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colored uniform of their master, drive the boat along joyously with their long splashing oars. Each oar is attached by a hempen wisp to the upright post which serves as a rowlock; and the men, standing close behind one another, two in front and two astern, throw the weight of their bodies forward in exact unison, feathering the oar when they have reached out as far as they can, and recovering themselves with a jerk backward and a push with the forward knee. Some of the wealthy people ornament these four chow" boats in elaborate style with carving and paint, and gilding and gorgeous curtains. Others are of plain teak or simply painted white; and some have hanging canvas instead of walls, and merely an awning overhead. A small house-boat, intended for one person only, can get along very fast and well with only two oarsmen, one in front and the other behind. But variety is the rule in this as in most other things in Siam; and some of the chow-boats are shabby in the last degree, and occupied by the dingiest of individuals in the ugliest of costumes. Ugliness of costume or manner is, however, quite the exception in Bangkok, and more often than not the interior of a houseboat will contain brightly dressed people, looking like bouquets of flowers in a tent. Europeans, with their plain white twill or flannel, do not show off these boats half so well as the Siamese, with their gay-colored dresses, pretty scarfs and light rippling laughter.

For ordinary passengers who affect no grandeur and despise comfort and style, there is a cheap mode of conveyance by water, which must have a passing mention. The sampan is a shallop with high ends, ending almost, though not quite, in a point; a rounded outside, looking as if the whole thing had been scooped out of a log; low sides, always appearing to be dangerously near the water, and a few cross benches of a rustic order. A single upright post rises from one side rather near the stern; and to the top of this can be hooked on by means of the orthodox twist the hempen noose which always does duty for a rowlock. Into such a boat, according to its size, will be stowed two or three or more passengers, up to as many as sometimes nearly half a score, who squat down with the utmost sang froid in a craft which to a European stranger looks as if it could be upset by moving a finger.

These boats ply for hire at some of the numerous "stairs" or landings where there is a large passenger traffic across the stream, and the din of boatmen at these places shouting for each Nai'' or "Master" who looks a likely customer is worthy of Westminster in the palmy days of the Thames watermen. When the crank-looking craft is full, or the passengers become too impatient to wait any longer, the oarsman, or oarswoman-for the fair sex by no means decline this labor

takes up the handle of the oar, which at its extremity is shaped like the crook of an umbrella. With a few long vigorous strokes he pulls the boat out from the shore, and then with many twists of the arm and much adroit manœuvring, swings the bow out into the river, meeting the tide diagonally and preparing for the voyage across. The business of propelling such a craft with only one oar fixed to one side is no less puzzling than one might suppose; and the very few Europeans who have attempted the task find their boat working round and round toward the side on which there is no oar with a perverse persistency that seems entirely hopeless. This natural tendency of the sampan to describe circles in the water is overcome in fact by a device of leaning so upon the oar that it forces the stern of the boat inward, while at the same time driving the whole boat forward. But to acquire the power of doing this is not given to the ordinary European, who the more he attempts it seems to run the more risk of catching crabs and making his ship go backward, or even toppling over bodily, and taking an involuntary header for the diversion of a merry host of Siamese spectators.

Not only passengers, paying ridiculously small bronze coins to their watermen, are carried in these unsafe-looking shallops, but merchandise of all sorts, which is often sold from them as things are in London off a costermonger's cart. Piles of cocoanuts, oranges, or bananas, depressing the bulwarks within two or three inches of the water, go gayly along, their conductor feeling quite at his case until by chance some bigger launch than usual, or a light tug, or perhaps a big steamer of some kind heaves in sight, when his indifference is exchanged for some show of hurry and excitement, and he hastens toward shore to get behind the shelter of

some floating house. Often it is a much more risky cargo which overloads these boats-a whole toy-shop of fragile knickknacks, a pile of silks and piece goods, a thousand or so of small glass lamps, or a dessert of sweetmeats for some wedding feast. Marvellous is the skill and caution with which the women in charge of such hazardous loads thread their way through the legion of nondescript boats of all sorts and sizes which meet them in their course. Now and then a shriek of alarm from one of them warns the heedless Chinaman or too zealous Malay, to give the fair owner a wide berth; but the warning is almost always in time, and with a bright smile and graceful inclination of the head her thanks are rendered as she gets her boat's nose straight again and looks ahead for a fresh danger. Good-humor and mutual forbearance are the universal rule and the Asiatic who allowed his temper to be ruffled, or his rough-and-ready courtesy to give way, would be looked upon as a disgusting barbarian beyond the pale of decent society. With such instincts as kindheartedness and consideration for others, which are real instincts among the Siamese, life on the water, even in a sampan, becomes pleasant and happy. What an extraordinary difference between these people and the creatures who disport themselves on holidays on the Thames in and round London !

