when the Code Napoléon is used. The +protectorates maintain almost intact the laws and administrative +machinery of the days when they were independent of +French authority. The native sovereign appoints all officials, +but the French <i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i> can reject any candidate; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>the native rulers dare not ignore his smallest suggestion, and +the lesser <i><span lang="fr">résidents</span></i> keep a sharp eye on native functionaries +in the provinces. New laws may be of either French or +native initiative, but both sides must agree, which of course +means that the French have the final word. All royal ordinances +are drawn up, not only the French but the native +texts, in the <i><span lang="fr">Résidences Supérieures</span></i>. In Annam the old +Chinese system of choosing officials and mandarins from +among those who have shown the greatest proficiency in +scholarship still more or less prevails, rather than the Irish +system of our Western world.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One wonders what the thoughts of Bao-dai will be when +he comes back really to take his father’s place. Educated +in French schools, Parisian during all his formative years, +he will suddenly be plunged into this old-world atmosphere, +to the customs, the ideas, the ideals, even the spirit of which +he will surely have become a stranger. Will he regret the +ardent life of the Occident he will have left behind, or will +the old soul of the palace of his ancestors penetrate and +possess him, and insensibly make him an Oriental potentate?</p> + +<p class='c012'>I softened my enforced stay in Hué by also three times +visiting the imperial burial-places some ten miles from the +citadel, on the French side of the river. The low rolling +hillocks close about the Annamese capital are covered with +graves of the rank and file by the many thousands. Nearly +all these mere mounds of earth were cleared and rounded off +now for the New Year, the few still covered with grass and +weeds suggesting very unfilial descendants or, more likely +still, a line died out. As many Annamese as possible have +themselves buried near the tombs of their sacred emperors, +as the Hindu who can manage it has his body burned on the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>bank of the Ganges at Benares. The French are gradually +restricting the grave-lands, but they must move slowly in a +matter so important to an ancestor-worshiping race.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All important Annamese make preparation during their +lifetime for their burial, some building their own tombs, +where they often come to sit in meditation. While he is +still on the throne each emperor has a geomancer, or a consultation +of geomancers no doubt, choose the site for his last +resting-place, always in the shelter of a natural screen, a +butte or hillock that will protect the dead from the evil spirits +that are forever flying about through the air. In such a +garden several buildings are constructed, their number and +arrangement fixed by ancient custom, superstition, and rites. +There is an inclosure for the material remains, a pavilion +for the memory, a temple for the soul; our miserable way +of putting all these together, so that we cannot commune +with the memory of the deceased without seeming to smell +his bones, is not the Annamese way. Thus things were +conceived by the sages who erected beyond the gates of +Peking the mausoleums of the Ming, and the Annamese +sovereigns have since changed nothing of what they got from +their Chinese masters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The royal tomb is the last residence of the sovereign, and +in some ways the most sumptuous, as befits a palace of +eternal repose. He may come back in spirit at any moment; +therefore his loyal people are always prepared to receive him. +Here is his great wooden bed, with its mat and cushions and +porcelain pillow, not only for himself but for his favorite +wife. Here is the tea, the rice, the <i><span lang="fr">nhoc-nam</span></i>, or salty sauce +in which the Annamese dip their food on the way to the +mouth, cups of <i><span lang="fr">chumchum</span></i>, or rice whisky, the arec-nuts, +betel-leaves, and the little pot of lime that goes with them +for his favorite minor vice, even cigarettes, everything he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>will need when he arrives. All these provisions are renewed +every morning of the year, generation after generation, so +that he will find nothing stale on the day when he finally +comes. He will find again, arranged under glass, his royal +playthings, the trinkets and gew-gaws, the jade shrubs, the +precious crystals, the coffers inlaid with mother-of-pearl, +the weapons he loved, even those great Sèvres vases which +the ambassadors of a more respectful France sent him as +New Year’s presents; more things perhaps than the living +emperor has now in his living palace. Perhaps the worst +punishment of Thanh-thai and his son, deposed in 1907 and +1916, respectively, is that they cannot have their tombs here +among those of their ancestors—unless the French relent +after they are dead, which for politic reasons of influence +on imperial conduct in the future they probably will not +do. That Khai-dinh succeeded in dying on the job was probably +the most successful accomplishment of his life.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Nothing in Indo-China has the charm of these old royal +tombs; in them lives intact the melancholy beauty of old +Annam. One can walk or rickshaw all afternoon about them, +and never tire of seeing them. Perhaps the tomb of Tu-duc +is the most striking; another can be reached only by boat. +That of Gia-long, epic sovereign of Annam, founder of this +dynasty and of Annam’s present subordination to the French, +is not the most elaborate. He was so very busy getting back +his kingdom that perhaps he did not have time to prepare +properly his last place of repose, for with the aid of the +French he chased out his usurpers and grouped under the +rule of his jade scepter all the land of Annam, being the first +native son to govern as master from the frontiers of China +to the banks of the Mekong. Even the tomb of Tu-duc is unimposing +compared to those of the Ming emperors of China. +But they all have a setting in solitude among unexploited +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>forests, and are kept in a state of cleanliness and repair rare +in the great land to the north. Weather-blackened structures +in a hot, rainy, and often humid climate, though originally +reddish, blue, green, multicolored, some overgrown with a +fine vegetation, these Annamese temples of the dead do not +impose upon the heavens like those of China. They blend +themselves harmoniously into their densely green surroundings, +the fleeing lines of their low walls barely cut out against +the sky. As in the palaces of the living, it is not in the elevation +of verticals that their builders looked for beauty, but +in the prolonging of unreflected lines, in the grace of colonnades, +terraces, superimposed roofs nonchalantly stretching +to the horizon. Nothing dominates except two slender +grayish pillars lost in the verdure before each tomb, the +symbolic camel’s-hair brushes of the man of letters. In the +large court of honor stone mandarins mount perpetual guard, +in a row on each side of the entranceway, their saddled horses +and their little elephants beside them, all dull and weather-tarnished +and sometimes crumbling away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But the stone mandarins, the horses, elephants, and +mythological monsters guarding the royal tombs of Annam +are only pathetic little things compared to those of China. +Once I stood a living caretaker in the place of a missing stone +one, and only by looking closely at the picture can one distinguish +him from those of stone or plaster, whereas in China +my head hardly reached to the knees of many an imperial +guardian, and the horses, elephants, and camels of the Ming +tombs are fully life-size. Nor are the materials so rich in +these tombs. The dragons that unroll their coils on the roofs +of glazed sun-polished tiles show signs of crumbling away; +the bricks tend to disintegrate into the earth from which they +came. Some of the most effective of these royal Annamese +tombs are covered with pictures of scenes and people made +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>entirely of broken crockery, pieces of porcelain cups, plates, +bowls of Chinese design, and of many colors set in cement, +much as the Annamese inlay their furniture with mother-of-pearl. +Even fragments of broken bottles—nothing is so +plentiful as bottles in French-ruled Indo-China—have been +used in this way. These monuments recall the rags torn up +and sewed together into the saffron robe of the Buddhist +priest, because poverty is blessed. Yet even in this decoration +the resting-places of the royal Annamese dead are +beautiful.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the woods, as we were driving homeward from the +tombs—my first visit having been by automobile—we met +a boy carrying on his head bananas and some other fruit, +his grandfather kneeling beside him at the edge of the road +and burning incense in a bush. The chief of Annam’s security +stopped his car. He was, I may have neglected to +mention, in some ways an unusual Frenchman. Big and +handsome, a soldier at Peking in the Boxer days, he spoke +excellent Annamese and still knew some Chinese, and his +interest in the natives was more than official and perfunctory—so +much so in fact that one got a hint now and then that +he sometimes felt the recent loss of his bachelor privileges, +for all his enthusiasm as a new benedict. He spoke to the +pair, and in the tone of an interested friend rather than of a +martinet official. The result was a naïve frankness instead +of a taciturn imitation of stupidity. It seemed that the son +of the one and father of the other had “taken the sickness” +while gathering wood, and they had come to implore the +spirits of the forest to pardon him any harm he may have +done them. They had come twice before, and now the father +and son so much better that they were sure their amends +had been accepted, but they were performing the effective +rites once more, in order to be on the safe side.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>Though it is getting ahead of my story, such as it is, I +came out to the tombs again on the afternoon of <i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i> and +found every one very busy about the royal mausoleums. The +soldier-like caretakers whose permanent duties are there had +freshly washed the very red coats they wear over the usual +black Annamese garments. Men in these bright red tunics, +some holding imperial yellow umbrellas over the trays covered +with red cloth borne by others, were bringing the dead kings +their New Year’s food. Mandarins, some of them evidently +descendants of the emperors, came and donned transparent +deep-blue cloaks over their black gowns, much decorated +with French orders and the ivory plaques that denote the +mandarin’s estate, and kowtowed inside and outside the +tombs. Some of these ceremonies were elaborate, that at +the tomb of Thieu-tri, which I chanced upon at the right +moment, including a procession and incense-burning rites in +the courtyard, with yellow and faded white parasols very +much in evidence. Old women in purple, green, and other +conspicuous head-bands and cloaks crowded the interior, +where a high mandarin was master of ceremonies. There +seemed to be no great objection to the presence of a European +inside, except during the actual interior ceremony of +greeting to the royal spirits, when the mandarin opposed my +entrance in a resolute manner rare, especially toward the +ruling race, among this easy-going people. Though I was +the only foreigner nearer the tombs than the capital itself, I +was no doubt perfectly safe from physical interference even +had I persisted in entering, and perfect Oriental courtesy +was shown me; but once again I sensed the probability that +the Annamese do not love the French, from whom of course +few of them distinguish the rest of us of the white race.</p> + +<div id='i_146' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_146a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The waterfront of Hué, capital of Annam, offers a contrast between its native craft and the French bridge</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_146b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Once a visitor surreptitiously snapped this glimpse of the mandarins of Annam kowtowing before their emperor on New Year’s Day</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_147' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_147a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The scores of homes of mandarins within the “citadel” of Hué were all richly decorated for the lunar New Year</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_147b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Inside the “citadel” and near the sumptuous palaces of the emperor of Annam are the perhaps more comfortable homes of his humble subjects</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII<br> <span class='c011'>AN IMPERIAL HAPPY NEW YEAR</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>I was called at six on the eventful morning, and as +soon afterward as was consistent with that meticulous +personal attention befitting an imperial audience I was +whisked away to the palaces in the automobile of my sartorial +benefactor. Those who have suffered similar experiences +need not be told the feeling of interloper, of usurper, with +which I wore my borrowed plumage, though to the naked uncritical +eye I must have showed little of this, for the bemedaled +stiff-necked officials deep in the seat beside me +showed no signs of finding me incongruous. All had gone +easily, except in the matter of disguising my feet. Look +as I would, not only in the merchandising part of the hotel +but among all the native shops, there was not another pair +of shoes in Hué that could be stretched over those extraordinary +extremities. In my desperation I had turned my brown +ones over to the head “boy” with orders to blacken them +every half-hour during the intervening days, and nights, +orders emphasized by promises of great reward and by +threats of corresponding punishment. It had not therefore +been merely the rain that confined me to my chamber. When +the crucial moment came success seemed to have crowned my +persistence. The shoes were not only black, they had a +hint of luster. If only the false color did not rub off before +the show was over! It did, as a matter of fact, but not so +completely, I flatter myself, as to call widespread attention +to the deception.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>The ceremony was set for eight sharp. I suppose it might +have been at Peking Manchu hours, and all over before daylight, +but for the bed-loving French. A score of Frenchmen +were already herded inside the door by which we entered +the imperial courtyard, a side door, by the way, a detail not +without its significance. Another dozen or two dripped +from other automobiles not long behind us. The French +officials had come in their best uniforms and their most +numerous medals; some of the men in civilian dress wore +gold medallions about their necks. All were not equally +resplendent in the requisite court dress. Visitors must be +<i><span lang="fr">en tenue</span></i>, but that, it became at once evident, did not mean +that one must strive for the elegance of a Beau Brummel. +Some of the costumes had all too plainly been shaken free +of their moth-balls too late to be pressed; others had arrived +in the colony when the Franco-Prussian War was still a +burning question. The group was sternly confined, however, +in one respect: only the reputedly more manly sex was +present, in any form, capacity, race, color, or condition of +servitude. No woman, the sponsor for Annam’s security +himself assured me, has ever seen this imperial New Year’s +ceremony. Only persons in good standing, which in Annam +does not include females, may by any hook or crook be +admitted. Once two Frenchwomen had sneaked in by some +still mysterious deception, and it had been the painful duty +of the chivalrous chief of the security of Annam personally +to drag them out of their hiding-place and chase them outside +the grounds. Surely, whispered the incorrigibly skeptical +spirit within me, there must be peep-holes known to the more +enterprising of the emperor’s wives; but on second thought +I decided that their superstitions probably accomplish what +the sternest husbandly admonitions might not.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We had been greeted one by one at the side door to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>courtyard by two mandarins in the flowery costumes of old +Chinese times, topped by the same stepping-block head-dress +with absurd side-pieces to be seen on statues at the +Ming tombs of China. Inside, scores of other mandarins in +the same garb flocked together. All wore black knee-boots, +ancient robes of varying colors, silks decorated according to +rank—but you can see it all in old Chinese paintings or on +the Chinese stage. Like so many things which last longest +where they have been introduced with the most difficulty, +the costumes and manners of Ming days remain officially +correct in Annam centuries after they have been abandoned +in China. Not merely do back-waters show the greatest +stagnation, but the Manchus never conquered Annam, though +they now and then got tribute from it. It was just as well +that photography was forbidden; the absence of the colors +in the developed films would have made them too bitterly +disappointing. If there was any color in the spectrum missing +in the gathering, or in the building and its decorations, +I do not know its name. All the prism seemed to have been +invited to the ceremony; and as if to supply any tone that +had inadvertently been omitted, and to cause my gorge to +rise with wrath after all the trouble I had taken to live up +to the sartorial rules, who should come slinking in at the +last moment, with the air of a cat returning to the comforts +of an old-maid home after a night of dissipation on the +housetops, but a Frenchman—though in his conspicuousness +he looked more like a Swede or a Hollander—wearing the +loudest check suit in the Ghettos of Christendom and carrying +a camera! It is true that this last was promptly taken away +from him. The French exploit their own colonies even in +photographic matters, and this ceremony had been officially +filmed some years before. Yet he not only was admitted +to the courtyard but was allowed to sneak under cover of us +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>respectable members of his race into the palace itself; and +so help me if he didn’t even have on tan shoes! All through +the ceremony he stood forth from our courtly throng of +Westerners like a splotch of red ink on a white suit, though +he made every effort except the two obvious ones to be inconspicuous. +Political or social pull are powerful institutions, +and audacity is not confined to American reporters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The great audience-chamber in which the New Year’s +ceremony is usually held having been covered with a network +of bamboo scaffolding for more than a year, his Majesty +awaited us in the somewhat smaller but more sumptuous +throne-room. The little “résuper,” in a uniform worthy of +the admiral of the European fleet, had arrived with some of +his staff last of all, as befitted his standing; and, piloted by +the receiving mandarins, we had filed in by twos behind him +and lined up on the right side of the richly decorated chamber—on +the left or heart side of the emperor, be it noted, which +is the place of honor in the Orient. Dazzled by the forest +of pillars climbed by yellow dragons, I was at the very foot of +the throne before I saw that the emperor was already there. +He stood so still, and his garb and the racial and sickly +yellow of his face blended so harmoniously into the ensemble +of the imperial decorations, that even then I was not sure +for a moment that I was not looking at a lay figure in his +place. Yet he was not inconspicuously dressed. Again I +plead my incompetence in the matter of inventories, but +some of his garb could not have escaped the most unobservant +eye. He wore an imperial robe of such richness of +embroidery and decorations that even a woman, had her sex +permitted her to behold it, nay, were she, by profession, both +a dressmaker and the concocter of social columns, could not +adequately have described it. Whether or not some of the +imperial wives had put in a safety-pin here and there at +<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>the last moment I have no means of knowing, but the wearer +himself could not have adjusted it to such a nicety without +expert assistance of one sex or another. He stood in the +embrace of a chair that the lineal descendant of St. Peter +himself might have envied, two golden dogs half hiding his +feet, which were incased in high boots of the Ming period +and turned out at right angles, as if he were in imminent fear +of tottering. They were so exactly such boots as those of his +predecessors in a glass case near-by that they might indeed +have been borrowed from it. On his imperial head sat an +indescribably magnificent openwork crown of gold and precious +stones, beneath which, later developments disclosed, +he wore the ordinary black band-turban of the Annamese +male. Many jewels gleamed from various parts of his person; +on three fingers of his left hand he wore clusters of +enormous diamonds, and as he constantly held that hand over +the other, these stones drew the eyes like a flash-light in a +darkened theater. In his clasped hands he held before his +face an ivory wand containing a mirror, just such as are to be +seen in old Chinese statues and paintings, and which has +something to do with the holder’s unworthiness to look upon +the spirits of his ancestors, if I have not bungled my +theogony. His almost golden-yellow face was somewhat +chinless, his form slight, even under the imperial robes, his +general appearance so effeminate that he suggested Mei Lanfang, +China’s most famous actor, aged by a decade or so and +with the slight changes between Chinese and Annamese features, +playing one of his inimitable female rôles.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Evidently this chief ceremony of the ordinary Annamese +year is one of the rough spots in the kingly career, for everything +pointed to the suspicion that the emperor did not +enjoy it. His face remained as motionless throughout the +throne-room service as if it had been made of wax, but his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>body shifted nervously on his legs, as though the ancient +boots were too tight for him, or the right angle at which +etiquette required his feet to be set made standing difficult; +and his little eyes roved constantly from side to side, especially +toward the Europeans, until at times he suggested a +trick poodle constantly in fear of doing something that would +bring a whipping after the performance from the trainer who +could only stand blandly by while it was going on. Though +it was not unpleasantly warm so early in the morning, he +wiped his face every few seconds with a folded snow-white +handkerchief. Two men in musical-comedy costumes stood +at the front corners of the throne and fanned him throughout +the ceremony. It was not the hasty careless fanning +of mere modern mortals; they stood at the strict attention +of the old days when a head was lopped off for a grimace, +and one after the other raised his fan of feathers on a handle +taller than himself and waved it once downward at a dignified +speed, continuing to alternate with such exact time between +the strokes that they must have mentally counted the +seconds.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Two princes of the blood, dressed in robes of exactly that +color, and whom I understood from a whisper from the +owner of my raiment to be brothers of the recently exiled +emperor, stood each on his mat on opposite sides of the +wide-open front doors, ten yards or more from the throne. +No other Annamese were allowed inside the throne-room so +effectively graced by our broken double row of motley Europeans +festooned about the first line of pillars on his Majesty’s +left. All the nobility of Annam was gathered in +the sun-drenched, flagstone-paved courtyard outside the open +doors which the emperor faced, but for the moment all one’s +attention was needed inside. Amid deep silence and formal +attitudes the <i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i> stepped nearer to the throne +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>and read in French a greeting in which he referred to his +Majesty’s ascent of the same in 1916, recalling that he himself +had been present on that auspicious occasion, that he +was overwhelmed with pleasure and honor at his recent return +to a place so near his Majesty’s sacred person, and in a +capacity now that implied a recognition of his constant diligence +in his Majesty’s service, and so on and so on, to the +depths of French political rodomontade, with many references +to the <i><span lang="fr">Nation Protectrice</span></i> thrown in.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Then a young mandarin stepped up beside the “résuper” +and read in the querulously singsong Annamese language +what was evidently a translation of this masterpiece, written +in Roman letters. Thereupon the emperor dived down into +one of his voluminous sleeves, this very first motion he had +voluntarily made since our arrival seeming to bring him a +relief similar to that of a “living statue” at the drop of the +curtain, and dug out a document written in Chinese characters +on a long strip of cardboard folded accordion fashion. +This he read in a better voice than his physique suggested, +though not without a nervous break now and then in his unmelodious +native tongue. From behind a dragon-climbed +pillar on the other side of the throne appeared an old mandarin +with a straggling gray beard, looking in his New-Year +costume exactly like an ancient Chinese portrait cut out of its +frame, who read, in an almost perfect pronunciation that +seemed strangely incongruous coming forth from such a +figure, a French translation of the emperor’s speech. This +fourth act of the exchange of platitudes over, the emperor +bowed low, the “résuper” bowed a trifle less low, and we +Europeans moved grudgingly back, not so far but that we +could still easily hear and see the chief actor in the ceremony, +who now for the first time sat down, with an air which +seemed to say that at least that was that. Every one else, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>including even the <i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i>, stood throughout the +entire throne-room part of the ceremony.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Meanwhile in the courtyard outside attention had turned +to activity. Scores of mandarins in the gay and fanciful +attire of Ming days began to fall into ranks. The Annamese +troops in blue, with brass-topped mushroom hats and imperial +yellow leggings, but under command of a French +officer, and carrying their long rifles with needle-sharp fixed +bayonets French fashion, high on their shoulders, backed +to the edges of the court and out through the gateways. For +some time a great to-do reigned in the courtyard, but at +length restored order disclosed six rows of mandarins lined +up according to rank on as many strips of matting, each +holding before his eyes in clasped hands a somewhat less +splendid wand-with-mirror than that of the emperor. It was +typical of human society East or West that three rows of still +lower rank, no doubt the hard-working old souls on whom +the real labor of government fell, were lined up outside the +courtyard, where they could neither see nor be seen by the +emperor, but where they went through the same maneuvers +as those inside. Standing within arm’s length of one another +in exact rows some two paces apart, the assembled +nobles of Annam so vividly suggested a company of soldiers +or a gymnasium class about to begin its setting-up exercises +that one might easily have been struck by the absence of +dumb-bells. On the side-lines throngs of flunkies in conspicuous +garments began to make those loud discordant noises +that represent music wherever the Chinese character is written, +while others, in simpler costumes, added a weird vocal +dissonance in voices of which fully half suggested eunuchs.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The gymnasium-class aspect of the situation was not entirely +accidental; the nobility of Annam was about to take +<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>its yearly exercise. Loud noises not unlike the “music” that +incessantly assailed the ears rang out in a series of semi-military +commands, at each of which the rows of mandarins +in their flowered robes threw themselves face down, slowly, +as if, what with boots, the wands in their hands, and the +insufficiency of annual practice, they found it no easy task, +and touched their noses to the pavement. Just inside the +main doors the two princes of the blood, also facing the +emperor on his throne, were doing the same exercises, their +movements evidently serving as a signal to those outside and +keeping the prostrations in unison. There were several +series of these, three at a time, amid much hullabaloo, the +emperor meanwhile sitting motionless on his uncomfortable +throne, except that he now and then mopped his face, yellow +as the ensemble of throne-room decorations with the filtered +tropical sunshine upon them, with the still folded pocket-handkerchief. +Each time there was a dazzling flash of the +many diamonds on his left hand, which he always folded +again over the diamondless right.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In theory “ten thousand” mandarins of Annam—<i><span lang="fr">ee wan</span></i> is +a number so easily said in any tongue that reads Chinese—come +to prostrate themselves in the great courtyard of the +palace of Hué on the day of <i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i>, but something less than +that number beat their foreheads on its flagstones that morning. +<i><span lang="fr">Lam lie</span></i>, the Annamese verb to prostrate one’s self, +means this stretching out at full length on one’s face and is +still descriptive in this great yearly ceremony, though at +other times the Annamese nowadays usually contents himself +with bending the bust as if he were hinged at the waist, and +shaking his own hands. As they finished, the mandarins +backed a couple of steps toward the side of the courtyard, +then turned and marched to the side-lines, while others took +their places. All was done in very good unison, though not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>in perfect military precision, and everyone seemed to take +the matter very seriously, as if a slip would be as dreadful +as during a guard-mount in our regular army.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Then came retired mandarins, in bright-red trousers under +gowns reaching to the knees, and <i><span lang="fr">no boots</span></i>. This, a whisper +told me, is the sign of retirement; “I have taken off my +boots,” means to the Annamese mandarin what cutting off his +<i><span lang="fr">coleta</span></i> does to the Spanish matador, what the writing of his +memoirs means to an American pugilist or politician. Each +and every one of these old chaps was in stocking-feet quite +plainly made in France, most, though by no means all, of the +same color. They threw themselves down the same number +of times as had those who had preceded them, some aged +faces contorted as if they found the effort quite a trial. Two +ragged rows of poor old fellows of low degree at the rear +had not even been provided with mats, but had to bump +their heads on the bare flagstones.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Between the two front doors almost directly in front of +the emperor, where he could not have taken his eyes off them +if he had tried, stood a hat-rack bearing aloft all the tropical +helmets and uniform capes of those Europeans who did +not carry their hats in their hands. A servant had taken that +of the “résuper” himself, but many others had refused to +run the risk of having some royal retainer make off with +theirs. It seemed as if the hat-rack might have been put in +some less conspicuous corner, but perhaps it was an intentional +symbol, a constant visible reminder to his Majesty of +who made him emperor, and who could unmake him again +in twenty minutes if he bungled his rôle. I could also make +out through a door at the back of the throne-room the imperial +rickshaw. It seemed to be at least half of gold, with +richly yellow cushions; and the imperial rickshaw-man—who +with a few other low-caste hangers-on peered in now +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>and then, after the custom at all Oriental ceremonies—was +in an incredibly ornate livery, also mainly of imperial yellow. +Though he uses an automobile outside the palace walls, +the emperor needs a rickshaw within, for it is nearly a hundred +yards from the throne-room to his semi-European +living-quarters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When the larger audience-chamber is available at the +lunar New Year, trained elephants are brought from the +imperial stables to do homage on bended knees before the +Son of Heaven, but this sight was denied us. The kowtowing +of the retired mandarins ended, his Majesty Khai-dinh +stepped down from his throne, evidently no easy task in +his heavy boots, for he moved on the polished floor like an +octogenarian crossing smooth ice. He shook hands with the +<i><span lang="fr">résident supérieur</span></i>, then with the purple-robed old archbishop, +and behind these three we all filed out into a semi-foreign +dining-room at one side of the courtyard. There +the emperor once more sat down at the back of the room, +facing doors wide open on the yard, and again flanked by his +two fanners, though these were not working now, possibly +because it was after union hours. A young mandarin interpreter +stood against the wall behind him; the superior +resident of Annam took a seat on his left, and the rest of +us subsided into the rows of chairs facing the emperor sidewise +that filled the room. Khai-dinh knew some French, but +like many others in the same boat he never ventured to +speak it in public. Sometimes, before the interpreter had +passed on the “résuper’s” remarks, he gave a sign of having +understood, but he never seemed to attempt to reply in +French. He now looked more human, permitted some expression +to play over his features, among which that of relief +was the most prominent, even smiled now and then. This +showed that, unlike nearly all the mandarins that now mingled +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>with us, his teeth were white, but that he probably chewed +betel-nut. He smoked a cigarette as if he were accustomed +to devour them but was now on his good behavior.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The band played the “Marseillaise,” after which the emperor +evidently made a brief speech, though in a voice that +could hardly have been heard by the superior resident himself. +The two more manly looking princes of the blood, both +wearing glasses, seemed to speak French fluently and to be +in many respects quite up-to-date, as they went about greeting +their many friends among the Europeans. Evidently there +was nothing wrong with his Majesty’s voice when he wished +to be heard, for he went on talking to his respectful master +even after the fire-crackers had been set off, which feat was +as difficult as conversing in a subway express. The <i><span lang="fr">pétards</span></i> +were tied in thick continuous bunches from top to bottom +of bamboo poles terminating in a few leaves that had been +set up at the four corners of the courtyard, and they kept +up a deafening bombardment unbrokenly for at least twenty +minutes, until they suggested the applause for a favorite +candidate at a political convention. The yard was filled with +white smoke and the flagstones carpeted with bursted +crackers, and still the bombardment went on. A little earlier +the booming of artillery had come from somewhere within +the citadel, probably an imperial cannon salute, but if this +still continued, as was likely, we could not hear it, so like +the firing of thousands of rifles was the bursting of fire-crackers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Meanwhile we had all been served iced champagne, in +which we drank the emperor’s health standing; and there +were passed around plates of cakes and sweetmeats so elaborate +that no one seemed to dare to touch them, though the +Son of Heaven himself munched a bit. A fat Frenchman +beside me wanted to know in a voice almost loud enough +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>to reach the emperor whether there was <i><span lang="fr">pas moyen avoir un +cigare</span></i>, and a moment later these and cigarettes were passed +in jeweled boxes, which contained also the ingredients of +the betel-nut habit for those who preferred that to smoking. +Some of the servants who passed these things had the strained +eyes and high cheek-bones common to eunuchs, and looked +on as if the fun of life meant nothing to them, as if they +were still wondering what had happened to them in boyhood +that they could not be like other men, much as a blind man +must wonder what sort of sensation is sight. Or they may +merely have been tubercular.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was evidently some way by which the initiated +could tell when the bombardment was to cease, for the emperor +arose and we all filed out after him just in time to +hear the last fire-cracker explode as we reached the courtyard. +We went on to the door of the throne-room, and +there this queer medley of East and West ended with the +Son of Heaven standing and shaking hands with each of us +as we filed past him. I murmured New Year’s greetings +from the United States in his ear, but either he did not catch +my French or he had never heard of so unimportant a place. +His fingers were slighter than those of a school-girl, and +his grasp weak and without cordiality, though this may +have been due to lack of experience with our queer Western +form of greeting. We filed out between ranks of gaily +dressed flunkies, musicians, probable eunuchs, past the troops +in the outer courtyard, to our automobiles and rickshaws and +sped away through palace and citadel gates and across the +big seven-arch steel bridge, soldiers at the gateways saluting +as we passed, and the populace looking after us not so much +with envious as with curious faces, as if the thought had +never occurred to them that they might also be admitted +to the great imperial ceremony. The last glimpse I had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>of his late Majesty Khai-dinh was of a slight form in ornate +Oriental get-up, framed in the doorway of his throne-room +and shaking hands with a fat and pompous French merchant +who wore a golden Annamese decoration about a neck on +which a once stiff collar had wilted beyond recognition.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I returned thus hastily to the grocery-hotel both because +I could not decline the seat reserved for me in the chief’s +automobile and because I wished to restore the borrowed +plumage before something fatal happened to it. Moreover, +my shoes were rapidly changing from their false African to +their natural Asiatic hue. But that duty and the eleven-o’clock +<i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> over, I hastened back across the river. The +last few days had been very busy there, the market and the +shops crowded, every one buying new mats, paper and real +flowers, red paper lanterns, red strips of paper with Chinese +characters written on them, and great quantities of other +New Year’s necessities. As in China the people of Annam +must have money for the <i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i>; not only must they pay their +debts at the lunar New Year, but they must have new +clothing, redecorate their houses and the tombs of their +ancestors, feed well those departed souls and themselves, +and gird themselves for another Sundayless year of labor +or indolence. Now the market was closed, though more +shops kept open than in China, perhaps because many of +the merchants were not real Annamese. On the other hand +theaters were working overtime; temples were crowded +with newly dressed throngs; in sampans, hovels, and houses +the ancestral altars were laden with flowers, fruits, pork, fish, +fowl, and boiled rice. The evening before they had scintillated +with gilded and silver things that gleamed under candle, +kerosene, and electric lights. Everywhere there was a great +going and coming, every one making New-Year calls. A +<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>green bamboo pole, with a few feathery leaves still at the +top, had been set up before each house and temple, a woven-bamboo +ornament far up most of them as a kind of roosting-place +for the spirits of the air. The theory is, if I understood +an explanation couched in far from perfect French, +that these invisible flying wraiths will accept this homage +to them and do no harm to the inmates of any house before +which such a bamboo stands.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The rickshaw-men had little chance to celebrate; their holiday +resembled that of an Irish donkey on March 17. One +of the chief New-Year sports even of those Annamese who +usually walk was for once to ride in rickshaws, two and even +three passengers in each vehicle. The women especially +were in their newest and most resplendent garb—light and +dark green, purple, rich brown, small children in every tone +of red. Negro soldiers from other French possessions, their +black faces emphasized under their white helmets, were hobnobbing +with the poorer people in the outskirts, evidently +held in as much honor among them as their white masters. +A number of ordinary-looking young conscripts from France +also mingled freely with the populace, and here and there +one met a negro and a white soldier arm in arm, as one may +see them side by side in the same squad on the drill-grounds +of Indo-China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Annamese seldom drink to excess, and they are not +by nature quarrelsome or violent, but they dearly love +gambling. So serious is this vice among them that the +French now forbid games of chance except during the week +or so of the lunar New Year season. Now one saw them +gambling everywhere, men, women, and children. Women, +even boys of six or seven, had set up gambling-boards in +the streets, in the doorways of their houses, in the courtyards +of those homes which had them, in the main rooms before +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>the family altar. It was a simple game that engrossed most +of them. A board was marked with chalk or paint into several +squares, sometimes with numbers, some with crudely +drawn animals in them. When all those who wish to take a +chance have laid their money in the squares, the proprietor +of the board throws out a handful of little disks from a bowl +and counts them off four by four, the remaining number +winning four times the amount of the bets on the lucky +square. Besides this primitive form of fan-tan there were +dice in a saucer with a cup turned down over them. When +all the money is laid the cup and saucer are shaken and the +result disclosed. In the public streets wagers ranged all +the way from perforated brass “cash” to paper piastres; +inside the larger houses especially much more serious stakes +were the rule. Many French colonials criticize the government +for gathering revenue through its opium monopoly +and forbidding the lesser vice of gambling except during +<i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Within the citadel much the same ceremony, on a smaller +scale, as that at the palace, took place in each mandarin’s +home, with his relatives, friends, and the lower orders bringing +the greetings. Among other New Year’s decorations +there were many flags all about this forest-shaded town, the +tricolor less in evidence than a red and yellow flag that was +evidently the imperial banner. Scores of the homes of the +mandarins within the citadel displayed over their gateways +the flags of all the Allies, that of France double size and in +the middle. All the rest of the day I met mandarins coming +out of their low houses in garden groves, or from those of +others of the same rank, or along the roads and streets on +both sides of the river, usually in rickshaws. Some even of +high rank did not scorn to ride double, after the common +Annamese custom. They no longer wore their ancient Ming +head-dresses or their knee-high boots, but still had on the gay +garments of festival, such as cerise robes embroidered with +flowers. I met several mandarin servants carrying home a +pair of boots strung over a shoulder, with a cloth-wrapped +bundle of holiday garments in one hand and the strange +head-dress left over from the days of the Ming in the other, +as if some of their masters also had been obliged to borrow +<i><span lang="fr">le smoking</span></i> in its Annamese form, before they could bring +their annual greetings to their emperor.</p> + +<div id='i_162' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_162a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>An Annamese mandarin all dressed up for his New Year’s honors to his emperor; his servant behind</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_162b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Servants of the mandarins carry home after the ceremony the ancient Ming accoutrements of their masters</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_163' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_163a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Emperor Khai-dinh of Annam on his French-supported throne</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_163b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Some of the most effective of Annamese tombs are covered with pictures and designs made of broken porcelain dishes set in cement</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>One recognizes a mandarin of Annam by the somewhat +better material of his clothing and by a little wooden or +ivory baggage-check on his starboard bowsprit, bearing his +title or grade in Chinese characters. Some of them had +been so brave, or have obeyed the French so well, that they +wore on the other side French decorations enough to rival +a staff-officer. Not all the mandarins surrounding the emperor +of Annam are noted for either their physical or—the +experienced eye could not but note—their moral beauty. +Many were pitted with smallpox, and more of them were +stoop-shouldered with loafing than were horny-handed with +toil. Like Chinese above the laboring-class, these tax-gatherers +from a hard-working people give no attention to +their muscles, scorn indeed to use them when there is any +way out of it, and are flabby and ungainly accordingly. Yet +some of the staid old retired mandarins looked like men who +had led a kindly and a scholarly life. Each generation the +grade of a mandarin drops a notch, so that the privileged +class does not remain perpetually the same, a scheme that +might perhaps advantageously be applied in other centers of +the human maelstrom. Titles of nobility are sometimes given +for distinguished services—such, no doubt, as betraying to +the French rulers independence movements among the natives—but +these are no longer hereditary. I met one of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>the princes of the blood on a suburban road that New Year’s +afternoon, still in his blood-red robes of ceremony, so out +of keeping with his modern nose-pinching spectacles and the +very ordinary rickshaw in which he rode. Here and there +a coolie or a boy took off his palm-leaf hat to him, but that +was the only visible evidence that his rank meant anything +much to the populace, or to the prince himself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The people of Annam still treat their puppet emperor as +the true Son of Heaven, however, though they cannot but +know that he is chosen by the French. It is as if they considered +the French merely an instrument of fate, as some +Christians manage to regard anything that happens as God’s +hand working in strange mysterious ways. Whatever he +may have thought of this attitude of his loyal subjects, Khai-dinh +did not by any means disdain the material conveniences +of our upstart Western civilization. He never went outside +his palace grounds except by automobile—a big imperial-yellow +limousine with black top and red wheels, of French +make naturally, and which had its blow-outs and other mishaps +now and then quite like the Fords of the garden variety +of mankind. Over on the French side of the river he had a +suburban palace, a rest-house far from his crowded domestic +circle. It is a very showy establishment in foreign, more +exactly in continental European, style, with graveled driveways, +<i><span lang="fr">portes cochères</span></i>, plate-glass windows, the walls +bright yellow with the intertwined letters AD on the gates. +That afternoon it was gay with yellow flags, a color forbidden +the ordinary people, though now and then a small +child wears it with impunity—or it may be that this means +the emperor once called upon its mother. Even in his +palace within the citadel Khai-dinh had his apartments installed +in European style, they say, though I cannot of course +report this on first-hand evidence; his domestic realm was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>closed even to his French superior, for after all Annam +is still Oriental. When the spirits moved him to spend an +evening entertaining any cronies he may have had among +the French colonials, he called his yellow limousine and +repaired to his transfluvial palace. He drew and sculptured, +not in the traditional Chinese-Annamese fashion, but after +the manner of a not too talented pupil of the Beaux Arts. +The French insist that he also was very happy, and they +may be right. His salary for doing nothing was five thousand +piastres a month; he had ten wives—his predecessor +maintained a hundred, but economy is the watchword in +official Annam since the war—and his dancers and all such +necessities were paid for by the government. The “résuper” +who really rules Annam and its emperor gets only fifteen +hundred piastres a month and has only one wife, and as far +as is officially known not even one dancing-girl.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On March 19 there was to be an even greater ceremony +in Hué—the emperor’s all-night vigil at the Temple of +Heaven. Similar, though by no means comparable, to the +imperial rite that took place yearly in Peking until the +revolution of 1911 turned that Temple of Heaven into a +tourists’ picnic-ground and China into a masquerade-ball +republic, this ceremony has long been given every three +years; but the French had decided that this one was to be +the last. Thus do the pageantries of olden days drop unnoticed +one by one under the trampling feet of time.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX<br> <span class='c011'>THE PEOPLE OF THE EMINENT SOUTH</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Of the eighteen to twenty million people of French Indo-China +two thirds are Annamese. That does not mean +that Annam has so many inhabitants. The Annamese are +the predominant people of all the lowlands of France’s Far-Eastern +empire, not merely of Annam. Their own land, +though nearly eight hundred miles long, is very narrow, +containing barely sixty thousand square miles, on which +between seven and eight million people manage to wrest +subsistence almost entirely from a plain twelve to fifty +miles wide between the mountains and the sea. Naturally +they have gradually overrun the other divisions of Indo-China, +submerging the other races there, just as the tricky, +the less pleasing, the more sophisticated always drive out the +naïve and the more lovable on this sad old globe of ours. +Their Chinese religion of ancestor-worship, requiring every +man by hook or crook to leave a son behind him, has of +course much to do with this majority.