As the capital is left behind the houses get fewer and fewer along the banks, and the trees come right down to the edge of the river. On either side of us, as the mouth is neared, there are dreary salt marshes, which are often flooded by the sea when the tides are high. On the banks, the fern-like attap-palm, that lover of the mud, bends over in graceful curves to dip the ends of its long fronds in the dirty water. Just behind, on firmer ground, rise the stately coco-nut and areca-nut palms. An eastern saying states: "The coco-nut will not thrive far from the sound of the human voice." Whether the coco-nut loves the sound of the Siamese voice or not it is, perhaps, not possible to say, but certain it is that the Siamese loves the coco-nut palm, on account of the many useful things that he can get from it. The young coco-nut is quite a different thing from that seen in our shops about Christmas-time. In its early stages it resembles a huge, unripe green plum. Outside there is a smooth green skin, like that on the outside of the plum. Under the skin is a layer of thick white woody fibres, that corresponds to the unripe part of the plum; and inside all there is a kernel, corresponding to the kernel of the plum. At this stage there is very little flesh in the nut, but a large supply of cool, sweet milk, which makes a very delicious drink. If you want a coco-nut, you just climb up a tree and take one. The owner of the tree will not mind, and he would be neither surprised nor angry if you were even to go and ask him for the loan of a knife wherewith to cut down his own coco-nuts. When the fruit is ripe, the woody mass changes to a tangle of brown fibres, that are stripped off to make coco-nut matting and other articles, and the kernel ripens into the nut as we know it in the English market. By this time we are at the mouth of the river. Here the current of the river meets the sea. That current is bearing with it tons of fine sand and soil. But the sea seems to say to the river, "Thus far, and no farther." And so here all the muddy stuff in the river water is deposited. In this way a bar has been formed, which blocks the river mouth. At low tide there are only three feet of water over it, and even during the highest tides there is never more than fifteen feet of water on the bar. Hence very big steamers can never enter the Chow Phya, but have to load and unload their cargoes by means of smaller boats, called "lighters." About fifty years ago, when the Siamese were fighting the people of Cambodia, they filled four large junks with stones, and sank them in the river mouth to prevent the ships of their enemy from reaching the capital. The junks have long since decayed, but the stones have become welded together into such a heavy, solid mass that it would take several charges of dynamite to remove the obstruction.