Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/329

Rh this doors open into the private family rooms or apartments of the women and children, to which Europeans are not admitted, and native visitors but rarely. Two small rooms are also occasionally built by the sides of the vestibule for the young men. The girls, whatever their age, always live with their mother. The whole structure is some thirty-five or forty feet square. Besides his dwelling-house the Cambodian builds a taller house, also on piles and having no entrance except by a small window, which he is particular to make tight against the rain; and this is the granary for his rice.

This description answers for the more common houses of the country—for those which are occupied by people in moderate circumstances. There are also other kinds of houses. The poor sometimes have to be contented with a low hut covering only a few square yards. The wealthy citizen may use timbers and planks instead of bamboo, but even the highest functionaries do not possess jointed planks. Luxury demands fine wood, but it is not carefully worked; and in the houses of the ministers of state one can walk on planks two or three inches thick, showing very evident gaps, and not even nailed to the joists on which they rest.

These primitive huts are far removed from the ideas we have of Oriental luxury, and still further from those which we might conceive from the ruins that exist in the country. At present Cambodian construction does not go beyond wood. Only the pagodas are of stone, and there is nothing in any of those which are standing to remind us of the splendors of the past.

There is one town, the city of Compong-Chnang, of variable population, which may rise to five thousand during the fishing season, that is built entirely on floating rafts. The people carefully follow the movements of the water, drawing their houses toward the land when it rises, and pushing them out into the stream when it falls, but always so that they shall be close to the shore without getting aground. Nothing can be more picturesque than the appearance of this town at evening when lighted by Chinese lanterns. The houses are separate from one another, and never but one story high; and the streets are regularly laid out.

The Cambodian's furniture is of the most primitive character. A table, a few stools, some earthen or copper spit-boxes, a few jars, and a bedstead made of boards, compose the useful part, while the ornamental is furnished by the arms and musical instruments hung on the walls, and mats laid upon the ground. When we go into these large rooms, we find them so scantily furnished, in comparison with our overloaded apartments, that we can hardly realize that they are occupied. But, then, what use has the Cambodian for bureaus, chairs, and tables? He has no wardrobe but his sampots, and he sits and eats on the ground. Our furniture would be a superfluity to him. What luxury he indulges in is in the line of wives, slaves, pirogues, and