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As far back as history mentions it, what we now call Indo-China +was under the sway of the Cham, then of the Khmer, +tribes of a certain Hindu culture who subjugated the land +and drove the aborigines, if such their predecessors were, +into the mountains. Later they in turn were conquered by +what we now know as the Annamese. One guess is that +this dour people originally came from Tibet or the lower +mountains about it. They themselves say that they once +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>inhabited southwestern China—Yünnan, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, +and Tonkin—at least five thousand years ago. Many +of their customs and physical characteristics bear out this +statement, but they are so mixed with the Cham and the +other peoples they found in their new home that they have +many traits not typical of the Mongol race, and one is every +now and then surprised to find a nearly Aryan nose among +them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Whatever their exact origin, they came down from somewhere +to the north and filled, as tightly as a plump leg fills a +stocking, this narrow strip of plain between the coast and +the mountains, pushing back, killing off, and absorbing the +tribes that preceded them. Highlanders to begin with, perhaps, +they have now lived in tropical lowlands and rice +marshes for so many centuries that they have gradually +taken on tropical characteristics; hence it is not at all strange +that they are the weakest and the ugliest of all those reputedly +of the Mongolian race. Hardly of medium height, less +vigorous than their neighbors, they are much like the Chinese, +yet in many ways quite different from them also. They +have been known to the Celestials for centuries by the name +first given them when the two peoples came in contact with +each other—the Giao-chi, or “Big Toes.” The noticeable +spread of the great toe away from the others, suggesting +mountain-climbing ancestors, is still conspicuous among them +even in this day of French shoes. Though the name no doubt +had its origin in that scornfulness of the Chinese for any +race but their own, in due season the Annamese began to +call themselves Giao-chi also, just as they followed the Chinese +example in calling their country Annam, Land of the +Eminent South, or words to that effect. As I may have +said before, the white man’s name “Indo-China” is particularly +fitting; France’s Far-Eastern possession is certainly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>the half-way station between the Chinese and the Hindus. +The Annamese are no more really Chinese than are many +of the Indian races that are called by that name, yet they +are quite unlike the Hindu-cultured Cambodians and have +nothing in common with the people of Laos, beyond the +Annamese chain, who are akin to the Siamese. In mere +physical matters they are not only smaller but darker than +the Chinese, tawny, though less so than the Cambodians, +with flat skulls, faces, and noses, protruding cheek-bones, +and large mouths that are made doubly conspicuous by their +permanently blackened teeth and thick lips swollen with +what we miscall betel-nut.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thus we have come in leisurely sequence to the most +conspicuous, the most despicable perhaps, certainly the most +inexplicable point in the physical appearance of the Annamese. +They have never practised mutilation of their women +in the Chinese manner by binding their feet; infanticide is +reputed to be very rare, if known at all; but about marriage +time, which in Annam is early in life, every Annamese, +of either sex, is expected to have his teeth lacquered black +by a process said to be very painful. Recalling what a +dentist can do to us in half an hour, it is not hard to believe +that they suffer during a task that takes day after day. The +lacquering loosens the teeth, but the <i><span lang="fr">nhoc-nam</span></i>, or ground-fish +sauce with which every Annamese seasons his food, +tightens them again. The men are not so selfish as to force +the women to go through the beautifying process alone, as +in so many lands, but step up and take the same medicine +themselves, so that the mouths of both sexes resemble rat-holes. +Perhaps it is this that makes the Annamese seem +more stupid than the Chinese they in so many other ways +resemble—or perhaps it is merely their southern indolence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>of manner, or the circumspection of a subject race as +compared to freemen.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Every people has its own style of beauty, however, and +to the Annamese a person is handsome only if his teeth +are jet-black. “Any dog can have white teeth,” say the +Annamese, looking disparagingly at Europeans. To them +white teeth are not only ugly but immoral! For the <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>, +the Annamese girl, who has not blackened her teeth, is +usually, if not always, some Frenchman’s darling.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The blackened teeth alone would be bad enough, even +if the people of Annam were not also addicted to a custom +common to a large part of oceanic Asia. Almost all of them +chew betel-nut, as we persist in calling it. It is really the +nut of the arec-palm and the leaf of the betel-vine that often +climbs this, mixed with lime to bring out the full strength +of the ingredients. The wand-like arec-palms that rise +straight and soldierly, as if they fancied they served some +useful purpose and were proud of it, are the most conspicuous +feature of any Annamese or Tonkinese village. +Whenever a child is born one more of these slender trees is +planted, with a betel-vine beside it, so that in time the infant +also may have its “betel-nut.” Large villages are almost +hidden in arec-palm forests. This tree produces nuts of +about the size of a walnut, in green clusters like a bunch of +huge grapes, which grow, like cocoanuts, just below the +leaves. These, sold in the markets, the shops, everywhere +along the highways and the narrow trails, are cut up, wrapped +in a betel-leaf—whence the misnomer “betel-nut,” which +does not exist—smeared with lime, and thrust into the +repulsive mouth.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A French colonial who had tried betel-nut once told me +that he had a sudden rush of blood to the head and felt warm +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>and excited all day long. Like opium, however, it was one +of those things I prefer to take on hearsay. It is strange +that in China, land of bad habits, this mild vice is unknown, +unless we count the lower half of now Japanese Formosa. +A few old French colonials get the habit, as they become +addicted to opium, <i><span lang="fr">congaïes</span></i>, and other customs of the East; +but most of the ruling race have more respect for at least +their outward appearance. The chemical action of the lime +on the other ingredients produces a blood-red cud, so that +betel-nut chewers look as if their disgusting mouths of apparently +decayed teeth were full of blood, as if they were +in the throes of a hemorrhage—and didn’t know it. Some +Annamese girls would be good looking but for this blood-dripping +mouth, repulsive even when closed, for the constant +use of betel-nut not only destroys the gums but leaves the +lips permanently swollen. On the other hand the lacquering +of the teeth and the chewing of betel-nut somehow manage to +save the Annamese from toothache, they say, though some +of us might prefer to suffer the pain ourselves rather than +pass it on to the beholder. The chemical action of lacquer +and betel-juice in combination seems to kill the microbes +that lead to the dentist’s chair in other lands, and no wonder; +for surely no self-respecting microbe would take up its +habitat in an Annamese mouth.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In Hué and the two capitals alternately graced by the +French governor-general the younger people of the better +class show evidence of beginning to think of leaving off +the enameling of their teeth, and even of abandoning the +chewing of betel-nut. But both customs are almost universal +among masses and classes alike wherever Annamese +is spoken, and many, like our rural tobacco-chewers, are +proud of the distance they can project the red saliva. This +seems to be a favorite indoor as well as outdoor sport, for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>they spit the stuff everywhere, not only splotching with red +every road and street in the land that is not already red by +nature, but even the whitewashed walls of the homes of +mandarins. In hiring an Annamese nurse-maid or cook one +must insist that no betel-nut be used in the house, and even +then one’s best things are likely to become gradually speckled +with red.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Though the race as a whole is not noted for its manly +beauty, the women of Annam have a more pleasing appearance +to Western eyes than do those of China—except when +they smile. Their expression is more <i><span lang="fr">piquante</span></i>, if you know +what I mean. Those who become temporary wives of the +French, and do not blacken the teeth, sometimes do not even +chew betel-nut, are often pleasant to look upon during their +younger years. To be sure these are hand-picked; but +almost without exception, irrespective of age, the women +of Annam are slender, sinuous, and graceful, with a sort of +gliding walk, the countrywomen especially very erect, their +arms swinging far behind them, as if they were constantly +performing the feat of balancing their big palm-leaf hats. +Many have beautiful hands, small, thin, and tapering, even +though they do the hardest work of carrying and grubbing +in the rice-fields. To Annamese taste the chief points of +female beauty are black teeth, red heels—on bare feet, that +is, not on shoes, as in the case of foot-bound China—and +oval faces, in contrast to the round ones called for by Chinese +standards of beauty. Great numbers of the women +of the Eminent South have the longest hair that I—nay, +even my wife—had ever seen, in certain cases reaching well +below the knees.</p> + +<p class='c012'>There are those, however, who consider inwardness more +important than outwardness, and for them let us begin by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>saying that in disposition the Annamese are less gay, have +little of the sense of humor so highly developed among the +Chinese—unless it be that they put on a mask before the +white man. This they do, of course, like any subjugated +people, but one seldom catches them laughing even when +they have no suspicion of being observed—seldom, that is, +in comparison with that reservoir of laughter, the Chinese. +A Frenchman tells us that of all the people on earth the +Annamese have the greatest plasticity, are the most sly, cunning, +utilitarian, and the most assimilative—though often +superficially so. They show outward respect to parents and +superiors, but seem to be insincere and incapable of deep +devotion—not unnaturally, one would say, seeing that the +race has been subjected for most of the past two thousand +years. Never showing his real thoughts on the surface, +conserving his own personality under all circumstances, the +son of Annam adapts himself, passively resists, triumphs +when he seems to be defeated. Those who know him well +credit him with a great love of his native land, especially +of the village where he was born. The French insist that +the Annamese are great thieves, which, with all their faults, +can hardly be said of the Chinese.</p> + +<p class='c007'>During all the centuries that China held Annam enslaved, +“like a kept mistress,” it became Chinese. It took from +China its art, its morals, its writing, its costumes, its customs, +its gods; it is so Chinese that there are still celebrated +in the temples of Annam festivals and formalities that have +not taken place in the Celestial Empire for hundreds of +years. Now it is France that rules, and the Annamese have +become French. If Russia had conquered them, asserts a +Frenchman, they would have icons in their homes and sleep +on unlighted porcelain stoves. Either they are naturally +copiers or they have found copying the easiest way in a hot +<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>climate; long dominated, they seem to have lost through +evaporation the “pep” of their probably highland ancestors. +No doubt this explains why, although of old it was literary, +artistic, responsive to the most subtle plays of the spirit, +Annam never produced a single, great personal work, a great +poet, an original architect, a powerful moralist, a painter or +a sculptor of genius. “The foreign model shines through +everything admirable between the Mekong and the Gulf of +Tonkin.” The Annamese can work at the task in hand with +infinite taste and patience; what he lacks in originality he +makes up to a degree in ingeniousness; but the creative spark +seems never to have flashed forth in him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I suppose it is this copy-cat characteristic that makes him +show no surprise at the inventions of the West. You cannot +startle this ancient Oriental world with the mechanical marvels +of the new. It accepts them, but it is not astonished. +Give the yellow race the telegraph, and they send telegrams; +the phonograph, and they listen; the railroad, and they buy +their tickets and take their seats—granted that there are +any left; the automobile, and a self-confident young man +pours in gasoline and steps on the starter, knowing only that +for some reason this makes the thing go. The force of this +people lies in its shrewd plasticity; the Annamese do not +resist, they adapt themselves; they espouse on the instant +the practices and customs of the conqueror. Endowed with +an immeasurable pride, they strive, not to do their best in +their own line, but to imitate their masters, to outdo them in +their own field. It is not because they admire them, one suspects; +it is merely to prove that they are as smart as any +one else. Thus Annamese students, with centuries of memorizing +Chinese characters behind them, often outdo in French +even the French youths in their classes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Though they take so readily to Western inventions, no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>Annamese will use a mechanical contrivance if he can do +without it. With all the corkscrews and can-openers in the +world within reach of his hand, your <i><span lang="fr">bep</span></i>, or Annamese cook, +invariably draws corks and opens cans with his teeth. In +putting fuel on his fire he prefers his hands to a shovel. +You may show him better methods, but he continues to make +sure of the condition of an egg by whirling it on its side; +if it is fresh it will not whirl, according to the <i><span lang="fr">bep</span></i>; the older +it is the more it will gyrate, he insists. Try it on your own +“strictly fresh” eggs some winter, ye slaves of the land of +cold-storage—and if he is right they may be whirling still +when spring comes.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Though they sometimes eat sharks, the Annamese worship +what they call a whale, really the dolphin or porpoise. According +to legend, one of these acrobats of the sea once got +under an emperor’s boat and kept it from sinking until it +could reach shore. Even students in French <i><span lang="fr">lycées</span></i> still believe +this yarn, and if one of these “whales” dies and is +washed ashore, it is given honorable burial with much ceremony. +The Annamese worship trees, especially if they +are huge, or very old, or of strange shape; and to propitiate +the demons or to win the favors of the good spirits that +inhabit them they put under them little vases of the lime +used with the betel-nut that even spirits are reputed to enjoy. +Scores of these tiny jars may sometimes be seen at the foot +of a single tree. No Annamese will cut down those trees, +such as the banyan, that are especially sacred. The French +sometimes have to chop down with their own fair hands +trees that are in the way of civic improvements. At Tourane +two Annamese converts to Christianity were given good +wages and all the wood in a huge tree that was hindering +progress, and earned fifty piastres for two days’ work, fifty +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>times their normal income. Being Christians, they did not +of course care how many trees were cut down. There are +other lands where so effective a superstition would be well +worth entertaining.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The religions of Annam are in the main those of China. +Not only “whales” and trees, but big or queerly shaped rocks, +the rat, the silkworm, the elephant, above all the tiger, which +they never mention except by the honorable title “Ong Kop,” +have their worshipers. But the most general cult is that of +their ancestors and of the village genii. The local god may +be some mandarin who ruled the village centuries ago, some +native son who became a great scholar, some former mistress +of an emperor who aided her native town in some crisis; or +it may merely be a beggar or an executed robber, some great +calamity after his death having proved that his spirit must +be propitiated, perhaps a new temple built to enthrone it. In +return for all this adoration the village genius is expected to +protect the village from drouth, epidemic, and similar +catastrophe.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One can scarcely travel, however rapidly, through Annam +without seeing one of these fêtes to the genius of some village +or other. Parades riotous with color make their way +along the narrow dikes, across the rice-fields, the fantastic +costumes mirrored in the flooded sloughs. Not only do +women take no part in the cult of village genii, any more +than they can effectively worship an ancestor, but neither +do any of the men except those village notables who are not +in mourning and in whose family full peace and harmony +prevails. I gather that if a wife has recently run off with a +lover or wilfully blackened an eye of her notable spouse, or +if a daughter has eloped during the year with a Frenchman +but without benefit of clergy—though this is perhaps no such +serious matter—the husband or father involved would not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>be available or eligible for the rites in honor of the village +genius, but would pass the day in seclusion. An incentive +surely to domestic harmony! The plebes of course have +merely the honor of paying the bill, as in any other part of +the globe.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are many temples in Annam, but the largest of them +are small compared with those of China, and in many details +they are distinctly different. Elephants appear among the +decorations; dragons are not so numerous. The roofs tilt +with a longer, almost coquettish, curve; the tropical climate +has given them a more luxurious brown; there is rather an +air of equatorial languor about them. Most of them are +better kept too, as if either the worshipers were more devout +or there were better supervision over the caretakers. But +this is perhaps merely another example of the superiority in +cleanliness and order of Annam over China. Possibly it +is due to the presence of the French, who have ruled over +them during the life of almost all those now living, that the +Annamese have a little more conception of the line between +filth and its antithesis than is given to Celestial understanding. +Or it may be that on the whole the people of Annam +are less noisome in their personal habits than their northern +neighbors because they are less poverty-stricken, and because +total indifference in sanitary matters is more swiftly and +visibly punished in so tropical a land. At any rate there is +no such slovenliness, no such stench, in the cities of Annam +as beyond the northern border; for one thing they are mostly +on the coast, with water plentiful, and they are small, none +of those enormous conglomerations of humanity to be found +in hundreds of places throughout China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Gaudily painted little temples, weather-blackened shrines, +generally among trees, pass in constant procession as one +hurries through the land of the Eminent South. Now and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>again another procession enlivens the landscape—a long file +of people in their gayest robes, most of them carrying high +above their heads the parasols that are usually forbidden to +any but mandarins and foreigners, wending its way along +the dikes. They are on their way to a temple, or taking part +in a wedding, perhaps a funeral, in which latter case they +carry with them gay paper imitations of everything the deceased +will need in the after-world, from automobiles to +concubines. Temple festivals are theatrical and musical +entertainments as well as religious ceremonies, even as in our +churches. Probably the mass of the people distinguish no +difference. The charming oasis of the <i><span lang="fr">pagode</span></i>, as the French +call it, may suddenly have taken on life in the midst of +the rice-fields. The dikes about it are covered with files +of people moving toward it; where there was once a road or +some other open space beside it there is nothing but streets +of makeshift shops that have sprung up overnight. There +are improvised restaurants, women roasting cakes; sellers of +rice and <i><span lang="fr">chumchum</span></i>, of sugar-cane and oranges, of arec-nuts +and betel-leaves, squat on their heels near their round flat +baskets—a whole village of fortune will have sprung forth +from the soil. The swarming crowd rumbles and clamors +and shrieks with full mouths, for this is the time when they +are all gourmands and when the whole region becomes one +great family. Narrow wooden benches bear rows of customers +seated monkey-fashion on their heels, stuffing themselves +with swiftly moving chop-sticks. Every one is dressed in +his best, the villagers with floating black tunics, the band-turban +tight about the forehead, on which it leaves a whitish +streak untouched by the sunshine.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The temple itself, usually deserted, is full of natives, +chewing, spitting, shouting, their wooden sandals clacking. +An air of gentle yet barbaric splendor radiates through the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>place; religious furniture, sumptuously carved and painted +with lacquer or gold, gleams forth; parasols, silk banners +embroidered with mottoes and attributes and moralities scintillate +in the distilled sunshine. Everywhere, even in the +most distant corners, candles and joss-sticks burn; blue +clouds of incense cover with an impalpable veil the golden +faces of the idols; the altars are loaded with offerings; pasteboard +horses, richly caparisoned, spread their stiff legs. +About the ritual vases, the big iron urns in which incense +and paper prayers by the myriad are burned, sacred swans +stand erect on bronze tortoises; every now and again the +flame leaps high in an urn, devouring a package of bars of +gold or silver, made of rice-paper painted white or yellow. +Then suddenly, unexpectedly, two generals pop forth from +the wings, their backs a quiver of waving flags, their lungs +roaring forth challenges in a false key. With uplifted sabers +they march upon each other and indulge in what is meant +to be a terrifying pantomime, but nothing more serious comes +of it than of most Chinese battles. Frightful noises resound +from their armies following close behind them—two howling +troops of ragged coolies shaking spears and standards. The +stage becomes a whirling chaos of gleaming flags and shrieking +soldiery, in which all visible likeness to a religious ceremony +fades away into pure theatricalism.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I was constantly running across religious celebrations. +Sometimes gay paper boats, their sails all set, were started +off down a river to appease the spirits of the stream. Or +it might be at one of those neglected little temples without +door or roof which the slightest village maintains for its local +gods. First the worshipers <i><span lang="fr">lam lie</span></i>, kowtow to the stone or +mud tiger at the entrance, a tiger with great bulging eyes, +usually sculptured in deep relief on a stone screen. Then +they go to lay their offerings on the altar—horses made of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>red paper, pasteboard gourds containing sticks of incense, +rice-paper ingots of gold and silver. Fire-crackers explode, +what the Chinese consider music howls and shrieks, crowds +swarm, the temple flares with decorations in colored paper. +In the front chamber there usually sat a shaven-headed bonze +wearing a golden paper crown and dressed in red, singsonging +Buddhist prayers from a ragged tissue-paper book. Beside +and behind him men were beating drums, large and small, +or pieces of bell-metal, of resonant hardwood, sometimes +adding falsetto voices to the uproar. Countrymen in not +too clean garments crowded close on either side, until men +with sticks drove them back, again and again, sometimes +by throwing lighted bunches of fire-crackers into the massed +throng. Old women with sickening black mouths, contrasting +unpleasantly with the gay decorations, seemed to be +the chief worshipers. The mandarin in a gauzy black cloak +who kept order knew enough French to tell me that they +were praying for peace, but not enough to specify just what +they meant by it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Another time, elsewhere, strange sounds drew me to a +house where men of professional countenance were playing +on flutes, cymbals, tambourines, or their Oriental equivalents, +while the people were lamenting in discordant voices. +A family and its neighbors were praying about the bed of +a sick woman whose body would not cease swelling for all +the medicine-man’s mud plasters. That concert of uproar +had lasted since the night before; it was merely a question +of who would tire out first, the music, the sickness, +or the invalid. Before I left, fire-crackers were thrown +about to scare off the evil spirits that were wilfully causing +the illness, and if that did not drive them away the +master of ceremonies was prepared to toss about handfuls +of tissue-paper piastres, in the hope that the covetous devils +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>would leave the body of the sick woman to fight for the +money. If even this should not succeed, the funeral procession +starts with a band, followed by banner-bearers, then +by other ragamuffins carrying in a little paper temple the +spirit-tablet of the deceased, portable tables laden with roast +pig and other delicacies, and finally the gaudy bier, surrounded +by howling mourners trying to call the soul back +to earth, perhaps against its wishes.</p> + +<p class='c012'>As there is really no Annamese religion, so there is no +Annamese literature, except the Chinese. Even their spoken +tongue seems to be an ancient Chinese dialect. It is a +monosyllabic language, depending on tones to give different +meanings to the same words; and it is so difficult that +those Annamese who know French prefer to converse in +that tongue. A queer language indeed, explosive in pronunciation, +so that the friendliest little chat sounds like +a violent quarrel, and until one gets accustomed to it every +conversation seems about to develop into a fist-fight—or +at least its Far-Eastern counterpart, clawing and scratching. +In writing, Chinese characters are used, therefore Annamese, +Japanese, Koreans, Formosans, Chinese of the +north or south, can all converse readily enough on paper; +though as they do not pronounce the characters at all alike +the spoken word is of no use among them. Half a century +ago the French Jesuits gave the Annamese a romanized +script, and now thousands read their newspapers in it. In +fact the government has made this alphabetical writing +obligatory in the schools, and it is far more widely spread +than a similar effort in China. But it is no such simple +matter as the uninitiated imagine to represent tones by an +extension of accent-marks. With the reform goes the +ability to talk to their neighbors on paper too, and the old +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>classics are being lost to the younger generation, even as +in Korea and Formosa under the Japanese.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Polygamy is still legal in Annam, though for economic +reasons it is no longer usual. It remains a not uncommon +practice for the wife who has tried in vain for eight or +ten years to bear her husband a son to put on an old woman’s +bonnet and go out and buy him a second wife. Not a +bad plan, surely an improvement on the extramarital secrecy +of the West; it no doubt makes for a more congenial companionship +and incidentally solves the servant problem, if +ever there was one in Annam. Yet the Annamese wife +has a better social position than in most of the Orient.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Speaking of wives, in Annam kissing—except in the not +few cases in which Frenchmen have taught a different style—consists +in approaching the nose to the face of the loved +one and sniffing, much as if one were smelling a flower. +The harder one sniffs the more it proves one’s love—which +is sometimes a real test!</p> + +<p class='c007'>Naturally a ditch has dug itself between the younger +and the older generation in Annam. Other customs, other +manners, other points of view have grown up since the +rule of despotic emperors changed to the rule of protective +Frenchmen. When the old ancestral altar is replaced +by a chest of drawers topped by a mirror it is not merely +a question of furniture; something has changed in the heart, +in the essence of things. The fathers wish to remain true +to the spirit of old Annam; the sons wish to be “même +chose Français.” Observing the two generations side by +side, one has an impression of two different classes, almost +two different races. The dissimilarity shows itself in the +slightest matters of every-day life. Take, for instance, the +well-to-do Annamese families the traveler finds dining in +the more or less French hotels along the main routes of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>travel. The young people, often dressed entirely in European +garb, their black hair cut in our fashion and glossy +with brilliantine, eat their <i><span lang="fr">tête de veau</span></i> and <i><span lang="fr">poulet rôti</span></i> with +ease, talking and laughing freely, while their constrained, +embarrassed, yet always dignified parents, in their long +gowns and the Annamese head-dress, handle knife and fork +in one hand at one time, as if they were chop-sticks, and +hardly succeed in swallowing a mouthful. Especially in +the ports and the larger cities young Annam is growing up +vastly different from his fathers. Far from reading the +old classics, he knows only the <i><span lang="fr">quoc-ngu</span></i>, the Annamese +language transcribed in our alphabet, which he even beats +out on a typewriter. At Saïgon or Hanoï he is resplendent +with modernism, agitating, scheming, getting rich; but at +Hué he seems to have taken refuge in the legendary past, +in tradition, in the memory of his ancestors. How long even +this spacious town on the banks of the River of Perfumes +will remain what it still is, the natural place of refuge of +the exalted spirits of the great princes of other times, seeking +throughout the “protected” kingdom for a place to +which our Western civilization cannot track them, is not +hard to guess: just about the time necessary to finish the +railway that is to unite the Annamese capital with Hanoï +on the north and with Saïgon to the south; the time needed +to replace the little hotel-grocery, celebrated among all the +colonials of Indo-China, with the tourists’ palace already +planned; the time it will take to build a few factories in +which fishermen will be the workmen and princes and +mandarins the bosses.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Ah, well, the world changes. Not every visitor to Annam +can see the prostrations of the “ten thousand” mandarins +at Hué, and soon that ceremony too may be gone forever. +The legendary Annam, the traditional Asia, is passing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>away. Roads, the automobile, the telegraph have upset all +the old customs. Old-timers cannot tell a story of the +olden days—of late in the nineteenth century—without sighing, +“Ah, in my time ... but we shall never see that +again.” We shall not, of course; yet there is no just cause +to weep at our misfortune in arriving too late in a world +grown too old. There are compensations. Western customs, +introduced into Indo-China, have not destroyed the picturesque; +they have merely transformed it. In the place +of the adventurers turned administrators who, living like +little kings far from control, inspired respect in the natives +by tricks akin to sleight-of-hand, surrounded themselves with +<i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> like Oriental sultans in their harems, and dispensed +justice in the shade of a banyan-tree, like some tropical +Saint Louis, there is the Parisian boulevardier, far from +his element, watched over by a wife who will see to it that +<i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> become nothing more romantic than seamstresses +and cooks’ assistants. After all, the sedan-chairs that once +crawled along the Mandarin Road by which Chinese officials +went and came among their posts in Annam were no +more worth coming to see than are autobuses, jammed so +full of natives that their feet stick out from both sides of +it, <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> wearing French shoes, an old Annamese dowager +with a modern umbrella under her arm, “boys” with a golden +tooth or two among their black-lacquered ones, bicycles +among the baskets on the roof of the terror-spreading +vehicle, an autobus so crowded that it looks as if the passengers +were transporting it, like ants dragging a dead fly. +Come to think of it, there is nothing more amusing about +the myriad old temples of a mummified Far East than about +a Buddhist priest in his saffron robe carrying a fountain-pen +and riding a bicycle in his bare feet. The old <i><span lang="fr">nha-qué</span></i> +bound to market with a string of “cash” over one shoulder +<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>may be gone, but in his place there are Annamese youths, +still wearing black band-turbans above their misfit French +clothing, counting out paper piastres behind the bars of the +Banque de l’Indo-China.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X<br> <span class='c011'>HURRYING ON TO THE NORTHERN CAPITAL</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>I was up at four the morning after the imperial ceremony, +in sufficiently good mood to refrain from kicking +the “boy” who had called me according to orders, and +off in a heavy rain by a rickshaw assured the evening before +by a combination of heavy subsidy and threatened +penalty. The train from Hué to Dongha, completing the +central stretch of the railways of Indo-China that begins +at Tourane, ran close outside the moat of Hué citadel, the +walled imperial city stretching from river to river. Beyond, +a rich plain was almost completely covered with rice, +a wet green plain backed by the mountain ranges, bulking +against the western sky, that were never far distant on the +left. The scantiness of the country, the paucity of its arable +land, seemed to be emphasized here; for Annam gets very +narrow indeed north of Hué, so narrow that it all but +breaks in two. Yet it was surprising how many people +were crowded into this slender strip of earth, how many +things of interest to the hurried traveler too, for that matter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>At length, hardly an hour beyond Hué, we rode out from +under the clouds as from under a roof. For the climate runs +in streaks up and down this narrow country. The weather +again became, and, what was more to the point, remained, +splendid, so that almost the only time I did not have brilliant +sunshine during my two months in Indo-China was +during that enforced delay at Hué. Another hour and we +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>ran out of track, and were set off at 7:30 at a mere station, +where I stepped into an autobus in which I rode until 8:30 +that night.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were plenty of Annamese in the back four fifths +of the vehicle, though it was not packed as the autobuses +of Annam often are. For at this New Year’s season most +people were either already at their ancestral homes or had +no intention of coming. Just how the driver and his unfailing +assistant were induced to work at such a time was +a mystery, but that perhaps is one of the advantages of +French rule. These autobuses run as regularly as the trains +with which they connect, whether there are passengers or +not, for at least there are the mails. In fact on the whole +they run a little faster than the trains, which is perhaps +one reason their fares are higher. My Scotch blood evidently +having surged to the surface during my delay, I +had taken before leaving Hué a second-class ticket, partly +too, I fancy, in order to prove that the company would +have to sell me one, in spite of my complexion. There had +been no argument, though white men cannot ride among +the natives in fourth class on the trains. But the Annamese +agent at Dongha, as if he could not bear to see +the race that ruled over his land mingling with his fellow-countrymen, +insisted that I ride first class, that is, in the +front seat, behind the driver this time. Or there may +have been another reason; for when my recovered baggage +was placed in the closed box at the rear of the car—also +a first-class privilege, since freight and express, the parcel-post +and the baggage of native passengers, was all piled +up on the railed roof of the vehicle or tied along the +running-boards—he mentioned casually that of course it +weighed considerably more than the fifteen kilograms even +a first-class passenger was allowed as free luggage; and as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>the rate for anything above that amount is nearly as high +as for human flesh, I felt it only fair to slip a couple of +paper piastres into his limp palm, at which he not only +did not protest but even thanked me in imperfect French.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This time I had a fellow-passenger of my own color. +A Frenchman of sturdy frame and studious face, a khaki +patch held in place over one eye by a cord that had left +a thin white line free from sunburn diagonally across his +intelligent features, had also stepped off the train. As the +custom in England and its newer American counterpart of +strict incommunicativeness between strangers unexpectedly +meeting on the road does not apply among the hospitable +French colonials of Indo-China, I soon discovered that my +companion, though ostensibly in the customs service, was +a novelist whose latest romance against an Annamese background +I had finished reading the evening before. I might +have been embarrassed at being discovered by so important +a personage, an official to boot, occupying “European accommodations” +at the price of a native ticket, had I not +quickly learned that the novelist had not even paid second-class +fare for his first-class seat, but was traveling on a +government <i><span lang="fr">réquisition</span></i>, which cost him nothing more than +the asking.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He had been in the customs service of Indo-China since +early manhood, but chancing to be on furlough in his +native land when the World War broke out, he had joined +his regiment at once, fighting unscathed all through the +war, until, three days before the Armistice, he had lost an +eye. But the government had been kind. It had kept him +on the pay-roll as a customs officer, but let him run about +the country at government expense, to such things as the +ceremony we had just seen at the court of Hué, in order +that he might gather material for more writing. For your +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>Frenchman realizes that even an honest novel, true as to +local color, is useful propaganda; and Indo-China has a +longing to be known, in France as well as in the world at +large. Hawthorne and Whitman, I recalled, had not been +paid their government salaries in order that they might go +on producing what was perhaps even better literature than +that of my new traveling companion. Nor could I remember +having heard of any of our crippled war veterans receiving +government aid in the production of art or letters.</p> + +<p class='c012'>We made the constant good speed of a limited express, +along a road raised a foot or two above the rice-fields, +here dry but green, still flooded back toward the foot-hills. +I could in fact have ridden a little less swiftly with more +pleasure. For there being rarely any turn in the road, and +no other vehicles, gasoline-driven or otherwise—luckily, +since the roads of Indo-China are for one car at a time—we +went over the many short bridges just wide enough +for so ponderous a conveyance as ours with the roller-coaster +feeling of a day at Coney Island. It was a gravel +road in which grew grass that seemed to have sprung up +during the last few days of rain; and there was never a +fence or other protection from it even at the villages through +which we roared so madly. Striking peaks stood out +among those rows of ranges perpetually following us on +the west; at the mouths of the several short rivers that +looked like seas in the raging wind we were ferried across +in the usual decrepit old <i><span lang="fr">bacs</span></i>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>At Donghoï or Quang-binh we were the first guests in +a brand-new hotel, subsidized by the government in order +that the few French travelers who go up and down the +<i><span lang="fr">Route Mandarine</span></i> may have all the advantages of home during +the <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> and siesta that break the journey there. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>During that Parisian ceremony we picked up a French +colonial burned a reddish bronze by half a lifetime at a +country post beneath the equatorial sun. He went on with +us for a few hours to his bungalow at the place where +another <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> came across the sea to us at the call of a +water-buffalo horn in the hands of a ferryman. Before +it had fought its way to the southern shore there was +ample time to enjoy the coolness of an interior in marked +contrast to the facial and temperamental heat of its chief +occupant, who, apologizing for the absence of his <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> +to do the honors, had his “boys” serve us drinks cooled +with the ice that was thrown off to him each forenoon +from the south-bound bus. Without this daily necessity +he could of course no more have endured life in his isolated +station than without his respectful servants and his female +companion. Most of the conversation ran on the selfishness +of a few of his younger colleagues in expecting their +own countrywomen to accompany them to such posts of +“exile in the wilderness.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Every house or hovel of the natives had standing before +it the tufted bamboo of the New-Year season, that +signal to the spirits of the air that the people who live +beneath it are pious and not to be molested—something akin +to the hobo signs of our own land. In many of the villages +the populace was childishly enjoying itself in swings +made, supports and all, not too securely of bamboos crudely +lashed together. Toward the middle of the afternoon we +found ourselves making toward a great wall of mountains +at right angles to the main ranges. It looked as if this +ponderous autobus could not possibly pass such a barrier, +at least without the united assistance of the passengers, and +I recalled with some misgiving the ancient story of second-class +travelers being obliged to get off and push, while those +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>in first class had merely to walk. For the day was still +uninviting to physical exertion, and my special front-seat +privileges might not be honored in such an emergency without +the two-piastre agent at Dongha to protect me. But +the road found a way up and around and over the steep +spur, twisting itself into hair-pin curves to climb a slope +up which an old-style Chinese road went straight and unswerving, +with the hardiness of the pioneer, to the remnants +of a gate at the lowest point, not far from where our less +virile modern route surmounted it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To all intents and purposes we had come to the end of +Annam. What the Chinese named the Eminent South +Country was usually reckoned as beginning on the north +at the Gate of Annam, as this pass has been called for +centuries. This was the old Annam-Tonkin boundary; +there is still the vestige of an ancient wall built along the +summit by the Annamese to protect themselves from invasion, +and many great battles have been waged there. To-day +the official boundary is much farther north, and does +not signify anyway, for there is a fiction that Tonkin, the +northern knob of the Indo-China dumb-bell, is now a part +of Annam, ruled over by Koang-de, the Son of Heaven at +Hué.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The climb had opened out a great amphitheater of a valley, +checkerboarded with rice-fields, a stretch of the sea with a +curving beach that flashed in the afternoon sunshine, several +other spurs that almost hindered our progress, and more +rows of ranges, with densely green forests in the hollows +high up on some of the ridges. On the southern side of +the Gate there had been no forest, only a light brush; but +it looked as if the northern slopes, blue-black now in the +slanting sunshine, were all thickly wooded. Long pasturelands, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>rolling and bushy, dotted with red herds, almost completely +crowded out cultivation for some distance. There +were few inhabitants, but many tiger temples, all set in +clusters of bamboos or trees, as if the wilderness that had +driven out the rice-fields brought the dreaded beast that much +nearer. The mountains had pushed us so close to the sea +that for some time beaches and even islands seemed but a +stone’s throw away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A slightly different human type appeared beyond the Gate +of Annam, stockier, the women perhaps a bit better looking, +or more nearly good looking—so long as they kept their +repulsive mouths shut. In fact purists among the French +anthropologists of Indo-China insist that the real Annamese +are not in the handle of the dumb-bell at all, but in Tonkin, +because south of the Gate so many tribes have been +Annamited, so to speak, mingled in blood and culture with +the conquerors from the north. Unlike their relatives south +of the Gate, the Tonkinese were dressed in a cinnamon or +tobacco-juice color that suddenly became as universal as +black had been farther south, as denim blue is among the +masses of China. The countrywomen, then their men, and +finally all the hand-laboring class, took to wearing long cotton +cloaks of this reddish brown hue. I found later that +this is colored with <i><span lang="fr">cunao</span></i>, the vegetable dye in which the +masses north of the old boundary dip their clothing, so +that all Tonkin wears the same conspicuous livery. More +exactly it is inconspicuous, in much of Tonkin; one might +fancy it had been adopted as a protective coloring, not only +so that betel saliva would not show on it, but because so +much of the soil of the Tonkinese plains is reddish that +everything, earth, water, people, their clothing and their +cattle, anything that comes in contact with the earth, took +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>on this <i><span lang="fr">cunao</span></i> color. Centuries of toiling in flooded rice-fields +reflecting a tropical sun had indeed given even their +faces a similar tint.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were fewer male Psyche knots here than farther +south, hair-cuts for men being now popular. The women +had suddenly taken to skirts, in place of the voluminous +thin-cotton trousers of Annam proper, and dressed their +hair differently, wrapping the braid once about the head and +letting the rest hang down like the tail of a Hindu turban. +But the most conspicuous change was that the palm-leaf +hat of toadstool shape, which I had grown to associate forever +with the country people of Annam, had given way, +among the women only, to a most astonishing head-shade. +Of grindstone shape and size, being easily two and a half +if not three feet in diameter and perfectly flat on top, with +a brim six or more inches wide forming a perpendicular +circle about them, these astounding hats made also of leaves, +perhaps of the banana, looked like a tub set upside down +on the head. More exactly they sat on a little round support +tied to the top of the head, and were so unwieldy +on this slight fulcrum that whenever the wind was blowing +or the wearer under motion the struggle to retain her head-gear +seemed to be much more difficult than the carrying of +her shoulder-pole burden. The men continued to wear the +smaller cone-shaped mushroom hats that had roofed the rural +population all the way from Cochinchina, as if they realized +how foolish they would have looked in these immense grindstones, +or knew the futility of trying to compete with their +women in ornamental matters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The graves were now well weeded knobs on top of +large raised circles of earth; the towns, almost as compact +as those of China, were surrounded by high walls +of growing bamboos. The more straggling towns south +<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>of the Gate of Annam had been encircled, if at all, by +hedges of cactus or wild pineapple, concealing nothing; here +every village was completely hidden, with an opening here +and there through its bamboo wall like that to the lair of +a jungle beast, so that with Tonkinese villagers going home +consists in crawling away into the jungle like the tiger +they so dread and honor. This lofty bamboo hedge is a +vestige of pirate days, and of battles between towns and +clans. Near the coast cocoanut-trees did their part toward +the concealing, and of course the soldierly arec-palm with +its clinging betel-vine was everywhere. Once or twice we +passed fields of mulberry-trees, for Tonkin also produces +silk. Women in the grindstone hat stood on little platforms +and screened rice by pouring it out in the wind, +rice to be hulled later by these same women stepping with +their bare feet incessantly on the end of a heavy beam that +drops its hammer-head into a stone or wooden mortar.</p> + +<p class='c012'>It was well after dark when we came to a last <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i>, +across an arm of the sea that seemed in the black night +as wide as the British Channel, and were gradually poled +and pulled and sculled by sleepy coolies toward the lights +of Ben-thuy, where the railway picks up again. Another +three years and trains will be running between Dongha and +Ben-thuy; we had seen the half finished embankment now +and then along the way. Within twice that time the traveler +should be able to go entirely by rail the whole length of +Indo-China, clear on to the Yang-tze perhaps, possibly even +to Angkor, connecting with the lines of Siam, which already +run to Singapore.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were no accommodations for foreigners at Ben-thuy, +merely the river-mouth port of the city of Vinh, where +we were soon housed in the almost French hotel of a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>Spanish—er—lady of fortune. Vinh is a large town, for +Indo-China. Three hundred and ten houses, a whole section +not far from the hotel, had been burned that day as an +unintentional addition to the New Year’s celebration, and +the night air was still strongly scented with the conflagration; +but this catastrophe had left only an unimportant +vacancy in the civic area. The French showed little sign +of interest in these popular misfortunes, so long as their +own spacious part of the town, with its uncrowded dwellings +on broad half forested lawns, remained undisturbed. Is it +because they no longer hold in honor their own labyrinthine +old cities that the French have given such an atmosphere +of bourgeois order to the towns of their Far-Eastern empire +by making them checker-boards of straight, right-angled +streets, just as the Japanese have done in Formosa and +Korea?</p> + +<p class='c007'>Another “boy” risked his life by calling me at four again, +though the train on which I wandered northward all that +day long did not leave until two hours later, from a station a +few blocks away. That journey from Vinh to Hanoï began +as rather a stupid ride, but it turned out better than the +morning promised. The little train, with its single three-class +coach at the end of a string of modified cattle-cars +for the populace, sat lower to the ground and was in some +ways less comfortable than the autobus. A stone embankment +from two to six feet above the rice-fields formed the +basis for railroad and highway, which flowed together every +little while into the same narrow bridges, with a coolie +at either end to sound a warning. The plain, of more or +less width according to how curious the mountains were to +come down and look at the sea, was one vast paddy-field. +Birds were numerous for a tropical land. Herons lay in +wait for careless frogs at the edges of the rice-fields; the +<i><span lang="fr">crabier</span></i>, a brown bird showing a patch of white, like a +flag of truce, when flying, plied its customary quest for +edible crabs; a little reddish bird that seemed to have copied +the garb of its human neighbors flitted here and there across +the leisurely moving foreground. Water-buffaloes, almost +one in three of them of the albino type, were plowing belly-deep +in the slime of the paddy-fields or loafing along the +dikes; whole Oriental families of them lay immersed in +mud-holes, completely covered except for the ends of their +snouts and their sagacious little eyes, recalling those tales +of Annamese pirates hiding themselves indefinitely under +water by breathing through two reeds thrust in their nostrils. +Now and then one of these ponderous pachyderms presented +his massive head threateningly toward our train, as if about +to attack this new type of animal, but always decided at +the last moment not to risk it and loped off into the +flooded paddy-field on either side with a splash of wet mud.