on by
the Giants or the White Sox.

Bangkok, which, with its suburbs, has a population about equal to that
of Boston, is built on the banks of the country's greatest river, the
Menam, some forty miles from its mouth. Though the city has a number of
fine thoroughfares, straight as though laid out with a pencil and
ruler, between them lie labyrinths of dim and evil-smelling bazaars,
their narrow, winding, cobble-paved streets lined on either side by
stalls in which are displayed for sale all the products of the country.
Because of the intense heat these stalls are open in front, so that the
occupants work and eat and sleep in full view of everyone who passes.
The barber shaves the heads of his customers while they squat in the
edge of the roadway. In the licensed gambling houses groups of excited
men and women crowd about gaming tables presided over by greasy,
half-naked Chinese croupiers, and, when they have squandered their
trifling earnings, hasten to the nearest pawnshop with any garment or
article of furniture that is not absolutely indispensable to their
existence in order to obtain a few more coins to hazard and eventually
to lose. As a result of this passion for gambling, the city is full of
pawnshops, some streets containing scarcely anything else. At the far
end of one of the bazaar streets is the largest idol manufactory in
Siam, for the temples whose graceful, tapering towers dot the landscape
are filled with images of Buddha, in all sizes and of all materials
from wood to gold set with jewels, most of them donated by the devout
in order to "make merit" for themselves. As all Buddhists wish to
accumulate as much merit for themselves as possible, in order to be
assured at death of a through ticket to Nirvana, the idol-making
industry is in a flourishing condition.

Pushing their way through the crowded thoroughfares, their raucous
cries rising above the clamor, go the ice cream and curry vendors,
carrying the paraphernalia of their trade slung from bamboo poles
borne upon the shoulders--perambulating cafeterias and soda fountains,
as it were. For a satang--a coin equivalent to about a quarter of a
cent--you can purchase a bowl of rice, while the expenditure of another
satang will provide you with an assortment of savories or relishes,
made from elderly meat, decayed fish, decomposed prawns and other
toothsome ingredients, which you heap upon the rice, together with a
greenish-yellow curry sauce which makes th