Lastly there are the canoes-more picturesque, perhaps, than anything else which floats. Take a specimen or two, such as may be seen any day in almost any number.

Here is a quartette of priests in their saffron colored robes and with bare closeshaven heads. In the middle of them the oldest of the party reclining with much dignity, cigarette in mouth and fan in hand. In front, two younger men with half a forearm emerging from the thick folds of the robe, and paddles, one on each side, plunging quickly but steadily into the dark-brown water. At the stern a iniddle-aged ecclesiastic squatting in the same attitude, but attending also to the steering of the small vessel, and not unfrequently "easying" for a few strokes, so as not to lower his dignity quite to a par with the younger men. Just behind, perhaps, will come a whole crew of Siamese maidens, their close-cropped hair sticking up like black clothes-brushes on their heads, white linen jackets with long

sleeves covering their bodies, and showing off the light pink and green scarfs deftly thrown over their shoulders, while a more inquisitive glance will discover their wellshaped feet, and legs bare to the knee, curled up Turkish-wise on the floor. Very speedily and neatly they dash the blade of their short paddles into the stream, keeping up an almost incessant chatter as they go along, and chaffing unmercifully any well-looking man whom they may pass on the shore or in a boat; peals of laughter breaking from them as often as a good repartee is given on either side. Then you will have a stolid Chinaman alone in his rather heavy canoe, urging it on with laborious strokes, and occasionally yelling some demoniacal cry, which, being interpreted, means that he wants a customer for the blocks of fat white pork lying in the fore part of his ship.

It is in the morning early-that is early for the Siamese-at seven or eight o'clock in the big river just outside the Palace gates that you may see the finest collection of canoes. Here is held every morning a sort of water market. Some hundreds of canoes, mostly handled by young and old women, are packed in serried ranks, like a large flock of ducks on a pond. Oranges, limes, betel-nuts, bananas of thirty different kinds, cakes, fritters, sweetmeats, sugar-sticks-every sort of light refreshment dear to Siamese gourmets-come piled up in the canoe to this busy rendezvous; offering and bidding, haggling and trafficking, joking and mock quarrelling, is the order of the day. A hundred gay colors, besides those of the fruit and flowers, are blended together in a moving kaleidoscope, as you look from a short distance upon the flotilla of market-wom

en.

Gradually the bright noisy group dissolves away, and the little bare-headed dealers, retreating before the growing tyranny of the rising sun, flit like waterflies to the shaded nook where they are to eat their simple but savory breakfast.

A far more imposing sort of paddleworked boat remains to be noted. For some days before any royal ceremony on the river is to be held, you may see occasionally passing up it an enormous canoe looking like a gigantic tree scooped out. As a matter of fact some of these monsters are no more than gigantic teak-trees, bulged out in their middle by the slow action of fire, and turned up slightly at the two

ends. Upon narrow cross-benches in them will be ranged a hundred or more paddlers, with a steersman, a lookout man, and a sort of bandmaster or orchestra leader, who gives the time to the whole crew. In unison these dusky boatmen raise their paddles in the air overhead, and in unison they plunge them into the stream an equal number on each side-dashing them quickly through a short stroke and then raising them aloft again. These men are being coached up to form the crew for a royal barge; and on the day of the ceremony they will appear in very different get-up. A royal barge in Siam is a portentous structure. Its lower part is an immensely long and rather flat boat, turning up at the ends, so that these are reared many feet above the water. Strangely and weirdly fashioned are these towering ends, presenting to view such wonders as a colossal dolphin covered with gilding, a multi-colored crocodile, or glittering dragon, all red, green and gold. Along the benches fore and aft are packed the paddlers, dressed in gorgeous costumes of the brightest colors, a royal red predominating; and from the middle of the hull rises the pavilion of state, a sort of pagoda with four corners, richly covered or inlaid with colored bits of porcelain and gilding and tinsel, hung with bright curtains, festooned with real and artificial flowers, and surmounted with one or more of the peaked emblems of royalty. Inside is a sort of chamber in which are placed oldfashioned weapons, some Palace guards in gala dress, and perhaps some courtiers or officers of state. One of these monsters will carry a towering structure with a throne at the top, upon which His Majesty will sit if he comes out to honor the procession with his presence. Other less pretentious royal barges will carry only a large awning draped with the royal standard, and looking at a distance rather like a howdah taken off the back of some gigantic elephant and lifted into the canoe. spite of the great size of these leviathans and the smallness of the paddles, they travel at a very good pace, driven by the short sharp strokes of multitudinous men on each side. A procession of half-a-dozen such giants following one another, and followed in their turn by smaller but still capacious barges, belonging to the chief princes and nobles, makes a grand spectacle on this noble river, and rivals probably the

In

greatest glories attained on our own river by the water pageants of medieval London.

