Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/78

 carts have large wheels, four or five feet apart, with the sheaves placed in a small rack. The driver guides the oxen by means of ropes fastened in the septum of their noses, reminding one of the Scripture, "I will put my hook in his nose."

Sugar is produced almost everywhere, in Siam especially, under the Chinese settlers, its quality yielding to that of no other sugar in the world, so that it is fast becoming one of the most important Siamese exports. Almost all the spices used throughout the world find their early home in the peninsula or the neighboring islands—the laurel-leaf clove; the nutmeg, like a pear tree in size, its nut wrapped in crimson mace and encased in a shell; the cardamom, a plant valuable for its seeds and the principal ingredient in curries and compound spices. A pepper-plantation is a curious sight, the berries growing, not in pods, but hanging down in bunches like currants from a climber trained much like a hop-vine, yielding two annual and very profitable crops. Tea is cultivated in the Laos provinces, and coffee and cotton are also raised. Tobacco is largely grown, and its use is almost universal; even babies in their mothers' arms are often seen puffing a cigar. A fine aromatic powder, made from the deep golden root of the curcuma, is sold by the boatload in Bangkok; Siamese mothers may be seen in the morning yellowing their children with it for beauty. It is also used to give color to cur