Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/473

 launch out into the river. The exit is very quiet. As our crafts are pulled out to mid-stream the splash of the long oars as they fall and rise is the only signal of our outgoing. We select the time of departure at "flood-tide," when the waters from the Gulf of Siam come up to start us on our way. But in a few hours we are beyond this tidal wave—yes, and far beyond the dear friends we left standing on the bank of the river. Bangkok is left in the distance, with its missionary homes and chapels, its palaces, huts and great temples, its shipping, steamers and market-boats, its bazaars and merchant-houses and its thronging, restless population.

The river at this stage of our journey is wide and even with its banks, while the heavy volume of water is rippling and turbid. As we pass the suburbs and get farther into the country the signs of human life begin to disappear. Mile after mile we pass between the low green banks in uninhabited seclusion and surrounded on all sides by luxuriant and gorgeous vegetation—forest trees and bushes of undergrowth in countless varieties, and conspicuous among them the bamboo, cocoanut and palm. Every bend brings a repetition of the same scene, without the sight of a house or road or farm, until we reach one of the many villages that are scattered at distances all the way to Rahang, our halfway station.