Let us look away from the big river and up one of the big "khlongs" or canals which run into it here and there. In these the tide is less strong, but the crowd of small boats is greater; and just as much care is needed to avoid being run down, or run into, or wrecked on any of the numerous projecting obstacles which jut out into the stream in all sorts of unexpected places. Here you see the advantage of the Siamese style of rowing, where the oarsman faces his work and can look ahead without turning round. If the tide is against you, it is very bad policy to go up the middle of the canal, where you meet the full force of the current; and your proper plan is to sniggle along close to the bank, or rather close to the fringe of floating houses and moored boats and landing-stages, which project from the real bank into the water. And as no two of these obstacles project to an equal distance, or form a flat continuous frontage, there is at almost every boat's length a new chance of fouling some corner, or at least striking an oar against some post or platform, or other stumbling-block. An almost greater variety of small boats seems to be collected in the khlongs than in the main river-lighters loaded with bricks or earthenware pots, or rice, or paddy ash ; house-boats occupied by fat Chinamen ; canoes and sampans innumerable, going at all sorts of paces up and down, across and along; rice-boats with their immensely long oars sweeping almost the whole width of the canal, and bearing down upon the more frail craft which meet them, with a threatening force and weight that soon clears them out of the way like leaves before a gust of wind.

As the khlong narrows and the houses grow more scarce along the bank, a European in his own boat begins to attract more attention. The children run out to the top of their landing ladders, timid but curious, and calling to their mothers to come and look at the "6 Farang." Tied to each one of these ladders will be at least one or two light canoes-the habitual and indeed only mode of transport for the family. Still further up, a mile or more from the mouth of the canal, the long succession of wharfs, shops, and houses is at length broken, and you get a short reach

of real country, where the plantains and oranges and mangoes, interspersed with tall betel-nut palms, have it all their own way, and except at full high-water it is difficult or impossible to land on either side, by reason of the broad strip of slippery brown mud which defends the crown of the bank. In these long narrow canals, which extend sometimes for many leagues into the country, the tide falls with varying rapidity and with an insidious quietness. Imagine the position of a European party which, starting for a few hours to explore one of these waterways, is left stranded at 9 A. M. on its muddy bed in the scorching sun. Without food or drink, or even perhaps a pack of cards or a novel, the situation of such unfortunates is awful to contemplate. To wade through mud about three feet deep and climb the bank, would only be one short step on the road to escape. They would have to drag their wet and miry clothes through a tangle of fruit-trees and fences hardly less impenetrable than real jungle, risking sunstroke as well as the off chance of a bite from some deadly snake. On the other hand, no rescue by boat is possible, for every five minutes makes it more and more hopeless that anything should come past except the lightest canoes. A native crew forced into such a position, as thousands are every day, feels no discomfort at all. The rice-boat journeying across country by way of tidal khlongs takes full advantage of the flood, be it by night or by day, struggles along gallantly at a rate of some five miles an hour as long as there is water to float the ship, and then puts into the bank under some friendly tree shade to wait till the next flood. Here the thick shelter of the bamboo-plaited domed roof serves as a protection from sun by day or dew by night, and the tired oarsmen and oarswomen, stretched at length on the mat-covered planks, sleep heavily without caring even for mosquitoes or flies, until the first welcome movement of the floor as the barge floats rouses them to kin. kow,' or meal time, and a fresh bout of labor.

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Only one cause stops their onward course for a few minutes. At some commodious landing-ladder, at a suitable time of the tide, the wherry is brought to, and the whole family, father, mother and children, besides perhaps a spare aunt or two, all jump into the uninviting brown water, the

elders having first exchanged the panung or knickerbocker of ordinary wear, for a sarong or girding of common cloth. Very bashful the women are, hiding up to their chins if a "farang" or European is in sight, and seizing upon a moment when he is looking the other way to trip up the ladder and escape behind cover of the boat side. But the children enjoy more than anything in the day their free swim in the thick water, larking about, chasing and splashing one another, and playing like amphibious creatures, as they are, in water, which in the afternoon of a day in the sunny season is rather to be called hot than warm. In the more crowded khlongs at about 5 o'clock, especially if the tide is then high, it is quite a sight to see the multitude of human heads bobbing about on the surface, as men, women and children turn in for their daily bath. As you row up such a canal you must take great care where you dip your oar or sculls; and how you bring them forward between the strokes. Otherwise you will hear a shrill cry from one or more of the little bathers dabbling about on each side, and if a hand is not put up to seize and avert the threatening blade, you may find that you have cut open one of the round black-thatched heads with it.

