Bangkok, the present capital of Siam, has been called "the Venice of the East," on account of its innumerable waterways. The whole place is threaded with canals of every possible size and description. There are canals that are like great broad thoroughfares, where huge boats may be seen carrying to and fro rice, fruit, and other products of the fields and orchards; and tiny little water-lanes, where the broad fronds of the graceful coco-nut palm sweep down over the sluggish stream, where green parrots scream at you from amongst green branches, and ugly dark crocodiles lie asleep in the thick and sticky mud. Along the sides of the "streets" there are long lines of floating houses in which the people live. Each house floats on a big raft, made of separate bundles of bamboo. Thus, when the floating foundation begins to rot, the bundles can be replaced one by one without disturbing the people on the raft. The raft is loosely moored to big wooden stakes, which are driven deep in the bed of the river, so that the houses rise and fall with the tide. In front of the house there is always a little platform or veranda, on which the people pass most of their time, and where, if they pretend to keep a shop, they display the goods which they wish to sell. It is on this platform that all the members of the family take their bath. They dip a bucket or can into the water, draw it up, and then pour the contents over their heads. When the occupant of one of these floating dwellings wishes to move, he sends for no furniture van or cart; but he simply shifts his house, his furniture, and his family all at the same time. If he be fairly well-to-do, he hires a steam-launch, and the little vessel goes puffing and screaming up or down the river or the canal, as the case may be, dragging behind it the miniature Noah's ark, while on the platform the little ones of the household are to be seen, bubbling over with merriment at the novelty of their experience. If the owner of the house be too poor to hire a steam-launch, he calls to his aid a number of muscular friends and relatives, and then, with the aid of great shovel-shaped paddles, they coax the home away to its new locality. Some of the people who live on the water do not inhabit floating houses, but boats, and in these they can travel about from time to time as fancy or business may direct. Many people spend the whole of their lives on boats. They are born on a boat, reared on a boat, get their education neglected on a boat, go a-courting on a boat, get married on a boat, and never forsake the water till life is over and they set out on that long mysterious journey, from which no boat or carriage will ever bring them back. There is not much room in a boat, but the inhabitants thereof seem perfectly contented with their lot; in fact, the Siamese seem to be always and everywhere perfectly happy and contented: they are one of the merriest and most cheerful people upon the face of the earth.