Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume VIII, No. 5 [‎17v] (37/154)

440
JOURNEY ROUND SIAM.
my men, for in a metropolis of that size there was some kind of market
where they might replenish the camp larder.
Why the population should be so scarce is difficult to say. In olden
times war and bloodshed certainly ravaged the country; but now, from
my own observation, I should think the principal check on the growth
of population is pestilence. The year of 1895 may have been excep
tional, but everywhere I went I saw signs of widespread epidemics of
fever, small-pox, and cholera. In and around Korat and some other
places this was particularly noticeable, as the people have the custom
of sticking up in front of a house where there is illness, a little earthen
ware pot marked with blue or white bands. This was not done out of
consideration, it seems, for the neighbours, but was a visible token of
supplication for mercy to the demon of fever or cholera. The number
of these pots in some places was perfectly alarming, and on more
than one occasion we marched right into a village where cholera was
rampant.
This region, too, is by nature cut off from communication with the
outside world. Outlet by the Mekong on the east is barred by the
piecipitous rapids at Khone (or Khawn, as it is locally pronounced),
and what trade there is has always tended in the direction of Korat.
The route from Korat to Bangkok, again, is extremely difficult and
dangerous, as it passes through a dense and dark forest, which has such
a frightful reputation for fever that the name is always mentioned by
the Siamese with bated breath—and with good reason too, for it is
beyond doubt a most pestilential and malarious spot. The narrow and
tortuous trail can only be traversed by pack-bullocks, and they take
ten days to accomplish the journey to Saraburi, which is within three
days of Bangkok by boat.
It is by this route that trade is carried on, and, considering the
difficulties and cost of transport, it is rather surprising to find that
there is any trade at all. Not that it amounts to very much, for,
judging roughly in the absence of any reliable statistics, I should not
be inclined to estimate the total import and export trade at more
than £200,000 per annum. The imports consist, as usual, principally
of cotton cloth and a few other articles of clothing, brass dishes and
crockery, and the exports of cardamums, raw silk, gum benjamin,
cattle, and hides. On account of this isolation, the inhabitants da
not seem to possess that instinct for trade which renders a country
valuable. They grow their own rice and tobacco, weave their own
clothes of silk and cotton, and in many places have not even o- 0 t
beyond a system of barter for their few wants, and of paying their
taxes in kind.
K 01 )at is important in one sense, as being the depot for the whole
ot the Hinterland, extending even across to the left bank of the Mekong;
bUt 11 Cannot be said tbat is a region which, in its present