</p> + +<div id='i_194' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_194a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>With each new year the Annamese clear of vegetation the graves of their ancestors, back to remote generations</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_194b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>I asked a living caretaker to fill the place of one of these of stone which guard the entrance to a royal tomb of Annam</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_195' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_195a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>In the heart of Hanoï, northern capital of French Indo-China, stands a delightfully picturesque lake of goodly dimensions</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_195b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Annamese girls hold Sunday morning flower-market at this corner of the city-girdled lake of Hanoï</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>In places the land was so flooded from the recent rains +that only graves, dikes, and the tops of the half-grown +rice appeared above the broad expanse of water—except +of course the villages and temples in their clusters of trees, +standing wherever possible on a knoll too rocky to be cultivated +to advantage. Villages close to the road were frequent, +graves still more so, the dead and the living +inhabitants both too numerous. The plain, flat as a billiard-table, +the water and the exact rows of flooded rice shimmering +like silk, was dotted with red cattle, some also plowing, +and with redder people of all ages and both sexes, +in various forms of undress, all toiling for their rice in +the inundated fields. More exactly it was all one vast +field, divided into all manner of queer shapes by narrow +green ridges six inches above the general level. Brown +men in faded tobacco-brown clothing—still more often +<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>women, who seem to do most of the work—groped about +up to their thighs and biceps in the slime. Some were immersed +to the waist; some paddled about in sampans; others +stood in pairs on the dikes and tossed water from one +field to another in a basket of woven bamboo splints hung +in the middle of a long rope, or toiled alone shoveling +water from one level to another with a huge wooden spoon +mounted on a framework.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The reddish-brown garments that had begun at the Gate +of Annam were universal in the rural parts of this region. +Some of the men in the fields were naked except for a +shirt tied up about the armpits, but the women were more +or less covered, though they are more careless than those +of China about exposing the person. Trousers for women +had for the time being entirely disappeared, though they +were to appear again about Hanoï; a sign, I suppose, of +the fast life of cities. Along the road close beside us women +under shoulder-pole loads of anything, everything, trotting +in constant files, like trains of leaf-bearing ants in the +jungle, often left their long, sun-faded, red-brown cloaks +swinging open, and not concealing all that the once white +diamond-shaped breast-cover beneath leaves visible. Some +frankly wore only that and the knee-high skirt, as if +this season of hard labor was no time to be prudish in +small matters. Almost all wore those great basket-like hats, +some faded and frayed, some fresh from the markets to +and from which endless streams of them forever jogged. +A picturesque figure is the Tonkinese woman of the people, +with her flat umbrella-hat, her loose, cinnamon-colored, knee-length +jacket, her short skirt or very loose thin black +trousers, her clacking wooden sandals in town or her noiseless +straw ones in the country, her black-lacquered teeth +bloody with the betel-juice driveling from the corners of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>her hideous mouth. Invariably she has a well built back, +a pretty brown in tint, and suggesting to our society leaders +how they too might have perfect forms—merely by +carrying a hundred pounds or so across their shoulders to +market several times a week.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were stretches where the land was almost bare, +the fields yellow-green, with brownish graves, the foot-hills +terraced, some of them cut up by bush fences but apparently +uncultivated now. The forerunners of the mountain +range were without vegetation, except for clumps of trees, +among which the palm was the most common. In other +places, where the demands of husbandry had not killed them, +were whole forests of trees white with blossoms, bamboos +that were like smoke spirals of blond gold, great kapok-trees, +without a leaf on their whitened branches, but bearing +immense bunches of flowers that turned orange by translucence +against the blue of the sky. Finally the mountains +came down so close to the sea that there were heaped-up +hills cultivated in patches, though here, unlike China, the +ratio between soil and inhabitants has never been such that +anything more than the level land must necessarily be +cultivated.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Here and there on the muddy mat of the fields stood +slender triangular rafts anchored or mired in the slime, +raising in the air, with strange immobile gestures, disjointed +arms, like gigantic field-spiders. Most of them bore +on this base a rudimentary house, a roof of woven palm-leaves +closed at the back with an old paddy-winnowing basket, +a bundle of straw inside taking the place of a sleeping-mat. +They were the shelters of the fishermen who come +here whenever there is water enough to make it worth +while to plunge into it the big square dip-net at the end +of the balanced pole suspended at the front of the raft. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>Some were without the nets now, the bare bamboos on +which these are fastened seeming to claw the air in their +eagerness to be of use again. In places there were scores +of these fishing devices, each with its little hut, its net +balanced with stones and raised and lowered by a rope +inside the hut, so that the fisherman does not need to expose +his already bronzed hide to either rain or shine.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Some time in mid-morning, masses of jagged rock, similar +to the “Marble Mountains” of Tourane, began to rise from +the plain, growing ever more numerous. They were identical, +I was to find later, with those fantastic rock isles +that dot by thousands the northwestern corner of the Gulf +of Tonkin. This region has indeed been called the terrestrial +Bay of Along, which is no misnomer, for these rocks also +once stood out of the sea, before the earth came to fill +in between them the flat plain that flows as level as the +ocean all about them. Some of these gigantic formations, +which were to follow me far down the West River into +the Chinese province of Kwangsi, had patches of hardy +vegetation on them; some were as bare as the forbidding +mounds of stacked bayonets they suggested. They were of +most curious shapes, forms as tormented as if the mountains +had been tortured in their youth, some like rocks +torn jagged by uncounted centuries of dashing waves. Now +they grew up among the rice-fields, and continued for hours, +fantastic, of every possible formation, attitude, posture, +striking peaks and ridges with perpendicular, horizontal, +diagonal strata, covered with thorny scrub vegetation wherever +it could get a foothold. Some of those queer rock +hills, half covered with plant life, looked like velour fedora +hats carelessly tossed out on the plain; others resembled the +slack heaps of a region of pulsating industry.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All the rest of the day we rode among those mountainous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>heaps of rock, those phantoms of stone. Sometimes that +afternoon the whole western horizon was cut off by a capriciously +peaked range so hazy as to seem a gauze curtain, at +other times so close that it appeared to hang threateningly +over us. But always there was this vanguard of isolated rock +heaps standing sentinel along the plain. I made the journey +between Vinh and Hanoï three times before I finally left +Indo-China, and I never tired of those eccentric nonchalant +piles of stone, on land and sea, of which the “Marble Mountains” +of Tourane are the southernmost outcroppings and the +bandit-riddled cliffs along the Si-kiang near Nanning the +most northern.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The arable land was still more intensively cultivated and +inhabited north of Thanh-hoa, a hot “citadel” of well built +structures along orderly streets, which there is time to go +and see if you will miss the midday meal at the station presided +over by an Annamese woman with unlacquered teeth +whose French is suspiciously fluent. Thanh-hoa station +well outside the town is the luncheon-place of all foreign +travelers between Vinh and Hanoï, whether by train or by +automobile, and track and road run so close together much +of the distance that acquaintances made there can be renewed +from time to time during the journey. Those in +the motor-cars now and then sped past us within handshaking +reach, tossing over their shoulders gibes at our +slowness, though we were not so slow at that. The towns +grew larger, with some more or less European houses, an +old church sometimes bulking above the trees. The mountains +gradually retired to infinity; French appeared in the +platform crowds, the Chinese merchants in our car increased +as Jews do in trains nearing our own metropolis. +Crowds were returning from holiday jaunts on this last +day of the official <i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i> season. French boys, and girls too +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>for that matter, with nascent mustaches and bare knees, +who had never been in France, were on their way back +to school; French and half-caste hunters filled our car with +dogs and guns, with dead rabbits, wild chickens and ducks, +bagfuls and bunches of still less commonplace game. Though +we took on more cars as they were needed, our coach was +so overrun with standees that the mind was unwillingly +carried back to the subways of another continent, while +the fourth-class cars were almost as packed and jammed +and chaotic as the soldier-abused trains of China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Passengers were piled three deep from engine to back +platform by the time we reached Hanoï at six, and I found +the city so busy that I had my first and only ride in a +<i><span lang="fr">pousse-choléra</span></i>, as the French quite fittingly call the iron-tired +buggy-wheeled rickshaws usually patronized only by +the natives. Certainly I should have had something akin +to cholera if the journey to the post-office for my first mail +in a long time and back to the Hôtel de la Gare had lasted +much longer.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI<br> <span class='c011'>HANOÏ AND THE TONKIN</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Hanoï, northern capital of French Indo-China, is somewhat +larger and less obviously tropical than its southern +rival, Saïgon. It is quite a city, with expensive modern +buildings, electric street-cars—found nowhere else in the +colony—railways in four directions, many automobiles, both +of the taxicab and private limousine variety, several excellent +hotels; in short, it is a little Paris of the tropics, with some +advantages that even Paris does not have. Those hotels +were a constant surprise, though I had seen almost their +equal in other parts of the colony. Not only were they +all you could expect of the French themselves, but their +rates were surprisingly reasonable for these exorbitant times. +Though I am getting ahead of my story again, we had later +on two large rooms with bath, electric fan thrown in, +excellent French food and plenty of ice, for three adults +and two small children at 250 piastres a month. True, there +were cobwebs visible in the corners of the high ceiling, +bright little lizards paraded the walls, and the plumbing +might have been more strictly up-to-date, but he is an inexperienced +traveler who expects perfection anywhere.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the very heart of Hanoï, with the principal foreign +streets on some sides of it and the native city on the other, +is a large lake, delightfully blue and restful, bordered by +a stone-faced embankment spaced with huge old trees. Out +in it rise two little islands, one reached by a causeway, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>the other needing a boat, bearing respectively a famous old +temple and a kind of pagoda. The beautiful, lazily tropical +view across this broad deep lake in the heart of a city is +one of the sights of the Far East, and gives Hanoï quite +a distinctive atmosphere. In a well shaded corner on its +shores there is, especially on Sunday mornings, a flower-market +very similar to the one near the Madeleine in Paris, +except that this one lasts the whole year round, and in +place of the <i><span lang="fr">bouquetières</span></i> of Paris boulevards the sellers +are black-toothed <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> in long cinnamon-brown coats, +their swollen lips reddened with betel-nut, yet quite as commercially +skillful and in their Oriental way just as coquettish +as their Parisian counterparts.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Rue Paul Bert, named for a former French commander, +is to Hanoï what the Rue Catinat is to Saïgon. Along it +are some very up-to-date government and private buildings, +well stocked stores, and cafés overrunning the sidewalks. +The tram-cars across this lead along the lake and through +the native town to even larger government structures in +a great park of the outskirts, now admittedly the headquarters +of the governor-general, though even he hardly +dares openly admit this down in Saïgon. There are +other parks, one with a big stone water-tower that looks +like a medieval dungeon, many streets of good foreign +houses, most of them gay in Buddhist-yellow stucco, a big +museum left over from a former exposition, and all the +other adjuncts of French civilization. As in Saïgon, there +is an imposing municipal opera-house, where a company +subsidized by the government, at the cost of the natives, +comes to sing each “winter” for the French residents, not +to be outdone by that other Paris on the opposite side of the +earth in any of the cultural things of life just because +their lot happens to be cast so far afield. Most of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>year the municipal theater stands idle, however, with a welcoming +air toward anything that promises to be a relief +from the monotony of the silvered-screen nonsense offered +in another part of town. On my second visit to Hanoï +its pretentious façade was adorned with the paper of an +“Oriental Magician,” whose performance was as worthy +of the solemn throng in full dress that filled the house +as would have been those of his rivals elsewhere. The very +atrociousness with which he massacred the bit of French +needed to accompany his tricks had about it a tang of the +occult East unable to express itself in our crude Western +medium—which was strange in an Italian who called Newton, +Massachusetts, home, and whose ultra-Oriental wife +and chief stage assistant admitted in unofficial moments that +she was born in Kansas.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The rush and swirl of street life in Hanoï was even more +nearly incessant than that of hotter Saïgon. Hawkers, +improvised restaurants, hundreds of rickshaws, most of +them thumping their wooden wheels on the ill-fitting axle, +queer carriages, wheelbarrows again for the first time since +leaving China, man-drawn freight-carts, automobiles bellowing +their demanding way through flocks and shoals of +pedestrians, all bore testimony to the importance of the +northern capital. Superficially everything was French, down +to the tiny bottles containing those <i><span lang="fr">pierres à briquet</span></i> required +for the gasoline-driven cigarette-lighters of France, +which one saw in the display-windows of native as well as +French shops. The big department-store across the street +from our hotel opened at dawn and closed from eleven +until two, like almost everything else, so that its reassembling +force was constantly breaking short both our night’s sleep +and our afternoon siesta. But the red tape of buying there +was as entangling as in France, with the added difficulty +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>that prices quoted in francs and paid in piastres had to +be figured according to the daily rate of exchange—often +to our decided advantage. There seemed to be a general +taste for French bread, and bottles by the coolie-load were +so cheap and plentiful, in contrast to China, that every possible +thing was made out of whole or broken ones—walls, +garden borders, sidewalk edges, playhouses. But there did +not seem to be much Frenchifying of native life except in +these external details, and even with those the millions of +the masses have little to do.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Late January in Hanoï was cloudless, almost as hot as +in Saïgon, more than ten degrees farther south, so that +even in white again I was none too comfortably cool. By +night it was often too hot to sleep well even stark naked +under a languid electric fan, and one’s dozing was made all +the more fitful by the rattling hubs of the <i><span lang="fr">pousses-choléra</span></i>, +those iron-tired, almost springless rickshaws of the masses, +and of the larger coolie-pulled baggage and vegetable carts, +that made a hubbub beneath our windows all night long +like the passing of a regiment of lumber-wagons. Sometimes +there might be a lull from about two until four in +the morning, corresponding somewhat to the daytime siesta, +but even then the streets were by no means so nearly +deserted as they were around noonday. Plenty of good +rickshaws, with wire wheels on large pneumatic tires and +ample springs, as noiseless and comfortable conveyances as +those of Peking and far better than the ones to be found +in Canton and southern China in general, plied the streets +of Hanoï. But they were used almost exclusively by foreigners, +one European each, while the bone-breakers in +which even mandarins were glad to save an Indo-China +nickel served the natives.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The rickshaw-men of Indo-China are so hungry for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>work that they always know, whether they understand him +or not, where a possible client wishes to go. A score of +times I had the same experience; all foreigners in Indo-China +have had it: a mob of rickshaw pullers, seeing me +come out of a hotel, a shop, a government office, the home +of the lone Protestant missionary couple in Hanoï or of +the customs officer turned novelist, rose up like a battling +mob along the sidewalk, each vociferously offering his little +seat on wheels, those behind thumping the others with +their shafts, so common a trick that none of them show +anger at it, as if it were all a part of the day’s work, of +the eternal struggle for rice for their thin bodies and the +many dependent upon them. “Rue de la Soie!” I cry to +the uproar. All begin to shriek, to howl in chorus: “Moï +connaître! Moï connaître!” I step into one of the vehicles +at random. The others give a little smirk as of amusement +to cover their chagrin, to save face by pretending that they +were not keen for the job after all, while the lucky fellow +speeds away straight before him, as if he knew the way +perfectly. But he goes too straight ahead; the way to an +Asiatic goal cannot be so direct as that, even in this less +labyrinthine part of the Orient. I begin to grow suspicious; +at the end of several full-speed minutes I stop him with +“Mais, ce n’est pas—this is not the way to the Rue de +la Soie, is it?” He has no idea what I am saying, longer +experience will show me; all he understands is that I have +said something. So he turns around and flees as rapidly +in the direction from which we have come. I call out +again, and though he still does not understand, he pretends +to, and feeling that he must do something to satisfy me +he forks off at random, to the right, to the left, no matter +which, and continues to trot, now and then turning his +head to look at me more or less surreptitiously, like a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>clever old horse, as if to gather from my expression some +notion of where I wish to go.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All very well for the old resident, who knows his way +about town and is well aware that the two-legged horse +between his shafts does not know a word of the French +he so glibly pretends to understand. But it is hard on +the new-comer, who has neither of these advantages, who +does not know one street from another until he can read +the signs on their corners, who speaks no Annamese, particularly +so on the naïve American accustomed to put his +faith in the truthfulness of the human kind. After he +is lost completely he appeals perhaps to a native policeman, +only to find that the officer knows even less French, +and so, he discovers one by one, do the natives round about, +even those in full European tropical dress. So that unless +he happens to run across a French official or resident, +which is unlikely in many parts of town or anywhere at +certain hours, he is in for it. Perhaps, if he is lucky, +he can make his more or less human horse understand that +he wishes to be taken back to the place from which he +started, or to a police station, where at least he can telephone +for assistance, if central happens to have a smattering +of French. Besides, it is no pleasure to drive these +poor fellows far, with their thin chests heaving and their +bare brown backs gleaming with sweat. Yet it is perspiring +work to walk; the trams go only along a fixed route, +and automobiles are expensive.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The very next day I would find the same coolie, or one +looking exactly like him, shrieking with the same effrontery, +“Moï connaître!” if I asked him to take me to the corner +of Broadway and Forty-second Street; and at the end +of the run, wherever that might be, he would stand holding +out both hands cup-fashion in that engaging Annamese +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>manner, as if he expected a fortune for the job. It is only +a poor ruse to earn a few cents, for these <i><span lang="fr">pousse-pousses</span></i> +are the most miserable and the least astute of the Annamese +who serve the French and such few white foreigners as +come to Indo-China. The “boys” who work for us are +much brighter and know far smarter tricks. Certainly they +are ingenious, if somewhat less so than their Chinese +counterparts, capable of serving a ten-course dinner without +cook-stove, dishes, or cutlery; but they are so artful, so +cunning and sly for all their outward servility, that even +he who tries to be continually on his guard is sure to be +periodically duped.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Though the streets in their own section of Hanoï bear +the names of French heroes and politicians, the rulers from +the West have not forgotten that it is after all a Tonkinese +city. In the native town on the farther side of the lake—which +is nothing like a native town in the Chinese sense +of the word—the streets are also named in French, but not +for the French. Instead, they have preserved as much of +the old atmosphere as is compatible with sanitary requirements, +including the ancient street names. The blue and +white metal placards on each corner bear literal translations +of the old Chinese-Tonkinese names for the trades +once, and in many cases still, practised in them—for after +the fashion of the East, those craftsmen or merchants +carrying on the same work gathered in a single street or +piece of street, instead of scattering to various parts of +town.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thus the traveler can wander for interesting hours through +the indigenous quarter intersected by the trolley, into the +sweetish-scented Rue des Sucres, through the Rue des Cercueils, +lined with heavy wooden coffins in the Chinese style—for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>the wealthy, massive sarcophagi richly carved, lacquered, +gilded, or painted, each bearing the Chinese character for +longevity; for the poor, thin bare boxes. The Rue des Médicaments +is full of the ancient type of medicine-shops, its +air pungent with the odors of dried barks, herbs, deer-horns, +roots, plants, magic powders, tiger bones, talismans, +all the somber and mysterious pharmacopœia of China, +everything with which to combat the evil spirits, influences, +fatal breaths of the Black Kingdom. In Furniture Street +the tools of long ago are still in use; crude planes fly; +saws sing; a chisel cuts its way through brass; a center-bit, +still run by a string wound about it, creaks; files set +the teeth on edge; chips and shavings dance madly about +among unfinished pieces of furniture on the bare floors of +open booths from which escapes a dry odor of varnish. +Here and beyond are the shops of the inlaid mother-of-pearl +things, from tables to jewel-boxes, for which the +Annamese are famous—things to which steam-heat is so +fatal, as the gatherer of souvenirs discovers soon after arriving +home, though they stand the steaming heat of the +tropics well enough. The people of Annam and Tonkin +are good carvers and designers in the old models, but they +are plainly not originators; there is more than a suggestion +of the Chinese in all their work. Silk merchants carry +on in the Rue de la Soie as they did centuries ago; Copper +Street, a block long, is strident with workers in copper +and brass; the Street of the Forgers—in the honorable sense +of the word—teems with workers in heavy metals; there is +the Street of Rice, of Veils, of Iron, of Flax, of the +Cantonese, a street with shop after shop full of the gay +paper things used in funerals, a street of workers in lacquer—for +the Annamese lacquer other things besides their teeth—and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>so on, as long as the hardiest wanderer would care to +stroll in such a climate.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The trolley goes on, through the Rue du Grand Buddha, +past the temple of a great statue that is small compared +to similar figures in China, Mongolia, and Tibet, on along a +shore of the big lake, as distinguished from the <i><span lang="fr">petit lac</span></i> +in the heart of the city, to the Village du Papier, where +native paper is made of bamboo shavings or of bark. The +brown outside of the bamboo gives second-grade paper, the +white inside first-quality, and most of it is turned into false +money to be burned at funerals and graves. The raw +product is cooked to a pulp and then pounded in a granite +mortar with a stone pestle. Women, standing before the +vats in which the pulp floats, swirl the water and lift +out on bamboo slats the film that form on top, then lay +each sheet on a soggy pile that would seem to defy taking +apart after stacks of them have been pressed to squeeze +out the water.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On one side Hanoï is bounded by a wide boulevard on +a high dike along the Red River, which comes down out of +China and spreads its fertility in a long straight streak +diagonally clear across Tonkin, a dike not high enough, however, +for sometimes it lets the river into the city. Here +one may muse upon the contrast between East and West +while gazing at the telescopic perspective of the longest +bridge in the Orient—as the French, if not the Tonkinese +themselves, will proudly tell you—a bridge which in one +sense is very ugly and in another almost beautiful. Eight +hundred and ten meters from end to end, it carries across +the Red River all the railway trains leaving the city except +the daily one to and from Vinh to the southward; and just +then it was being widened to carry automobiles also, so that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>no longer would motorists be forced to go down a steep and +often slimy bank to a miserable <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i>.</p> + +<p class='c012'>One train across the bridge follows the Red River northwestward +to Laokay and goes on two days farther into +China by a line marvelously engineered through magnificent +mountains, to Yünnanfu, whence the French have now and +then had hopes of pushing their trains clear to the upper +Yang-tze. Across it, too, goes the branch-line to Langson +and the “South Gate” of China, by which I left Tonkin +on my way back down the West River of Kwangsi to Canton, +up which the defeated Tai fled centuries ago before +the conquering Chinese. We were soon in uncultivated +jungle, as north of Saïgon, though the undergrowth was +much thinner here, with brown fields and slopes of wild +hay now and then, and stations that consisted of a sign-board +and a woodpile. But every little while there were a +few huts and some cultivation. Then came mountains covered +with trees and underbrush, more and more abrupt +rocky mountains, and the sun, so long imperious, suddenly +disappeared for good and all the seventeen days back to +Canton. Though the altitude was not great, within an hour +it grew so cold, in contrast to the month behind me, that +I changed to my heaviest clothing, thereby reducing my +baggage by half. At the end of the train a special car +carried a lone general, with whom, though I did not then +suspect it, I was to lunch at the <i><span lang="fr">Résidence</span></i> at Langson. As +I alone graced the first-class division of the three-part car, +one might have thought that a simple way of cutting down +expenses and paying French debts would have been to let +the general share the compartment with me, particularly if +we were to sit down to the same <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i>. But the French +cannot treat their great men in that simple fashion.</p> + +<div id='i_210' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_210a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The ladies of Annam lose any claim they have to beauty when they open their mouths on black-enameled teeth</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_210b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Thi-ba, who did her best as guardian of our children, was equally set against bobbed hair and skirts</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_211' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_211a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>For days one may steam in and out among the fantastic rock islands of the Bay of Along</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_211b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Tropical vegetation sometimes commandeers sustenance on the rock peaks</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>The world had become little more than low mountains +punctuated with forts on rocky eminences when I reached +the place from where the little Peugeot of the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> was +to carry me over the border into suddenly and totally un-Tonkinese +scenes. The Foreign Legion serves in these picturesque +strongholds along the Chinese frontier, a picturesque +crew themselves, whom the French find it safer to confine +to such isolated posts than to turn loose on Hanoï +and other cities. Though no German travelers were allowed +to land in the colony, there was a whole company +of Germans among these guardians of the frontier, as well +as many Russians and sprinklings of at least a dozen other +nationalities, adventurers, down-and-outers, fugitives from +justice—for there is no extradition from the Foreign +Legion—above all men who do not care a tinker’s damn +so long as life remains interesting and as free as possible +from dangerless monotony.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The usual route for those from the outside world who +visit Hanoï is by rail or automobile from Haïphong, or +rather, vice versa, also across the great bridge. There were +always the same scenes on these journeys through Tonkin, +but one never seemed to tire of them—broad endless +stretches of rice-fields, women in long copper-colored coats +and grindstone-shaped hats skimming along good roads +under shoulder-pole loads, boys and sometimes girls loafing +on the backs of water-buffaloes grazing among flocks of +white ducks, others of these ponderous animals plowing belly-deep +in slime, still others in their glory, with only eyes +and nostrils protruding, beautiful gates into low temples, +banyan-trees of four or five trunks, with little vases of +lime and often a few tombs under them, villages of huts +among the feathery bamboo groves, a tomb with a flat-topped +tree over it, a boat with a sail moving through a rice-field, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>though no waterway is visible, two women watering +a field by means of a basket between them in the middle +of a long rope, graves of different shapes dotting the dead-level +country near-by, cactus hedges, almost naked countrymen +washing their legs beside the track, a girl toiling with +a hoe almost as big as she, a man who owns no buffalo +plowing in deep water with his cow, a little hut thatched +with straw surrounded by a grove of very green trees, still +larger groves in the distance with white buildings peeping +out of them, a beautiful tree spread like an open umbrella, +its branches almost touching the ground, roofs coyly curling +up their corners, still another apparatus, like a huge corn-popper +hung on three poles, for lifting water from one field +to another, sometimes a big wooden spoon manipulated by +one man, still more likely by one woman, two pagoda-shaped +pillars at the entrance to a tomb, implying that the deceased +was a scholar if not a gentleman, a coolie laboriously making +his way through the rice-fields by a dike-top path not +wide enough for the rickshaw he is dragging behind him, +other such vehicles with two, even three people in them, +scampering across the flat country behind small runners, +dim mountains forever in the distance—and there ahead +lies Haïphong, an important city and port now, the first +houses of which sprang up about the barracks of the French +cantonment in the days when France and China disagreed +as to the “protection” of Tonkin.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I had heard so much of the Bay of Along among the +French colonials, confirmed by what I had seen of the +terrestrial part of it from Tourane to Nanning, that I realized +the foolishness of leaving Indo-China without spending a +few days cruising about it. That would have been impossible, +there being no regular service and I still unable, for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>all my more than a quarter century of toil, to buy a yacht +or even charter a steamer, if the French authorities had +not been so proud of their famous bay that they would +not hear of my turning my back on the Far East until +I had given them my unbiased opinion of it. So they +lent us the <i><span lang="fr">Tuyen Quang</span></i>, a comfortable floating chalet in +the customs service, with a picturesque Corsican captain +whose French outdid our own in foreign accent. I say +“us,” for this time I took along not only the family I +had brought from Canton but Thi-ba, lacquer-toothed Tonkinese +nurse-maid of our children.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We steamed away one sunny morning before the heat and +humidity became unbearable, down the river by which steamers +from China and the rest of the outside world come to +Haïphong, and within two or three hours found ourselves in +the midst of the justly famed, or rather, the most unjustly +little known, fairy-land of Along. It was like roaming +among mountain-tops at sea. The rock formations were +unlimited, fantastic, incredible—round rocks springing sheer +out of the bluest sea on earth, rocks like mushrooms, the +waves having worn them away about the base until they +seemed to stand on stems, rocks that looked as if they +were floating, or were upheld by pedestals incredibly small +for such massive things, rock islands of the most fantastic +shapes to which islands can aspire, some with holes washed +clear through them, some looking supernatural where gashes +of white rock met the black shadows thrown by them, +cliffs, precipices, palisades, with vertical, horizontal, diagonal, +zigzag strata—the sheerness was so remarkable that +we could scrape the sides of them with our large steamer +and be in so little danger of striking the bottom that the +sailors were not even told to heave the sounding-lead.</p> + +<p class='c007'>How many thousands of these rocky islands there are +<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>floating on the blue waters of the Bay of Along only the +architect of the universe knows; the human mind could not +count them. Yet never were there two of the same shape. +With every hundred yards forward we found ourselves +looking through another narrow vista upon row after row +of pointed rocks, always varying in size and form, in distance +and color, new ones with every new opening, though +one would have thought Nature had already rung all the +changes possible, used all the models and molds in her factory. +Each was of some unique configuration we had never +seen before, as if they were all parties to a masked ball +every member of which had succeeded in getting himself +up in some novel way to surprise and delight the beholder. +Morning, noonday, or evening, when the sun rose or when +it set, great vistas of them stretched as far as the most +piercing eye could see in any direction we chose to look. +Calcareous rocks washed down during the centuries to the +hard basis of which they were made, broken by weather, +water, and time, with windows, arches, doorways, now a +tree standing forth in silhouette in one of these, here an +island depicting a whole cock, from comb to tail, another +looking like a group of black monkeys made of stone, some +veritable mountains of stone slabs laid together like huge +bricks, some with tiny crescent beaches, whole horizons of +fantastic peaks, monuments of every possible form—and +beyond, more vistas of heaped-up rock through every narrow +opening. Magnificent as they were, they seemed at times +rather pathetic too, standing, floating, here for so many centuries +in their unrivaled beauty, yet unknown to almost all +the world that prizes so highly many a vastly inferior scene, +unknown even to most of that European nation to whom +they “belong.” An endless wilderness of rocks so poignantly +beautiful in their stillness, their solemn isolation, their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>majesty.... The far famed Inland Sea of Japan hardly +seems worthy of a place on the same hemisphere.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Many of those steeple-pointed islands are as bare as the +sea itself, but vegetation covers them wherever it can grow, +so that some are green as a spring meadow. On the larger +and less impressive ones there was sometimes a complete +cover of bush, with plenty of small game, the captain said, +where they are not too sheer. But ordinary trees cannot get +foothold on most of those gigantic needles; only some contorted +cypresses, intertwisted lianas, represent the forest, +wild pineapple here and there humping its wicked backs. +On one of them is a little cemetery of Frenchmen who +died of fever or dysentery far from their native land.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are grottoes and tunnels in many of these floating +mountain-tops. We took a life-boat one afternoon nearly +two miles through one of them. It was dark as a Paris +sewer, the bottom, clearly seen beneath a flickering torch, +covered with millions of oysters half an inch thick that +recalled the sand-dollars on the coast of Maine. The grottoes, +too, were reached by small boat, then by climbing +steep stairways of stones roughly piled up or carved in +the rock. The greatest of these led first into a sort of reception-hall, +beyond which opened a narrow tortuous corridor, +its walls perpetually sweating. Though two solemn +Annamese sailors with sizzling torches of waste or rags +in an iron cage at the end of a pole, on which they occasionally +poured thick oil, preceded us, we advanced by +feeling with our fingers, the smoke pricking our eyes and +suffocating us, our elbows tight against our sides. Then +suddenly at a turn came the sight that gives this cave +its name of Grotte de la Surprise. A vast amphitheater +of tumbled rocks, into which streaks of daylight fell as +sheer as at the bottom of a crater, yawned at our feet. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>The light of the torches wavered capriciously on rock walls +striped with green, with purple, with violet, a setting and +lighting as fantastic as that of any Broadway musical review. +Stalactites flowed down from the great vaulted roof like +a cataract of stone, nay, of pure marble, stalagmites large +as century-old tree-trunks climbing to meet them, some +already forming great pillars that gave the place the aspect +of a mighty cathedral. Misty shafts of light played on pulpits +carved by nature, on pillars almost as symmetrical as +man could have fashioned, on great shimmering heaps of +stone with the same semi-glossy sheen one sees on pure-camphor +piles in Formosa. Certain columns seemed to be +formed of millions of shells piled up as if by some prehuman, +pigmy bricklayers; others were like the trunks of +massive trees, their stone roots twisting themselves into +the stone soil like those searching for nourishment among +the ruins of Angkor. Here hung a colossal stone beard, +there a marble veil with a gleaming white fringe; in places +the cold water dripping forever down through the centuries +had made stone things that looked like mammoth frogs, a +monkey, a turtle with a scaly back; in certain vistas the +grotto suggested the interior of a vast tobacco-barn in the +drying-season. Maidenhair ferns had crept in as far as they +dared; now and then, doubled, quadrupled, by the echo, +sounded the piercing cry of a bird of which we saw nothing, +except the gigantic shadow of its wings.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This endless forest of floating stone islands is a fisherman’s +paradise. Each evening and sometimes oftener my +wife and I dived into the incredibly blue sea—though the +Corsican captain, to say nothing of the Annamese crew, +evidently thought us mad—and saw between us and the bottom, +hundreds of feet down yet seeming so near that we felt +in danger of striking our heads, fish of every kind and color, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>pinkish fish of the tint of the albino water-buffalo, red, +purple, green, white fish. Natives in henna brown peered +forth from some of the smaller grottoes; more of them +were at home in their fishing-boats, square golden-brown +sails of which often broke the deep blue surface. Whole +clans of fisher-folk spawn, live, and die among these calcareous +rocks, satisfied to leave this, their native land, only +now and then to sell their fish and buy the few things +they need that cannot be found here among these clustered +sea-bound spires. Our steamer now and then called in, by +three short blasts of the whistle, all the sampans and sailing-craft +within hearing, and examined their papers. Finding +these in order, and neither opium nor girls in their +holds, we bought fish and sea-monsters of them for the +next Parisian dinner and parted, outwardly at least, friends. +It seems that with its thousands of hiding-places for malefactors, +the Bay of Along has been notorious for two crimes: +the smuggling in of Chinese opium, and the smuggling out +of Annamese girls. Old women still lure girls away and +deliver them somewhere in the bay to Chinese junks, which +sell them in the open market farther east. Enticed, drugged, +kidnapped, hidden among the islands and in the grottoes, +these girls have supplied a trade between wicked Annamese +and Chinese men of the pirate family that has flourished +for centuries, and even the French have not yet been able +to do away with it entirely. When pursuit grows too warm +the miscreants slit open the bellies of the girls so that +they will sink quickly, and by the time the pursuers overhaul +them all traces of blood may have disappeared in the +blue waters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Three heavenly days we cruised about the Bay of Along +in our private yacht, and we might have gone on for thirty +and found something new every hour among the floating +<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>rocks of every shape stretching clear to the Kwangtung +coast of China. The French authorities, and certainly the +Corsican captain, did not seem to care how long we stayed. +But all things must have an end. We turned back much +against our will, and by noonday there was steaming hot +Haïphong in the offing again.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XII<br> <span class='c011'>THE FRENCH IN INDO-CHINA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Much as we all hate to be fed plain knowledge, preferring +our learning disguised with the sauce of entertainment, +like castor-oil in orange-juice, I fear we must +taste a few of the bitter spots in the history of Indo-China +before we can properly savor the present position of France +in her greatest Far Eastern possession.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All the land from Tonkin to Cochinchina was conquered +and colonized by the Chinese more than two centuries before +the beginning of the so-called Christian era. From +that time China ruled the region off and on; it was in +fact five times a Chinese colony. Once, shortly before +Christ, a woman of Annam governed for three years, but +after another brief hiatus or two China held unbroken sway +from the third to the tenth century, until the revolution of +968 <span class='fss'>A.D.</span> During that millennium Annam took on a complete +Chinese culture, and has kept most of it down to +this day. Then there were various native dynasties until +1407, when, under the Ming, China again ruled until 1428. +Even after that, though there was no interference from +Peking, and the Manchus held Tonkin only in name, the +people of the Eminent South, like Siam, Burma, and other +former dependencies, paid a modest tribute to the northern +emperor, as the easiest way out of risking more fighting. +Koang-de, the Annamese Son of Heaven, was still considered +a vassal of the emperor of China—the occupants +<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>of the throne at Hué are in fact still proud to claim +descent from the Chinese imperial family of before the +days of the pigtailed Manchus. Toward the end of Chinese +domination the Annamese could function even in China +proper as mandarins, generals, and still higher officials, so +that the line between the two peoples was almost obliterated.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the mess that followed the Manchu conquest of China, +a Tonkinese fisherman founded a new dynasty, which ruled +at Hanoï until the end of the eighteenth century. Then, +the country having naturally broken in two in the middle, +a rebellion overthrew the ruling Nguyen family of the +south and the Tai might have taken the country in hand, +had there not arisen that epic hero among the Annamese, +Nguyen-anh, who in 1802 took the name of Gia-long. This +founder of the present dynasty united under one rule what +are to-day three of the five divisions of Indo-China—Annam, +Tonkin, and Cochinchina—establishing his capital +at Hué, being the first to group under the jade scepter +everything from the frontiers of China to the banks of the +Mekong.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But his victory was not so complete or so simply won +as this may sound, and strictly speaking he did not rule +as master, for he had to pay for calling in outside help. +As usual it was a squabble between native factions that +gave the less naïve Europeans their chance. Though they +had already begun to visit these shores in the way of commerce +during the sixteenth century, the French first had +official contact with Annam in 1787, when the future Gia-long +was fighting to recover the position of his family. +Finding himself, in his war with the Tai and three brother +usurpers, in imminent danger of being driven out of his +native land, he ill-advisedly followed the suggestion of the +French bishop of Adran and sent an embassy to France +<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>asking for protection. He got it, with a vengeance. Also +the wise bishop, who thought this a fine chance to counterbalance +the growing political power of England in India, +got a splendid tomb and a lot of Indo-Chinese streets +named after him. Fearing perhaps that the embassy would +not put things strongly enough, the bishop went to France +in person and got promise of help from Louis XVI, or +whoever ruled in his name. Before the assistance was delivered, +however, Gia-long-to-be had to make a treaty with +Louis promising to cede to France the islands of Touron +and Poulo Condore off the coast of Cochinchina and give +the French a concession at Tourane. Then the French sent +troops from Pondicherry and helped Nguyen-anh to overthrow +his enemies and to acquire by 1801 sway over all +the present Indo-China except Cambodia and the Laos, in +short to become Gia-long the Great.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Though Gia-long died in 1820 without perhaps suspecting +the truth, this opening wedge eventually led to the establishment +of French authority over all Indo-China. But +the successors of Gia-long showed themselves “very ungrateful” +to the French. His immediate successor, his natural +son Minh-mang, broke off with Europe in order to get +the support of China, and after considerable rough work, +including the massacring of many native Christians, died +by falling off a horse, a failing he seemed to have in common +with some modern princes, leaving behind him seventy-one +children, of whom forty-nine were sons—not a bad +record for a man who died young. The choice among these +must have been difficult, and it does not seem to have +been particularly successful, for the son who followed him +under the name of Thieu-tri left no great fame behind him. +But then came Tu-duc, who massacred many more native +Christians and their European missionaries. Though they +<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>probably wanted to be martyrs anyway, the killing of the +ecclesiastics was made the pretext for the declaring of war. +A Franco-Spanish squadron took Touron and finally +Saïgon; Tourane was seized by the French; Tu-duc, besieged +in his own capital at Hué, gave up all Saïgon Province; +and by 1867 all lower Cochinchina had passed into +the possession of France and became the French colony it +has remained ever since.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Cambodia was already considered a protectorate of +France; for Norodom, father of the present octogenarian +king, Sisowath, had for better or for worse placed his +country under the protection of the French in 1863. The +French gradually crowded upon the Chinese in upper Tonkin, +to make up for the British advance in Burma, and +there was long and sometimes severe fighting, with “some +splendid feats at arms,” according to French historians. +There was an opposition or anti-imperialistic party in France, +but as usual this minor opinion was crowded into the +background. This time the French intrenched themselves +in the citadel of Hué and put on the throne a new emperor, +the old one fleeing among the Moï after massacring +several thousand more native Christians. The war for +the possession of Tonkin lasted a long time. In 1873 Dupuis +and a hundred French soldiers captured Hanoï, though +it was the Portuguese and Dutch who had long had “factories” +in the rich delta of the Red River; and China, +which had given her Tonkinese vassals no more assistance +than she did the Burmese against the British, was at length +forced to acknowledge all Tonkin to be under the “protection” +of France. Thus by 1885 the whole of present-day +Indo-China, from end to end and from Siam to the +China Sea, a country about the size of Texas, therefore +larger than France, was consolidated under French rule; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>except that the Angkor region was added later. Plainly +speaking, though the French talk of “treaties” as if an +equal sovereign people had requested them to take over +the task of governing, not only Cochinchina but all Indo-China +was stolen bit by bit as a result of the simplicity +of Gia-long and the killing of those French missionaries +in 1858. Bright little pupils will recall that the French +had similar schemes afoot in Mexico at the very time +they were fighting for Saïgon, and in Asia one realizes +that the Monroe Doctrine has certainly changed the face of +America from what it might have been.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The French conquest of Indo-China, some of it by trickery +and some of it, notably the Tonkin, by real warfare, is +merely a part of Western covetousness in the Orient, not +the individual sin of an individual nation. We can condemn +that Western aggression without losing the right to +give full praise to the French soldiers who did the dirty +work, just as we can condemn modern industrial exploitation +without charging present conditions in Indo-China particularly +to France. Once we grant the righteousness of +“imperialism,” of the conquering “for their own good” of +colored races by the white, once we accept that trite tricky +phrase of imperialists, “the white man’s burden,” any possible +charge against the French is quashed. It is the old +question: Is it good or is it bad for white nations to take +over weaker peoples who cannot govern themselves well +in our sense of the word—and who are so well worth exploiting? +Is it better to be chaotic, “backward,” but independent, +or modern and exploited? Is it better for a country +even as civilized as France to take hold of these poorly +governed races, these inefficient countries, and make them +settle down to business and behave themselves, even if the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>“protector” does pay himself well for the trouble? Great +minds set in cement will tell you, but I cannot; I find my +judgment depending on the color of the day, the way I +have slept, my breakfast, the mail I have received; it is a +perpetual struggle between my reflected and my indignant +self. And of course each individual will condemn or praise +this modern way of acquiring colonies that are not called +colonies, of subjecting people who are not admittedly subjected, +according to his background, his environment, his +wealth, and the job he holds, perhaps also to the breakfast +he has eaten.