GEOGRAPHY OF SIAM
The following description of the country is quoted with some emendations
from Mr. Carl Bock's "Temples and Elephants."
The European name for this land has been derived from the Malay word
_Sayam_ (or _sajam_) meaning "brown," but this is a conjecture. The
natives call themselves _Thai_, _i.e._, "free," and their country _Muang
Thai_, "the kingdom of the free."
Including its dependencies, the Lao states in the north, and the Malay
states in the south, Siam extends from latitude 20° 20' N. to exactly 4°
S., while, with its Cambodian provinces, its extreme breadth is from
longitude 97° E. to about 108° E. The northern frontier of the Lao
dependencies has not been defined, but it may be said, roughly, to lie
north of the twentieth parallel, beyond the great bend of the Mekong
River, the high range to the east of which separates Siam from Annam. To
the south lie Cambodia and the Gulf of Siam, stretching a long arm down
into the Malay Peninsula. On the west it abuts on Upper and Lower Burma,
both now British possessions.
Through Siam and Lao run two great mountain chains, both radiating from
Yunnan through the Shan states. The eastern chain stretches in a
S.S.E. direction from Kiang Tsen right down to Cambodia, while the
western chain extends in a southerly direction through the Malay
Peninsula. Their height rises sometimes to 9,000 feet, but it does not
often seem to exceed 5,000; limestone, gneiss, and granite appear to
form the main composition of the rocks.
[Illustration: INUNDATION OF THE MEINAM.]
Between these two mountain-chains, with their ramifications, lies the
great alluvial plain of the Meinam, a magnificent river, of which the
Portuguese poet Camoens sings (Lusiad X. cxxv.):
"The Menam now behold, whose waters take
Their sources in the great Chiamai lake,"
in which statement, however, the bard was misinformed, the source being
a mountain stream on the border of the Shan states, but within Lao
territory, and not, as is generally marked on charts, in Yunnan. Near
Rahang the main stream is joined by the Mei Wang, flowing S.W. from
Lakon, the larger river being called above this junction the Mei Ping.
The other great tributary, the Pak-nam-po, also called the Meinam Yome,
joins it in latitude 15° 45', after flowing also in a S.W. direction.
To the annual inundation of the Meinam and its tributaries the fertility
of the soil is due. Even as far up as in the Lao states the water rises
from eight to ten feet during the rainy season. A failure of these
inundations would be fatal to the rice crop, so that Siam is almost as
much as Egypt a single river valley, upon whose alluvial deposits the
welfare of millions depends. In this broad valley are to be found the
forty-one political divisions which make up Siam proper.
The second great river of importance is the Bang-Pa Kong, which has its
source in a barrier range of irregular mountains, separating the
elevated plateau of Korat from the alluvial plains extending to the head
of the Gulf of Siam. The river meanders through the extensive
paddy-lands and richly cultivated districts of the northeast provinces,
and falls into the sea twenty miles east of the Meinam. Another
considerable river is the Meklong, which falls into the sea about the
same distance to the west of Bangkok; at its mouth is a large and
thriving village of the same name. This is the great rice district, and
from Meklong all up the river to Kanburi a large number of the
population are Chinese. In this valley are salt-pits, on which the whole
kingdom depends for its supply. The Meklong is connected with the Meinam
by means of a canal, which affords a short cut to Bangkok, avoiding the
sea passage.
A third river system, that of the Mekong, much the largest of all the
rivers in Indo-China, drains the extreme north and east of Siam. This
huge stream, which is also mentioned in Camoens' Lusiad, takes its rise
near the sources of the Yangtse Kiang in Eastern Thibet, and belongs in
nearly half its course to China. It was partly explored by M. Mouhot,
and later (in 1868) by Lagrée's expedition, who found it, in spite of
the great body of water, impracticable for navigation. M. de Carné, one
of the exploration party, thus sums up the results of the search for a
new trade route into Southern China: "The difficulties the river offers
begin at first, starting from the Cambodian frontier, and they are very
serious, if not insurmountable. If it were attempted to use steam on
this part of the Mekong the return would be most dangerous. At Khong an
absolutely impassable barrier, as things are, stands in the way. Between
Khong and Bassac the waters are unbroken and deep, but the channel is
again obstructed a short distance from the latter. From the mouth of the
river Ubone the Mekong is nothing more than an impetuous torrent, whose
waters rush along a channel more than a hundred yards deep by hardly
sixty across. Steamers can never plough the Mekong as they do the Amazon
or the Mississippi, and Saigon can never be united to the western
provinces of China by this immense water-way, whose waters make it
mighty indeed, but which seems after all to be a work unfinished."
