Читать книгу The Boy Travellers in the Far East, Part Second - Thomas Wallace Knox - Страница 14

NATIVE SOLDIERS AT SAIGON.

As they were naturally interested in the subject of native troops in the French service, Frank took the first opportunity to make a sketch of a couple of them that he saw on duty. He found that they wore a blue blouse with white trousers—or, rather, that the trousers had been white at some former date—and their heads were protected from the heat of the sun by flat hats made of pith or cork, while their feet were bare. The men that he saw were armed with breech-loading rifles of French manufacture, and they carried their cartridges at the waist-belt, after the European fashion.

Strolling by the river-bank, the boys saw three or four light gun-boats at anchor in the stream. They learned that the government had about twenty of these boats, which were used for transporting troops wherever they were needed, and also for the purpose of protecting the natives against pirates, and to enforce the laws generally.

They observed that the police were not of the same nationality as the soldiers, and found, on inquiry, that the policemen were all Malays from Singapore, under the supervision of French chiefs. They are said to be very efficient, and one great advantage of employing them is that they are not likely to be involved in any of the native conspiracies.

By the end of their second day in Saigon, it occurred to the boys that it was about time to begin a letter to friends at home.

"We will write it as we did the letters from Kioto and Hong kong," said Frank; "that is, provided you are willing."

Fred assented to the proposal, and so it was agreed that they would make up a single letter, in which each should describe some of the things they had seen, and they would so arrange it that nothing should be described twice. They devoted all the time they could spare from sight-seeing to the production of this letter, and here is the result:

"We have been walking and riding around Saigon, and have seen a great many things that are new to us. This morning we started early for a walk to Cholon, about three miles away, and had a very pleasant time on the road. We met crowds of people coming to town with basketsful of fresh vegetables for the market; they were nearly all women, and their dress was much like that of the women we saw in Canton, except that they had great hats like circular trays. Part of the way the road follows the bank of a ditch, which the French call 'The Grand Canal;' but there is not much grandeur about it, as it is half-choked with weeds, and when the tide is out there is not water enough to float a boat of any size. There has been no rain for weeks, and the dust was so thick that sometimes we could hardly see across the road, and were in danger of being run over.

THE KING OF THE BEGGARS.

"Near the door of a house, in the edge of the city, we saw three beggars standing, while a man with his finger raised was talking to them. Doctor Bronson says the man who talked was their chief; and he was telling them what to do and where to go for the day. Begging is a regular business in China, and the beggars have their associations, like other trades.

"We met a long line of carts just after we got outside the city; each cart was drawn by a pair of bullocks, and they had ropes through their noses, just as we put them through the noses of bulls at home. The foremost pair was led by a boy, and all the other bullocks were fastened to the carts immediately in front of them. How they get on without pulling some of their noses out, when a cart in the middle of the line breaks down, we cannot imagine. Perhaps the cord gives way before the nose does.

"There were lots of half-wild dogs that seemed to belong to nobody; they barked at us, and some of them threatened to bite; but we showed tight, and they concluded to leave us. These brutes are known as 'pariah' dogs all through the East: 'pariah,' as applied to a man, means an outcast; and a pariah dog is a dog that has no master and no home. They are not so abundant here as at Constantinople or Damascus, but Doctor Bronson says there are quite enough of them to go around, and they go around all night and all day.

"Such a noise as the cart-wheels made you never heard in all your lives. Grease must be scarce in Cochin China, or the people must be fond of music; at all events, they do not try to stop the squeaking, and a native will go to sleep in one of these carts when it is moving along the road, just as calmly as he would in a Pullman car. Doctor Bronson says that these carts are loaded with gamboge and other dye-stuffs, and also with hides and horns of cattle, and perhaps with the tusks of elephants that have been killed for the sake of their ivory.

"About half-way along the road, we came to what the French call 'La Plaine des Tombeaux,' which is nothing more nor less than an enormous cemetery. It is said to cover several square miles of ground; whether it does so or not we cannot say, but certainly it is very large, and, as the Doctor remarked, very densely inhabited. There is nothing very remarkable about the tombs, as they are nothing but square enclosures, with little spires like those of the temples. In one part of the cemetery some priests were at work laying out a place for a grave; Doctor Bronson says that they perform a lot of ceremonies to determine where a grave shall be made, and are very particular to bring it under good influences, and shield it from bad ones. The same superstitions that prevail in China are to be found here; and even the most intelligent of the native or Chinese merchants in Saigon would not think of undertaking any important enterprise without first consulting the gods, and ascertaining that the 'Fung Shuey' was in their favor.