</p> + +<p class='c007'>At any rate exploitation is visibly the <i><span lang="fr">raison d’être</span></i> of +the French in Indo-China, though the Indo-Chinese are no +more exploited than are the great mass of our own people +at home by those few who have the strangle-hold in +industrial matters, and by no means so much as are the +people of “independent” China by their own legal and bandit +rulers. One of the trump-cards in this modern game of +colonial exploitation is a tariff. There are swarms of customs +officials whose duty it is to see that nothing gets into +or out of Indo-China—or even through it, for that matter—without +paying heavy charges, swarms of Frenchmen with +native assistants who examine every spool of thread that +comes in from anywhere except France, so that it takes +all day to get a few dollars’ worth of “foreign” goods +through the customs. Things from France pay no duties, +submit to no formalities, any more than the French need +passports or lose time in landing. But all others, whether +persons or things, are put to trouble and expense. A box +of cigars selling for three dollars in China costs seven +dollars in Indo-China, though its Philippine place of origin +is as near one country as the other. Every kind of French +drink is available, but no others; even British whisky can +<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>be had only if it is smuggled in. Every box unloaded from +the average ship comes from France; everything not of +local origin in the average shop is French, even those things +which France produces much more poorly and much more +expensively than other lands. A Ford coming direct to +Indo-China pays 45 per cent duty—125 per cent if it +comes indirectly—and sells for about eighteen hundred +piastres, or more than nine hundred dollars gold. The +little cars for which the French are noted cost from thirteen +to fifteen thousand francs, so that it depends on the +exchange of the day which car you can afford. There are +not only import but export duties on everything, even paddy, +or unhulled rice, nay, a duty even on the gunny-sacks it +goes out in. More than that; everything merely passing +through Indo-China, as the shortest or most convenient route +between two parts of China, is opened, carefully examined, +and assessed, though in this case the charges are called +“transit dues.” Indeed, the more toothsome things from +foreign lands are not infrequently consumed by the examiners +and the empty cans sent on to the consignees.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Does all this money, paid in the end by the inhabitants +thereof, go to the “protected” country? You have three +guesses, if so many are needed. <i><span lang="fr">La Métropole</span></i>, that is, +France, gets real returns from its Far-Eastern possession; +it is no altruistic “white man’s burden” the French are carrying +there. Every year Indo-China sends France a check +for about twenty million piastres. That nice little filial +Christmas present of ten million dollars comes mainly from +the <i><span lang="fr">douane</span></i> and <i><span lang="fr">régie</span></i>, that is, the customs and the tobacco, +opium, and other government monopolies. Besides this the +“protected” people pay the cost of military occupation, not +to mention many millions more in official salaries and the +like.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>But what France officially gets out of Indo-China is a +mere drop in the bucket compared to what Frenchmen get +by individual exploitation of a land where they have +special privilege. French commerce has a virtual monopoly +in almost anything except rice and betel-nut. There is +plenty of iron, innumerable other natural resources, but the +French encourage no modern industries in the colony, because +they prefer to import from France the products of their +own factories, so that after all it is the French capitalists +and workmen at home who are “protected.” Take sugar, +for instance; they export the crude at low and import the +refined at high prices rather than help the natives to have +their own refineries. Perhaps the best example of modern +industrial exploitation of a “protected” people is the coal-mines +in the northeastern corner of the Tonkin, which we +visited on the second of those never-to-be-forgotten days +in the Bay of Along.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The mines of Campha or Hongay, on the northern shore +of that great wilderness of floating rocks, are open cuts, +like those of the Japanese at Fushun near Mukden, or the +iron-mines of Daiquirí in the mountains of eastern Cuba. +There is no flaunting of the dreaded earth-dragon by digging +down into the earth. Black terraces, mammoth stairways, +are piled up the reddish hillsides, great amphitheaters cut +in the hills, their walls so smooth and so sheer that one +might think the coal was cut in huge slices, as from a +gigantic cake. This precious region was discovered by a +French forest-ranger wandering the woods along this coast +no longer ago than 1905 and 1907. To-day the cuts are +so large that the natives pickaxing on the slopes look like +ants on gigantic black stadiums scaling the heavens. The +roads through them lead from one grade to another, on and +on, cutting through the villages, following the edge of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>bay that is sprinkled much farther than the eye can see +with those fantastic protruding rocky mountain peaks.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When we visited Campha, the black quarries swarmed +with workmen, clothed in once reddish-brown cloth, now so +dirty that they blended into the background against which +they toiled. According to the mine officials and foremen +these Annamese coolies are very lazy miners; certainly they +seemed unwilling, after the manner of slaves, as if they +were asking themselves who is benefiting by all this hard +labor to get out of the hillsides the black stuff that is of +no use to them. In fact the atmosphere of Annam in +general is unwillingness, when working for Europeans, in +antithesis to that of China. These beings dressed in sooty +rags, these men wielding pickaxes with thin arms, have +little to gain by their grueling labor under an imperious +sun. There were women on the slopes also, their mouths +bleeding with the sustaining and comforting betel-juice, and +behind the coal-wagons <i><span lang="fr">nhos</span></i> ten years old, their worn faces +under the coal-dust seeming forty, bent double their gaunt +little bodies, half covered with black rags and tatters, their +bare feet covered with a hard sole of the dust in which +they forever trot for ten or fifteen cents a day.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We were carried in chairs and on horses up the slopes +from where the cars of coal are loaded into barges with +little houses at the stem, a kind of Paris green scattered +over the top of the coal to keep the workmen from stealing +a little of it to sell. We went so high that we could +look down not only upon all the town below, but across a +great stretch of the blue rock-strewn sea. There was not +a temple or pagoda in the native town, not a flower, not a +single bamboo hedge before the native houses, no more slim +straight arec-trees topped by a parasol of leaves, no smoking +incense, but belching chimneys, and pickaxes. Instead +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>of the pastoral quiet of other Tonkinese villages there was a +great roaring as of a waterfall, as of some great battle—the +noise of the sifters. In contrast to this super-civilization +there are wild animals in the surrounding bush; tigers +come now and then to eat a coolie, when old age makes +them more cunning than swift and strong, for they do +not need much strength to carry off a mere human being.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But soon the 10.30 whistle blew, halting the work until +two in the afternoon, and we came down for the <i><span lang="fr">apéritif</span></i> +in one of the houses where the French live in the comfort +they will not be denied even in the wilderness—and where +even the women could not understand why my wife and +mother, why our not yet four-year-old son for that matter, +would not join them in a cocktail.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The hardest job at the mines is to get workmen, to bribe +coolies to work here in the bush, and to keep them from +running away again. Everything has been tried, and nothing +works. As soon as the Tonkinese has a few piastres in his +substitute for a purse he leaves the mines and returns to his +rice-fields—and who can blame him? At the time of <i><span lang="fr">Têt</span></i>, +which also is nearing the time of harvest, all wish to escape +to their ancestral villages again, and then especially they +run away by the thousands. Every ruse and stratagem is +tried, for the massed overseers and guards do not suffice. +For instance, wages are paid only for the last fortnight of the +preceding month, so that the workmen must either remain +or lose many days of toil by running away. In order that +they shall not starve, however, and out of pure philanthropy +as it were, the company gives those who have worked well +a piastre every ten days, which they call “making an advance.” +Another scheme to hold them is to build a big covered +market, a movie booth. Not long ago one bright administrator +discovered a still better plan. Missionaries installed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>at the mines would keep there at least the Catholics, +he thought. So an Annamese father of the Spanish missions +was imported and a little church constructed for him, and +the new parish already has some seven hundred coolies whom +the confessional and a fear of future damnation keep from +running away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sometimes, on the other hand, when floods carry away +the dikes of the Red River, devastating the rice-fields so +that famine settles down upon the delta, the <i><span lang="fr">nha-qués</span></i> flock +to the coal-fields by whole villages, to find the rice they cannot +get at home, and then there are as many as twenty thousand +coolies dotting the great black stadiums, and a good +year for the mine syndicate. As each new mine opens, at +every new terrace begun, a Chinese man comes to set up his +four planks and lay out his bowls of rice and provisions, +often before a single shovel-stroke has been struck, as if he +smelled profits from afar as the vulture smells carrion. He +will be rich, this fat, physically flabby fellow with his freshly +shaven head and his smooth, imperturbably smiling face, +from the profits garnered from their wages, while the new +coolies are still only poor ragged and dirty miners, longing +to run away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The coolies of Campha and Hongay are of no importance +to the court at Hué, and not only is there no mandarin to +rule over them, but not even a French functionary, except +a gendarme who pompously decorates himself with the title +of commissary. The real master is the mine; the mere people +are nothing; as in all this modern world of industry +property is everything, human life a mere pawn. The syndicate +owns everything for many miles round about: the fields, +the woods, the houses, the roads, the railways that carry the +coal down to their jetties, the barges, the whole port, even the +church with the sharp steeple, everything from the bowels of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>the earth to the slightest sprig of grass that may force its +way through the coal-dust. If a village stands in the way of +a new mine, so much the worse for it; down it comes; and +when the syndicate constructs a new one farther on each +native is made to pay part of the cost of his new house, so +that he will be bound to the soil like a serf. The company +is self-sufficient too; it produces everything it needs, from +its tools to the rice for its coolies; and it is rich enough to +be beyond the dreams of avarice, were there any such locality. +The sixty-four thousand shares of stock offered at sixteen +million francs a few years ago are to-day worth more than +half a billion. The net profits the year before my visit were +more than the total capitalization, not counting a twenty-million-piastre +reserve.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One might conclude that at least this kingdom of coal +brings its tribute to Indo-China, to debt-ridden France. Not +at all; it does not even furnish the colony the coal it needs. +Almost all of it goes to Japan, which pays well. Saïgon +and Hanoï demand coal in vain; such factories as there are +have to send their orders to Cardiff, and the railroads fire +with wood, devastating the forests. After the fashion of +modern industrialism, that present-day descendant of feudal +tyranny, unknown stockholders suck the marrow from the +country, dividing the profits among themselves, and leave +nothing either for the colony or for France. As in France, +the rich run away with the money that should be paid in +taxes and leave “nothing but the hatred of thousands of +coolies.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>As in these coal-fields, so it is with most rich enterprises +in Indo-China; many a scandalous fortune has been created +there since 1914, yet the public treasury takes no account +of them. Not only is there no tax on war profits but not +even an income tax. For the laws of France do not apply, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>and the law of the colony is to exploit it and the people +thereof, not the Frenchmen who make their fortunes there. +Nowhere in the world perhaps are war-profiteers more favored +than in this rich French protectorate, for they can keep +everything for themselves, down to the last piastre. “They +are as miserly with their gold as they were with their blood +when the war was on,” a French traveler bitterly puts it, +adding that all those enthusiastic young men who conquered +Tonkin gained for their country were the swollen profits +accruing to the holders of stock in such things as the mines +of Hongay. It is a misfortune that the people liberated by +France from the tyranny of their mandarins, he goes on, fall +now into the power of these new tyrants; bad, because little +grains of misery make a mighty ocean of revolt, and just +over the frontier of China there are something like half a +billion yellow men who are gradually waking up. “For the +true mandarins of to-day are no longer those lordlings in +yellow robes and silk tunics, so proud of their long overdue +finger-nails, whom we saw bumping their heads on the palace +pavements at Hué, but negotiators and financiers, adventurers +who now carry no rifles on their shoulders but operate +far from the jungle, by thrusts of the stock exchange.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>As we have already descended to statistics, let me go on +to say that Indo-China is now credited with about 20,000,000 +inhabitants, of whom two thirds are Annamese, 1,300,000 +Cambodians, more than 1,000,000 Laosians, and half a million +aborigines of various races. To be still more statistical, +the latest census, now some years old, gave the total population +as 18,983,203, of whom 16,256 were French and 1191 +“foreigners.” Most of the French and nearly all the “foreigners”—that +is, non-French Caucasians—are in Cochinchina +and Tonkin, more specifically in Saïgon and Hanoï. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>To-day there are some 30,000 Chinese and other alien +Asiatics not included in the round figures above; and for +the 18,000 Europeans, more than 90 per cent of them French, +there are fully 40,000 Eurasians!</p> + +<p class='c007'>Many French colonials think it would be better to abolish +the pretense of “protectorates” and really rule the whole +country in name as well as in fact, make it all a colony, like +Cochinchina, in order to do away with the sleek practices +of the native mandarins and other functionaries, particularly +in Annam. Either, they say, let us have a direct and undisguised +French administration or return to a real protectorate, +with kings and emperors who would not feel themselves +annihilated, who would have the impression of being guided, +counseled, even directed, but never dominated. On the other +hand the French way of ruling through native chiefs pushed +along by Europeans is a good system, and it is hard to see +how native go-betweens of some sort could be done away +with entirely.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For the French officials, particularly those higher up, being +French as well as officials, rarely know any other language +than their own; and therein lies perhaps their gravest fault. +For they and those they rule over are at the mercy of any +scamp who poses as an interpreter. Some French functionaries +get official credit for knowing one of the native +languages, but they seldom speak enough of it to get along +in court, for example, without calling in the <i><span lang="fr">interprète</span></i>. Just +as there is a pidgin-English along the China coast, there +is in Indo-China a pidgin-French, using only the infinitive of +verbs and always the <i><span lang="fr">toi</span></i> form, so that “Toi connaître?” +takes the place of “Savez-vous?” and so on, irrespective of +tense or gender. It is an amusing tongue, which “boys” +probably find as queer and as hard to learn as we do their +quarrelsome Annamese. As in the case of foreigners who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>become so fluent in the bastard English of Chinese treaty-ports, +it would require little more effort to acquire a speaking +knowledge of the native tongue.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Individually the French officials of Indo-China are agreeable +gentlemen, at least on a par with their counterparts in +other white man’s colonies. But the government atmosphere +is much like that of old Spain: no one seems to come out for +his health or primarily for the benefit of the natives. While +there is not the “squeeze” of China or the graft of Tammany, +still there are ways of turning a politician’s honest penny. +It is less dishonesty, however, that constitutes the official flaw +than lack of ardent personal interest in the task in hand. +“The soul of the missionary and the educator is what the +‘protectors’ of such a people should bring to their task,” a +French <i><span lang="fr">publiciste</span></i> asserts. “But few officials will accept the +sacrifice of wasting any more time and energy than necessary +in a place reputed inadequate to their merits. The only +thought of the average French colonial official seems to be +to ‘make a hit’ with his superiors, for his own benefit and +advancement, and get back to the fleshpots of Paris as soon +as possible. He has no ardor, no initiative; the ethnic and +social milieu being closed to him, his business becomes mere +routine; he does everything with only one thought in mind—his +career.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>The French have of course done much good for Indo-China. +They have improved the cities, planted parks, opened +ports, built roads such as the Far East had never seen before; +and some one would certainly exploit the people if the French +did not; their position is decidedly preferable to the anarchy +over the Chinese border. But the guardians pay themselves +well for their services. The government departments are +greatly over-staffed; even the hurried traveler gets the impression +that the colony is a refuge for deserving wards +<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>of the government who cannot be accommodated at home. +The Council meets once a year in Hanoï and once in Saïgon, +which among other things gives a change of scene, a “winter” +and a “summer” capital, with lots of travel pay for +mileage between them. The higher officials in particular +are shifted often from one division of the country to another, +whereas there should be two quite distinct sets of +rulers, dividing the colony on ethnographic lines; for Cambodia +is as different from Tonkin as Morocco is from Réunion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The majority of the French officials in Indo-China are +from the Midi, like most of her colonials. The speech of +many of them sounds almost Italian, to say nothing of that +of the Corsican river-captains and the like, who speak with +a genuine foreign accent. This is natural, the Midi being +nearer the sea and having few industries to absorb its ambitious +sons. Yet they do not love the tropics. Most of +them are frankly bored with life in this distant possession +and, outside their routine tasks, are interested mainly in café +pleasures and the joys of feminine society. There are some +exceptions, of course, some who do their gymnastics every +morning and some who become mighty hunters before the +Moï. Now and then a scholarly fellow takes advantage of his +ethnographic opportunities. But on the whole there is little +unnecessary mingling with the natives, little outdoor life, +except under café awnings, few excursions, fewer <i><span lang="fr">piqueniques</span></i> +than one would expect in a land of good roads to +delightful places and automobiles in which to reach them. +Lest I be accused of pessimism, let us listen to a critic of +their own nationality:</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Frenchman imports into the Orient the immortal principles +of absinthe and café gatherings, as the German does his beer and +the Englishman his sports. Individualists, rarely knowing any +modern language except our own, we have therefore a national selfsufficiency +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>and a suggestion of provincialism, which betray themselves +the moment we escape from the superficial cosmopolitanism +of Paris—of a part of Paris and a certain stratum of Paris at that. +Café habits and the customs of the politician, narrow-mindedness +and prejudice, disparagement, the faults of individualism, give our +colonial officials an incapacity for agreement and of organized +collaboration, a tendency to ignore realities, and to pay themselves +with words. All the colonial official’s thoughts seem to be turned +toward his past, toward the <i><span lang="fr">Métropole</span></i>; the society he has left behind +still obsesses him. He learns nothing, and he can teach +nothing. The discouraging reality that surrounds him quenches +his eagerness to know. How often that has been impressed upon +me when I wished to document myself on Indo-Chinese conditions! +To most Frenchmen the delightful landscapes of Annam, the artistic +tombs of Hué, the noble adaptation of a temple to its site, all that +remains dead-letter. Most of them are as disdainful of the ancient +people they have come to rule over as was the famous governor, +Maurice Long, who did not know a word of the language, of the +history of the country he ruled, and forged for himself the most +erroneous, even the most pernicious impressions of its future destiny.</p> + +<p class='c007'>An old British captain, sailing the Far East for the past +forty years, and familiar with most British colonies, insisted +that, unlike his own people, the French do not coddle the +natives of their possessions. England, he asserted, caters +to the natives, gives them education and too much self-rule, +and is all the more despised for it. Asiatics do not understand +kindness and sympathy; therefore the French are respected. +You must not mix sentiment with the ruling of +inferior races, or for that matter of any other subject races, +he went on; “for instance, you do not seem to be having an +entirely happy time in the Philippines.” The French themselves +assert that there is more liberty under their form of colonial +rule than under that of the British. I rather doubt it. +Though the outward French attitude of equality irrespective +of race or color may sometimes give that impression, in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>end liberty in French and British colonies probably sums +up to about the same total.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is true that the color-line is less tangible in Indo-China +than in American or British colonies. French boys are deferential +and even obedient to half-breeds, even to well dressed +natives, such as an American or English boy brought up in +a colony would scorn to glance at. Native and Eurasian boys +of Indo-China act toward white boys as if they quite expected +to be accepted as their equals, though that attitude +does not exactly hold among adults. This freedom of intercourse +has its good points—and certainly its bad. Yet the +Frenchman is at heart no democrat; the line of cleavage is +social rather than racial. There is every stratum of French +society in Hanoï, from the haughty governor-general to the +conscripts from manure-heap villages in rural France, and +the common soldier is closer to the native rank and file than +he is to the high officials of his own race, the governor-general +socially more allied to high-class natives than to his +own clerks and troopers. Yet on the whole it is better to be +white. At the <i><span lang="fr">guignol</span></i> near the tiger-cage in the big park +about the palaces of the governor-general the Annamese +policeman raps on the head native children who do not behave, +but is very deferential to the white children who sit elbow +to elbow with them. On the other hand the sweat-dripping +French soldiers who come out of their cloth-inclosed cages +between the acts of these popular outdoor Punch-and-Judy +shows and smoke a cigarette before going back to their +stifling duties as showmen again are regarded by the upper-class +Annamese more as servants than as lords. There are +not only French children with their amas in the front seats, +and half-breed ones already posing as French, as they will +through life, but purely native children as well; and not far +away the adults sit or saunter and listen to the good band +<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>concert, or cluster before the monkey-house and other cages, +without any outward evidence of that racial dissonance +emphasized in our own or British colonies. The best hotels +in the colony make no distinction between French and +Annamese, or any combination of the two races; the Annamese +wife of a Frenchman “will be admitted to any circle +in France to which the social position of her husband corresponds.” +Yet Indo-China is almost the only place left where +one still sees white men, and women, slap and otherwise +manhandle their servants, and some Frenchmen speak to +native railway men and the like in a way that in any other +country would bring them the quite proper request to betake +themselves forthwith to where it is reputed to be warmer +than in the earthly tropics.</p> + +<p class='c012'>A French novelist whose background is Indo-China rates +its “scourges” (<i><span lang="fr">fléaux</span></i>) as—in the order of their appearance +to the newly arrived colonial perhaps—sun, “boy,” <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>, +alcohol, gambling, opium, and madness. Most of these are +self-explanatory. The “boy” alone is sometimes enough +to drive the exile to drink, if not to madness, and it is not +infrequently he who more or less surreptitiously brings in the +<i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>, perhaps his own sister, sometimes even his own +wife. The <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>—normally a perfectly respectable Annamese +word for girl—is in colonial vernacular what in France +is known as <i><span lang="fr">petite femme</span></i>, and by many other names, some +of them far less complimentary, in every land. As our own +pretty but stupid girls go into the movies or the “Follies,” +those of Annam become the temporary wives of the French. +There is a lot of romance about the <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>, from those of +the “Madame Butterfly” temperament, until one finds that +she is sometimes hired by the week, like a <i><span lang="fr">bonne à tout faire</span></i>, +and is often passed on to a successor with the furniture. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>Nor is she the Oriental doll she is painted by romantic Latin +novelists, though during her first few terms of service she +may have youthful charm and perhaps be pretty. Many +Annamese mothers do not blacken the teeth of their daughters +because they wish them to live with Frenchmen, especially +if they are the daughters of other Frenchmen, which +is said to make an ardent combination much sought after +among colonial Lotharios. But the <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> must love her +François indeed if she eschews betel-nut for his sake; she is +more likely to teach him the habit. There is little visible +public opinion against these temporary matings, though it +is said that the best class of Annamese look down upon the +practice at least as much as do the most nearly prudish of +the French. As in France, marriage is very difficult and +its unofficial rival very easy; one may even take the <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> +back to France as a servant.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One sees half-breed children now and then even in thatched +hamlets far from the centers, while there are plenty of both +children and adults of mixed blood in any city. Wherever +there is a Catholic community cynical French males suspect +any one in the slightest degree off color as having French +blood contributed by the “missionaries.” The opposite combination, +with the male Annamese the “protector,” may +sometimes be seen—a Frenchwoman in Annamese trousers +in some wayside village or peering forth from some native +den in the cities. There were several instances in Hanoï of +Frenchwomen legally married to Annamese, most of them imported +after the war. The wife of a furrier who won a +gold medal and his French bride at the Marseilles exposition +of a decade ago never went out, but stood looking through +her <i><span lang="fr">grille</span></i> like a captive animal. The Parisian wife of a +barber in Haïphong lived in the not too large room of the +barber-shop, with a bed off in one corner behind a bamboo +<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>screen that did not even conceal from observant clients that +she was soon to contribute to the Eurasian population. The +government is now refusing licenses for such marriages, but +that naturally does not do away with similar unions as long +as Frenchwomen are ignorant of the color-line or indifferent +to it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The French think that they cannot live in the tropics +without a pith helmet, a cholera belt, wine, and a woman. +One might add ice in the place of song. They have a curious +belief amounting almost to a superstition that to take off +<i><span lang="fr">la casque</span></i> in the sun, even the reflected sun, be it only for the +instant needed to mop the brow and sweat-band, will almost +surely be fatal, so that every little while the thoughtless “foreigner” +is startled by raucous shouts of warning, and assailed +with screams of dismay if he so much as thrusts his head +out a window without his helmet on. Yet they constantly +see the natives bareheaded, and either I must conclude that +this, like the cholera belts with which even the women seem +to torture themselves, is an unnecessary burden or that my +own head is more <i><span lang="fr">dure</span></i> than those of the notoriously hardheaded +French.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Of the eighteen to twenty million inhabitants of French +Indo-China only the males over twenty years of age among +the perhaps seventeen thousand French residents can vote—for +the deputy from Cochinchina to the French Chamber +of Deputies and for a delegate without a vote from the +“protectorates.” Naturally those elected are Frenchmen. +The number of French in Indo-China might have greatly +increased of late, contends one party among this slight electorate, +were it not for more or less official opposition. “For +many of the rulers, the free Frenchman, the Frenchman +who is not a member of the administration, is regarded as a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>troublesome intruder, an unknown incumbrance, a suspected +person, a constant addition to the problem. This anti-French +politics arose from the spirit of autocracy of those +Cæsars with clay feet, Long and Baudoin, with their avowed +hatred of every French civilian in the posture of a man.” +This party insists that there should be a “white proletariat,” +that many a young Frenchman, released from the army there, +for instance, could live well in some part of the colony with +his “companion,” and even contribute a large progeny, to the +advantage not only of himself but of France and Indo-China. +If only the government would find some means of +helping him to raise and educate his children, they insist, he +would be far happier than at home and gradually help to +bridge over that gulf between the French and the natives. +The point of view of this group is that of Brazil: that there +is nothing wrong in mixing racial strains, legitimately or +otherwise, that on the contrary this mixture of races should +help to cement together more closely the different elements +and perhaps breed a stock that would better endure the +climate than does the pure white. In other words, they +would emulate in human form the success of breeding hardy, +tick-impervious, but runty tropical cattle with India bulls.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Offhand the impartial observer would say that there should +be a “white proletariat,” that not merely French capitalists +and officials should have the advantages France’s “protection” +of this part of the world offers. But the governing +class insists that there shall be none, or no more of one +than is unavoidable, and for that reason does not now allow +conscripts to be discharged in the colony when their time is +up, even though, unlike those of higher social standing, they +may be willing to marry their <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>, produce legitimate +offspring, and agree to remain in the colony for life. Nor +do those in power encourage the coming of colonists from +<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>France. Yet, contend the self-appointed spokesmen of the +“white proletariat” who are so bitter against what they call +the “anti-French” policy of the officials, it was precisely +because of the sacrifice of these “<i><span lang="fr">petits blancs</span></i>” that France +lost many of her other colonies.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Some of the complaints of the Annamese against the +French are so well put in one of the novels of my companion +from Hué to Hanoï that I cannot do better than to quote +him:</p> + +<p class='c013'>You have seized Annamese in the streets of the large cities, with +all possible vexations, for the sum of two piastres owing to the +government, yet you subsidize each year a theater troupe at the cost +of 80,000 francs [written when exchange was much higher than now] +merely to amuse a handful of French during the three winter +months. You have inaugurated the régime of the <i><span lang="fr">corvée</span></i> for the +building of roads, or of buying out of it at a high price, promising +the population that for this it would be exempt from payment in +kind, yet by roundabout means you continue to requisition the inhabitants +of the villages for nothing more than that you may be +able comfortably to roll along in your automobiles.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In other words road-building in Indo-China is quite as it +was under us in Haiti, by <i><span lang="fr">corvée</span></i>, or payment of road taxes +in labor. For three piastres a man could buy off from the +ten days a year required of him, but the <i><span lang="fr">coolies voluntaires</span></i>, +who had even to bring their own food, were often taken far +from home and sometimes kept for months. When food +gave out they renounced their nominal wages, glad to get +home at so slight a sacrifice. As in Haiti, the explanation +of the officials is that subordinates in the field did things +contrary to the orders of those higher up, but this must be +entered in the column of dubious excuses.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But to go on with the plaints of the Annamese against +their “protectors,” as interpreted by one whose history and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>temperament have made him as nearly sympathetic as the +average Frenchman ever becomes:</p> + +<p class='c013'>The money you so cruelly cause to be sucked from the population +you spend almost entirely on your own luxuries and pleasures, your +own well-being; you spend next to nothing for the good of the +natives, to help them to profit by the procedures which modern +science puts within the reach of industrious, laborious people. The +poor people everywhere say that the government deceives them by +using tortuous schemes to increase imposts that are already heavy. +They say that your protection is not what it seems to be on the +surface, that while a European can go anywhere, except sometimes +among the wildest tribes of the far mountains, there is still almost +as much robbing, kidnapping, virtual banditry as ever among the +natives when no Frenchman is looking on. You let the people be +ruled by native mandarins, pure bandits whose immorality is no +longer doubted by anyone—former “boys,” liberated criminals, head +gardeners who have known how to please by combining pretty +parterres and by offering flowers to the women of your officials, +intriguers and unscrupulous adventurers, beardless youths who have +won the favor of your ladies, sons of mandarins with the most +corrupted habits—whereas under the old régime this important +mission as father and mother of the people was confided only +to men of forty or more whose worth was proved. The greater +part of the mandarins to whom you have accorded your confidence +are rascals who exploit the people in the most shameless manner. +We call them patented pirates, differing from real pirates only by +the brevet given them by the administration, with the aid of which +they can legally pillage more easily and with less loss of honor than +real pirates and smugglers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>You do next to nothing for the higher education of the Annamese, +for fear, you say, of making outcasts [<i><span lang="fr">déclassés</span></i>] of them, as if +advanced instruction could make a degenerate of a man. It is said +everywhere that you wish to keep the native at an intellectual level +low enough to be able more easily to make him your slave. Thus you +are false to the mission you gave yourselves to civilize the people. +You cannot understand what attachments you would create between +yourselves and the Annamese if you set yourselves resolutely to +teaching them everything you know, without <i><span lang="fr">arrière-pensée</span></i>. You +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>have an example in the Chinese, who, though they treated us more +severely, had nothing to regret for having inculcated in us all their +civilization, all their knowledge, to such an extent that Annam +became a China in miniature.</p> + +<p class='c013'>You have too much pride; you disdain the natives too much; you +believe yourself to be of a divine essence compared to us whom you +keep at a distance, as if it were a question of a vile, abject race, +worthy at most of being your servant. You are jealous of our +slightest qualities; you cry out against our slightest faults, which for +the most part you have noticed among the scum of our race that +surrounds you, and which you attribute to all of us in general, +without knowing that the true honest Annamese takes care not to +approach you, not being able to support your arrogance, your conceit, +your insults.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Yet though the Annamese, particularly of the Tonkin, +fought long and valiantly to keep from being “protected” +by the French, and there have been some revolts since what +is considered the final conquest of all the Indo-Chinese empire, +notably that abortive scheme to poison all Caucasians +one evening in 1916, on the whole they now seem contented, +or at least reconciled, and fairly friendly. Do they perhaps +see the advantages of French rule, and recognize that some +one would exploit them if these aliens from the West did +not; or is it merely the fatalism and the infinite patience of +the East that gives them the outward appearance of comparative +contentment?</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIII<br> <span class='c011'>OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO LAOS</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Early April found me back in Hanoï, this time as a +family of five rather than a foot-loose individual. It +was not the place I had left two months before. Constantly +heavy skies gave it a gloomy oppressive atmosphere not at +all like those brilliant days of late January. Almost perpetual +rain, even though it was not always heavy, made the +life of the city less chic, less lively. With even the big wide +streets covered with a light <i><span lang="fr">couche</span></i> of mud and water, the +large French community seemed to dress in its older clothes +rather than in its Parisian best. In a hundred ways the +change in weather made other things different. But the +natives, especially the toiling masses, were evidently used +to a season that had befallen them yearly for who knows +how many centuries; for, covered with big pancake hats and +palm-leaf rain-coats, they splashed about in their bare feet +almost as happily as in the brilliant month of January.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Luckily Sunday managed to be fine long enough to confirm +my reports on the zoo and <i><span lang="fr">guignol</span></i> and the band-concert +in the governor-general’s park, and convince all three generations +of my family that a month in the little Paris of the +East would be the great contrast to life in China which my +first glimpse of it had promised. It was still brilliant too, +and already hot, when I took the train next morning for +Vinh, through a land everywhere lush green now, to be +met at the station that evening and carried home by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span><i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> in person. For though I had not known it until a +day or two before, the journey through Laos, Indo-China’s +largest, most distant, and least known division, could only +be made more or less officially, with the willingness and +connivance, sometimes the actual help, of the French authorities. +That part of it which I proposed to visit could +hardly be reached even on foot without government permission +and aid, and only those whom the governor-general +considers <i><span lang="fr">personæ gratæ</span></i> may expect either. The time will +soon come when that great region northeast of Siam will be +made the commonplace stamping-ground of tourists, but +so far the roads were only started and the hotels not yet +begun even on paper. Still, the French were not averse +to begin to let the outside world from which tourists eventually +come know what will some day be in store for them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> did me the honor of driving his big Peugeot +next day himself, though to save face he took along his +native chauffeur, as well as a “boy” to act as general servant. +We turned back north for thirty-five kilometers along the +railway by which I had come, then swung sharply west from +the macadam road upon a gravel one that was by no means +poor. At the first village officially recognized by the French +the army turned out—a score of Annamese soldiers in white +knickerbocker uniforms and red wrap-leggings, with the +familiar brass-tipped mushroom hats, all of them barefoot +except the sergeant, whose heavy high shoes on the ends +of his thin legs gave him a resemblance to a diver about +to descend to the bottom of the sea. With stiff leather +cartridge-boxes in the pits of their stomachs, their French +rifles with the long sharp bayonets, usually carried sidewise +high on their shoulders but now held stiffly perpendicular +before them, and as spick and span as only native troops +under European command can be, they stood at rifle-salute +<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>behind their young French officer with raised sword, the very +personification of the East under Western training, while the +<i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> leisurely got out and inspected them as deliberately +as if it were a pleasure to stand motionless in full dress beneath +a tropical sun. Once these formalities were over, however, +and arms had been grounded, the two Frenchmen shook +hands and fraternized like exiled brothers.</p> + +<p class='c007'>While they are hardly a military people, any more than +the Chinese, the Annamese had compulsory military service +for all men between the ages of eighteen and sixty long +before the French came. In fact they were so often called +to arms that the field-work was largely left to their wives, +which is perhaps why the women seem even to-day more at +home in the fields than the men. Nor has the country lost +its militaristic aspect under the French. Besides the white +conscripts from overseas to be seen at important points, +native soldiers are constantly in evidence. Astonishingly well +groomed and set up compared to the armed ragamuffins of +China, they commonly salute all Europeans with a gravity +that further distinguishes them from the saucy, leering uniformed +coolies of the soldier-ridden land to the north.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Naturally, most of these <i><span lang="fr">linh</span></i> are Annamese, though each +of the four protectorates has its own soldiers, nominally +under command of its king or emperor—“semi-volunteers” +they are usually called, and quite properly. For even to-day +it is no business of the king or emperor, much less of the +French, whether or not they are volunteers in the true sense +of the word. Mandarins or other officials tell each commune +how many recruits it is required to furnish, and they are +duly furnished, without embarrassing questions. The notables +of each village choose those who shall leave it for eighteen +months of service, at the ratio of one recruit to every six +adult males, and naturally they do not include their own sons +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>among them. Their training over, the youths may return +to their homes, but are subject to call until the age of sixty. +Many prefer to remain under arms longer than is required, +and with this system France—or the native sovereign—has +a reserve of very respectable size, some of whom have served +five, ten, and even fifteen years. The French assert that conscription +is hardly necessary, that most of the soldiers of +Annam are real volunteers, that all the men of Annam +wanted to go to France at the time of the war to fight for +the “mother-land.” If so, this indicates a patriotism, or +at least a wanderlust, not in keeping with the manner of +most of them, though it is true that a visible pride shines +forth in the brown faces of those few native soldiers, usually +noncommissioned officers, who display two or three French +medals across their breasts.</p> + +<p class='c012'>An hour or more later we crossed a river by a <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> and +raced comfortably on along grass-grown roads for the rest +of the morning. The rice-fields had given way to brush and +forests, the plain to ridges and ravines, to a semi-wilderness +in which the scarcity of people was in great contrast to the +endless files of cinnamon-clad coolies of both sexes jogging +under their shoulder-pole burdens, the files of wheelbarrows +carrying produce to market, pack-animals among which our +snorting conveyance created a panic reminiscent of the early +days of the automobile, and to the crowded hat-roofed +markets themselves, close beside and even in the road, on +what might be called the Annamese side of the river. For +though we were still geographically in Annam, almost no +country in the world is so narrow as this one in the vicinity +of Vinh, and almost nowhere do conditions change more +quickly, once the crowded, rich, flat coast-land between the +Gulf of Tonkin and the Annamese chain has been left behind. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>Already we began to meet tribespeople very different +from the Annamese. Barely two hours from the railroad +there appeared women dressed from just above the nipples +barely to the knees, in primitive skirts wrapped about the +lower waist, carrying heavy loads of wood, with a forehead-strap +similar to that of our Indians. They were Muong, that +is, “wild people,” though their wildness showed mainly in +their timidity as they slipped off into the jungle below the +raised road. We had not merely changed regions at the <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i>; +we had entered a new world, stepped back several centuries.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We raced incessantly westward, for all the grass in the +road, along which a path meandered as constantly as if forever +dodging the evil spirits that can only move in a straight +line, like a rifle-bullet, never encountering another vehicle—except +once, when we missed by inches meeting head on +at a brush-hidden turn the only automobile of the day. +Toward noon we stopped at a Muong village, where we +picked up a French colonist with holdings scattered among +the foot-hills of the Annamese chain. The two Frenchmen +of course were already acquainted, and there was the usual +<i><span lang="fr">apéritif</span></i> before we sat down to a surprisingly good <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> +in a more or less public rest-house. More exactly it was no +longer surprising to find good meals provided even in the +wilderness, for your Frenchman will not endure gastronomic +hardships; and since good meals are always more important +to him than arriving, nearly three hours had slipped away +before there was any indication that we were to move on +again.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Meanwhile, on the heels of our arrival, the Muong chief +of the village, closely followed by three or four retainers +in bare feet, loose white panties, and more or less picturesque +regalia, had come to welcome my high-rank companion. +The chief wore a blue suit, instead of the usual black or +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>cinnamon brown of the Annamese, and in honor of the +occasion and of his own standing he had a blue cloth wound +turban-fashion about his head. Also a volumnious cloak of +mosquito-netting or cheese-cloth with huge sleeves, in which +he clasped his hands together in a manner that increased +his resemblance to a Chinese Buddhist priest, covered him +to the bare ankles. He and his satellites brought us, as the +city fathers of Muong villages do all important visitors, according +to the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i>, a basket of eggs and several bottles +of what looked like water. Knowing that such a beverage +would be an insult to a Frenchman, I made inquiry and +found that the bottles were filled with a native liquor of +such deadly voltage that even my wine-loving companions +did not venture to sample it. While the chief acted out his +respects, the most lowly of the attendants laid out the ten +eggs on a brass platter and set it with two of the bottles of +rice-alcohol on the earth floor before the seated <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i>. +Only then did the chief speak, accompanying his greetings +with many low bows, showing none of the friendly half-gaiety +of the Chinese, but rather an air of being inwardly +frightened. The <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> replied, somewhat carelessly, with a +bit of the native tongue that was at least fairly fluent. Then +the chief and his attendants withdrew, and the eggs and +the bottle stood where they had been placed until we departed, +when they were either retrieved by the chief or fell +to the lot of the rest-house servants.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The colonist went on with us to the night’s halt by a +road now crawling along the edge of a precipice, now across +serried ranks of what my companions called <i><span lang="fr">montagnes +russes</span></i>, sharp ridges over which we incessantly bounced, +alternating with constant drops to low filled-in runways in +place of bridges, a wilderness all about us. But after all, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>tropical jungle has less of interest, at least after the first +visit, to any one except the trained naturalist, than the seemingly +greater variety of flora in the temperate zone. There +was still something left of the afternoon, for all our generous +midday halt, when we reached the military post of +Cuarao, across the river from the highway and a mud and +reed garage offering tropical accommodations to a car or +two. One of its several white buildings of an official character, +which looked so imposing against the background of +Muong houses and jungle, had rooms for the three of us, +opening off the soldier-trodden compound and roughly comfortable +except for the heat.