In

In the narrower canals where there is much traffic a "block" is almost as common as in Fleet Street or the Strand. Sometimes there is a raft of teak, being floated up to some saw mill, and usurping more than half of the water-way. If it meets a good-sized rice boat which tries to pass it at a shallow spot, both may get stuck; and the accumulation of smaller boats coming up behind on each side wedges itself in so that the chance of getting clear is made still more difficult. It is in such a case that the inexhaustible good-humor of the Siamese waterman comes out. stead of objurgations and grumblings, advice is given as to the best device for clearing a way. The lambak, or trouble, which has arisen, is attributed to the malign influence of chance or demons; and the stupid people who have caused it by their clumsiness are regarded rather as innocent victims, to be cheered up with sympathy, than as bunglers who should be reviled. No sooner is the obstacle removed, than an outburst of joyful exclamations seems to sweep away at a breath all the annoyance of the past few minutes, and the several

crews go on their way happier and more cheery, to all appearance, than if no difficulty or delay had occurred.

At nightfall, about 7 o'clock, most of the Siamese small craft have got home, and are safely chained up in a position where when the tide turns in the night they will not drift round and get in the way. But here and there you will see a small white light like a glow-worm flitting along over the dark water. Often this is the boat-lamp of a night huckster of comestibles going his round of the floating houses. From time to time you may hear from your window his hoarse cry, drawn out into a long musical cadence of several bars sometimes, as he runs through the list of cakes, sweetmeats, or other dainties which he has on board. But the chief collection of boats at night is round the river side theatres, several of which are always in working order. A broad glare of lamplight, reflected in the water, betrays from afar the situation of these palaces of delight, which are no more than broad floating platforms, extemporized into a stage and a "pit. Inside, the banging

of sticks and clanging of cymbals, and other noises of Siamese and Chinese drama excite the enthusiasm of a very motley audience. But all round the platform are ranged, in triple and quadruple tiers, the canoes of the theatre-goers, who at about midnight will be trooping off home again, scattering in all directions like a small swarm of water fire-flies pouring out from some fiery rendezvous on the bank.

Thus the boat-life of Siam includes almost all life. Business and pleasure, health and happiness, all centre in the river or its branches. A boat and a paddle are almost as natural and indispensable possessions to a Siamese as his arms or legs. He has no notion of travelling any distance except by boat; and the idea of living in a place inaccessible by water generally strikes him as absurd. Deprive him of his boat, and he will be like a bird docked of its wings, helpless, shiftless, and purposeless. Roads and railways may in time bring into existence a race of purely terrestrial Siamese. But for the present the population is, with few exceptions, amphibious.-Murray's Magazine.

Ir is a trite saying that the mothers of great men have always been notable women, and, for the better understanding of many of the problems that perplex us, it is to be regretted that so few particulars of their lives should have come down to us. Yet if the records are scanty they are often startling, if only for the way in which they leave no doubt as to the source whence certain mental proclivities have been derived, and this apparently more often from the female than the male progenitor. In the story of Esau and Jacob, there is to be found in the son of the intriguing Rebecca (who, by the way, might well have lived in the nineteenth century) a character so completely in accordance with her own that it seems a veritable reincarnation. The deceit and subtlety displayed by the mother, through which she succeeds in wresting from her blind husband the blessing which was the birthright of the elder son, are repeated in the craftiness of Jacob's dealings with his uncle NEW SERIES.-VOL. LII., No. 5.

Can

Laban in the matter of the ring-straked cattle, and again, at a later period of his life, when he seeks to deprecate the justly dreaded wrath of Esau. In the story of Zebedee's children, the name of whose mother has not even survived, we see an ambitious woman coming to beg for her two sons a place on the right hand and on the left of the Saviour of the World. we doubt that something of the heroic temperament that prompted this woman's act was transmitted to her two great sons, since their names are written in the list of those whom the world will not let die. The teaching of the Mother of the Gracchi, and in earlier times of the Spartan women, who inscribed upon the shields they handed to their soldier sons the legend," With it, or upon it," brought forth abundant fruit, as is witnessed by the records of those ages. Coming down to our own day, we, who are familiar with the researches of Mr. Francis Galton, know that this truth may almost be regarded as

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