THE CAPITAL OF SIAM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 40.

THE CAPITAL OF SIAM.

A CORRESPONDENT of the San Francisco Chronicle gives the following curious account of everyday scenes in the great city of Bangkok:—

An American finds Bangkok full of the strangest contrasts and oddest sights. He sees the river banks lined for miles with floating houses, the homes of many thousands, and the scene of busy trade. On one corner is the splendid palace of a nobleman, and on the next the hovels of the very poor. Here are groups of Buddhist priests in yellow garb, shielding their faces with fans for fear the sight of women will induce unholy thoughts, and near them are gangs of the toughest of convicts clanking their chains as they toil in the streets. Here are lepers horribly repulsive, unrestrained, and clamorous for alms, and soon, perhaps, the king passes with a brilliant retinue, sitting on his state chair. Fine ladies have teeth as black as polished ebony. It is only the vast army of female outcasts whose teeth are white. When a member of the royal house dies, the cremation ceremonies cost a fortune, and while thousands are witnessing the imposing display, vultures are tearing dead bodies to pieces in the heart of Bangkok, and the poor are burning their dead, a couple of armfuls of wood serving as the funeral pyre.

One would have to travel far to witness a more remarkable sight than that which is often seen in the very heart of Bangkok. It is a place where the bodies of human beings are thrown on the ground to be torn to pieces and devoured by vultures. This place is at the foot of a mound on which a great temple stands. You see the ground is covered with the bones of victims, and here is a leg from which the flesh has not yet been entirely stripped. Here is a man's body that was thrown on the ground only a minute before the picture was taken, and at a little distance the carrion feeders, standing on the ground and perched on the fence, are greedily eyeing it. That young man who is crouching over the body is keeping the vultures away while the photographer is taking the picture. Around him are a number of little boys who have gathered to see the disgusting spectacle. This is what they saw a few minutes later:—

All the vultures were allowed to light upon the body and tear it as they liked. For a while the great birds completely hid the corpse from view. Each tore off a large piece of flesh, and grabbing it with bill and claws, fluttered away a little distance to quietly eat it without being jostled by its mates. They bolted the food like starving dogs, and it was not long before the bones had been stripped of everything eatable. Persons who die of contagious diseases, and many paupers and criminals, are thus fed to the vultures.

One would think that such practices in a great city would breed a pestilence. Here is a great capital in which nearly 800,000 people live who have absolutely no sanitary regulations. No quarantine guards the port against contagious diseases from abroad. The refuse of the kitchen is dumped in front of palaces and splendid temples.