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are three crops of Indian corn a year in this region; +and among the small craft of various sizes on the river below +were many narrow little boats full of ripe husked ears that +gave the scene flashes of color. The Muong prefer rice, +according to the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i>, but the land left them is so hilly +that the toil of raising it is more than they will endure. +Wild-looking Muong mail-carriers, each with a small bag, +hung about the rowboat ferry between the garage and our +quarters as if they were in no hurry whatever to cross and +be off on their fifteen kilometers of the Postes et Télégraphes +relay. It was a reminder that the mail service of Indo-China +under the French is by no means the equal, in proportion +to the difficulties involved, of that of China under international +tutelage. But on the other hand one can telegraph +anywhere within the colony, from almost any hut, at a cent +a word, in English, French, or the native tongues, and be +sure of prompt and accurate delivery. The traveler long +inured to the unreliable, expensive, often hopeless telegraph +system of China, unfortunately not under foreign management, +could forgive the French almost anything for this +boon. During all my journey through Laos I never took the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>trouble to write letters to my family in Hanoï, with the +probability of reaching there again before they did, but spent +a few cents each evening for a telegram, and kept as closely +in touch with them as if I had gone home each evening; for +never once was I more than two hours in receiving a reply.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I have spoken before of the complete security of Europeans +almost anywhere within France’s Indo-Chinese empire, +whatever the complaints of the natives. No doubt it was +to make us feel doubly safe that soldiers beat a hubbub on +bamboo sections all night long about the post as a proof that +they were awake and on guard. But there are dangers, according +to some of the tales with which my companions +whiled away the evening. The <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> of one of these wilder +provinces, for instance, had broken five ribs when his automobile +ran into a deer unfamiliar with modern traffic rules. +A French soldier stationed on the Tonkin border was attacked +by a tiger, an animal reputed always to take its victim +by the back of the neck; and as this man chanced to be +carrying a blanket-roll across his shoulders, he killed the +beast with his knife—or his bayonet, for he himself was +never clear on that detail—without getting a scratch. Tiger +stories are legion in Indo-China, and many of them are as +free from doubt as this one, which is fully authenticated—or +documented, as my fellow-travelers put it.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> drove me a few miles farther in the morning, +halting at the edge of another river, where we had made +telegraphic rendezvous with the authorities of the next province. +Here and there a path went off up into the woods to +clusters of Muong houses; now and again we met a file of +these jungle people sidling along the edge of the road. The +men did not look greatly different from the Annamese. Their +eyes were a little less oblique, their faces at close range +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>shaped more like our own; there was a bit more wildness, +naïveté, timidity, or something countrified about them; but +the surest way of telling apart the males of the two races was +the manner in which they carry their burdens—the Annamese +on the shoulder-pole, the Muong in baskets on their wives’ +backs. The men themselves sometimes carry in baskets also, +and even larger loads, but only when the available supply +of females makes it necessary. The women who trail behind +them could not possibly be mistaken for those of +Annam. They were much less independent, each hiding behind +her husband at sight of us, following close on his heels +as they hurried silently on. They wore little above the waist +except the loads they carried on their backs, secured by a +band across their foreheads. A cloth about their heads and +another barely covering their plump breasts were evidently +concessions to the prudish world of the highway, for at home +in the bush a blue-embroidered skirt from the waist to the +lower thighs seems to be all that Muong public opinion requires. +A long bodkin protruded from a queerly arranged +knot of hair worn somewhat to the side of the head. The +long round basket on the bare back drew taut the supporting +cord across the forehead, a small board with two holes in it +keeping the two strands apart. Each woman wore at her +left side a section of bamboo as a pocket, and carried by another +cord over one shoulder a canteen in the form of another +piece of bamboo, several feet long, and filled with river-water +with which to quench the thirst of her lord and master. +Some of the brick-colored male savages bore a lance over +one shoulder, and most of them had a long tobacco pipe of +tiny bowl thrust like the bodkins of the women through their +knot of hair, or worn in the belt like a cutlass. There was +some evidence of tattooing, but the naïveté of their faces +and manner and the attitude of the half-naked women were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>the most typical features. Between the men and the women +there seemed to be a deep social gulf, something like that +between servants and masters among the wealthy of other +lands.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Here and there within sight along the road were a few +Muong houses, all standing man-high on piles, a kind of +gang-plank with cleats forming an outside stairway to a +rounded veranda under a low overhanging thatch roof at +one end. Men squatting over their long pipes and children +at play evidently monopolized this portico, which the women +only approached with the obsequious manner of those who +feel themselves intruders. A smaller veranda at the other, +always the southern and sun-baked end, served them as +kitchen and place of recreation. Most Muong hamlets are +far from the grass-grown highway, and one can scarcely +blame them for preferring solitude and simplicity, though +their roosters and cur-dogs probably make the nights as +hideous there as the soldiers with their bamboo drums had +ours at the post of Cuarao. The <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> whiled away the +time with stories of this “wild” timid race, one of which +concerned a great chief of the Muong who had always gone +about as naked as his forefathers of pre-French days, until, +having been decorated with the medal of the Legion of +Honor, he went to Vinh and bought himself a magnificent +jacket to pin his decoration on. Since then he had never +been seen without the jacket, and his brother was always +following him with envious eyes, though whether he envied +him the medal or the jacket was not clear.</p> + +<p class='c012'>We had waited nearly an hour when there appeared on the +other side of the not very large stream a sumptuous Fiat +strangely out of keeping with the wilderness about us and +a startling contrast in transportation to the leaky old <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>by which I crossed to it amid the blessings of the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> +of Vinh. It was to have been there at daylight, but it soon +became evident that even a high-priced Italian car cannot +move faster than the chauffeur that drives it. We were off +as soon as my modest baggage had been stowed away, along +a still grassy road cut between the steep mountain-side and +the stream, the scars of the evidently recent road-building +already almost completely obliterated by the impulsive tropical +vegetation. Here and there a path meandered along +the road, and on it passed picturesque Muong women in +scanty garments, all of them carrying baskets and some of +them suckling babies as they walked, climbing the rocks as +high as possible whenever they caught sight or sound of us. +Birds of rich colors flitting in and out of the jungle gave +us as hasty glimpses of themselves as did the Muong women +who sought refuge in the thick underbrush on the stream +side of the road. There were flapper birds, too gaily dressed +to be useful or even virtuous members of ornithological +society. One of them had a brilliant blue back, tail, and +wings, red feet, and a velvety-brown throat above a snow-white +breast that gave it the appearance of wearing either a +low-necked evening-gown or the white shirt of a dinner-jacket. +Its fantastic Semitic beak and cardinal-red head was +topped by a purple hat adorned with a single aigret. There +were matronly birds in black, with wings of the rich brown +of Tonkinese clothing, actress birds in exaggerated, even indecent +costumes, birds that changed appearance entirely, as +if they had suddenly put on a disguise, when they opened +their wings and showed the under side of them; there were +birds that were mere streaks of white, flashes of fire in the +sunshine, birds with tails longer than themselves, birds that +made a noise like the pounding of a section of bamboo with +which Chinese watchmen make nights miserable, or Buddhist +<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>bonzes call upon the charitably minded. Yet they sang less +than did the crickets or katydids, less than the queer members +of the lizard family sunning themselves on the rocks, +confirming a memory that the whistle or call of jungle birds +is often monotonous but rarely musical. Once I caught sight +in the stream below of a ridiculous member of the duck family, +swimming and strutting about among his modest female +mates in a costume so gaudy and incredible that he must have +designed it himself. We were so closely flanked by the prolific +vegetation that this part of the trip was like taking a +journey through the heart of the jungle in an easy-chair, or +on the magic carpet of Arabic legend. Memories of the tiger +stories I had heard the evening before, and elsewhere, +crowded upon me. There were panthers in these forests +too, and herds of gaur, a wild cattle like the aurochs, two +meters high, of little trouble to the people but very dangerous +to the hunter. Yet the only visible peril was the constant +tendency of the road to make hair-pin turns on the sheer +edge of great gorges.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The chauffeur, dressed in full European style even to his +tropical helmet, seemed to be a mixture of French and of +several Indo-Chinese bloods. Instead of driving like the +madman that most chauffeurs of Indo-China resemble, +making every turn an attempt at suicide, every downward +slope an effort to hang up a new speed-record, he was so +overcautious that I no longer wondered at his failure to be +on time at the rendezvous. While I am not one of those who +like to fly along the brinks of precipices, I rather prefer that +to crawling like an ox-cart when a stretch of straight wide +road lies in clear view ahead. Twenty kilometers from +the <i><span lang="fr">bac</span></i> he halted where we should have been three hours +before, at a village which seemed to be named Muongsen, and +announced that he could not reach our destination that day. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>It happened that my trip through Laos was absolutely set in +cement, since I had to be somewhere else at a definite date, +and this fellow and his chief, the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> of Xieng +Khuang, had been advised of that fact by urgent telegrams +from the governor-generalate itself. But the Caucasian part +of him seemed to have exhausted itself in his appearance +without touching his character. Or perhaps he had once run +into a water-buffalo or spilled himself down a mountain-side.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I was protesting against halting for the day while it was +still fully an hour short of noon, when a white man unexpectedly +turned up. He was a tall, good-looking, splendidly +built fellow, with the appearance of a big blond Frenchman +who had lived all his life in the open; and he wore the blue +uniform of a French colonial officer. Yet he was no Frenchman +for all that, but a native of Bavaria, who had lived as +a boy in New York—at Sixty-fourth Street and Second +Avenue, he still remembered. Now he could speak only +French—besides Annamese and several tribal tongues of +Indo-China—and was as Gallic in temperament as he was +blond. Having entered the Foreign Legion when he was +fourteen, he had been with the French ever since, and was +now a second lieutenant in command of a village station +higher up on the plateau ahead. With him was a French-Annamese +woman of possessive manner, though no startling +beauty, who called him husband.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Hospitable as he was handsome, he insisted that at least +I could not go on until we had performed the Frenchman’s +midday rites. We had to prolong the <i><span lang="fr">apéritifs</span></i> an hour or +more before we could sit down to a several-course lunch in +a hut grocery of very respectful serving manners and a not +total ignorance of French cooking. For according to the +lieutenant and his no less hospitable companion, it would +have been a great breach of bush etiquette not to wait for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>the other “European” in the village. He was the chauffeur +of the general-in-chief of all Indo-China, and had been left +behind with his car <i><span lang="fr">en panne</span></i> while the general had climbed +on into the mountains in a Citroen “caterpillar” that had +been serving him as baggage-trailer.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This other “European” turned up at last and proved to be +a Guadeloupe mulatto, who lost little time in claiming that +his grandmother had once been a great personage in Bordeaux—which, +after the way of French ladies, was not at +all impossible—and who either had never heard of American +conventions where negroes are concerned or judged from +my hand-shake that I had outgrown any such prejudice. +Simple and naïve, yet with all those amusing little idiosyncrasies +of courtesy and their opposite common to the French, +he was a bit bashful at first, until convinced by my manner +that I accepted him as a social equal. His misgivings had +plainly nothing to do with color but with the natural gulf +between a mere corporal turned general’s chauffeur and a +traveler sponsored by the governor-general himself. Thereafter +he was at his ease, and his big eyes rolled like those +of a minstrel-show end-man whenever he heard anything +even mildly surprising, and he became convulsed with gaiety +at the slightest suggestion of anything humorous. The lieutenant +thought I might get more willing service out of my +chauffeur if we invited him also to sit down with us; and +what with the Muong and the Laosian servants who waited +upon us, the mixture of races about the rough but well +garnished table at which we finally gathered could hardly +have been increased without going in search of other +individuals.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The conversation hovered chiefly about the women of Laos. +The lieutenant asserted, and was borne out by his wilderness +companion of the sex under discussion, that to touch the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>hair or breasts of a Laosian woman is a more serious crime +than actual violation. In fact Laosian law prescribes a much +more serious penalty for the former than for the latter indiscretion, +and the lieutenant in his judicial capacity had often +been called upon to try cases under this strange code. Naturally, +he explained, again abetted by his lady-love, what +the Western world considers the lesser of the two crimes +might be committed entirely against the will of the victim, +while the other.... In brief, here was an example of Oriental +wisdom to which the other side of the earth has not yet +attained.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In a case of what, in the language we were then using, is +called <i><span lang="fr">tromper le mari</span></i>, the Laosians again outdid us in +their sense of justice. By their law the lover is punished +for the first offense, the woman for the second, and the husband +for the third! For, as the lieutenant said, and his domestic +partner again agreed, the woman who is party to such +an act a second time must have some of the guilt; and the +husband who is so inattentive as to be <i><span lang="fr">trompé</span></i> three times +is either a fool or is knowingly permitting it, and deserves +punishment in either case.</p> + +<div id='i_258' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_258a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The women of Tonkin combine hat, sunshade, and umbrella in one unwieldy contraption</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_258b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The Muong women wear little above the waist, except the loads they carry</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_259' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_259a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The guard turned out to greet my companion, the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> of Vinh, at the first village on the way to Laos</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_259b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The Muong chief of our noonday village came in state, bringing eggs and native fire-water</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>The gentleman of color from Guadeloupe confirmed all +these statements and added the information that when the +husband, or the “man,” is a soldier, like himself and the +lieutenant, or is for any other reason away from home for +six months or so at a time, it is impossible for him to avoid +betraying his wife, or she him. This recalled to the lieutenant +that the code of Laos allows the woman a divorce +without contest if the husband stays away from her longer +than the length of time he said he would when he left. What +an importation this would be in our civilized West! One +might fancy that it would make the men of Laos more punctual, +more aware of the value of time, than the subway +victims of our great metropolis. Yet it is not so, far from +so. The lieutenant contended that this is a very just law, +for the suffering of the woman from long absence, whetted +by the uncertainty of the return, is obviously more than she +can stand, more than she should be expected to stand. His +own darling feebly denied this, but the men agreed with many +sage shakings of the head. It is as bad as expecting a man +to live six months without a woman, they went on, with +extravagant gestures, as if trying to clinch the argument +with the most ridiculous analogy they could hit upon. Gradually +the tone of the conversation drifted to the other side +of the shield, the subject of parents. Both men asserted +that they had loved their mothers but not their fathers. “A +man’s mother can only be one person; there can be no doubt +about her,” the mulatto argued, with all the gravity of a +chief justice, “but his father may be any one of thirty-six.” +Whereupon there were general roars of laughter and agreement, +while the typically French dinner came to its end with +demi-tasses as naturally as a sentence does with a period.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XIV<br> <span class='c011'>EN PANNE!</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>With the influence of the lieutenant I managed at last +to get under way again, not without hope that we +might reach somewhere before nightfall, since the sun was +still almost directly overhead. At Muongsen there begins +one of the greatest automobile climbs I have ever seen, up +and up and forever up through the jungled ranges of the +great Annamese chain, an ascension unforgettable both for +its magnificence and its danger. We climbed abruptly to an +elevation of fifteen hundred meters, a full mile above sea-level, +without moving forward a mile on the map. The road, +forever clawing itself a place in the flank of the mountain, +constantly making great detours, looking always for an opening, +a gap to slip through, writhed like a tortured snake, +struggled fiercely upward, grew dizzy with effort, took +breath again, and climbed valiantly onward. On the left, or, +worse still, on the right, the abyss always yawned. Our +wheels touched the edge of space and flung stones off down +sheer wooded slopes into <i><span lang="fr">le vide</span></i>—emptiness; in many places +there were curves so sharp that we had just room between +the jagged mountain wall and the bottomless pit to make +the turn by backing and filling where the slightest miscalculation +might have meant destruction. Even then we barely +got by without striking a lamp on the recently blasted mountain-side +or dropping a hind wheel over the edge. I began +to understand why a man, particularly an aging half-caste, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>whose lot in life required him to drive even now and +then up or down this fly-footed route, might easily become +too nervous ever to speed again and might grow to have the +downcast view of life in general of this crawling imitation +of a chauffeur.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Between the trees of every size there were glimpses here +and there for an instant of the great Annamese chain we were +struggling to surmount. The narrow little boats fighting +their way up the rapids of the river we had crossed again at +the beginning of the climb had long since disappeared; the +river itself was gone. Giant ferns, valleys full of banana-plants, +perfect tenement clothes-line mazes of jungle vines, +range after blue range of the densest forest-jungle sank beneath +us, and still the climbing continued, steadily, inexorably, +forever. It was like duplicating by automobile my +wild journey through the jungles of the upper Malay Peninsula, +now two decades ago. Sometimes, when the road was +completely exhausted, it went a little way on the level, but +only long enough to catch its breath, as quickly as do the barrel-chested +Indians of the Andes, before digging its toes into +the mountain-side again. The air became fresher; the humid +scent of the tropics disappeared; with every wheel-turn it +was more pleasure to breathe. Behind and below us lay an +ocean of branches, a vegetation so compact that it filled the +vast ravine of the visible world to its very edges, like an +overflowing bowl of greens, an immense panorama of verdure +dotted with densely black patches of shade that looked like +the mouths of caves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were many long thatch-roofed bridges, some of them +curved, some with sharp angles, bridges of timbers and +rough-hewn planks evidently cut on the spot, some covered +with woven bamboo splints, bridges supported only by the +upright trunks of trees along the sides of them, so that even +<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>the least nervous of travelers could not but have wondered +whether they would always hold the weight our heavy car +suddenly put upon them. Many similar bridges had been +abandoned and left to disintegrate into the jungle again, because +the road had been cut farther back into the hillsides. +When this new road gets officially opened and there are cars +in both directions—many cars, the French hope and believe—there +should be magnificent possibilities of accident, for +rarely indeed can one see five yards ahead, and often fog +half or fully fills and conceals mighty ravines into which a +false twist of the chauffeur’s wrist would have sent us crashing +among the jungle tree-tops hundreds of feet below. I +looked anxiously askance at the graying fellow at my side +on whom my life depended, and was startled suddenly to discover +that after all he was a mere savage in loin-cloth and +bare feet, however much his half-French features and his +wholly French garb might strive to conceal it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was an expensive luxury for the one or two automobiles +a week that traveled over it, this road up the face of the +mountains, costing seven hundred piastres a kilometer, about +seven hundred dollars a mile, even in this continent of low +wages. The workmen were paid only thirty-five piastre-cents +a day, and must furnish their own food; hence one +could scarcely blame them if they did not hurt themselves +with work. Piles of stone, broken or to be broken, lay in +long carefully slope-sided heaps at frequent intervals along +the way, recalling France and its <i><span lang="fr">cantonniers</span></i>; but the road +was built rather in “American style,” according to a French +engineer I met later, especially on the curves, because the +famous old highways of France were not designed for speeding +automobiles. We passed scores of Annamese men, nearly +all of them gaunt and sickly looking, thin, lemon-yellow, +feverish pictures of misery, squatting in miserable grass huts +<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>that had been thrown up for the road-building, or dawdling +along the way. Always with the air of being half scared +to death at sight of a white man, they were pitifully +obsequious, all snatching off their hats and most of them +even the rag they wore about the head under it, at the same +time backing against the mountain wall or to the extreme +edge of the precipice and bowing low with the palms of the +hands together. I have seldom seen human beings as sad +looking as these Annamese road-builders. There was no +gaiety, no life at all compared with the harder working and +more miserably living Chinese, though one was still constantly +puzzled to know whether this related race was merely +suppressed, depressed by French treatment, or naturally +gifted with solemnity. At any rate we rode frequently +through bowing ranks of bareheaded coolies in rusty clothes +and with fever-stricken faces, who could not have greeted +me more obsequiously had I been the governor-general himself. +In fact more deference was shown me on this trip into +Laos than is received by most European sovereigns of to-day.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It astonishes us from the temperate zone of the West that +the Annamese or Tonkinese prefer the malarial and overcrowded +rice-lands of their coastal plains to the rich upper +regions of their country. But the most wretched of them +have a horror of the hills, even though their ancestors seem +to have been highland men; so that it is always a difficult +job, often requiring actual governmental force, to get even +a few hundred coolies from the plains, where they are often +half starved, to come up and help build these roads; and the +few French exploiters of highland plantations look almost +in vain for workmen. Criminals sentenced to hard labor +are sometimes used in such enterprises, and often the <i><span lang="fr">corvée</span></i>, +calling for forced contributions of labor on the roads, has +had to be invoked. In the cities it is no uncommon sight +<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>to meet a column of these miserable fellows, wretched +already, though perhaps only the recruits of a labor agency, +marching to a train under command of a half-breed, like a +file of condemned exiles. When moving from one camp to +another almost all these downcast fellows carried a cloth-tied +bundle in their hands or at the end of a bamboo over one +shoulder, so that they resembled a tropical imitation of a +procession of American hobos “hitting the ties.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>There seemed to be no women in these road-building +camps, which perhaps accounted for half the appearance of +misery, the great susceptibility of these plain-dwelling descendants +of hardy highlanders to disease in the hills furnishing +the rest of it. But it seems to be psychological more +than physical, according to the French; ancient superstitions +make the mere thought of living in the mountains sickening +to them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Higher up there were two or three villages that seemed +to have inhabitants of both sexes and all ages, some of whom +we now and then met making their way along the winding, +perpetually climbing road. The sound of our horn drove +them mad. The more fearful tried their best to climb the +sheer earth or rock wall of the blasted mountain-side; the +others, as if imploring us to be merciful and realize that they +would run away if they could, snatched themselves bareheaded +and, placing their hats against their stomachs, tried +to break their spines in kowtowing to me as they might to +a long dead emperor suddenly returned to earth. A few, +less obsequious, or less quick-witted, watched us pass with +open mouths and stupefied expressions, bawling children +scurrying in and out between their legs. Near the top of the +climb there suddenly appeared horses and other pack-animals, +and the panic we created among these unusual carriers in +Indo-China could not easily be described. We passed not a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>few traveling pigs along the way too, for wherever there is +Chinese culture there must also be pork. Though they are +credited with infinite patience, the Chinese will not drive pigs +to market. But the Annamese, more afraid of work perhaps, +rather than more patient, usually try to, with a cord tied to +each porker’s leg. This may possibly be easier than the +Chinese way of bodily carrying them, two on a one-man +shoulder-pole or one between two men, so that carrier and +carried, bound to market in this undignified manner, seem +fellows in misery. In Hanoï and the larger towns of Annam +this more certain form of transportation may also now and +then be seen. But the Annamese pig is ordinarily driven, +which is hard on motorists. For most of the pigs we met +were too strong for the holder, and yet not quite strong +enough to get away entirely and dash themselves over the +mountain-side. Therefore, as they seemed bent on suicide +in any form—and who could blame them?—the car always +had to wait while the would-be pig-driver and several of his +fellows united in one mighty tug of war that dragged the +squealing animal out from under our wheels. For the most +foolhardy of Annamese chauffeurs, however disdainful of +the pig-driving populace, would scarcely have risked running +over one of these porcine obstructions on this pathway along +the bottomless pit.</p> + +<p class='c012'>It was in many ways a delightful trip, doubly so because +one knew even without being told that very few travelers +had ever made it. But good things often come to a violent +end, though to tell the truth I had felt it in my bones that +trouble lay in wait for us. I claim no prizes as an automobile +driver, but I certainly could have given that mixture of races +in French garb several pointers on how not to drive up a high +mountain. Again it was overcaution rather than recklessness +<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>that worked his undoing. Never would he let the car get a +reasonable start, with the result that it had to pump its heart +out to make a snail’s pace. I carried no driver’s license for +Indo-China, and should not have considered it courteous +to my host ahead to practise with his new Italian-minded +car on such a road if I had; hence I was totally at the mercy +of this mingled son of caution. A dozen times we snorted +to a halt before the maltreated engine quit entirely, fairly +near the top. The chauffeur’s mental reaction to this emergency +seemed to be to sit where he sat until the Goddess of +Mercy or some one else came to help him out, with the probability +about a week off of another car passing. When at last +I prevailed upon him to get out and look at his engine, at +least out of curiosity, all he knew was to lift the hood, when +he fell into contemplation before the motor, mute with stupor, +as if he had discovered this strange machine for the first +time, until I expected him to bow down and kowtow in the +dust before it. He seemed to know as much about the workings +of automobile engines as of the gods in his temples, +and to have the same dread of looking into the secrets of +their power. But then, when I came to think of it, even I, +effete product of a garage and repair-shop on every corner, +knew no more about it than he did, so that after all he had +been right, and there was really nothing to be done except +what he had started to do—calmly to sit and wait for help.</p> + +<p class='c007'>That was no easy task for a man whose hair is habitually +ragged of edge because he cannot endure to hold the penitents’ +seat in a barber-shop, and when we had been broken +down long enough to prove that neither of us could do anything +useful about it, I walked on. Gusts of rain had fallen +during our climb, pedestrians each lopping off a banana-leaf +as an umbrella and dropping it where the shower ceased. +But the second-hand one I picked up at the next emergency +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>proved that as an umbrella a banana-leaf is waterproof, at +least to the tropically inexperienced, only when one sits down +under it. Luckily the showers were short and not very intense, +and within an hour or so I was striding over the summit +and down upon a few simple buildings. It was a military +post named Nong-het, which turned out to be the station of +the Bavarian-born lieutenant and his mixed lady-love, who +had indeed invited me to stay with them on my return, should +it happen that the rains made impossible the itinerary I +had planned. Much good that did me now, with the hospitable +pair still down at Muongsen.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Annamese sergeant in charge massacred a few words +of French, beating them out between his black teeth in a +clogged stream from his betel-nut bloody lips, and there was +no great difficulty in getting enough of his confidence to seat +myself in the faded cloth easy-chair under the thatch roof +of the lieutenant’s earth-floored porch. In fact it was not +long before I could have coaxed his cook to cook me something, +if we had been able to find anything to cook. Obviously +I could not broach any stores there might have been +inside the lieutenant’s thatched house, though it was locked +with a piece of jungle twine, even had I been sure that the +sergeant would permit it. In the long thatched barracks +across the smooth earth parade-ground there were different +kitchens and “beds” for the Annamese and the Laosian soldiers +who made up the garrison, the former sleeping on +wooden platforms, Chinese style, and the Laosians on soft +springs of woven bamboo; and there were similar differences +in cuisine and other customs. But that made it all the more +difficult to convince the sergeant that surely there must be +something native that could be made edible for “ung Flançais,” +as he persisted in calling me. Plainly the lieutenant +or his protective companion had taught the sergeant the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>solemnity with which the rites of the table should be treated, +and the sacrilege of mixing culinary breeds.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Finally, thanks to my well known persistence and persuasiveness, +there appeared some rice and the toughest chicken +for its tender age that I have ever met in all my travels, nay, +on Broadway itself. This trial over, and a path worn in +the parade-ground while we discussed beneath a sardonically +grinning moon the propriety of my continued presence in the +post, the sergeant at last consented to have collected for me +in an outhouse a bundle of straw and a ragged blanket which +I was just as well pleased not to have seen by day—or even +by torch-light; and just as I was dozing off there came the +choral shrieks, growing slowly louder, of a great gang of +coolies whom the chauffeur had requisitioned to push the +car over the summit to Nong-het. The suspicions of the +sergeant and his post having been allayed by the chauffeur’s +acknowledging me, I found somewhat better quarters, now +that my cot had come, out in the half-finished stone garages +into which the Fiat had been coolie-handled. The chauffeur +being hopeful, for some reason, of making the wop contrivance +go on again in the morning by gasoline rather than +by coolie-power, we turned in, he, somewhat less downhearted, +curled up on the back seat of the car. Perhaps he +thought whatever injuries the car had suffered would heal +during the night.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He actually did get the thing under way again, long after +sunrise, on three or five or seven of its four, six, or eight +cylinders, as the case may be, and we covered twenty-seven +kilometers along a now merely hilly road. Early during +that feat we met and paused to chat with a French lieutenant +driving back to Muongsen the Citroen <i><span lang="fr">chenille</span></i> that had carried +the general-in-chief to Xieng Khuang, the same in fact +that had crossed the Sahara the year before; and but for that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>fatal optimism of motorists so long as their wheels are turning +we might easily have had him repair whatever damage +had been done us. Apparently neither of us thought even to +mention our difficulties of a few miles back, yet almost as +soon as the “caterpillar” was out of sight my substitute for a +chauffeur halted before another cluster of huts, called Sala +Nam-lien, and refused even to try to go farther, saying that +something disastrous would happen to us if we attempted +to proceed. As nearly as I could make out from his ignorance +of his father-tongue, the car was certain to explode +and strew itself and us all over the Annamese chain if he +annoyed it any longer. Possibly Italian cars do succumb to +such fits of Latin temperament; at any rate I was in no +position effectively to argue the matter, and assassination is +regarded as more or less reprehensible even thus far from +the haunts of civilization.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Though I only suspected it then, I was destined to know +Nam-lien better than I know my own birthplace, nay, than +Paris or Rio de Janeiro. It consisted of a dozen thatched +huts with earth floor and wattled walls on either side of the +wide space that served as road, one of them the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> or rest-house +for French travelers. Two bare woven-bamboo cots +and a rough wooden table comprised the furnishings of this, +unless one also counted the soft layer of dust on the earth +floor as a rug. A few things such as eggs were purchasable +about the village—though I should have been in hard luck +indeed if I had not taken official advice and brought a few +canned supplies with me—and a native was available to boil +water and do the simplest form of cooking.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There I spent the rest of the day, sitting in the automobile, +the only really comfortable place in the vicinity, reading, with +a walk for exercise’ sake thrown in. During that time I +had much intercourse, in so far as that is possible without +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>a common speech, with one of the principal tribes of the +region. I had known the Miao, or, as the French call them, +the Méo, in southwestern China, though there my acquaintance +had been mainly with the “Flowery Miao” in their +extravagantly colorful dress. These were “Black Miao,” a +much more independent tribe, and with almost no color in +their black or dark-blue garments, sometimes set off by a +dull red or purplish wine-colored scarf about the waist. Both +men and women, often riding on horses, were a wilder +tawnier type than their flowery relatives, their sturdy independence +as plainly to be seen as their bare feet; for none of +them, of either sex, had ever tortured their feet with shoes. +Their sunburned hair and eyes were more nearly brown than +black, and both sexes wore the hair long. Most of the men +had carelessly wound turbans of dark cloth, a few of them +wore Chinese skullcaps and dressed their hair Chinese fashion, +old Chinese fashion, more exactly, for the majority still +had queues, often hanging unbraided loosely about their +shoulders. Another custom among these sturdy mountaineers +is the wearing about their necks of heavy silver rings of all +shapes. These are evidently concerned with their tribal superstitions +as well as being their idea of combining adornment +with safe banking. All silver money that falls into +their hands is turned into rings; men, women, even the children, +all wear them, large and small, from mere twisted +silver wire to veritable horse-collars, some with open ends, +some fastened with silver padlocks. Sometimes there are as +many as half a dozen on a single neck, even of men on their +way to work in the jungle. The richest of them clanked like +perambulating pawnshops whenever they moved.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A critical observer might have wondered why they do not +spend for shirting some of the silver dollars they turn into +neck-rings. For the men wear a shirt or jacket that covers +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>everything except what a shirt is most expected to cover, +leaving bare a foot or more of the waist, with the navel +as its central point of departure. But to every race its +own ideas. The girls are not prudish, yet not at all forward. +For their jackets, open almost to the navel and +giving frequent half-glimpses of the breasts, were plainly +designed for comfort rather than coquetry, as were their +plaid skirts reaching hardly to their bare knees. The women +walk with a powerful yet not ungraceful swing of the hips +and a saucy flirting of their short pleated skirts, of which +they are perhaps quite unconscious. Some of the men wear +the tattooed blue panties ending in ruffles just below the +knees that are common in Laos and the Shan States, but +this is evidently due to extratribal influence, just as are the +flowered silk gowns a few of the well-to-do among them +wear after the fashion of the Chinese. The men, and sometimes +the women, carry crude daggers in home-made +sheaths; some had a long slender rifle, a few of them +crossbows of a simple form, and most of them smoked or +carried in their sashes pipes of sometimes elaborately tortured +shapes. They use pack-oxen as well as little horses, +but most of them, of both sexes, carry in a basket on their +backs, though Chinese influence perhaps has led some to +fasten two baskets at the ends of a short, stiff whole bamboo +over a shoulder, thereby losing all the advantage of the long +and supple shoulder-pole of China and Annam.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Some consider the Miao merely Chinese who in centuries +gone by drifted down from the north, with a history +similar to the Hakkas, but it is probably a better guess +that they are of a more nearly aboriginal tribe than the +Celestials. Sturdy enough in their natural habitat, they +must live at least three thousand feet above sea-level to +be either happy or healthy, just as the Annamese must stick +<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>to their miasmic rice-plains; and they never descend below +that altitude if there is any way out of it. Of all the +races of Indo-China the Miao are probably the most self-sufficient. +In common with some other mountain tribes of +Laos they burn off steep hillsides, normally every nine years, +for their cultivation. When they need new fields to plant, +they fell the biggest trees and set afire great patches of +the jungle-forest, destroying wood and lumber enough to +supply a large city for years to come. This burning is +partly to drive off the blackleg fever and partly to give +room for grass for their cattle; and as cinders make good +fertilizer for a few years, their crops are abundant until +it comes time to burn off another mountain-side. As this +burning by patches has probably been going on for centuries, +much of Laos is not so forested as one expected +it to be, but often covered with those half-grown forests +which the French call <i><span lang="fr">brousse</span></i>. Yet with all the uneven +growth there are many magnificent panoramas of densely forested +ranges.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I spent that night in the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>, and when, late next morning, +it was still evident that the substitute for a chauffeur +did not propose to do anything about it except to settle down +there in the vain hope that some day some one might come +along who might do something to help us out, I set out +to walk. It was still about fifty miles to Xieng Khuang, +but certainly there was more prospect of reaching there +on foot than of having help turn up within the same length +of time. Moreover my supplies were distinctly limited, even +if the loss of time could be made up by abandoning the +best part of the trip and returning as I had come. Besides, +I am far better at walking than at waiting, and nothing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>after all is more delightful than walking, especially on so +splendid a route for it—high enough not to be too warm, the +great jungle-forest opening new vistas, springing new surprises +at every turn, at every rise of ground, so few of +the tiresome human race as hardly to bother at all, and at +every corner the chance of an adventure. So I swung off +almost light-heartedly, even if to the mingled worry and +disgruntlement of the worthless chauffeur, who evidently lost +face with the village by this flaunting of his services and +protection.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I had walked about ten alluring miles, or perhaps merely +kilometers, when to my vast astonishment a big automobile +came suddenly down out of the west upon me. In the +capacious back seat, the top stowed away behind them, rode +the general-in-chief of the French forces in Indo-China and +a colonel aide. Having waited in vain for the conveyance +that was to have brought me to Xieng Khuang in time +for them to return by it, they had been forced to drain +the province of its last thing on wheels, the Berliet—one +car of each make seemed to be the rule here; once the road +was officially opened they should know which performed +best—of the <i><span lang="fr">vice-commissaire</span></i>. Never have I been more +pleasantly treated by a chance passer-by on the road. If +the general’s importance weighed heavily upon him he was +an expert at concealing his burdens. To be sure, the fact +that he also had been the guest of the ruler of Xieng Khuang +whose hospitality I had been—enjoying? no, let us say suffering—since +stepping into the Fiat of distressing memory, +and that, having expected me two nights before, they +had about come to the conclusion that I had been eaten +by a tiger, may have had something to do with his geniality. +For it seemed that the donkey masquerading as a chauffeur +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>who had been sent for me had not disclosed to the harassed +head of the province an inkling as to our plight, though one +can telegraph in Indo-China from almost any tree-top.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The general was strongly of the impression that I should +come along with them rather than continue my walk until +the returning car overtook me, and the semi-guest of a government +does not flout the opinions of its chief military +officer. In fact the general had an insistent way about him, +though it had on the surface none of that big-stick gruffness +of too many of our own army officers. The change +from walking to riding left me somewhat chilly; the general +insisted that I put on his coat, which had been lying +in the seat beside him. I protested that the insignia of such +high rank did not become me, that he himself might need +the garment. His reply was typical of an old campaigner +in many lands, of one who had served France in almost all +of her colonies:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“<i><span lang="fr">Je n’ai jamais froid, jamais soif, jamais faim, jamais +chaud.</span></i> When any of these things threaten me, <i><span lang="fr">je fume une +pipe</span></i>, and they disappear in a puff of smoke”—and suiting +the action to the word he lighted up again.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We were soon back at the <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>, where there remained +enough of my meager supplies so that I could do my share +toward providing a luncheon. While we ate, the fellow +who had been sent to fetch me told the general some badly +pronounced tale of why it was dangerous to try to go +on, lifting the hood to prove it. Again it seemed to be +something to the effect that he could make the car go +all right, but that if he did so the engine might blow up +at any moment. He seemed to convince the general, who +was probably no automobile expert, and naturally the +colonel always agreed with a superior of such high rank; +hence there was nothing left but for me to agree also. I +might have stayed on at Sala Nam-lien and, if the Berliet +and its Annamese driver had the luck that had been denied +the Fiat under the inexpert ministrations of the son of +caution, have been picked up by it sometime next day on +the way back from turning the general over to other transportation +in Muongsen. But the general insisted that I +give them the pleasure of my company as long as possible, +and on second thoughts it was better not to trust myself +to spend another night within reach of that mixed-breed +chauffeur.</p> + +<div id='i_274' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_274.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The chief sport of the mountain-dwelling Miao of Laos is the making of assorted neck-rings of silver dollars that might better be spent for shirting</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_275' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_275a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The Miao women of Laos take no back seat for their men</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_275b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A Kha woman of the semi-wild tribe that is said to be the aboriginal race of mountainous Laos</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>Besides, it was a pleasure to travel over that great mountain-side +road once more, even though I might be less successful +in climbing back to the plateau, and although the +platform-bed in the rest-house of Muongsen was several +times harder than the cot I had left over the mountains. The +lieutenant of the Citroen “caterpillar” had the Guadeloupe-driven +car ready for action again, and in spite of all the +decorating Muongsen had done for him the general insisted +on continuing eastward toward nightfall, leaving me +alone in the riverside <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> like the janitor of a ball-room +amid the embellishments of an abandoned banquet.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I set out once more next morning before daylight upon +that great climb from Muongsen to the plateau of Laos. +This time fogs all but hid the world about us and made +the road-gangs along the way seem more miserable than +ever. But this Annamese chauffeur knew his trade and his +car much better than did his predecessor in my affections, and +while a man not so disgusted with a continual run of +bad luck as to be willing to take some risk for a change +might have complained at the speed he made on the brinks +of bottomless precipices, we were soon at Nong-het over +the summit again, then back at Sala Nam-lien, still adorned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>with the stalled Fiat, in time for a skimpy lunch. From +there on, the Annamese let no grass grow under his wheels. +In fact I wonder if any ever grew again in some of the +spots they touched in our semi-aërial dash across the eastern +half of Tran-ninh. It was startling to be able to race +what seemed hundreds of miles along an excellent, even +though grassy, automobile road through so primeval a region.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was some more climbing, though it was by no +means so strenuous as the ascent up the face of the Annamese +chain, and at length, beyond a waterfall that came down +the mountain side within hand-shake of the road in a beautiful +cascade of many strands of silver among jungle and +forest choked rocks and, dashing under the highway, dropped +far down below to form a reunited stream, we came out +of the great forest that had surrounded me ever since the +first afternoon out of Vinh. Here, a hundred kilometers +from the border of Annam, amid a plateau growth of +scattered oak-like scrubs, there was much open country, of +reddish rich-looking soil, though few inhabitants. In fact +all Laos, largest of the five divisions of Indo-China, being +about the size of Italy and not unlike it in shape, has, if +the recent census was accurate, only 818,755 people, of +whom 280 are French and eight—count them, eight!—are +“foreigners.” About us lay vast rolling meadows of great +beauty, as virgin as a world in which animal life had not +yet been created. The general-in-chief, who had seen most +of them, thought this great plateau of Xieng Khuang the +finest region in the French colonies. There were some +cactus-trees of striking forms; then the mountains closed +in again on a narrow valley that seemed once to have been +broken up into rice-fields, though this may have been an +illusion. Small villages appeared once more, this time of +the real Laosians, villages of thatched houses raised on poles +<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>well above snakes and possible floods, with a bit of cultivation +about them. Each house had rounded gable walls at +either end, one a kind of family veranda all but covered +with a curving roof of thatch, where visitors are received +and the family does its gossiping, the other a granary and +store-room, where the cooking also seemed to be done. The +walls of the houses, everything possible, in fact, were made +of strips of narrow palm-leaves folded over a stick, forming +panels overlapped like shingles. Many small but stout +horses dotted the landscape here and there. I had not seen +a grave for days; the Laosians dispose of their dead like +real Buddhists; the Miao pile heaps of stone over their +corpses.