"It was an odd sight to see the telegraph-poles along the road, and skirting the edge of this ancient cemetery. It was bringing the past and the present close together, and from all we can see the present is having the best of it.

VIEW OF CHOLON.

"Well, we reached Cholon after a leisurely walk, and went down to the bank of the river, where great numbers of boats were moored. There were hundreds, and perhaps thousands of these boats, and at the place where they are moored they are tied very close together. They are rather long and narrow, and the best of them have a roof over the centre to protect the occupants from the sun and rain. Some of them are hewn out of single logs, and others are built of planks, as in other countries. Many are permanently fastened to the bank and are occupied as houses, like some of the boats in Canton; and altogether there is a pretty large water population. Near the water's edge there are huts built on platforms, and so arranged that the refuse of the kitchen falls into the river. The owner is under no expense for drainage, and the whole cost of his building does not exceed five dollars. Living is cheap

in Cholon, if you are willing to occupy a grass-roofed hut, six feet square, on the bank of the river, and eat nothing more costly than boiled rice and fish. We saw two or three huts of the kind we describe, occupied by half a dozen persons each. They must have found the quarters rather close at times, but probably did not mind a trifle like that. A single plank served as the roadway to the shore, and in some instances it was so shaky that it required a steady head and careful stepping to avoid being thrown into the water.

A CHINESE FAMILY AT CHOLON.

"More than half the people we saw were Chinese, and not the natives of the country, and nearly all the business in the shops appeared to be done by the former. We peeped into some of the houses where the Chinese live, and they did not seem to care how much we looked at them. We saw one group that was quite interesting, in spite of the poverty of the habitation and the scarcity of furniture; there were five persons in all, or perhaps we should say eight, as there were three cats under the table that acted as though they were as good as anybody else. Two men and two children were at a table, and a woman was standing up behind them to see that everything was all right. On the table there was a small tub that contained stewed fish and some kind of vegetables, and there was a bowl for each one to eat from. They were better off than some other parties we saw at breakfast, who had only one bowl for the whole lot, and everybody helped himself with his chop-sticks.

A CAB FOR TWO.

"We saw something that reminded us of Shanghai; it was nothing more nor less than a wheelbarrow, but, unlike the Shanghai one, it had no passengers. Wouldn't it be funny to see a wheelbarrow in America for carrying passengers, just as we have cabs and coaches? You must come to China for a sight like that, and also for a regular ride in a wheelbarrow, and you can have the consolation of knowing that it is very cheap and also very uncomfortable. The wheelbarrow has no springs, and so you get the benefit of every jolt, however small; and as the vehicle is somewhat weak in the joints, and the man who pushes it is far from powerful, you feel all the time as though you were liable to be spilled out. The wheel is large and clumsy, and the frame has a sort of rest in the centre, where you can put your arms. Two men can occupy one of these coaches, and they are very popular among the natives, but less so among the foreigners.

"On our way back we wandered off into the forest of tropical plants that stood on each side of the road in many places, and suddenly came on a little village which was entirely concealed until we were within twenty yards of it. The natives like to hide their residences as much as they can, on account of the shade they get from the surrounding trees, and also to be undisturbed by too many visitors. The dogs barked at us, and if it had not been for some of the natives that called them off it is quite possible we should have been bitten. There were half a dozen children lying around in the dust, and as they were entirely naked, they did not seem to be afraid of soiling their clothes. The men and women were not heavily clothed, as the weather is hot, and they want to be as comfortable as possible. In one house a man was lying on a bench just inside the wide door-way, and a little girl was fanning him; the Doctor says the girl was undoubtedly a slave, and that she cost her owner not far from thirty dollars.

"Children are bought and sold here the same as in China, and a good many of the foreigners are said to own slaves while they live in the country, but they do not try to carry them away. Slaves prefer foreign masters to native ones, as they are more likely to be kindly treated, and to receive their freedom in a few years.

"Some of the houses in the village were well built, and raised a yard or so from the ground upon pillars of brick. The interior consists of three or four rooms, and the general appearance of the house is like a Chinese one. There is an ornamental framework carved in wood to support the roof, which is covered with thick tiles, and there is generally a veranda on each side of the door, where the master sleeps in the afternoon and lounges away a great deal of his time. We should call the people lazy if they were in America; but it is the custom of the country to be indolent, and perhaps they are not to blame. Very little will support a man, as he can gather fruit from the trees, and an acre of ground is all that he needs for maintaining a large family. The heat that prevails all the year round does not encourage activity, and a good many foreigners, who are very enterprising when they first come here, become as idle as the natives by the end of their second year in the country."