Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/476

 As we pass the different towns and villages we stop as necessity requires to replenish our larder in the line of rice, vegetables, fruit, fish or chickens. Flour, coffee, tea, sugar, etc. we provided in Bangkok for the whole trip. The flour comes from America. When we bake bread it is always in the evening. We got leaven from the friends in Bangkok, and hold it in safe-keeping, lest we run short midway in our journey. When the boat stops for the night we have our loaves already risen in the pans, and our first care is a fire for its immediate baking.

The houses in these towns are scattered without regularity of streets or squares. Slight bamboo fences mark the boundaries of each house and garden. The enclosed space may be large, as in case of a nobleman's residence, or very small or maybe none at all in that of a poor peasant. The houses are built of bamboo, and are raised on posts. The roofs are covered with attap (a broad-leaved grass resembling blades of corn). Costlier and larger houses are made of teak-*wood, raised also on posts and the roofs covered with tiles. Not a brick house or a chimney is to be seen anywhere. At a distance the appearance of a town is strongly suggestive of barns and hay-*stacks.

In contrast with these rude domiciles we find in the vicinity of every town large and elaborately finished temples. Upon them the wealth and