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This time fortune showed me unusual favor and we +made the whole trip from Muongsen, including the stop at +Sala Nam-lien, in a single day, as we might have done three +days before but for the overcautious chauffeur. In fact +we turned up at Xieng Khuang toward the end of the +daily siesta, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in French +formalities with the colonial officials of that distant but +little known Garden of Eden.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XV<br> <span class='c011'>DOWN-STREAM TO LUANG PRABANG</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Having ended on Saturday instead of Wednesday +afternoon the first stage of a journey that at best had +seemed in the beginning hardly possible in the time available, +I made a tight fit even tighter by spending Easter +Sunday in Xieng Khuang. For the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i>, so long +absent from the world at large that time had come to be +a mere academic expression to him, had done so much to +make my stay agreeable that to have hurried away again +next morning would have been to increase a common French +impression that to Americans personal convenience is more +important than courtesy. Visitors do not come often to +Xieng Khuang; besides, there are things of interest there, +and whatever is worth doing, be it only a journey, is worth +doing well.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There was the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire’s</span></i> zoo, for instance, a score of +pets ranging from some distant member of the leopard family +to monkeys that looked like puffballs, fittingly domiciled +in his garden, with or without chains to assure their allegiance +to a master from whose hand the fiercest of them +ate with murmurs of pleasure. There are said to be +more species of animals in the forests and on the plains of +Tran-ninh than in almost any other space of similar size +on earth—tigers, panthers, bears, gaur, gibbons, monkeys, +deer, pythons, boa-constrictors, and a host of lesser serpents; +a cobra was chased out of the yard of one of the French +<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>residents that very day; and the museum maintained this +quarter-century past by a tropic-emaciated Frenchman was +easily proof that the province is an unspoiled paradise of +the ornithologist and the collector of butterflies and insects.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I spent the morning in a hot walk about the scattered +thatched town, climbing to jungle-guarded half-ruined old +stupas on the rounded hills behind it. Priests of the yellow +robe had again appeared, dawdling about their simple +monasteries with the leisureliness of men who know that +to step on an insect means to be set back that far on the +long and difficult road to Nirvana. Speaking of insects, the +people of Tran-ninh boast that they are never troubled by +mosquitos, because, all their domestic animals being at +home under their pole-legged houses, these pests are so busy +down there that they never trouble to rise to human height. +The custom of living over unconfined stables is further +exonerated by the warmth the animals are reputed to give +the householders above—for so thin-blooded a race needs +its central heating-plant also, during the short tropical +“winters.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was market day, and well fed, almost haughty women, +with many brilliant reds and yellows in their dress, were +squatted in the shade over their semi-tropical vegetables, and +pottering homeward again in long broken files. They had +almost nothing in common with the Annamese women, +except their sex and the protection of the French. Their +lustrous hair piled in great black glossy heaps on the top +of the head in an intricate fashion, usually with a saffron, +rose-yellow, or red cloth about it, and most of them with +stomachers of similar gay colors, they were striking examples +of the unrestricted portion of the human race. In +complexion they were much like ourselves plus many layers +of tan, but were noticeable for bad teeth. The Laosians +<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>do not enamel their teeth, but most of them chew betel-nut; +and the women seem less unequal socially to the men than +their Muong, even their Annamese and Chinese sisters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In Xieng Khuang there stands a monument to six Frenchmen, +five of them killed in France during the war, and one, +like the dozen native soldiers whose names also appear on it, +<i><span lang="fr">tué par les Méos rebelles</span></i>. It seems there was a great Miao +uprising in the Laos during the winter of 1918–19, the bloodiest +battle of which took place at Nong-het, between the +“rebels” and the French, more exactly the native soldiers +of the French. It was no surprise to be told that German +agents and money had fomented the rebellion, though +saner French residents admit that the Miao had long wished +to be ruled by their own rather than by Laosian chieftains. +That was no unnatural demand, and by the terms of the +peace now reigning between them and the French it has been +granted. Nor does this change seem to put any great burden +upon Miao justice, for in cases involving more than five +piastres the contestants may appeal to the French authorities, +whom they evidently trust more than they do their own +chieftains. The end of the rebellion was typical of +these stiff-necked mountaineers. The French issued an +ultimatum that the Méo must submit by 9 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> on a certain +day; and at 8:59 exactly, while the French commanders +sat with their watches in their hands, the Miao chieftain +strode in and capitulated. The puzzle still remains how +a race without clocks managed to time themselves so +dramatically. Now they seem quite friendly, though it is +not they who put their palms together above their heads +and come to the squat when a white man goes by.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It would never do to quote to our own prudish-tongued +land all the conversation that passed between perfectly respectable +members of the little French colony of Xieng +<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Khuang over the <i><span lang="fr">apéritifs</span></i> and the Parisian repasts in the +<i><span lang="fr">commissaire’s</span></i> big living-room. For it turned largely on +matters of sex, even when, perhaps even more so when, +any or all of the three or four French wives of the little +official group were present; and those who have lived with +them know that the French can bring a blush to the cheek +of a New England spinster without having the least notion +that they are skirting the precipitous edge of frankness. +One wife, I recall, was vehement in her denunciation of +the Germans because they have so many children to the +family, implying that as the French are unable to compete +in that line with their enemies over the Rhine, her beloved +native land was sure to be the loser in the end. Yet +she and her husband, an officer in the colonial gendarmerie, +had been married nearly fifteen years and showed every +outward evidence of being able to add to the decreasing population +against which she fulminated. But I did not ask +the obvious question. It was amusing, when it was not +pathetic, to observe how all these groups of French colonials +seem to consider it axiomatic that they should not be expected +to produce children. Their very manner voiced their +conviction that in consenting to “exile” to the colony which +they helped to rule they had done enough for <i><span lang="fr">la patrie</span></i>; +and those who contributed a child or two in addition were +rather pitied, and pitied themselves, as the victims of an +unkind fate or a deplorable accident. In this community +of Xieng Khuang, for instance, the ten or more French residents, +most of them married, had one child—that is, legitimate +white child—a baby girl.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The huge <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i>, now half invalid but still a great +force in his province, and beloved apparently by all classes +of its residents, was a survival of the earlier colonial days, +when a man in his present position was virtually king +<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>of all he surveyed. His half-dozen pure-blooded dogs all +wore stout canvas pants to assure their offspring against mixture +with the local mongrel breed. But some officials had +not taken the same precautions with themselves, and had +several brown-complexioned children at school in Hanoï, +though they were bachelors. I am sure they would not +look upon mention of this as unkind criticism, any more +than it is meant as such. It is all in the point of view. +Neither they nor any of the French wives and husbands composing +the official community of Xieng Khuang saw anything +wrong in this situation. Had some prudish member +of the English-speaking races opened a discussion on the +subject with them, he would not have got beyond being +assured that it would have been inhumane of the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> +to expect a French wife to share with him the hardships +of his productive years, when Tran-ninh was a houseless +and an iceless wilderness, and that he was therefore +compelled to vent his affections upon the native women.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> could still, with assistance, hoist himself +into the back seat of a topless automobile, and that afternoon +we drove out to see the archæological puzzle of Xieng +Khuang Plain. It did not need the assurance of my immense +companion, or of his antithesis, the Midi-tongued +vice-commissary, whose Berliet was still the only available +vehicle in Tran-ninh, to see that this great plateau should +have a great future, in the modern Western sense of the +word. Its climate is as delightful as its soil is fertile. One +French colonist had already covered a bit of it with splendid +fields of wheat and corn, while his pineapples were +almost worthy of Hawaii. Yet somehow I caught myself +hoping that it would never serve the exploiting portion of +the human race as anything more than the excellent airplane +<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>landing it was already. Its present pristine glory +was too infinitely removed from the horrible picture that +sprang up in my mind as I listened half-heartedly to the +enthusiasm of the two <i><span lang="fr">commissaires</span></i>, of such plains in my +own land debauched into cheese-box cities by real-estate “developers.” +Humanity is scarcely so precious that it must +be fed or housed at the loss of such glorious spaces as this +one across which we rolled toward <i><span lang="fr">les jarres</span></i>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Far out on the great plain, some miles from Xieng Khuang, +are scores of immense stone jars, the mystery of which no +man has yet solved. They are made of what the French +call <i><span lang="fr">grès</span></i>, a natural composite not unlike sandstone, yet quite +hard; and they are so large that those I climbed into reached +to my armpits and gave me almost room to squat. Many +have fallen, some only partly, but the majority are still +upright, for all the centuries that have rolled over them. +Stone covers, some of them broken, lie on the ground among +the jars, many of which are decorated with little clay +Buddhas set up on them by the pious modern inhabitants. +There are five hundred or more of these jars, in two groups +a few miles apart; and the French, after their manner, +though there is no money to be made out of them, have +built what they call an “automobilable” road to both clusters. +But even they have not been able to solve either the origin +or the purpose of the jars. Made by some race lost in +the prehistoric mists—for recorded history found them already +here, much as they are to-day—they are the more +puzzling in a region where there is no natural stone of +this kind whatever. Amateur archæologists of Tran-ninh +contend that they must have been brought on rafts across +the lake that probably existed then where the plain is now, +and set up on little islands that have become the knolls +on which they still stand a bit above the general level. Were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>they used for storing food, as hiding-places of bootleg liquor, +or were they places of burial? So far as appearances go +they might have been either coffins or granaries. There +are no signs of bones in them, however, no broken bottles or +food-remnants either. But then, even bones would have +had time completely to disintegrate during the unknown centuries +since the stone age in which the jars may have been +made, as they certainly were long before the pyramids, and +probably before the monuments of Stonehenge. There remains +the further mystery of how that prehistoric people, +of which there are still found stone hammers, knives, and +what seem to have been arrow-heads, fashioned these great +hard-stone receptables.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Notwithstanding the time I had lost I decided to go on +with the trip as planned, trusting to my own speed and +my ability to induce speed in others to bring me through in +the time available. So I was off once more before daylight, +the <i><span lang="fr">vice-commissaire</span></i> doing me the honor not only to lend me +his Berliet and his Annamese chauffeur again, but rising +to accompany me in person across the plateau and on into +magnificent pine-forests. The road, planned to be continued +some day across the next province to the borders of +Siam, died out about seven in the morning at a hut or two +called Muongsuoi. Within an hour the alleged horses that +had been sent there days before to wait for me were ready, +and I was off on the next stage of the journey. Two +Laosian men chosen by the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> himself did their +utmost to accompany me, as I hurried on all day by a +trail through abrupt mountains covered with mighty forests +along which it would have been a delight to saunter for +weeks. Now and again a tropical rain did its best to delay +me—first, as a warning, some isolated drops, astonishingly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>large and heavy, then suddenly a general tambourining +on the leaves, quickly followed by torrents of water beating +down in mad fury, the light lowering until it seemed +to be growing dusk at midday. But I could not afford +to be delayed merely to save myself and the men behind +me a drenching, and except for the briefest noonday halt +for cold fare washed down with red wine I raced incessantly +on, into the evening, darkness, the blackest of nights. +The little horses had long since lost all ability to carry +me at anything like the pace I could make on foot, even +had it been possible to ride them in the stumble-footed tunnel +beneath the forest where it was impossible to see an +obstacle even at the moment of sprawling over it. The +last hour or more was down what felt like a great trough +in the earth, set at a sharp angle, and in this I slid down +to the Nam-khan River at 9:30, establishing a new record; +for never before or since, many a French colonial and +native ruler has assured me, has any human being gone +from Xieng Khuang to Muongyu in a single day. I admit +it sadly rather than boastfully, however, for though fate +seems always driving me on at top speed, the record I would +prefer through such scenery and bucolic delights as lay +behind me would be that of the sloth family.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Out in the far outskirts of the earth one who at home +is but a mere human insect among our wealthy and political +great, our nobility of prize-fighters, football and movie stars, +had been mistaken for a real personage, and the king of +Luang Prabang himself had sent his own son-in-law to +bring me to his capital. He was to be the fourth or fifth +king I had ever seen, the second or third with whom I had +spoken or exchanged the hand-clasp of greeting, and the +only one, perhaps forever, who was so glad to make my +acquaintance that he had sent to fetch me. The kindly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>reader, I am sure, will pardon my emotion. For I suspect +that even he would boast of such extraordinary honors, equal +in their Oriental way to being commanded to present one’s +self at court in Windsor—with a foot-note as to Queen +Mary’s sartorial requirements!</p> + +<p class='c007'>The plain facts of the case were that <i><span lang="fr">Chao</span></i> Duong Chan—the +“Chao” meaning prince in the language of this region—seemed +to look upon me, even in the incredibly mud-bespattered +state in which I burst forth from the jungle night, +as his social superior. At first, evidently, he refused to believe +I was I, not because of the bedraggled rags to which +the day had reduced what no longer ago than that morning +had been a costume fit to be seen at a <i><span lang="fr">commissaire’s</span></i> table, but +because a telegram had apprised him of my departure, and +every one in Laos knew that I could not reach Muongyu +that same evening, whatever the evidence of the five senses. +But in time the impossible was admitted accomplished, +and the rest-house to which I had retired became a place +of pilgrimage. We were down in the realm of woven bamboo +splints again, and they were used for everything—walls, +floors, rafters, granaries, fences, beds—though not +for boats, as in Annam. The building to which I had +climbed well above the damp and snaky ground was therefore +so soft underfoot that there was really no need to +open my cot, though nothing in the form of furnishings +was to be seen. Gradually a murmur in the night became +the sound of muffled voices; torches flashed here and there +in the darkness, and at length there crept silently up the +very slanting ladder masquerading as a stairway one barefooted +smiling Laosian man after another, each bringing me +a bouquet of heavy jungle-flowers in a banana-leaf cone, +the traditional greeting to honored visitors to the kingdom, +as the flower necklace is in Hawaii. Behind these village +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>authorities, after a fitting lapse of time, came the prince +himself, manfully erect, who presented a document from the +government of Luang Prabang setting forth his rank and +explaining the errand on which he had been sent. He was +a slender young man of aristocratic features, this <i><span lang="fr">gendre +du roi</span></i>—son-in-law of the king, to translate one of the two +languages on the paper he had laid before me—a prince +in his own right many generations before he had married +one of the royal daughters. He wore a reddish <i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i>, +the adult diaper of Siam, Laos, and Cambodia, and a white +jacket of French military cut, starched and spotless, as did +also the chief local authority. He spoke excellent French; +had in fact, unless my memory fails me, been at school in +France, and all in all was a man whom any one might have +thanked a king for offering as a companion on such a journey +as lay before me.</p> + +<p class='c012'>We were off down the small river about seven next morning. +To have started earlier, with a heavy fog filling the +whole valley of a stream bristling with rocks and rapids, +would have been dangerous. The king’s son-in-law and I +each had a boat, though I should have liked better to have +had him with me, for the sake of information as well as +companionship. The craft were what the French call +<i><span lang="fr">pirogues</span></i>, long and narrow, as slim and long in proportion +as a lead-pencil, sharpened at both ends, and just about +as easily turned over. They were frailly made of boards +barely an inch thick, tied together with vines, with a prairie-schooner +top of banana-leaves held in shape by a network +of bamboo splints, and movable back and forth as sun, +wind, rain, or lack thereof suggested; and mine had a +raised platform with a mat in honor of my super-princely +rank. It was of about the size, and the comfort, or its +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>antithesis, of the mule-litter of northern China, which it +strangely resembled in its jerky overbalanced gait, teetering +so incessantly that I could not even write rough notes in +it. I had four boatmen, two at each of the slightly raised, +distant, pencil-like ends of the craft, all wearing tattooed +breeches but not much else. Sitting cross-legged and half +pretending to paddle, these typical <i><span lang="fr">piroguiers</span></i> of Luang +Prabang seemed the personification of laziness, until one +saw them in the rapids, the rock gorges, the genuine waterfalls +they dare to shoot.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The prince in another pirogue always followed me as a +sign of my high rank, not, I am sure, because he wished +me to risk the countless rapids first. Each time I was certain +the frail craft, writhing beneath me like a living being, +would be dashed to pieces on the rocks that bristled everywhere +and on which it scraped its bottom ominously at +every drop. I was astonished, astounded as often as we +emerged safely from another of these racing foaming perils. +Yet though they worked like demons in the rapids, these +boatmen of the Nam-khan, compared with the Chinese, with +the Indians of the Amazon when they shovel water, were +lazy after all, dabbing their narrow paddles into the stream +and pulling them out again like playing children, and most +of the time resting completely from that exertion. Again +I disclaim any desire to criticize; had theirs been my lot +in life I should certainly have worked as they did, rather +than at the beast-like pace of labor that prevails in China. +It was natural, since they can always pole their way up-stream, +that they had never learned to toil like their South +American prototypes, except in short spurts in the rapids.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Now and again the prince and I got out and walked ahead, +while the boatmen stopped to study a maze of rocks that +we were quite satisfied to let them try alone. Every few +<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>hours a cluster of jungle houses stood out in a tiny half-clearing +on the high bank of the river, and most of these +we visited. At each village the chief and the other men +of importance, usually including several yellow-robed priests, +came to pay their respects. Instead of snatching off hats +or head-cloths, and performing an antic between a courtesy +and an exaggerated bow, the form of salute in Luang +Prabang is to come to a complete squat. Obsequious as +this looked, it was evidently merely a gesture of politeness, +for even the men of highest rank who had any intercourse +with the prince, representative of the king in person, dropped +to their haunches, and rose to human stature again only +when the interview ended. In making any request of him, +or in receiving anything from him, even the boatmen +squatted, holding both hands, palms together, above the +head. The village notables wore <i><span lang="fr">sampots</span></i> of many colors—purple, +pink, grass-green—topped by khaki coats of uniform +cut, which they evidently donned in our honor. +Always they brought us leaf-wrapped cones of flowers, +usually on banana-leaf platters. A supply of these bouquets +of greeting, one concluded, must be kept on hand for +emergencies.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The women were usually the first to see us, for they were +constantly bathing themselves and their naked urchins in +the stream; and they were clever at getting into or out of +their barrel-like single garment without unduly exposing +themselves. I saw more bathing on that journey down the +Nam-khan than during my two years in China, and less +uncleanliness in all Laos than in the smallest Chinese village. +The women of Luang Prabang, especially along the +rivers, are no burden to their fathers and husbands so +far as clothing is concerned. In every village we visited +they were naked to the waist, and did not know it; at least +<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>they did not seem to be conscious that in other, often less +modest lands, such a costume might be frowned upon. They +wore a single piece of cloth, spun from cotton grown on the +spot, and woven on hand-looms under their long-legged +houses. Colored in the thread with dyes made from nuts +and vegetable growths of the region, this strip is simply +wrapped about the waist. Or, in the case of a few of +the youngest, which in that backward land still means the +more modest women, the unmarried perhaps, or at least +those who had not yet borne a child, it is wrapped about +the lower two thirds of the breasts, with correspondingly +more of the legs showing. Thus one recognized the girls +of flapper age by their shapely brown legs and the matrons +by their resemblance in costume to the Venus of Milo. +Once a child has arrived, the exposure incident to suckling +it seems to overcome virginal modesty; or in the absence +of offspring pride no doubt soon joins carelessness in casting +out the habits of maidenhood, so that there were displayed +the scrawny pendent udders of the sterile as well as +the withered rags of old age. The sight of a white man +appeared to move some of the women to cover their breasts, +a mere matter of deftly raising the garment. Whether this +gesture was a recognition of the susceptibility of the French—who +surely could not have issued non-exposure decrees!—or +a mere matter of politeness, like the male squat, there +was no means of knowing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Though they did not thrust themselves forward, the +women of this region were not so retiring as those of +most of the Orient. Some of them were distinctly good-looking, +well formed, their skin of an almost golden color, +enhanced by the frequent bathing of most tropical peoples; +and at least one of these village maidens would not have +looked at all out of place in a famous Broadway review—except +<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>that she was far too modest both in dress and demeanor +for such company. With the conversation at +Muongsen still in mind, I took care not to touch these +fair damsels in getting photographs of them, though with +difficulty, since it has become almost second nature during +two decades of wandering among camera-shy peoples to arrange +by hand my subjects to the camera’s liking. It would +have been a sad ending to so officially attested a trip to +have been charged with one of the most serious crimes in the +Laosian code!</p> + +<p class='c007'>The people of Laos struck me as the most pleasing unspoiled +race with which I came in contact in all my Far-Eastern +wanderings, though I might have formed a less +favorable opinion if I had tried to make my way among them +without being sponsored by king and princes. We brought +up at the end of the first day at Sop June—at least so +it sounded—in time to photograph most of the inhabitants +before concocting a dinner from our supplies over a beach +fire. There was barely room in my narrow boat at the +foot of the village bank to set up my cot, but with China +and its crowded, filthy, noisy waterfronts in mind this +was a haven of rest indeed. Next morning two big fat +otter came out to gaze upon us from the foot of the +often precipitous shore, looking in their wet coats, shining +in the slanting rays of the rising sun, as large as seals. +To my satisfaction, since I have none of the hunter in my +soul, they disappeared in the water again before my royal +companion could get his rifle ready, much less aimed. Something +convinced me that he, too, was just as well pleased, +that the Buddhist within him really condemned this aping +of ruthless Western ways, with the added Oriental risk +of losing face if he had shot without bringing down the +quarry. Birds in comic-opera costumes flitted singly and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>in groups across the faces of the inclosing forest walls, +a flock of parrakeets, screeching like a dismissed chorus, +sometimes flying clear across the river. Big fish now and +then jumped well out of the water, as if to take a look +at us or at the scenery. Or they may have been reconnoitering, +for curious wigwam-shaped fish-traps, held down +by heaps of stones on a platform part way up them, +are placed at the heads of rapids on the Nam-khan. Then +there were weirs, draining into jug-shaped baskets with +small entrances which forked prongs made almost impossible +as exits, with a single opening in them just wide +enough for the narrow pirogues to slip through; and even +these were made impassable to the fish by a row of bamboos, +one end of each held down in the river and the +upper floating one pointing down-stream.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The villages were as much alike, once one had seen a +few of them, as our own stereotyped cities: from half a +dozen to a score of woven-bamboo-and-leaf shacks, light +as big baskets, raised on posts, in a little clearing overrun +with children, curs, pigs, and chickens—four forms of life +all but universal the world over—and little else except the +surrounding jungle. Chickens of both sexes, perhaps I +should have specified, for in this one matter the people +seemed to believe in monogamy and to have as many roosters +as hens. It was in one of these villages of the Upper +Nam-khan that I saw the first of still another race, the +Kha, which some consider the real aborigines of these forested +mountains of the ancient kingdom, as they are indubitably +the oldest remaining inhabitants. They were wild +but harmless-looking men, wearing earrings, their women +adorned with still larger ones. A Kha woman down from the +mountains—for like the Miao they are a highland people—had +tattooed arms and, at least while the prince and I were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>there, was completely clothed from neck to calves, in derided +contrast to the river-village women. In another +village several dirty Chinese peddlers, plainly not much +liked by the natives, sat almost insolently on the soft bamboo-splint +floor of the clean <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> maintained for more +cleanly visitors. It was in this same village that our boatmen +knelt before the assembled authorities and asked that +new boats, or new boatmen, be provided, as they were tired +or homesick or something. To any one accustomed to +seeing the boatmen of China toil many times harder, often +day after day for weeks at a time, than these tropical fellows +had for little more than a day, there was something +childish about them. The petition was promptly refused, +and in due time we took our leave and went on down the +ever wider and gradually less swift rapid-bristling river.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Finally, in the middle of the second day, we were forced +to grant the boatmen’s request, for there came a rapid so +Niagara-like that no boats can navigate it. All our baggage +and supplies were turned over to coolies, behind whom we +walked in blazing noonday sunshine and deep sand around +the falls to another pair of pirogues, waiting for us ever +since the prince had passed here on the slow up-stream +trip to meet me, and were off again down an increasing +river until well after dark. The new crew were twin +brothers of the old, and the change of boats had made +little change in the endless series of rapids, for rarely +was there not at least one roaring in our ears—until, toward +evening, they came farther and farther apart as the river +spread out into a wide and almost placid stream. Palisades +and precipices had marked the place of changing boats; +farther down there were rock cliffs again, the ever larger +river cutting circles among them, mighty rocks that seemed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>to have tumbled down from them jutting forth from the +edge of the stream. The current was still swift, yet after +a long afternoon of racing down-stream there was the same +jagged heap of mountains just behind us, turning reddish +lilac and purple from the setting sun ahead. Bamboo rafts, +with little houses on them, made their way more slowly +down the stream, so placid now that it mirrored the ever-lower +hills densely covered with jungle-forest, networks +of lianas, some trees completely shrouded in vines, whole +hillsides of huge banana-plumes, flashes of birds across +them. Women wearing nothing but skirts were getting water +from the river; others, especially at sundown, were bathing +themselves and their naked children. Bonzes in dirty yellow +robes, loafing, or horse-playing to use up the energy +their calling does not permit them to waste in work or +domestic happiness, showed themselves here and there along +the way. The people seemed darker, burned to an almost +Madrasi color.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We landed well after dark, climbing a long flight of +steps cut steeply in the earth bank, to find ourselves in a +considerable town, as towns go in Laos, with a big, almost +a palatial rest-house for distinguished travelers, and a military +commander in khaki to greet us. To my astonishment—and +to that of many others, it transpired—I found that +my boat trip was ended. From just over there in the woods, +it seemed, an “automobilable” road ran to the royal capital, +and a Ford would come for us in the morning. Royally +done indeed! Usually it takes nearly a week for this +journey down the Nam-khan, but the high waters of spring +had favored us beyond all precedent.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Next morning we strolled a couple of kilometers through +splendid forests, to ride twenty-seven more in America’s +most plebeian conveyance along a fair dirt road that the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>jungle had already covered with grass in places, through +incessant forest. Kapok falling from huge vegetable-cotton +trees whitened the ground in large patches. Some of the +tribes of Indo-China weave it into cloth. There were trees +so covered with white flowers that they looked incongruously +like those of our northern clime shrouded with the wet +snow of spring.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I reached Luang Prabang town before the sun was high, +being delivered at the door of another hospitable <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i>, +this time still young and energetic and with a French +wife equally devoted to her official duties and to their two +small children. All the little French colony was still breathless +with the news the telegraph had brought them the +evening before, that I had accomplished the journey from +Xieng Khuang to their very doors, as it were, in three days. +There were hints that they credited this partly to American +black magic. For in this wilderness land of perfect +telegraphic service I had not only exchanged greetings +with my family in Hanoï every evening except the one on +the river, but the authorities at Xieng Khuang, Luang +Prabang, Vientiane, even Hanoï, Paris itself for all I know, +had been instantly advised of every step of my journey.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVI<br> <span class='c011'>KNIGHTED IN THE KINGDOM OF THE DIVINE BUDDHA</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>Luang Prabang, venerable capital of the ancient +kingdom of the same name, is a spacious town of a +few wide French streets, softly paved, if at all, with narrow +Laosian streets like lovers’ lanes between them. It +is well wooded, with roomy yards usually whispering with +palm-trees. In other words it is not a city at all, in the +crowded, noisy, Western sense, but a leisurely congregation +of separate dwellings of simple lines, each in its ample +garden-park, or at least with sufficient ground so that its +opinions or doings need not interfere with its neighbors. +In short Luang Prabang town is in many ways what idealists +picture the cities of Utopia to be, whatever insurance companies +may think of the fire-risks involved in more thatch +than tile roofs. It sits on a bank of the upper Mekong, +more exactly the Me Nam Khong, that snaky dividing-line +between Siam and at least half of Indo-China, which in +time becomes one of the most important rivers of the +Far East. Just here it happens that it is not the dividing-line, +for a large chunk of Luang Prabang kingdom lies on +the Siamese side of the river. Tiresome persons of statistical +temperament tell us that the capital stands 340 meters, about +1135 feet, above sea-level; but one would hardly know +it from the number of overcoats required. In fact, though +it was still April, my host the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> knew the futility +of expecting a guest from the temperate zone to sleep until +<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>he had been cooled off with a jaunt by Ford through the +tepid after-dinner night.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were two Fords in Luang Prabang, that which +had come for me at Don-mo and one belonging to the +king. It would of course have been bad manners for the +<i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> openly to emphasize his real bosshood by sporting +the better car; besides, the garage mechanics of the +capital are as inexperienced as filling-stations are rare; hence +the transportation that had been placed at my disposal +lacked something of the regality of its rival, particularly +in the matter of diligent polishing. There were also some +horses, a few elephants, several victorias, even three or +four rickshaws, though these, except perhaps that of the +king inside the palace grounds, might as well not have +been imported, for there were no men in this languid Eden +both able and willing to pull them. Nearly every one walks +in Luang Prabang, barefooted and silent, unless he travels +by boat. For the most important conveyances are the long +narrow pirogues, some of them surprisingly large, hollowed +out of single tree-trunks, which ply the Mekong and the +Nam-khan that flows into it above the town. On the bow +of each boat there is almost sure to be a bouquet of flowers, +a pretty custom, even if it is probably based on a superstition, +and one in keeping with this gentle people of a +land so kindly treated by nature. Huge fish are caught in +the Mekong, weighing a hundred and fifty, two hundred, +sometimes even two hundred and fifty—not pounds, but +kilograms, fish so big that it takes ten men to carry one +of them and one man to carry a severed head. It is easy +to understand what the flap of such a fish-tail sometimes +means to the fishermen in their frail vine-tied canoes. But +it is just the fishing for such a people in such a climate; +for every time they catch a fish they can—and usually do—rest +<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>for a week without going hungry. Racing pirogues +as much as twenty paces long lie bottom up on bamboo-horses +under little thatch roofs here and there upon the +high weed-grown river-bank at the edge of the capital, being +used only in November during the annual regattas. For +rowing—more exactly paddling—is the athletic sport of +Luang Prabang.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The main street of the capital, dying out at either end +in semi-jungle, is lined by a long market, facing the entrance +to the king’s palace. But for that matter there is +a market just outside the royal palace in Madrid, too, and +many beggars also, which here seem to be unknown, unless +we count the yellow-clad priests sauntering along with their +begging-bowls in the early morning. Even such an Eden +as this is not without its serpents, however; and rattling +chains on the legs of prisoners working about the town +make strange contrast both to its quiet gentle atmosphere +and to the regality of its king. The gay garments, especially +of the female branch of the population, make doubly picturesque +the market and the long lanes of greenery that +represent streets. The women of Luang Prabang capital, +unlike their country sisters in the rest of the kingdom, +usually wear a thin silk or cotton scarf of bright color over +their bare breasts, half covering them, and slipping coquettishly +off when they wish to make an impression on one +of the opposite sex. The Laosian women of the bush think +no more of their uncovered breasts than they do of their +bare feet; these sophisticated girls of the silken scarf in +the capital recognize them as an asset. There was something +about their every gesture that recalled our own +flappers—with betel-nut taking the place of gum and of +lip-stick. Yet their coquetry may be largely innocent, for +the French assured me, in some cases rather regretfully, I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>thought, that in Laos there are few of the <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i> facilities +so common in Annam.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The king’s wives, and the girls of the royal family and +of the wealthier class, wear a kind of swimming-vest, usually +white, in addition to the brilliant scarf. Perhaps his +Majesty does not wish charms meant for his own eyes +alone to become even visually common property. Yet the +royal wives themselves on the way to market had about +them a hint of coquetry, even toward a foreigner, which +seemed to be totally lacking among their sisters of the bush. +Many of the girls of Luang Prabang wear enormous silver +or pewter anklets, some of them weighing twenty piastres +or more. Others wore chains of ten-cent pieces. So many +French silver piastres have been turned into these anklets, +bracelets, the metal collars of the Miao, and other forms +of adornment that it is little wonder Indo-China now uses +almost exclusively paper money.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Luang Prabang means Kingdom of the Divine Buddha. +What more natural then than that there should be many +Buddhist temples, shrines, and monasteries in its capital? +Indeed there are so many on both sides of the river that the +town might easily be mistaken for a holy city, devoted to +priests and pilgrims. Some of the temple compounds are bare +ground scattered with yellow-roofed buildings of Siamese +or Burmese character, with big stupas made of mud bricks +and more or less overgrown with vegetation, with mere cells +raised on piles, in which languid bonzes meditate. Others +are covered with groves of trees, shaded by masses of palm +and banana leaves; but in them all great calm and quiet +reigns. Just behind the main and market street fronting +the royal palace is a rocky ridge called Pagoda Hill, two +hundred feet above the plain and half encircled by the +Nam-khan by which travelers unworthy of Fords come to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>the capital from the east or south. It is worth climbing if +only for the view it offers of the idyllic city and its +surrounding semi-jungle; and along it ramble queer old +religious structures, including one built over a gigantic +“footprint of Buddha” in the native rock. What feet that +far-famed son of India had, and what seven-league boots, +to have scattered, so long before the coming of railways +and Fords, his bare footprints so far and wide over the +Orient!</p> + +<p class='c007'>Some of the old priests of Luang Prabang are honored +as demigods by the people of the kingdom. They step +forth from their holy dwellings only with a ceremonial parasol +held over them, by one of the surrounding group of +youngster attendants in the same bright yellow; and the +French <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> himself was almost servile in the respectful +politeness with which he treated the most holy +of them all, whose attitude sometimes suggested that it +was he who had the upper hand. These bonzes may not +even kill a flea, though the provocation must often be +almost too strong to be borne; but they may eat beef and +the flesh of other animals killed by some one else. Even +the cynical French residents say they are real celibates, +that they would be expelled from the order if they were +caught breaking this particular vow. It might be harder +to keep were not all young men expected to be priests for +a year or two, as those of European lands become soldiers, +only the ones to whom the monastic life appeals retaining +the yellow robe, which the great majority soon discard +for marriage. Little less sacred than the priests are the +dogs that all but overrun the capital, eating the food laid +out for gods and bonzes, much as the sacred oxen of India +take their toll from pious shopkeepers. Held in a kind +of Buddhist reverence by the people and more or less +<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>protected by the priests, these mongrels are not even subjected +to muzzle or license, though the French would like +to improve their rules of sanitation to the extent of exterminating +the harmless but self-confident curs.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But the French do not insist on imposing their religious +beliefs on their wards and colonies. In Luang Prabang they +go so far as to provide for the up-keep of the temples and +monasteries in the annual governmental budget. In a way +this is a means of supporting the educational system, for +the priests act as schoolmasters to their novices. In great +contrast to China, there is not a single Christian missionary +in all the Kingdom of the Divine Buddha, not even a +Catholic priest. There was almost a sense of relief in +finally getting completely beyond the reach of missions, +however good an opinion one may form of mission work +in some of its phases. For in certain moods one feels a +species of boastfulness in our insistence that so alien a +race give up its own beliefs in favor of our more or less +generally accepted guess as to the after-world and how to +reach it, in our Western efforts to impose our philosophy of +life upon a people that has a not unworthy one of its own, +and one that seems to make them much happier than we are.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I had come to Luang Prabang, however, on the special invitation +of its king, and my chief duty and pleasure was to +pay him my respects. Ignorance is ever embarrassing, so the +natural prelude to such an honor as a royal audience was +to find out something concerning the king and his kingdom, +as one skims through the chapter-headings of an +author one is about to meet. That ancient land is hardly +known even to our encyclopedias, to say nothing of our +school-books, but a few basic facts were available in the +jungle-framed French offices of the capital, offices strangely +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>similar in their atmosphere of <i><span lang="fr">paperasses</span></i> and official dignity +to those French staff headquarters I had served in during +the war. Languid as it is, Luang Prabang’s history +is not without its exciting moments. For its origin one +must go back to that great Nan-chao kingdom, with its +capital at Tali-fu in the southwestern corner of China, +founded in 629 <span class='fss'>A.D.</span> and destroyed six centuries later (1234), +not by the Chinese but by their Mongol ruler, Kublai +Khan. The Kingdom of the Divine Buddha is one of the +remnant kingdoms of the great Tai race which, once holding +a part of what is now China, was gradually driven west and +south, losing or attaining culture until it varied from the +high civilization of the Khmer to almost illiterate tribes, +according to where its new lot was cast. Best known to the +outside world by the Siamese word for man (<i><span lang="fr">lao</span></i>), or as +<i><span lang="fr">shan</span></i>, from a Chinese word used in Burma, this people still +prefers to be called Tai.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Laos has eight divisions, of which Luang Prabang is +the largest and the only one still boasting a king of its +own. A century ago most of it belonged to ethnologically +related Siam. I have already mentioned that this greatest +division of French Indo-China, about as large and of much +the same shape as Italy, has fewer inhabitants than Detroit. +This is largely because it was so often sacked, and +its people killed by the Chinese, who wanted the land, or +carried off by the Siamese to populate her sparsely settled +regions along the Menam. A traveler who visited Luang +Prabang in 1872 found it the most compactly built city of +Siam, with the single exception of Bangkok, which it in +some respects resembled. But of several disasters the greatest +seems to have been in 1887, when the Black Flags of +Taiping days in China burned and almost completely destroyed +and depopulated it, so that perhaps it is not by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>choice of its up-and-coming citizens that it is so roomy, +pastoral, and ideal a city to-day.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The same altruism and love of their fellow-man that has +given the French the arduous task of protecting the rest +of Indo-China led to their present position in the affairs of +Laos. About the time the Chinese from Yünnan were +pillaging Luang Prabang kingdom a Frenchman named Pavie +was sent there on a mission. The father of the present +king, born <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Kham Souk, who lived from 1837 until +1904 and reigned under the name of Ritthithamaronjsac—though +he was more popularly known as King Zacharine, +and probably not entirely on account of his sweet disposition—was +an absolute despot, descended from a long direct +line of similar rulers. For the Kingdom of the Divine +Buddha has been a kingdom as far back as the memory +of its people goes. Zacharine became a great friend of +Pavie, at least according to such data as was available in +the French government offices of Luang Prabang, and when +the Siamese failed to protect him, as they had promised, +against the Chinese, he went to Siam under Pavie’s wing; +and later, in a quarrel with the Siamese, who had burned +and looted and carried off most of the people of Vientiane +and Xieng Khuang, he made the mistake, like his royal +neighbors of Annam and Cambodia, of calling in the French. +By 1893 Siam had been compelled to give up all claim to +this ancient kingdom and to the magnificent highlands of +Tran-ninh, and all Laos became a European dependency +under the protection of France.</p> + +<p class='c012'>My host the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> chose a victoria for our descent +upon his royal ward, no doubt feeling that to have used +his Ford would be to call unnecessary attention to himself +as the only possessor, besides his Majesty, of so regal +<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>a conveyance. Besides, the leisurely open carriage was far +more in keeping with the calm and woodsy atmosphere of +the metropolis of Laos. The king’s palace is a building +mainly in French style, more like a hotel with a steeple-cupola +than the abode of an Oriental potentate. It stands +in a fairly spacious yard, not quite large enough to be +worthy the name of park, on the eastern bank of the Mekong, +at the foot of the hill graced by Buddha’s footprint; and +it was somewhat in disorder. Chairs were kicking about +the foreign-style dining-room, and there were other suggestions +of a late party and oversleeping servants. The building +was quite new, it seemed; there were few decorations +on the walls yet, though a man had come all the way +from Paris to cover them with paintings. Evidently he had +found the climate not conducive to constant work, particularly +work paid for by the day by a protected people; for surely +he could not have discovered a means of squandering his +time in the social amenities of the king’s harem, and there +was no other means of accounting for his Oriental leisureliness +of execution.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Royal servants went to announce us, though word of +our coming had been sent ahead, and while we waited I +mentally reviewed the information I had gleaned from the +Oriental Almanach de Gotha it had been my privilege to +consult at French headquarters on the eve of my royal +reception. I make no claim as to its exactness, and still +less to that of my memory; but there is a probability that +both of them are approximately correct. <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Sisavang +Vong Somdet Prah, present king of Luang Prabang and a +direct descendant of an endless line of its kings, was born +in 1885, on July 14—no wonder he is a favorite of the +French—and succeeded his father Zacharine in 1904. His +mother was not his mother, so to speak. For <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Thong +<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>Di, first wife of Zacharine, still known as the Queen Mother, +and real ruler of the royal household, bossing even the +king himself in domestic matters, according to reliable +verbal information from a French and feminine source, had +no male children. The second-rank wife, <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Thong Si, +daughter of a high mandarin related to the royal family, +gave birth to the present monarch; but in Laos as in China +every child is officially the offspring of the first wife. His +father Zacharine seems to have been a temperate person, +considering his advantages, for the king has only three +half-brothers and six half-sisters; though it is possible that +Zacharine died with certain secrets buried in his bosom, +Occidental fashion. Half-sisters and half-brothers may marry +in Luang Prabang, by the way, which is not without its +effect on the reigning house. Also <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Sisavang Vong +Somdet Prah has at least this much in common with his +English colleague, that he had an older brother who died, +leaving him unexpectedly heir to the throne.