Down the River
water is deposited. In this way a bar has been formed, which blocks the river mouth. At low tide there are only three feet of water over it, and even during the highest tides there is never more than fifteen feet of water on the bar. Hence very big steamers can never enter the Chow Phya, but have to load and unload their cargoes by means of smaller boats, called "lighters." About fifty years ago, when the Siamese were fighting the people of Cambodia, they filled four large junks with stones, and sank them in the river mouth to prevent the ships of their enemy from reaching the capital. The junks have long since decayed, but the stones have become welded together into such a heavy, solid mass that it would take several charges of dynamite to remove the obstruction.
The first steamer ever seen on the Menam belonged to a Scotchman, who imported it from England because the King wanted to see one of the "fire-ships" that he had heard so much about. When it arrived, the Scotchman and the King quarrelled about the price, and the boat was sent away again. But the next year the King's brother built a "steamer" without the help of any European at all, just to show how clever he was, and how they could do quite well without the Scotchman's boat. The new vessel was forty-two feet long, and she had a funnel like a steamer; but this was all a sham, for there were no fires or boilers. Instead, there were paddle-wheels hidden inside the boat, and these were turned round by Siamese serfs, who worked them after the fashion of a treadmill. Everybody was hugely delighted, and the people were quite sure that the boat
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