Of the tributary states, the Laos, who occupy the Mekong valley and
spread themselves among the wilds between Tongking, China, and Siam, are
probably the least known. In physique and speech they are akin to the
Siamese, and are regarded by some writers as being the primitive stock
of that race. They have some claims as a people of historical
importance, constituting an ancient and powerful kingdom whose capital
Vein-shan, was destroyed by Siam in 1828. Since then they have remained
subject to Siam, being governed partly by native hereditary princes,
duly invested with gold dish, betel-box, spittoon, and teapot sent from
Bangkok, and partly by officers appointed by the Siamese government.
Their besetting sin is slave-hunting, which was until recently pursued
with the acquiescence of the Siam authorities, to the terror of the
hill-tribes within their reach and to their own demoralization. Apart
from the passions associated with this infamous trade the Laos are for
the most part an inoffensive, unwarlike race, fond of music, and living
chiefly on a diet of rice, vegetables, fruits, fish, and poultry. Pure
and mixed, they number altogether perhaps some one million five hundred
thousand.
The most important of the Malay states is Quedha, in Siamese Muang Sai.
Its population of half a million Malays is increased by some twenty
thousand Chinese and perhaps five thousand of other races. The country
is level land covered with fine forests, where elephants, tigers, and
rhinoceroses abound. A high range of mountains separates Quedha from the
provinces of Patani (noted for its production of rice and tin) and
Songkhla. These again are divided from the province of Kalantan by the
Banara River, and from Tringann by the Batut River. In Ligor province,
called in Siamese Lakhon, three-fourths of the population are Siamese.
The gold and silver-smiths of Ligor have a considerable reputation for
their vessels of the precious metals inlaid with a black enamel.
As to the Cambodian provinces under Siamese rule the following
particulars are extracted from a paper by M. Victor Berthier:
The most important provinces are those lying to the west, Battambang and
Korat. The former of these is situated on the west of the Grand Lake
(Tonle Sap), and supports a population of about seventy thousand,
producing salt, fish, rice, wax, and cardamoms, besides animals found in
the forests. Two days' march from Battambang is the village of Angkor
Borey (the royal town), the great centre of the beeswax industry, of
which 24,000 pounds are sent yearly to Siam. Thirty miles from this
place is situated the auriferous country of Tu'k Cho, where two Chinese
companies have bought the monopoly of the mines. The metal is obtained
by washing the sand extracted from wells about twenty feet deep, at
which depth auriferous quartz is usually met, but working as they do the
miners have no means of getting ore from the hard stone.
Korat is the largest province and is peopled almost entirely by
Cambodians. Besides its chief town of the same name it contains a great
number of villages with more than eleven district centres, and contains
a population estimated at fifty thousand or sixty thousand. Angkor, the
most noted of the Cambodian provinces, is now of little importance,
being thinly populated and chiefly renowned for the splendor of its
ancient capital, whose remarkable ruins are the silent witnesses of a
glorious past. The present capital is Siem Rap, a few miles south of
which is the hill called Phnom Krom (Inferior Mount), which becomes an
island during the annual inundation. The other Cambodian provinces now
ruled by Siam are almost totally unknown by Europeans.
The population of Siam has never been officially counted, but is
approximately estimated by Europeans at from six to twelve millions.
According to Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, however, this is based upon an
entirely erroneous calculation. "Prince Prisdang assured me," he
says,[1] "that Sir John Bowring had made a great mistake in taking the
list of those who were liable to be called out for military service as
the gross population of the kingdom; and that if that list were
multiplied by five, it would give a nearer approximation to the
population. M. Mouhot says that a few years before 1862 the native
registers showed for the male sex (those who were inscribed), 2,000,000
Siamese, 1,000,000 Laotians (or Shans), 1,000,000 Malays, 1,500,000
Chinese, 350,000 Cambodians, 50,000 Peguans, and a like number composed
of various tribes inhabiting the mountain-ranges. Taking these
statistics and multiplying them by five, which Bishop Pallegoix allows
is a fair way of computing from them, we should have a population of
29,950,000. To this would have to be added the Chinese and Peguans who
had not been born in the country, and were therefore not among the
inscribed; also the hill tribes that were merely tributary and therefore
merely paid by the village, as well as about one-seventh of the above
total for the ruling classes, their families and slaves. This total
would give at least 35,000,000 inhabitants for Siam Proper, to which
would have to be added about 3,000,000 for its dependencies, Zimmé
(Cheung Mai), Luang Prabang, and Kiang Tsen,--a gross population,
therefore, of about 38,000,000 for the year 1860." On the other hand,
Mr. McCarthy, a competent judge, considers the government estimate of
ten million too high.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Amongst the Shans. London, 1885.