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The latest calculations were that the present king had +fifteen wives and about forty children; on this second point +he did not seem to be very exact himself, no doubt finding +it difficult to keep strictly up to date in domestic events +within his household. Yet he did not look either worn or +dissipated, when presently he came in to shake hands and +sit down with us, perhaps because the Queen Mother takes +so many of the palace cares off his shoulders. Seven of +his sons were studying at the <i><span lang="fr">Lycée</span></i> in Hanoï; and the crown +prince, Savang Vathama, then sixteen, was nearing his +bachelor degree in a similar institution at Montpellier in +France, with the avowed intention of studying law afterward. +The king himself had a purely Laosian education +under Buddhist priests until King Zacharine sent him to a +French <i><span lang="fr">collège</span></i> at Saïgon. Later he went to the Ecole +<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>Coloniale in the Rue de l’Observatoire in Paris, where +French youths prepare for a career in the colonies. He +came home once when his father was ill, but upon his +recovery was sent back to France to get together a printing +establishment with Laosian characters and to learn how +to run it, which makes him more or less related to the late +kaiser, bookbinder.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The king was plump and pleasant, handsome for his race, +by no means betraying his all but forty years. It was easy +to imagine the girls of Luang Prabang, if not indeed of +France, “just crazy” about him, quite aside from his royal +rank. He had a frail Oriental mustache and that beautiful +bronze-brown complexion of his race. Unlike most European +monarchs he is purely of the blood of those he reigns +over. But his Majesty indulges in the chief minor vice +of his people, and the only blot on his manly beauty, and +not even that of course to the fair ones of his own land, +was that his teeth, though they were not enameled, were discolored +and his lips somewhat bloody with betel-juice. Even +now he seemed to be nursing a quid, though with a regal +finesse that it would have done our secret chewers of tobacco +good to see.</p> + +<div id='i_306' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_306a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Wind-sieved rice is the principal food of the rural inhabitants of Luang Prabang</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_306b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>With a silk scarf worn loosely over a shoulder the women of Luang Prabang capital are more coquettish than their waistless sisters of the country districts</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_307' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_307a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The palace of the king of Luang Prabang sits placidly on the bank of the upper Mekong</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_307b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>The king turned out his chief dancing-girls and masked male entertainers for my approval</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>He wore a white cork helmet, a black bow-tie about a +standing white collar on a stiff white shirt with the round +cuffs of a decade or more ago, and a snow-white three-button +coat which, in so far as my meager knowledge in sartorial +matters is trustworthy, was of the latest model. The fact +that the middle buttonhole was attached to the upper button +may have meant either a dreadful ignorance of Western +ways or merely unseemly haste in leaving his harem; or it +may have had no significance whatever. His feet were quite +properly incased in low black shoes of faultless last and +luster, but—let the spinster reader blushingly turn the page +here—he wore no trousers! His rank and calling, it seems, +forbade him these final touches to an otherwise perfectly +European costume. Instead, his thighs were inclosed in the +<i><span lang="fr">pha</span></i> or <i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i>, such as is worn by both sexes in Siam and +adjoining countries under Siamese influence. It was a +kind of short skirt, evidently of silk and of colors verging +on the gaudy, drawn between the legs and tucked into the +belt at the back, reaching to just below the knees in front +and “rather less than ‘arf o’ that be’ind.” Naturally a full-fledged +king could not leave the hiatus uncovered and keep +his self-respect. Therefore between <i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i> and shoes the +royal legs were clad in silk stockings of which the most +regal young lady of our own land might have been proud—except +that in her case they would no doubt have been of +a color to deceive the uninformed observer into thinking +she wore no stockings whatever, whereas in backward barbarian +Luang Prabang this would have been bad form. +These were jet-black and reached so far up the back as to +suggest that they were held by a band about the waist. +Indeed, it was immediately evident that the king had missed +a splendid chance for extra decoration by not wearing a +pair of red garters just below the knees.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A goodly proportion of the royal income must be spent +on stockings. For I was assured, not merely by common +rumor but by all the Frenchwomen in Luang Prabang—of +whom there are three or four—that his Majesty will under +no circumstances wear anything but silk about his shapely +legs, and that a stocking with the slightest hole in it is immediately +discarded. It would be easy to imagine his wives, +of whom he fortunately has fifteen, scrambling for these +discards of the royal wardrobe, and racing for their darning +needles, were it not that in Laos even the wives of kings +do not wear stockings.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>But do not for a moment gather from all this that +<i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Sisavang Vong Somdet Prah had the slightest hint +of the barbarian in his appearance. Except for the sacred +<i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i> in place of trousers, and the proof of a king’s income +between that and the shoes, his Majesty would have +attracted no attention whatever in a Palm Beach crowd, +unless it were by his athletic build and his agreeable undissipated +smile, and, at close range, the light touch as of +fresh blood on his lips beneath the thin well clipped mustache. +In fact of all the kings with whom I have hobnobbed +he was the most pleasing to look upon, and to all outward +appearances a gentleman not even given to bullying his +wives. His lapel was adorned with the little red button of +a French decoration—the Legion of Honor, I fancy, though +I confess to a deplorable ignorance of these important matters—and +a gold watch-chain hanging from this drew attention +to what was evidently not the thinnest of watches +in the outside breast-pocket. A signet-ring not unlike those +of our West Point and Annapolis graduates encircled his +wedding finger, and he wore a cord of what looked like ordinary +string about each wrist.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This cord decoration is something peculiar to Luang +Prabang. The <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> wore them also, as did his baby +son; possibly his charming lady did too, though I am not +sure that mere women are worthy of them. Cords are put +about the wrists amid elaborate ceremonies and must be +worn for at least seven days if they are to be effective in +preserving the wearer from evil. The king himself had come +to tie those about the wrists of the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire’s</span></i> newly born +son and heir and thereby assure it constant good luck through +all the menaces to health among European infants living in +the tropics. The French are good colonists partly because +of their wisdom in keeping up and even taking part in such +<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>simple and harmless native customs, which the average American +and British colonial official would probably scorn as +“poppycock,” if he did not actually try to uproot them. +“Poppycock” it is, to be sure, but the effect which a little +sympathy in such matters has on native populations is not.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The king spoke a fair but throaty French, but was not +exactly talkative in that tongue, whatever he may be in +his own and in the intimacies of his harem. In fact, contrary +as it may be to our movie and popular-novel conception +of royalty, he was rather bashful, with a school-boy +dread of making a mistake in the foreign tongue he +was using, and at the same time evidently fearful of doing +or saying anything that might displease the French. His +demeanor was a curious mixture of regal old-family pride, +a pride reaching so far back that we mere moderns from +a barbarian world were not worthy of knowing the secrets +of life behind it, and of the anxiety of the star in a royal +movie being filmed under the eye of the manager of the +great Jewish corporation that is “putting him across.” All +of which did not remove the first impression that <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> +Sisavang Vong Somdet Prah would be a fine fellow to +take along for a tramp or a swim, and that it would not +be long before one could begin calling him “Prah Old Top.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>All hands seemed a little ill at ease. Having exchanged +the usual platitudes, we stood about doing nothing much, +paused with admiring mien before a new bronze bust of +the king, covered with medals and decorations, and a good +likeness, though of no better color than his actual complexion, +but showing neither the betel-red lips nor the cigarette +that drips almost incessantly from them. His Majesty +handed out atrocious French tobacco-monopoly cigars worthy +of a Chinese <i><span lang="fr">tuchun</span></i>, but wisely stuck to cigarettes himself, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>smoking one after another in rapid succession. We chatted +a little on general subjects, the impression growing that +the king’s French was good enough if only he could have +thrown off the feeling that it would be an intolerable disgrace +for a king to make an error in speech. Can it be +this that makes modern monarchs and presidents so taciturn? +Among the thoughts that passed between us I gathered +that he wished to visit the emperor of Annam when Khai-dinh +celebrated his birthday the following year. I have +never heard whether he was able to do so, but if he and +his fellow-protégé, whom he so far had never met, were +allowed to get together out of hearing of the French they +must have had a great chat—provided of course that they +had a language in common.</p> + +<p class='c007'>At a mere suggestion from my companion, and as if it +were a relief from a tense situation, his Majesty graciously +stepped to the main doorway of the palace, an excellent jet-black +background for a blazing tropical sunshine that outdid +anything Hollywood can devise in lighting-effects, and posed +for his photograph. Another merest hint from the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> +and <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Sisavang Vong Somdet Prah went off at +once like a small boy to dress up for his picture, and came +back in a surprisingly short time in his most regal robes, a +radiant royal costume quite beyond my power to describe. +All the medals on the breast of bronze near-by were now +in place on the living model; he was again in women’s silk +stockings, quite evidently brand new, and this time held +up by round-the-leg garters of brilliant hue. A green and +saffron flowered-silk <i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i>—but how foolish for a man +who cannot even describe a ball-dress well enough to give +his wife any conception of it to attempt so impossible a job +as this!</p> + +<p class='c007'>Never have I found a king more docile in meeting my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>every suggestion. Barely a whisper from me and he ordered +his throne-room decked out in its coronation best, had his +royal attendants summoned. Cringing flunkies brought in +swords of state, big golden bowls, a marvelous hat of half +cowboy half women-of-the-plume-days style, studded with +jewels, and with a Burmese-pagoda top. Ascending his +throne, the king assumed his most regal aspect, his white +gloves flashing like those of a traffic policeman during a +Catholic procession. The master of ceremonies of the palace +himself brought tables and other regal paraphernalia to offset +my lack of a tripod; two men in green, each holding a +great sword, knelt fearfully at the foot of the throne, and—and +I muffed the picture. No doubt the nervous tension of +photographing kings on their thrones in their coronation-robes +would be enough to cause an even calmer and more +experienced photographer to misjudge tropical light conditions; +at any rate I so under-exposed that strip of film +that only those with keen eyesight can make out more +than the general lay-out of the throne, and the king’s white-gloved +hands on his richly sampotted knees.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lesser catastrophes have left broken hearts, but it did +not so much matter about that throne-room picture after +all, for, again at the merest suggestion of the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> and +as promptly as a circus seal obeys its trainer, the king once +more stepped to the spotlighted doorway of the palace, hat, +robes, medals, and all, to give my camera another trial, +finally posing with his French boss at his side. The <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> +was also in all his glory. Three great medals that +proved he had done this, that, or some other brave deed—for +he was not a man to have successfully bootlicked this, +that, or the other high authority—blazed over his heart. +His white uniform coat and black trousers had fancy neck, +waist, wrist, and trouser-seam bands; he wore a sword, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>with rich belt-tassels, and carried white gloves, though the +white <i><span lang="fr">casque</span></i> on his head and the black shoes on the blistering +pavement had nothing unusual about them. In short his +dress was as out of keeping with his plebeian name of Mill—were +names translated—as it was with the simple backwoods +life about us. Finally his Majesty, of his own volition +unless my eyes were momentarily off their guard, was +graciously moved to insist that I also stand beside him in +the doorway spotlight and let the camera again do its worst. +In vain did I plead my unworthiness to be thus immortalized, +like one of the boon companions of his Majesty, particularly +in my vagabondish incongruities of rumpled semi-whites, +once-tan shoes still half decided to be black, a necktie +that insisted on the right to be temperamental in a tropical +climate, a pocket bulging full of—how should I know what? +The king, I long afterward noticed, wore quite a different +face in these pictures in true royal garb than that of +the genial boulevardier he presented in mufti, something like +his own elder brother, with all the cares of state upon his +shoulders.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But all this was only the beginning of the honors that +were heaped upon me before that epoch-making day was +done! Immediately after the signal distinction of being +photographed by the resplendent <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> at the side of +the even more luminiferous king I was knocked breathless—or +at least I might have been if the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> had not +that morning whispered to me the possibility of what was +to happen next, probably before the king himself had +thought of it; in fact there had been subtle hints to that +effect as far back as Xieng Khuang, if not in Hanoï itself—by +the announcement that his Majesty was about to confer +upon me his most regal decoration, the most prominent of +the many medals on the breasts of the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> and of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>the king himself, both in bronze and in the flesh, the highest +honor of which this protected Oriental potentate is +capable, something corresponding in Luang Prabang to the +order of the Rising Sun in Japan, to wit: the order of the +Million Elephants and the White Parasol! For you must +know that Luang Prabang is not only the Kingdom of +the Divine Buddha but even more officially the Kingdom of +the Million Elephants and the White Parasol, just as King +Sisavang Vong Somdet Prah’s real title is Master of Heaven +and of Life. I do not know whether it is actually claimed +that there are so many pachyderms in the kingdom at the +same time, but a little exaggeration is always admissible in +the tropics; or it may be that the souls of departed elephants +are also included in the reckoning.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The king announced his magnificent intention by a little +speech in French, with a manner strangely like that of a +school-boy sentenced to make the class presentation speech +to a favorite teacher, and from it I gathered that I was +to be decorated because I was the only American—and the +word he used made it mean of either North or South America—who +had ever done his humble capital the honor of +visiting it. The only one of whom there is any official +record, no doubt he meant, if indeed he was not indulging +in a bit of royal spoofing; for it is known by many, if +not by the king himself, that at least one Protestant missionary +once came through the kingdom on a scouting expedition, +and the chances are that he was American. But +naturally he had not announced himself to the constituted +authorities of a country that does not allow Christian mission +work, and it may be that he did not enter the capital.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I had hitherto always been under the delusion that the +bestowal of an order meant the pinning on of the corresponding +medal by the bestower’s own fair or sunburned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>hands, and with war days in France in mind I knew not +what moment I might get a betel-juicy royal kiss on either +cheek. But this dreadful misgiving was but another evidence +of my appalling ignorance. On the contrary, to be +decorated evidently meant merely being given permission to +decorate myself. It is true that there was handed me later +in the day an engraved diploma, in Siamese and French, +bearing here and there three elephant-heads surmounted by +a white parasol, and with my name written on the dotted +line by a master penman who certainly had not learned his +calling in a Buddhist-monk school. It was neatly rolled inside +a section of bamboo to protect it from the rainy season +that was almost certain to break upon me before I reached +modern forms of transportation again. In fact I am not +sure that the king did not personally bring me this diploma, +though I do know that it was prepared in the French-staff-like +government offices far from the royal palace. But +the medal itself, the visible public proof that I have been +honored beyond any of my fellow-countrymen, any of my +fellow-hemispherites for that matter, I should have to spend +many francs for in a department-store at Hanoï, if ever +I reached there again. Being as Scotch of disposition as +I am abhorrent of the red tape incident to making a purchase +in a French department-store, I should certainly never +have squandered that hard-earned money, even with the +franc at one of its lowest ebbs, had not the family tyrant +absolutely insisted, refusing even to discuss the matter. +She won of course, and the gaudy elephantine-parasol trinket +and the ribbon in Spanish colors that goes with it has been +tucked away somewhere among my rarely-unpacked belongings +ever since. Ah, those happy bachelor days when a +man could do exactly as his whims or his conscience +prompted!</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>I might wear that medal now, or at least the modest lapel-ribbon +that stands for it, if I did not realize the injustice +that would be to those of my veteran friends who, having +risked their eyesight and digestion at Paris and Chaumont +over maps of the western front, are entitled to display similar +adornments to an envious, disappointed world, or if I were +not fearful of being mistaken for a visiting Elk or Moose or +some other fraternal wild animal and dragged into the +gilded cages provided for those creatures. My resentment +at being forced after all to decorate myself, by way of the +pocketbook, has subsided, for it seems the same rule is +true of Phi Beta Kappa pins and class numerals; but I +shall never entirely forgive Luang Prabang for bringing +me as near as I ever expect to come to the divorce courts. +For when everything was over, and I had broken the great +news to my son at Hanoï in the telegrams we exchanged +on that most auspicious occasion, which chanced also to be +his fourth birthday, I discovered to my domestic dismay +and perpetual regret that the order of the Million Elephants +and the White Parasol is also conferred upon women—at +least of France and allied countries—and that if the king +had suspected that I had a wife—queer I did not show +it after nearly five years of married life!—he would have—but +what is the use of bewailing what is past and done with +and irreparable?</p> + +<p class='c012'>The decoration speech over, the king ordered out his +dancing-girls, deathly pale with hastily floured faces, and his +male entertainers, in masks meant to be terrifying, the gaudy +colors of their festive garments contrasting with the scarcity +of soap discernible through the crevices of their costumes. +They posed rather fearfully. Some of the girls were as +young as ten, I am sure, and certainly none of them were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>over twenty, for the king has a Broadway taste in these +matters. Dancing-girls and masked male figures alike wore +an elaborate head-dress in the form of a pagoda—the Rangoon +style of pagoda, not those of China—which suggested +a close cultural relationship between Luang Prabang and +Cambodia. As to the welter of colors that flashed forth from +them in the blazing tropical sunshine I shall not even attempt +to say anything; just let the bootlegged imagination +run riot, so long as you do not forget the reddish teeth and +the swollen lips driveling with betel-nut that gave them the +look of ghouls that had just eaten a warm corpse, or of +harmless childish-faced trolls that had been caught in the +act of gorging themselves with currant jelly in the royal +jam closet.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Neither the dancers nor their king gave any sign that I +had outstayed my welcome; nor was I expected to back away +from his Majesty when at last I voluntarily took my leave. +But I have a suspicion that there was more frankness in +the attitude of the baby elephant that was cavorting about +the royal lawn in the wake of its chained and mahout-ridden +mother. For when I tried to coax it into a proper filial +position for a photograph the little beast set out after me +in a manner entirely out of keeping with its status as the +property of a tame king. So graphically could I still describe +this experience when I reached Hanoï again that to this day +my son regards the time when the elephant “switched its +trunk” about me as the height of my intrepid career.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The king of Luang Prabang keeps a number of royal elephants; +and he is no nonentity as a business man either, by +the way. Supplementing his salary, if the word suits a +monarch, of forty-six thousand piastres a year, and thereby +offsetting his consumption of silk stockings, he has much +private property, including great forests and sawmills, in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>which many of his elephants work for him. For a time some +of the royal elephants were assigned the task of dragging +rollers used in the making of roads about the capital; but they +are a tender beast, for all their size and reputed longevity, +and even with only four or five hours of labor a day, at their +two-mile-an-hour gait, with the privilege of resting every +third day, two of them died from this unwonted exertion. +The king, evidently no figurehead in his capacity as business +manager of his personal estates and property, protested, +and from four to six water-buffaloes to each roller now take +the place of an elephant.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In theory the many wild elephants in the Kingdom of the +Divine Buddha also belong to the king. When new recruits +are needed in the royal stables, some of the wild beasts +are caught by digging pits. Then a tame and a wild one +are chained together, leaving the wild elephant to tug furiously +at a collar with sharp iron points in it. The most +bellicose are fastened to a tree by a lasso about a hind leg +until they are worn out with struggle and hunger, when +the two largest <i><span lang="fr">éléphants de chasse</span></i> available take the captive +between them and shake and roll him until he decides, +like the man who foresees the lawyer fees involved in an +action for divorce, that after all he will be happier in the +domestic state. Most of those captured do not wait for this +third degree, but, suddenly resigned to their new fate, give +in to the barbed collar and stroll homeward with their false +brother, pulling up tufts of good grass as they go and calmly +tapping each mouthful on a front foot to shake the earth off +the roots before transferring it to their dainty mouths.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Whatever the baby elephant may have meant by accelerating +my exit from the palace grounds, the king himself evidently +had no intention of dismissing me so cavalierly. For +<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>within an hour of our arrival home, that is, at the rambling +one-story soft-brick house of the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i>, with its crowing +roosters—if I could rule a king I should at least banish +roosters from the back yard on which the windows of my +honored guests opened—his Majesty came alone in his Ford +to return my call and stay to lunch. He had changed back +into civilian garb—not the same garments of course in which +he had first received me—perfectly European again except +for another gay silk <i><span lang="fr">sampot</span></i> and black silk stockings out of +a newly opened box. Were kings relieved of the task of dressing +and undressing, what duties would there be left for most +of them anyway? He was received like any other invited +luncheon guest, though he was always addressed as <i><span lang="fr">Majesté</span></i> +by the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> and his well chosen wife, and the half-dozen +French functionaries they had been able to scrape +together in the kingdom. In lieu of a box of chocolates his +Majesty had sent ahead some Laosian food that is served +as dessert at the royal table. One dish was a kind of custard +cooked in small cocoanuts, the base of the husk cut down to +resemble the shank of a goblet, and preserving the cocoanut +taste. Another was a kind of vermicelli covered with nut +dust, not unlike a similar dish in China. The ordinary people +do not indulge in such delicacies, which are reserved for the +royal palace. Even there, according to my hostess, there +are few changes of menu. The king was well versed in +Western table manners, though he did not take a very active +part in the conversation, which of course was in French. +He showed up best as a sympathetic listener, and was easily +amused. In so far as my own almost unknown country +was concerned, he seemed to be particularly interested in the +Mormons and in what the French call the <i><span lang="fr">régime sec</span></i>. He +laughed for some time in his merry yet kingly way when +told that Brigham Young had forty wives and a corresponding +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>number of children, apparently without seeing any connection +between this and his own fifteen and forty respectively. +Or it may be that he was laughing at the plight +of Brigham from the vantage-point of his own experience. +The <i><span lang="fr">régime sec</span></i>, in other words, prohibition, he plainly did +not understand at all, any more than does the average Frenchman, +and there was nothing to be gained in trying to make +clear the American point of view on the subject. He would +of course have been horrified to learn that there are persons +in that benighted wineless land from which I came who +have never heard of his ancient kingdom; nor did I feel it +quite safe to pad out the conversation by bringing up the +question of silk stockings in its relation to our national +economic problem, for one can never be sure just how sensitive +kings may be on these very personal matters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It became more and more evident, however, that <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> +Sisavang Vong Somdet Prah was not born anybody’s fool, +even if circumstances and the foolishness of his father +Zacharine had left him and his kingdom in an embarrassing +position. There was something behind his Oriental-Gallic +courtesy and his almost perpetual smile. Nor did he seem +to take himself or his regality or his white elephants or any +of the rest of his royal trappings too seriously. On this +subject of white elephants, by the way, he mentioned that +one was now supposed to be on its way to him, some Laosian +merchants among his loyal subjects having captured or purchased +such an animal that had been seen in a distant part +of his kingdom. He thought Bangkok used to have one +but that his Siamese peer was now forced to do without this +adornment to their respective kinghoods. They were not +white anyway, he went on, but rather a pinkish light-gray, +like the albino water-buffalo; and his manner implied that +whatever his royal cousin of Siam might think about it, a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>white elephant to him would be merely an interesting addition +to his menagerie. “May you live as long as an elephant!” +is a common form of greeting in some parts of +the East; but quite aside from the doubtful kindness involved, +it is based on one of those many mistaken beliefs of mankind, +according to the king, corroborated by all the French +present, who asserted that no elephant ever lives longer than +have many men and women. As monarch of what may be +the most elephant-infested corner of the globe he should +be a credible witness on the subject.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All through the luncheon the punka over our heads had +moved in fitful spurts, for the coolie squatting on the cool +<i><span lang="fr">dalles</span></i> of the veranda outside fell asleep even in the presence +of royalty. His Majesty was as hard to get rid of as an +awkward country cousin, and the hostess grew visibly fidgety +before he finally remounted his Ford, for her other guests +included the doctor who should long since have been back at +the government hospital, and other functionaries eager to +take up their protective duties again, yet who could not of +course show any desire to leave so long as their monarch +and master remained. One somehow had the feeling that +a king would wish to get back to his affairs of state, or at +least to his harem, as soon as possible, but this one gave +evidence of so greatly enjoying his luncheon party that he +seemed capable of sitting there forever listening and smiling.</p> + +<p class='c012'>There are really four kings in the Kingdom of the Divine +Buddha, or were until one of them recently died. None of +them are to be replaced, however, as they pass on toward +Nirvana, except this real one with the title of <i><span lang="fr">Majesté</span></i>. The +others are merely <i><span lang="fr">Excellences</span></i>. Twice a year all the chiefs +of Luang Prabang, which is a province of Laos as well as a +kingdom, come to the capital for a conference under the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>French <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i>. It is a leisurely conference, one fancies, +for the people of Luang Prabang, high or low, do not include +the word “hurry” in their active vocabulary. Not long +before, the king had gone to Hanoï, whether for praise or a +scolding no one but the governor-general seemed to know. +Nine of his suite missed the return train to Vinh, and one old +mandarin wept like a child because he could not believe that +anything, six-o’clock trains particularly, started at the very +moment these strange white people said it would. He had +been barely half an hour late, yet the conveyance had left +without him! From Vinh, by the way, all but the most important +members of the party had to walk home with the +coolies, while the king proceeded by automobile over the +route by which I had come. Even the prince who had been +sent to meet me at Muongyu had made this long tramp. Evidently +the position of prince has its drawbacks in an ostensibly +absolute Oriental monarchy—for that Luang Prabang +still purports to be, with the French merely advisers to the +hereditary despot. You may marry a king’s daughter, but +that does not mean that you may ride in the king’s Ford. But +the travelers by automobile gained nothing in time, for the +whole outfit had to wait a couple of weeks at Xieng Khuang +until the baggage caught up with it, while the undressed monarch +remained officially incognito until his trunks arrived. +On another occasion a French aviator took him to his forest-girdled +capital in a single day.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are ceremonial occasions when the king comes to +the home of the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i>, not by Ford but on an elephant, +and is carried up the steps seated on his throne, white parasols +over him and a great retinue about him. The French +residents condoled with me particularly because I had not +reached Luang Prabang <i><span lang="fr">quinze jours</span></i>—a fortnight—earlier. +For in the Kingdom of the Divine Buddha New Year’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>had fallen on April 12 that year, and with it comes the ceremony +of the <i><span lang="fr">petit serment</span></i>, as distinguished from the <i><span lang="fr">grand +serment</span></i> in November; that is, the swearing of fealty to the +French and to the king—please note the order. Then the +king rides on several elephants, I gathered, though probably +only one at a time, and is carried through the town on his +throne, followed by long processions of notables and mandarins +in white jackets and <i><span lang="fr">sampots</span></i> of every color of the +rainbow, if not indeed several which it lacks. The common +people, all the inhabitants of the capital except the Annamese +and the French, kneel and bow their heads to the earth, for +then they must not look upon their king, though it is said a +few of the least reverent sometimes do get a glimpse <i><span lang="fr">à la +dérobée</span></i>. To judge by the pictures French residents had +taken of the recent ceremony it was a sight worth coming two +weeks earlier to see. In them all the inevitable cigarette was +dangling from the king’s lips; no ceremony is so solemn, no +place so sacred, that <i><span lang="fr">Tiao</span></i> Sisavang Vong Somdet Prah will +go without his smoke. As many a photograph of the few +remaining European monarchs and their possible successors +shows, he has good precedent for thus openly indulging. +Perhaps it is a sign of increasing democracy; or such informal +and plebeian habits may always have been shared by +kings, though our expurgated histories do not mention them. +Cigarette or Ford, however, the people of Luang Prabang +take their king very seriously, more seriously than he does +himself. The native doctor at the government hospital, educated +in Hanoï and outwardly entirely French except in +complexion, kneels and touches his forehead to the floor +before he gives medicine to one of the king’s sons in the +palace nursery.</p> + +<div id='i_322' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_322.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Knighted in the Kingdom of the Divine Buddha</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_323' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_323a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Two royal elephants saw me off from the palace, the youngster showing a desire to make me depart on the run</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_323b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A Miao woman on her travels carries bed and food</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVII<br> <span class='c011'>SPEEDING SOUTHWARD</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>From the capital of Luang Prabang I again broke all +existing records by making the trip overland to Vientiane, +the French capital of Laos, in five days. Normally +this takes twelve, or at the very least ten, and every articulate +person in the metropolis of the upper Mekong insisted that +it would, or at any rate should, be quite impossible to accomplish +this journey within the time I chanced to have at my +disposal. Fortunately my ideal host of Luang Prabang, and +a few others who had also seen our army in France, though +neither he nor they had ever been in the Western Hemisphere, +admitted that perhaps an American could do it, especially +an American who had made the trip from Xieng Khuang +to Luang Prabang capital in three days and a couple of +hours. At any rate the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> and the king he served +offered to do all they could to help in what they considered +a very dubious undertaking.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Once again I loudly disclaim any desire to hurry; there is +nothing I dislike more. Yet as between the misery of rushing +and that of missing some important part of a country +through which I am permitted to pass once in an existence I +prefer to hurry. If only I had been born believing in the +delightful doctrine of the transmigration of souls, with the +assurance that there would be plenty of other lives after this +one in which to roam through every corner of this interesting +if often disillusioning old footstool of ours, no doubt I could +<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>be as phlegmatic and time-impervious as any Oriental backwoodsman.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This time I had to hurry because the fortnightly steamer +from Vientiane was to leave on the following Thursday +morning, the first day of May, and it was already midnight +on Friday when I finished my packing, got my bamboo-protected +diploma of decoration safely tucked away and a +few supplies bought, and turned from a final social evening +with the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> family into the last soft wide bed in +some days to come. It was doubly too bad that I had not +arrived <i><span lang="fr">quinze jours plus tôt</span></i>—a fortnight earlier, for then +I should not only have seen the ceremony of the <i><span lang="fr">petit serment</span></i> +but I might have avoided the hardships both of hurrying +and of the overland trip. Perhaps I am getting lazy in my +old age, or it may have been the climate, and the recent exertions +of swift travel and royal excitement; at any rate I +should have preferred to go down the Mekong with a floating +village that had been prepared for a party of Frenchmen, +and women, who had left just before I arrived. But for +the automobile disaster on the way to Xieng Khuang I might +have joined them; though I might not have reached Vientiane +in time for the steamer, for with the water as low as it was +then those floating villages sometimes take two weeks for +the trip.</p> + +<p class='c007'>More exactly they are floating furnished houses, a combination +of raft and boats surmounted by three or four rooms +and servant quarters, two small windows on each side of the +superstructure, and all those refinements one expects among +such a comfort-loving people as the French. At high water +these house-rafts can go down the Mekong in fewer days +than are required for the overland trip through the jungle, +though by no means so fast as I proposed to make it; and +at all times this way of leaving Luang Prabang is so usual +<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>that rarely does a Frenchman in the colonial service go by +land. In fact most of those bound for the capital come up +the river also, though that is a hard and tedious job—for the +native boatmen. An official salary continues unabated irrespective +of speed. Upon due reflection, no doubt, an income +forever dragging at the heels of my personal exertions has +much more to do with my weakness for hurrying than have +any impressions on the transmigration of souls. This trip +down the river is not only comfortable, but interesting and +sometimes exciting, if not dangerous. The <i><span lang="fr">piroguiers</span></i> say +prayers and throw food into the air, or place it, as well as +flowers, on the bow of the boat before passing bad rapids, +that the unseen spirits may be propitiated. But on board, all +the amenities of French civilization prevail, from whist to +the three-cornered drama, and romance has culminated and +domestic disaster befallen during these long and too restful +journeys.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By trail Luang Prabang is 347 kilometers from Vientiane, +nearly 225 miles, which was quite a distance to be divided +among five days, even with a slope of several hundred meters +in my favor. Luckily those twenty-seven kilometers of +“automobilable” road at the Luang Prabang end would again +be useful, and there were about a hundred, with a growing +tendency, stretching northward from Vientiane, leaving me +something like a hundred miles of mountainous trail to cover +on foot and horseback. To make matters worse it rained +most of that Friday night, so that when I set off before the +crack of dawn in the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire’s</span></i> Ford, the Annamese +chauffeur did not promise to make record speed. This soft +dirt road gets very slimy on the least provocation, and there +were slopes enough during that mildly up-and-down ride +through the forest to provide many a skidding place. By +seven, however, we were back at the village of Don-mo, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>if the local Frenchman had not been so slow in breaking away +from his <i><span lang="fr">congaïe</span></i>-shared breakfast in his thatched hut I should +have been off again at once instead of half an hour later. +Here I found three good horses, the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire’s</span></i> own +mounts, with comfortable French cavalry-saddles. One was +bestridden by a Laosian sergeant who had won two decorations +in France, and one by another prince, <i><span lang="fr">Chao</span></i> Thong Souk. +Related to the king and to my former emissary, <i><span lang="fr">Chao</span></i> Duong +Chan, he was an equally delightful and helpful companion, +a bit younger and, I gathered, unmarried, a youth of most +pleasant manners and disposition, speaking excellent French. +He had left the capital the morning before, with the horses, +the sergeant, and half a dozen coolies carrying some supplies +and all but the nightly indispensable portion of my modest +baggage; now he and the coolies sped on ahead, leaving the +sergeant with me as guide and body-guard, while I passed +the unavoidable courtesies with the Frenchman in native +garb.</p> + +<p class='c007'>That over, we were off by a trail that had been cut more +or less directly through the jungle-choked forest, first across +the flat, then up a hill so steep that sweat ran even on horseback. +Up this we had quite a job coaxing along the Laosian, +or Pwun, coolies, who wished to stop and eat even before we +overtook the prince and the others. When we did join them, +it carried me back to my old care-free vagabond days to hear +again the cry of “Kin kow!”—the Siamese equivalent to the +“Come and get it!” of our army cooks—like the voice of a +friend of long ago and far away. For the language of Luang +Prabang is almost that of Siam, the writing quite the same. +We ate and drank and pushed on again; one secret of breaking +cross-country records is to give less than French attention +to the delights of the table. It looked strange to see men +<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>wearing only a loin-cloth, and a dagger in a scabbard woven +like a basket and held by a fiber band across the chest, putting +up telegraph-poles; but the French insist on being able to +talk to one another anywhere in Indo-China, and government +ownership of telegraph lines has at least one advantage over +the high-cost private system of the United States and China.</p> + +<p class='c007'>No wonder the Chinese drove out the Tai! Two Laosian +carriers bore between them about half the load of one Chinese +coolie; they made much less speed, not to mention their +many complaints along the way, and at that they had to be +relieved every few hours, or at least at the end of a day. +For a load I had often seen one Chinese jog along under +day after day of from ninety to a hundred <i><span lang="fr">li</span></i> we had eight +men; the cot or the valise that a Chinese coolie would carry +at one end of his shoulder-pole, with as much at the other, +and any odds and ends on top, these tropical fellows put in +the middle of two long bamboos between two men.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Do not misunderstand me as blaming them; as between +the two I should act like the Laosians. But the difference +indicated how great is the adaptability of the human frame, +for these men were if anything larger, sturdier, certainly +more visibly muscular than Chinese carriers. They were like +those muscle marvels one sees in gymnasiums and in physical +culture magazines, no good at all beside the wiry little shrimp +when it comes to real sustained hardships. Unless hunger +or the white man drives them, the Laosians do little work; +they are so happy-go-lucky in their tropical fairy-land that +their rulers even have trouble making them keep their communal +granaries filled against possible famines. For that +matter, neither do the Chinese work unless driven, of course; +but they have been incessantly just one jump ahead of starvation +for so many centuries that they do not remember, cannot +<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>imagine, anything else, until their frames have grown to +endure, on far less food, what would kill a plump muscular +Laosian.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Up and down we went, through cool forests and over red-hot +mountain ridges where too much good shade had been +cut away for the telegraph line, with one hard river to cross. +In this I lost the precious army canteen that had served me +all through China, the sergeant having tied it to my saddle +with a piece of vine. I might have known that there was no +real string in such a land and been less careless about seeing +my orders carried out. It was the most serious mishap of +the trip, for without water always within reach even riding +becomes a hardship in tropical jungle where streams are often +hours apart.</p> + +<p class='c007'>While prince, sergeant, and I looked in vain for the rushing +stream to cast up the canteen, the coolies went bathing. +They were all of the “black paunch” tribe, as distinguished +from the “white paunch,” or untattooed ones, though it is +not really the paunch that is decorated. The man of this +branch of the Laosian or Tai race is never without his pants, +even when he is stark naked. Nearly all of them are solidly +tattooed in blue—invisible alas to the ordinary camera—from +the waist to the knees, a wide tattooed belt with lacy +ends about the floating ribs and a lacy effect like ruffles just +below the bend of the knees. The design of this hip and +thigh covering is always “lions” within squares with rounded +corners, all touching one another, either as a protection +against or to give the wearer the bravery of the lion. With +the figures are mingled sacred texts, said to be Pali in +Laosian or Siamese script. The priests especially are covered +with these sacred writings, it is said, but one can never really +know what is under the yellow robe. Women seldom if ever +wear these tattooed substitutes for the Scotchman’s kilt, say +<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>those who should know, perhaps because they are in no +danger from evil spirits, or cannot be saved anyway. Some +of the men also had red tattooing on the upper part of the +body, red squares on the chest, all sorts of things on the +back, though none of them obscene nor as crude as the tattooing +on some of our sailors. One of my men was overrun +with red lizards; some were whole picture-books or comic +supplements or intricate signs of the zodiac. There was one +fellow whose whole back was covered with a lesson in arithmetic +or geometry, even trigonometry for all I know, as if a +small brother or a schoolmaster had used him as a slate. +Others had only one leg tattooed, generally the left, or both +of them only on the buttocks, or simply the fronts of the +thighs, or merely spots here and there, all according to personal +caprice, taste, swank, or an attack of cowardliness before +the job was finished. Unlike most tribal decorations of +the sort this tattooing may be put on at any age, whenever +courage is ripe.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I thought several times that afternoon that the men were +going to give up entirely. They lay down in the road as if +completely exhausted, something I had never seen a Chinese +carrier do in all my two years of wandering in China; but +finally we coaxed them at dark into a scattered little thatched +town in the jungle on the edge of the clear rushing river +that had made off with my canteen. The place was named +Ban-long, with a waterfall to lull me to sleep in the basket-weave +<i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> where I soon stretched out on my cot, for we had +to start very early again. There was difficulty in getting men +in time, and without the prince I should not have been +able to get them at all. But he, working most of the night +through the obsequious village head-man, collected twelve +substitutes for our eight lazy Pwun or Nuong carriers, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>we were off in the soft, black tropical night between two and +three in the morning.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Two of the new men had gathered some sections of dried +bamboo six or eight feet long to be used as torches, which +made it to some extent harder than ever to see the way +through the steep gullies cut deeply into the soil of the densest +possible jungle and forest. Particularly was it hard going +after the torches had gone out, much worse than if we had +never had them, and for more than an hour we struggled in +utter darkness over a devilish trail. It was one of those +damnable trails that are always wading a stream, always the +same stream at that, like a chatterer who can think of nothing +original to say, and now and again climbing steeply up and +down the bank of it. Daylight showed the dense vegetation +deeply green, a land as far from China as if we were on +another continent, and disclosed our dozen carriers to be Kha +wild from the mountains, picturesque figures even in a land +as out of the ordinary as Laos.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Instead of tattooed pants or cloth <i><span lang="fr">sampots</span></i> these primitive +fellows wore short cloth breeches like running-pants, and +some of them had more or less of an upper garment also. +They showed no tattooing, or at least very little, but rattled +with bracelets of glass and other cheap materials, and had +large earrings of all shapes, preferably not mates and if possible +utterly unlike on the two sides of the same head. The +few who did not have earrings put flowers or vine strings +or leaves in the holes in their ears to keep them ready for +more prosperous times. They had the eyes and the ways of +the real wild man; yet, being former slaves, they were more +docile than the Laosians or Pwun.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of the aboriginal tribes driven into the mountains by the +Tai invasion of nearly two thousand years ago, it is estimated +that there are still a hundred thousand of these Kha +<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>and other more or less indigenous stock. Thus there is a +great mixture of races under King Sisavang Vong Somdet +Prah, besides the “black paunch” and “white paunch” +Laosians of his own race. At Muongsing, chief town of the +military territory, administered by Luang Prabang, in a far +corner of Laos, a French official counted thirty-two races, +each in its own costumes and with its own customs, at the +weekly market day. The Kha are a hill people who made +complete submission to the former rulers of Luang Prabang, +admitting themselves slaves, and now they accept the present +monarch as king and are loyal to him, lending help of this +kind upon royal demand, though one could not hire them as +carriers in the ordinary way. These fellows carried a slim +ration of glutinous rice in little round baskets with a telescope +cover, and some uncooked rice in a cloth at the back of the +waist, just as do some South American Indians. At their +sides hung a kind of machete, in a sheath made of half a +bamboo with wooden strips across it, much the sort of thing +a Boy Scout turned loose in the woods might contrive. They +were as small as upper grammar-school boys, and though they +looked hardier than almost any tame people, they were really +even less useful as carriers than the Pwun. They prefer to +carry by a band across the forehead, but as my baggage was +not arranged for that method most of them were forced to +endure one end of the stiff whole-bamboo that takes the place +of the wiser springy split-bamboo or hickory carrying-poles +of the Chinese—because one of them alone cannot carry a +real load. Yet on the whole the long file of silent, rather +anemic fellows made better time, thanks perhaps to their +lighter loads, than those of the day before.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Unlike the talkative Laosians and in great contrast to the +chattering Chinese these aboriginal mountaineers made hardly +a sound as they plodded along. The language of Laos or +<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>Luang Prabang is less noisy than the guttural up-and-down +Annamese. The men of the first day had spoken with an +almost English intonation; Kha speech seemed a bit more +Chinese, with much rolling of the <i><span lang="fr">r</span></i>. Some of them spoke +Laosian, but with what my prince called a “malabar” accent.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the mountains of Luang Prabang kingdom, high over +several of which I passed on my overland trip, especially +on this Sunday, one of the longest days of my life, the Kha +live in as primitive conditions as in the days of Alexander +the Great. The Kha villages I saw were the lowest type of +human dwelling; filth and stupidity seemed to be the prevailing +characteristics. All our romantic yarns about the simple +life of savages leave us with the false impression that they +are hardier than civilized people, and the writers rarely mention +the dirty, the truly animal conditions in which they live. +The Kha are as innocent of any idea of cleanliness as the +lowest class of Chinese, in great contrast to the Tai about +them, and it is not strange that they have more smallpox +than the rest of the population. Some were so timid that +I had to drive them out of their reed and grass huts into +the light necessary for photography, just as one might drive +some wild animal out of its warm but dirty lair, so timid that +I had to manhandle a group of both sexes that came along +the trail one day, before they gave up their temptation to +run away without posing for my dreaded camera. In most +of the huts grandmother and even skinnier grandfather were +tending the third generation while the intermediate one was +out in the hills in quest of a livelihood. Some of the villages +had their basket-like thatched-top huts raised above the +ground, like those of the other people of Laos; the commoner +custom was to squat on the ground itself in a thatch +structure like a flat wigwam. The women, and for that matter +the men, were all naked to the waist, a disgusting custom +<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>in the case of the old women, whose breasts were as shrunken +as if they were about to dry up and drop off. They gave +one an unhappy reminder of how brief is the span of human +existence. Old men and women alike had holes in their ears +large enough to hold a cigar.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All day we climbed over great hills, one veritable mountain +range. Most of these were densely wooded; yet in places +there was little real forest, but mainly <i><span lang="fr">brousse</span></i>, especially +the swift-growing bamboo, because they had so often been +burned off. Here and there patches of hillsides, even of +mountain-sides, were being or had recently been cleared in +this primitive way and were now more or less velvety-brown +and strewn with fallen charred trees. For like the Miao the +Kha still burn a new strip of forest whenever they wish to +plant, cutting down mammoth trees just to clear the way, +and leaving them to rot. What the coffin-makers of China +would not have given for some of them! But I saw nothing +planted, perhaps because the end of April is too early in +these highlands, as in the grass-grown rice-fields we came +upon lower down. Every now and then a tiny hut as bright as +if it had been made of new straw stood forth in the middle +of a recent clearing, the sleeping-place evidently of a pioneer +husbandman too far from home to commute. Upland rice, +needing no flooding, and other jungle products are grown by +the Kha and the other hill people, and sometimes carried to +Luang Prabang itself, though most of them merely grow +enough to feed themselves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The little clusters of very simple huts of the Kha were +not near even this rarely traveled trail, but in places half inaccessible—and +for many people wholly so—beyond valleys +or great gullies across which they can look and see in miniature +the very thin trickle of traffic and consider themselves +in the world but not of it. One fancied they would not enjoy +<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>an apartment at the corner of Broadway and Forty-second +Street. These hardly accessible places were often so far +apart that it would take hours of climbing to call on the +nearest neighbor. No wonder, when the cluster of huts of +the nearest girl is across three chasms and two ridges, that +the swain knocks her on the head and brings her home without +further formality, to save himself the labor of courting +under such onerous conditions.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In contrast to China, the only visible evidences of religious +belief in these wilder parts of Luang Prabang kingdom are +bamboo arrows and bits of woven wicker squares and the +like, beside the trail here and there. These, the prince told +me, were warnings, either that a trap of arrows had been +set for wild animals somewhere on the path leading off into +the <i><span lang="fr">brousse</span></i>, or that a Kha village was engaged in formalities +to which strangers were not invited. Docile as they are, the +Kha have been known to kill even Frenchmen who have overlooked +or persisted in disobeying these warnings. Hence +little is known of the religion of this primitive tribe, except +that it acknowledges innumerable genii, good and bad, and +that there are many things the visitor must not do, many +things taboo not only for the Kha themselves but for any one +who enters their villages, because to do them would be to stir +up the evil spirits to wreak vengeance on the villagers +themselves.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Now and again there was a mighty granite mountain with +the sheer sides of the sky-scrapers it dwarfed in size, clothed +with as much vegetation as can get foothold, vegetation +made wilder and more hardy by the struggles of its ancestors +in such places. But for long distances there were no signs +of man, except the twelve carriers snaking along through the +tall grass, touches of red in their old and often ragged and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>always weather-faded garments contrasting with their brown +bodies and their black heads bobbing above the vegetation. +We went for hours along a mountain ridge in a path all but +obliterated by a wild grass often horseman high, with many +splendid tiger-lairs. Great bamboos or trees had here and +there fallen across it, so that there was sometimes just room +for a horse to pass without its rider. These ridges opened +out great green vistas of scrub and forest on either hand, +and of the striking peaks of the long range over which we +climbed most of that arduous Sunday, to end in rain and +slippery going through ever hotter jungle. For at the end +we went down miles of trail steeper than any stairway, into +shaded jungle lanes, with rivers to cross incessantly, the +raging rivers of another watershed. Down, down, down to +what in season would again be flat rice-fields with earth +borders set like trays one above the other. On the swift +slope we passed an old man and a boy with a crossbow and +some pencil-like arrows, who were evidently stalking birds, +for all the rain. One of the pleasant things about simple +“wild” people is the companionship between old men and +boys—and, I suppose, between old women and girls when +they are off by themselves—so much closer and more congenial +than among civilized people, where the old have usually +been educated entirely out of the naïve childhood point of +view and cannot forget how much more they fancy they +know than the child knows.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Unlike the Chinese the Kha coolies were not afraid of the +rain—or at least they were less afraid of it than of the prince. +They slashed down banana-leaves as umbrellas and kept right +on going. Yet a little rain makes a jungle journey quite different. +The slopes become toboggans, the trails impetuous +streams or quagmires, rivers rise until they cannot be forded, +all vegetation wets whom and whatever it touches, leeches +<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>sally forth to seek whom they may devour—so that we were +glad indeed when the rain let up a little and insects began +again to chirp and birds to whistle rather than sing their +gladness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We came down at length into the valley of Ban-napha, +with a splendid sky-line of mountains behind it, and finally +brought up, rather weary, at a <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>, just long enough before +dark so that we could hope to make preparations for another +early start in the morning. Village chiefs bent low before +the emissary of the king, putting their hands on their knees, +for evidently this prince was not close enough to royalty to +be worthy of the complete squat; or the people here may +have been more independent. In turn the head-man of a +village is a real boss—provided he has a very commanding +way. This one of Ban-namon, otherwise known as Muong +Kassy—<i><span lang="fr">ban</span></i> seems to mean town, and a <i><span lang="fr">muong</span></i> is a division +something like the commune of France—did not have much +head-man personality, or he had less respect or fear for +princely orders than his attitude suggested; so that when I +went for my daily conversation with my family I had also +to wire back to the <i><span lang="fr">commissaire</span></i> and insist on fresh horses, +for none had been provided, the strict orders of the king +and the French notwithstanding. I did not wish to abuse +the stout animals of my good host of Luang Prabang, and +two days over such trails was a good week’s work for any +horse, though I walked as much as I rode. But the threat +to go on with them served excellently as a lever to move the +prince to force the head-man to have other horses available +in the morning. We knew they could be had, for we had +seen not a few well fed ones in the fat wet fields of the little +valley, along with water-buffaloes taking their ease in their +beloved mud-holes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I found my way back from the telegraph hut through the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>densely dark and humid night to a two-room <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> with the +usual springy floor of woven-bamboo splints, set in a wide +grassy yard beside the trail. The sergeant, for whom this +forced march was hard work, since he seemed to have brought +back tuberculosis as well as a decoration or two from his +war days in France, was worn out; and even the prince +admitted that he was tired, though at his age one never +really is. The Kha should have been most weary of us all, +but they crawled obsequiously in on their hands and knees to +bring me water in a section of bamboo or to hand me anything +I asked or the prince sent them for. They ate jungle +food that had very little in common with ours, out on the +soft floor of the raised porch on which they slept. Somehow +I was sorry to lose these simple picturesque fellows when we +left Ban-namon.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We were off again at daylight, with poor native horses, +as if the head-man had picked, or had imposed upon him, +the leanest in town, and with somewhat less “wild” coolies. +We had marched in the rain for barely two hours when the +cavalcade all halted at another town, with an humble <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i>, +for a lunch all around and to change coolies again, though +those from Ban-namon had hardly gone five miles. Probably +that was all the weak head-man could get them to agree +to do; or it may be that certain towns are definitely stations +on this overland trail. The prince had only to order the +village chief, or the inhabitants themselves, to furnish new +carriers, however, and they were soon there, though from +then on we changed as often as we came to a village, sometimes +two or three times a day. The coolies still seemed to +be Kha, but they were men who had come into more contact +with the outside world than those who had been with me +all that strenuous Sunday, and they had lost some of the +ornaments, simplicity, and politeness. Perhaps they were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>not Kha at all, for they had all sorts of tattooing, and some +of them had raised welts, like the bush negroes of Dutch +Guiana. Each man according to his fancy wore a kind of +kilt that was really a mere strip of cloth wound about him +from waist to knees. Now and then we passed a woman on +a journey, in a costume in which she would not have been +unnoticed on Broadway, wearing earrings, neck-rings, two +bracelets on each arm, and a barrel-shaped strip of cloth +from nipples to knees, and carrying her bed and belongings, +consisting of a sack hanging down from her forehead and +on her back a rolled-up grass or reed mat on which to spend +her virtuous nights.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By this time I had fourteen coolies for what one Chinese +would have, and often had, carried—except that the prince +and the sergeant had a few things. With every change we +seemed to get more carriers, as if they were bent on dividing +the task until no one had anything much to carry; and at +that they dawdled along, using every possible excuse to halt. +Fancy me traveling with three horses and fourteen men, and +most of my things in Hanoï at that! It was almost like a +<i><span lang="fr">safari</span></i> in central Africa, such as my wealthy fellow-wanderers +can afford. Certainly the passive resistance of which we +have been hearing so much of late is no new doctrine in the +East; your Oriental carriers or servants were past masters +at it long before Gandhi was born.</p> + +<div id='i_338' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_338a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A Kha home in the mountains of Luang Prabang</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_338b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Grandfather and grandmother of the primitive Khas tend the children while the intermediate generation seeks the family livelihood in the hills</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_339' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_339a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Wherever his habitat, the water-buffalo is happiest when immersed to the nostrils in a mud-hole</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_339b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>One group of the many Laosian carriers who bore my few belongings across Luang Prabang</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>Or perhaps the fellows were spreading out my baggage +as much as possible in order to give me more honor; for +in Laos the importance of a traveler depends upon the amount +of baggage he carries, the amount of trouble he puts the +country to in getting him through it, even as in many other +lands. The king never travels without an enormous retinue +and tons of baggage, whether he needs it or not; and if he +gets separated from it he withdraws into incognito. One +reason the coolies of Laos cannot carry more is that each +of them has a <i><span lang="fr">musette</span></i> containing his personal belongings and +food, a knife in a wooden scabbard, and increasing odds +and ends, until by this time they had nearly as much baggage +as we, in sharp contrast to the Chinese, who, in a land of +strong and constant competition, carry almost nothing of +their own. On this third afternoon two men carried nothing +but the loads of the others, and they seemed to be getting +weaker as their own loads grew ever bigger. If this kept +up I should have to have two men for every one who was +actually carrying for me and my escort.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Rocky mountain scenery increased, with great sheer cliffs, +filtered sunshine on wet vegetation and brown. Here banana +blossoms were a beautiful pink instead of the usual beautiful +purple; there were giant ferns in great clusters, one leaf +easily twenty feet long, a tree so covered with vines that it +looked like an old ruined pagoda, cathedral aisles of damp +and deeply shaded path. We crossed many streams; and—who +says “wild” men do not know enough to invent speedy +measures?—found on either side of them several of the two +or three section pieces of bamboo which the people of this +region use as water-pails. The men caught them up on one +side of the stream, scooped them full of water as they crossed, +drank as they walked, and threw them away again, to be +picked up once more by the next comer from the opposite +direction. All that third afternoon we went down with a +small river through a narrow corridor of magnificent cliffs, +everywhere wooded except on the sheerest faces—spires, +turrets, pinnacles, stalactites and stalagmites, whole Milan +cathedrals of jagged rocky peaks, scenery which, were it +within two hundred miles of New York, would have a hundred +thousand visitors every Sunday; yet here no one but a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>rare roving foreigner ever gives it a passing glance. Lost +in the <i><span lang="fr">brousse</span></i> and unnoticed, it was like many an unknown +thing, deed, person, in the self-styled civilized world—far +greater than others many times better known because they +happen to have won publicity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This region is noted for its leeches, especially during the +rainy season that was now descending upon us. On that +rainy Sunday afternoon the feet of my Kha were all bleeding, +and were covered with the scars of what were evidently +old leech-bites. These pests snatch upon the passer-by from +the bushes overhanging the narrow trails, particularly after +a shower; they get in somehow, even though one is not barefooted, +soak the traveler’s legs and socks in blood before +he knows they are there, and he may be all day or all night +in getting the flow stopped. In the middle of this third +afternoon, chancing to pass a hand over an ankle, I felt a +disgustingly soft lump under one of my high socks. Suddenly +feeling the other leg with misgiving, I found it had +two such unwelcome guests. Not far beyond we halted at +a lonely little rest-house in the bush, and while the men +rested and washed their feet, some of them put lumps of +tobacco, such as they used in their long slim pipes, and other +jungle leaves, on the three wounds; but at least one of them +did not entirely stop bleeding until the next day. In the +shade of the rest-house sat an aged priest in trail-worn +yellow robe, who was making his way slowly northward, +though he was old enough to be done with earthly traveling, +at least in his present body. If that lasted, he hoped—or +perhaps we should say expected, for he looked like too true +a disciple of Gautama to be still burdened with the earthy +desire we call hope—to reach Luang Prabang toward the +end of the next month.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The last half of that day was bright with sunshine, through +<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>ever lower jungle between mountain ridges, until we put up +on the broad springy floor of a <i><span lang="fr">bonzerie</span></i> in a place called Ban-phatang. +The sergeant and his helpers from among the +carrier coolies did our cooking out on the covered porch, +some of the village round about languidly looking on; but +the priests who occupied with us the building and porch +showed little curiosity indeed. I had time for a shave, to +the surprise of the beardless natives, then for a bath in the +clear little river that raced past the town. Down this shot +now and then a man with only a loin-cloth over his tattooed +thighs, riding a little green bamboo raft, the only part of the +craft above water being a raised place for a bundle of a few +clothes and other belongings, and a jackfruit for possible +hunger. Simple travel indeed! It made one long to be a +care-free youth on the road again. Women were bathing +children and themselves here also, especially now toward +sunset, but no one came to stare at me, though in China +there would have been a regular circus audience. Nor was +this for lack of energy, for on the whole these were a well +built, muscular, and very healthy-looking people, with few +if any signs of a social disease so common in Annam and +China and with almost none of the filth diseases. Though +the women all showed their breasts and thought nothing of +it, one never saw even a bathing man completely naked. So-called +barbarian peoples, though they commonly wear only a +loin-cloth or its feminine equivalent, are usually as exacting +about having that in place as we are with our own clothing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The uncrowded, simple, but commodious houses of these +Laosian villages are always set well apart and high above +the ground, back among palm-trees, banana-plants, and the +like. They do not have to crowd together and save all the +arable land for rice to feed too numerous mouths, for here a +gentle Buddhism takes the place of an ancestor-worship so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>ardent that offspring must be had at any effort and cost. +Most families have round or square granaries like huge +covered baskets made of wide woven splints and covered by +a big thatch roof, all raised off the ground out of reach of +rats. The simple houses themselves were of similar materials, +a ladder of half a dozen bamboo or pole rungs leading +up to the big porch at one end, and close to the floor, a tiny +window or two that can be pushed open to one side. Such a +village is a thousand per cent more pleasant than a Chinese +town, even when there is no public stopping-place except +in the same room with slightly supercilious priests who sometimes +break sound sleep with their devotions. There is an +incredible amount of bathing and great quiet compared to +densely packed Chinese existence. Such a village is like +a country home in its atmosphere, while those of China resemble +tenement-living on the worst of East Sides.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The half-naked women had little objection to posing for +their pictures, though they were fully as modest as their +sisters anywhere else. Some of them would not have commanded +princessly salaries in a New York extravaganza, +unless they could have worn masks; others were distinctly +attractive even in features. Yet all this South Sea talk about +the ease of life in such tropical Edens is largely nonsense. +They take life more tranquilly, it is true, but they have a lot +of hard work to do for all that, much more hard work than +do the citified people of our own land who rave about this +idyllic life on the sweat-band of Mother Earth, many things +which they would in fact be quite unable to do; and there +seems to be just as much force of public opinion, the same +politicians and similar nuisances to make life miserable. If +there are no coal strikes or gasoline despots, on the other +hand there are leeches in a more literal form; though there +are no trolley or motor cars, in compensation spring chickens +<span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>sell at a nickel and really fresh eggs at two or three cents a +dozen. A gentle unspoiled people, too obsequious by our +standards, on the whole they lead a visibly happier life than +do our own serious and hurried people of the West.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These Laosian villagers grow their own cotton, and the +women spin this and the kapok of their great tropical trees +on a crude wheel without a felly, then weave it on hand-looms +into the garment they wear as skirt or wrapper. Beneath +many a house, or under the projecting porch roof at +the end of it, may be seen the lady of the family, in the +usual comfortable and economical upper garment of nothing +at all, leisurely engaged at her household tasks, while others, +some of them far from ugly, sit in the shade beneath their +pile-raised dwellings weaving their simple wardrobes, in +rather striking patterns and of excellent wearing qualities, +on the crudest of looms, with a stick shuttle that is thrown +back and forth by hand. They hull their rice as it is needed, +by stepping on the end of a long pole ending in a big wooden +pestle, which falls monotonously into a wooden mortar, a +hollowed section of large tree-trunk. These seem to be the +chief occupations, but there are many others, as the traveler +with time to watch their goings and comings during a few +evenings will discover. As in southern China, the pan-basket +in which rice is screened and prepared for cooking is made +of bamboo splints, but they use clean water rather than any +filth in which to wash it. The most hurried Laosian journey +is a great relief from the putrescence, the crowding curiosity, +the debauching superstitions of China. I thought I liked the +Chinese, but I was less sure of it after this trip among the +Laosians of gentle Buddhist faith.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The smallest village has a few Buddhist priests, the support +of whom by giving them food seems to be almost the only +religious practice of the lay inhabitants. The younger bonzes +<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>make the rounds each morning with their begging-bowls before +the sun is high, and now and then a man or woman +kneels on the ground as a priest pauses to perform for a +moment or two some hocus-pocus in reward for the charity, +and then turns abruptly away, as if to imply that the giver +has had his money’s worth. Begging is not looked upon as in +the West, but as something perfectly natural, so that neither +giver nor receiver seems to feel he is doing anything out of +the ordinary. If I may judge by my two princely companions, +all Laosian Buddhists say their prayers before going +to bed as religiously as any Christian, nay, as any true Mohammedan. +But they were more like people thanking a +kindly benefactor with unforced gratitude than like men +praying out of dread of a punishing God, and the true +Laosians at least showed little if any of the fear of demonology +rampant among the super-superstitious Chinese. No +doubt nature is so gentle with them that the religion of +fear, the dread and consequent attempts at propitiation of +innumerable evil forces always waiting to do them harm, +does not grow up within them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On the other hand these naïve jungle-dwellers do not lack +physical fear. They crouched at the trail-side raising palmed +hands to me; in the more settled districts farther south long +rows of them crowded against the wall of the mountain road, +even turning their faces away, as if fearing a blow, which +seemed to speak badly for their rulers, whether the old ones +or the present French—or were they merely dazzled by my +magnificence? When our pace grew too slow to be borne, I +could always drive the coolies on by galloping after them +shouting, whereupon they actually ran. But soon they settled +down to an almost lazy stroll again, covering hardly +half the ground of the incessant dog-trot of the indefatigable +Chinese; nor were there by any means as many smiles and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>childish pleasantries as among those far harder workers and +sufferers of many times greater hardships.</p> + +<p class='c012'>There were good horses at Ban-phatang, and no difficulty, +at least so far as I was concerned, in getting three excellent +ones for another daylight start. We rode on down a fertile +but narrow valley, closely walled on either side by high mountain +ridges that gave us the sensation of descending a corridor +of mountains all that fourth day. But as in China there was +no place purposely provided for a road; we were constantly +climbing rice-field dikes and making our way haphazard +across what would soon again be flooded trays of pale-green +paddy. There was one very striking wooded precipice—which +would have been still more striking if some of the +myriad rocks that seemed ready to fall at any moment had +done so just as we were passing beneath them. Little huts +on stilts everywhere awaited the coming of laborers to the +fields, lying fallow in grass now, but planted in July and +harvested in November. There is no water for flooding at +other times, because it does not rain enough, though with the +industry and ingenuity of the Chinese they could easily harness +the rivers that run away toil-less to the distant sea. But +there is no need to do so, because there is no such crowding +and consequent hunger as in China and its slender little offspring, +Annam. In many parts of those ardently ancestor-worshiping +lands, particularly in Annam, there are three +harvests a year, as there might be here if this people went +in as strongly for children.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On that fourth day I was riding well ahead of my party +when I passed near a great jungle fire far up on a high hillside, +probably set to dear off ground for new planting. Great +masses of red flames, and brown, almost reddish swirls and +columns of smoke, licked at the sky, and there was a great +<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>roaring miles off. At a mile it was like a battle on the Western +Front, a constant irregular musketry that was evidently +the bursting of the chambers of the bamboo and louder +cannon-shots that were probably great trees falling.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Had it been in China or South America, this important trail +between the two principal capitals of Laos would be impassable, +in spots at least, which is the same thing so far as an +overland trip is concerned, during the rainy season that +was now upon us. Thanks to the few French overlords, +however, mile after mile was welded together by many woven-bamboo +bridges that sagged like bed-springs under our +weight. Birds sang; a gentle air and people made the trip a +constant delight in spite of the perpetual necessity of forever +hurrying on. The French hope to colonize the Laos, but I +hope that they fail; it would be a pity not to have any such +virgin lands and simple peoples left for our children and our +children’s children to see.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Then the country grew tamer, the people more independent, +perhaps because we were now outside Luang Prabang kingdom, +where the prince, having only French backing to his +commands, was recognized as the servant of an alien king. +We lunched at Vang-vieng, where a lone Frenchman in +jungle-torn sun-scorched garb, who was doing some sort of +work there with a band of coolies, probably in connection +with the telegraph lines, insisted on loading me down with +a bottle of wine. The little I had brought had given out, +and he was sure I could never complete my hurried journey +alive without that prime necessity. We changed coolies there, +and again, with more trouble and a longer wait than we had +ever had before, at another village well outside the old kingdom, +and brought up by sunset at a jungle <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> in the wilderness, +kept by a family sent there for that purpose by the +French rulers.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XVIII<br> <span class='c011'>VIENTIANE AND BACK TO HANOÏ</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_7 c006'>We were off again soon after dawn, by a road instead +of a trail, a wide road that is by this time no doubt +“automobilable,” though a car could hardly have gone over it +then even if one could have reached it, an execrable new road +of five hours of incessant <i><span lang="fr">montagnes russes</span></i>, constant ups and +downs, and sadly in need of the shading tree-tops of the +narrow trail. The prince and I left the coolies far behind +before this torture was ended. The French are gradually +pushing a highway from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, and +the last few miles of this unfinished portion still had high +earth pillars left in the cuttings to show how much was due +the contractors whose coolies had excavated them with handbaskets. +I lunched with the Frenchman in charge of the +road-building, whose Annamese companion had recently +given him another hostage to fortune, in a house on a hilltop +overlooking a great vista, that in some ways resembled a +South American hacienda. Here I took leave of the prince, +who had changed his mind and decided not to go on to Vientiane. +It was plain that he would have given much to do so, +but evidently either the French or the king, or both, had him +under strict discipline. A miserable Ford, that had been +waiting for me since the day before in order that my hurried +trip should be crowned with success, cranked up, and at +two we chugged away in great heat over the last 106 kilometers +to Vientiane.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>There was nothing of interest to me on this last ride, +though there would have been for one who had not made +the delightful overland trip. The people were much less attractive +nearer what we are pleased to call civilization, especially +the road-gangs. Half-way in we met the big automobile +of the chief ruler of Laos, sent to find what had become +of me, thanks to a strong but unwarranted suspicion that the +Ford had broken down. Thereafter the view of the surrounding +landscape was as from an airplane, and I reached +Vientiane in time for a glimpse of it before dark, and dinner +with the cream of the large French colony—with children +as scarce as elsewhere.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Vieng-chan, which under the French has become Vientiane, +is a place of former glory and power of the Tai race, capital +of another of those kingdoms of earlier days. Its last great +period of prosperity was between 1628 and 1652, after which +civil wars dispersed its power and Luang Prabang declared +its independence, though even in the eighteenth century it +was still powerful. Then, in 1828, the Siamese destroyed +the city, carried off and dispersed the people, and it has +never been rebuilt. In 1893, when a treaty with Siam gave +all Laos, all the land east of the Mekong and some west of +it, to France, Vieng-chan became the French capital of Laos, +as Luang Prabang is the chief native center.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Formerly Vientiane had a hundred and twenty magnificent +temples, so well built that, in addition to many ruins lost in +the bush, some still remain symmetrical and perfect in general +form, though their beams have rotted away and the masonry +has been exposed to tropical sun and rain for a century. +There are some striking doors giving entrance to roofless +ruins; within the falling shell of a temple near the <i><span lang="fr">Résidence</span></i>, +in which I was lord of all I surveyed because of the absence +of the “résuper,” two big Buddhas sit in the infinitely +<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>patient attitude of the East, though the rains fall and the +sun beats down upon their coiled-serpent-covered heads, +while the vegetation piously strives to clothe and hold them +together as the mud and stone of which they are made +crumble bit by bit away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps there is really nothing incongruous about Buddhist +priests in bright-yellow robes riding the latest style of bicycle, +or even about women who, wearing only a kind of skirt, +with at most a thin gay scarf thrown hastily over the breasts, +indulge in the same frivolous form of locomotion. But +these things are likely to catch the attention of the visitor +to Vientiane, at least during his first day there. Though the +French have brought a few automobiles, the humped-ox cart—a +curious cart with a movable axle and huge wheels higher +than a man—is still the more common type of conveyance. +Vientiane has an avenue of flamboyants of which it is justly +proud, and a lot of good French residences, with a pleasant +woodsy atmosphere out of keeping with the solemn air of +French officialdom.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Siam lies just across the river, and here the same race +lives on both sides of the Mekong, though the Laosians on +the other bank rarely come over to work for the French. +From Muongyu onward all the men had worn their hair +pompadour; at about the place the last Ford picked me up +even the women, no doubt influenced by their Siamese sisters +across the river, rather than by any world-wide movement to +do away with the chief glory of the sex, took to cutting their +hair man-fashion. At Vientiane the women on both sides +of the Mekong have these absurd Siamese hair-cuts, each +hair standing on end as if the eyes beneath it had seen a +whole flock of ghosts, and as they also chew betel-nut to +make themselves still more repulsive it does not matter that +one can rarely tell the two sexes apart.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>The steamer of the Messageries Fluviales got stuck on a +sand-bank just as its picturesque Corsican captain was moving +up to take on his passengers, so that I not only had the +residence of the chief ruler of Laos entirely to myself for +nearly twenty-four hours, but was able to take in all the +sights and meet nearly all the hospitable French residents. +The boat got away at 2:30 and was off down the river, leaving +me behind after all my strenuous exertion to overtake +it. But that did not matter, for the thoughtful French had +planned it that way, so that their distinguished guest might +finish his siesta and spend no more time than necessary on +the uncomfortable craft. About four some of them leisurely +set out with me by automobile and put me on board at a +stop made for my especial benefit as far down-stream as the +road then reached beyond Vientiane.</p> + +<p class='c007'>That afternoon we touched Siam and finally tied up at a +place called Ban-along, where I slept well only because there +happened to be room to set up my cot on deck, until we +pushed off again at three in the morning. All day we +steamed down the Mekong between Indo-China and Siamese +jungles, now and then stopping at the French or at the farther +bank. After the manner of the aggressive West, the French +claim all the Mekong and allow no Siamese steamers on it. +For centuries the Siamese and Chinese had most of the trade +with Laos, which came and went by way of Siam; now the +French are gradually diverting it, illustrating another of the +advantages of protecting backward countries. No small +amount of smuggling still goes on, especially in opium, and +mainly engineered by the wily Chinese. Once some Laosian +opium-smugglers who had tied up for the night at the Siamese +bank were arrested by the Siamese police. The +French, in keeping with their claim to the entire stream, +made this a serious “diplomatic incident,” and to-day the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>Siamese can do nothing against smugglers and similar lawbreakers +until they actually step ashore with their loot.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A fierce storm at dark on the second day drove us up +against the Siamese bank again, at a place that seemed to be +called Ban-naqué, but we were off once more at daylight and +pulled into Thakek while it was sitting down to its midday +meal. There an automobile that had been sent over the +mountains from Vinh was ready to carry me off at once, but +there was time to spare and interest enough in this frontier +post so that I decided to stay out the day. The chief French +official was languid with fever and bored with life. The +head of the police, on the other hand, with a still larger native +family, seemed to enjoy this placid tropical existence, and +when the sun began to show an appreciable decline he called +a queer-looking official craft and took me across the river +to Lakhone in Siam, the first time I had actually set foot +in that progressive land in nearly twenty years. As far at +least as this frontier village was concerned there did not +seem to be any great change. The natives were of the same +race and similar customs as those of Thakek, but had an air +about them of saying inwardly, “Well, at least we are not subject +to French nagging.” The difference between them and +their cousins across the river must be much like that between +a bachelor and a henpecked husband—and their communal +housekeeping bore out the same analogy. Leg-irons seemed +to be no detriment to prisoners who wished to run after us +and beg money to buy opium, neither of which things would +be permitted their fellows in French territory, at least within +sight of Europeans. On the other hand there is less active +unkindness to prisoners on the French side.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There were a few games of tennis in Thakek when the +sun was low, with even two or three white women among +the players, and next morning comfortably after six I was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>off for Annam. A native secretary of the ruler-in-chief of +Laos diffidently shared the back seat of the big open car with +me, and the Annamese chauffeur of course had his assistant, +confidant, and water-boy, for your Oriental driver will not +go without company, be it only to have some one as a receptacle +for his conversation. It had rained and there was +much skidding between Thakek and Nakai; in fact at that +time of year automobiles usually cannot get through, and +ours was the last one that did before that season’s rains settled +down in earnest. I had never been sure of getting back +to Annam by this route—until I got there. Had it become +impassable as early as usual I might have gone on down the +Mekong by the incommodious Messageries Fluviales clear +to Pnom Penh in Cambodia, with a bit of railway about some +falls, and made all the journey from Saïgon to Hanoï over +again, unless I could have crossed the mountains from +Savannakhet, by a road still less likely to be “automobilable” +in the rainy season.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We turned up in time for lunch at a mountain shack in +dense forest in which the “résuper” of Laos and his wife, +about the most delightful people I met in Indo-China, were +roughing it for a few days with their small son. I trust that +the reader has not confounded Laos with Luang Prabang, +which is merely the largest and most western division of it, +its lone king decidedly subordinate to this lean and competent +Frenchman whose palatial <i><span lang="fr">Résidence</span></i> I had occupied +in Vientiane. Besides Luang Prabang and the 5<sup>me</sup> Territoire +that goes with it, and spacious Tran-ninh of Xieng Khuang, +there are half a dozen other divisions in this sparsely settled +territory ruled over by my <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> host across the plain +board camp-table.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The secretary and even the extra chauffeur remained at +the camp, as I should have done for the rest of that Sunday +<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>myself had I suspected how good the road still was from +there on. Besides, an elephant-hunt was at its height +near-by, an unusually large herd having been discovered almost +within shouting-distance of where we sat. In Siam it +is forbidden to kill elephants, because they all belong to the +king. So they do in theory also in Laos, or at least in Luang +Prabang, but with the French ruling over it and the Chinese +ready to pay high prices for tusks, the sacredness of the +king’s protégés is limited. In Canton we wondered where +the carvers of myriad ornaments got all their ivory, rather +suspecting them of relations with the local slaughter-house; +in Laos one wonders where the hunters find sale for so many +tusks. I heard much concerning the life of this region during +that convivial <i><span lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i>. Elands abound, and there are great +herds of gaur, that wild cattle-like survivor from an earlier +age which seems to be found nowhere else, a red-brown beast +weighing on the average two thousand kilograms. There +were at the camp half a dozen heads of this animal, shot +within the past day or two, the foreheads unnaturally high, +the female horns closer together than those of the male. +The birds of these parts build no nests in the trees, because +the monkeys, especially the black long-armed gibbons, steal +their eggs. On the other hand partridge and quail, after +building their nests in holes in the ground, roost in the trees +as a protection against serpents.</p> + +<p class='c012'>I thought often of that <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> of a Cambodian province +who broke five ribs by running into a deer, as we raced on +eastward by a forest-walled road as unpeopled as if it had +been built for my especial use, bounding every little while +over bridges held by vine and woven-bamboo cables, the +bridges themselves merely a larger form of wickerwork or +basketry. To my astonishment and, I am sure, to that of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>the chauffeur also, we had no difficulty in making the entire +run from Thakek to Vinh in a single day, though it had +not been certain that we could even make it in two, and a +day later we might not have been able to make it at all. +But even nature seemed to take an interest in my record-breaking +trip, and we were agreeably surprised to find astonishingly +dry parts of the road which should have been +sloughs of despondency. It was still only a little after noon +when we halted at the village <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> that had been officially +chosen as my night’s stopping-place, just long enough to +tell the servants that their guest was flying onward.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Soon afterward we picked up a Chinese merchant from +Yünnanfu, whose mandarin was nearly enough like that +of Peking so that I astonished him by managing a meager +conversation in his own tongue. He had two bullock-carts +loaded with tigers—everything except the flesh—and many +deer-horns, all valuable in the medicine-shops of his native +land, especially the tiger-claws, to be powdered and drunk in +wine by the faint-hearted, if I fully understood him. At the +pace his native Jehus were making he would have been from +ten days to a fortnight in reaching Vinh. I am notably softhearted, +so when he and the chauffeur joined in coaxing me +to let the Celestial go along with us, it seemed so much like +making a man a present of ten days of life, more precious +than money, that I succumbed—and for my pains was +cramped for the rest of the trip into the off front seat, the +left of course, usually occupied by the assistant chauffeur. +The Chinese showed all signs of glee, even though he was of +a race to whom ten days is no more than five hours, and +paying off his simple Laosian bullock-drivers, he began loading +his moth-eaten trophies into the car. I had miscalculated +the loads, or fancied he would throw most of the worthless +stuff away in order to ride with us; but no, indeed—I began +to wonder whether he was even going to try to tuck the +bullock-carts away in our maltreated conveyance. Of course +the chauffeur got a nice little thing out of it—in fact he as +much as said so in his hybrid Annamese-French, with a subtle +hint that for this favor he did not expect me to tip him +at the end of the run—and I have no doubt that all this had +been cooked up between them when bullock-carts and automobile +met two days before a few miles farther west. That +would explain the extraordinary occurrence of leaving the +assistant chauffeur behind; probably he eventually got his +share of the grateful Yünnanese’s gratuity, for walking back +to Vinh during the rainy season.</p> + +<div id='i_354' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_354a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>This ancient monument in Vientiane, French capital of Laos, is the most curious remnant of its regal days</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_354b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>A door of a ruined palace or temple of Vientiane</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='i_355' class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_355a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Within the ruined temple the Buddhas sit, in the infinitely patient attitude of the East, crumbling away under the rains and disappearing beneath the encroaching jungle</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id003'> +<img src='images/i_355b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic002'> +<p>Though the French have brought automobiles to Vientiane, this ancient form of conveyance still predominates</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>There were some coffee plantations, among corn and rubber-trees, +that afternoon, the largest of them belonging to +the man whom I had met at Cuarao on the outward trip; but +he was not at home—this home, at least. We had already +begun dropping down out of the great Annamese chain, the +road in places a serpentine succession of descending curves +magnificently framed in vine-clothed forest and precipices, +and by three we were back in Annam again, another world, +with its groves of slender <i><span lang="fr">aréquiers</span></i> climbed by betel-vines, its +many villages surrounded by high thick bamboo hedges, its +water-buffaloes of elephant and albino colors, its tombs and +grave-mounds, its <i><span lang="fr">bacs</span></i> and rice-fields, its joss-houses and +red-saliva-splotched roads, its myriad people in parasol-hats, +diamond-shaped breast-covers, necklaces of grains of gold, +black cheese-cloth overcoats, gowns of the color of tobacco-juice, +its endless files of pole-carrying coolies of both sexes +and all ages; in thinly populated Laos the battle with hunger +is not so keen that children need to begin their labors so early.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Chinese and his tigers got off in the outskirts of Vinh, +lest the government hear of the misuse of its official transportation, +and the air was still more reminiscent of afternoon +<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>than of evening when I entered the same room of the French-Spanish +hotel I had occupied when I first came northward +along the Mandarin Road three months before. The chauffeur +had protested that his orders were to drive me to the +<i><span lang="fr">Résidence</span></i>, but I felt that I had been overdoing French +colonial hospitality, now that it was possible to provide for +myself. Yet I was forced to dine with the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> who had +driven me away toward Xieng Khuang twenty days back, +and he and his wife succeeded in convincing me that they +were really disappointed because I had not come to occupy +the palatial room they had once more prepared for me. For +one can have no secrets in Indo-China. The incessant telegraph +keeps one’s doings more in the public, or at least the +official, eye than does the most flagrant of our yellow journals, +and barely had I passed the village <i><span lang="fr">sala</span></i> that had been +officially chosen as my stopping-place that night than a telegram +had warned the <i><span lang="fr">résident</span></i> that the wild American was +again breaking records.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In early May the Vinh-to-Hanoï landscape is a sea of +ripening rice from which those great black-gray rock hills +of strange form and varied strata stand forth like fantastic +islands. I cannot remember ever having endured a hotter +day than that train-ride. This was the hottest time of the +year, just before the summer rains, utterly cloudless and +often without the slightest breeze. With June come torrential +downpours and cooler weather. There was a wind that day, +but it happened to be blowing in the same direction in which +I was traveling. Going south would probably have been +pleasant riding; going north was intermittent torture. When +we stopped, as fortunately we did often and sometimes for +fairly long periods, the breeze from the south made life quite +agreeable; but as long as the train was moving, sweat poured +forth as from a fountain. Even when it blew to advantage +<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>the wind was as if it came off a red-hot stove, and all day +long there was not a fleck of cloud in the sky to temper the +wicked sunshine. Cattle lolled in groups under the trees; +water-buffaloes, if they were to be seen at all, squatted in +their mud-holes; but though “citadels” were waffle-irons and +the highway a burning strand, men and women in their broad +hats and coppery-brown garments still trotted in endless +files along it and the by-roads that were mere thin lines +drawn in a vast expanse of greenery; for rice must be had +for hungry mouths no matter what the weather.</p> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_inside_back.jpg' alt='Endpaper' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/i_inside_back2.jpg' alt='Century VAGABOND BOOKS of TRAVEL' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + + <ul class='ul_1 c002'> + <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + </li> + </ul> + +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78626 ***</div> +</body> +<!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-05-05 22:27:38 GMT --> +</html> |