Phnom Penh
BY WINIFRED GALBRAITH.
THE name is alluring. It might be a city of romance and fable ; it might be some unheard-of village in the back of beyond. Indeed it has been both, but now it is the capital of Cambodia and a surprisingly fine city to find 160 miles from the coast in the middle of Indo- China. After twenty-four hours here, I cannot rid my mind of a sense of unreality, as if the place were the creation of a genie, a city which has been built up in a day and which might as swiftly disappear. Everything looks very new. The streets arc broad and smooth, many of them laid out as boulevards with trees and grass ; sumptuous-looking cars and rather shaky motor-buses jostle the rickshaws. There are delightful public gardens in the centre of the town, " in the declivi- ties and contours of which," as the guide-book puts it, " arc scattered cages containing wild animals such as tigers, panthers, wildboars, deer, snakes, crocodiles and birds." The Royal Orchestra gives a symphony concert once a week. The shops are full of modern goods as well as native wares ; the market is clean and sanitary ; the houses look new and have electric light and running water. Only the people make it possible to believe one is in Asia at all ; crowds of babies playing in the gutter, stalls and cooking booths of fly-blown eatables and a general air of comfortable dirt and tawdry squalor happily convince one that this is not some newly built suburb or mushroom-growth city of the West.
If the well-planned modern streets and houses engender one sort of surprise, the native architecture arouses another. The King lives in a new palace built in ancient style with pagoda towers, turrets and upward curving roofs. Its gold and blue tiled roofs, pink walls, traceried windows and plaster decorations make it look like a sweetmeat palace, a house of pink sugar made for a fairy king. The inside of the building is equally magnificent. The throne room is red and gold with a marble floor and gorgeous gilt throne ascended by seven steps and over- shadowed by a " nine-range parasol " of gold brocade. A life-size statue of His Late Majesty Sisowath sits on the left of the throne—as a perpetual onlooker on the scene. Nor is the reigning monarch allowed for one minute to forget his origin or end, since the ashes of ten generations of his ancestors arc arranged on an altar to the right. In another hall is the Sacred Sword, cere- monially guarded by Brahmins in yellow robes. The custodians were comfortably relaxed on a hot afternoon, but they sprang at once to attention and began to unwrap the sword with awful solemnity. It was laid on a cushion before us, and then slowly withdrawn about four inches from the scabbard, since the ritual of its use decrees that it may only be fully uncovered once a year and that in the presence of the King himself. The sword is inlaid with gold and set with rubies along the length of the blade. Less ceremony hedged about the State crown, also of gold and rubies ; for this we were permitted to place on our unworthy heads.
In the King's Museum a heterogeneous selection of articles was laid out for our admiration. Presumably in Cambodia all that appertains to sovereignty is divine, for many of the exhibits were of little intrinsic value— menu cards from London hotels, photographs of all sorts of occasions, combs and brushes embellished with gems, the jewelled card-cases and snuff-boxes that are, it seems, the inevitable presents from other kings. . The State harness was set with rubies, literally as big as pigeons' eggs; there were rings and chains, medals and teapots, costumes and revolvers, bracelets and " leg's wears." It was like nothing so much as a pawnshop over which some magician had waved a wand turning all to precious metal and stone. The crowning touch of the whole collection was the royal bowler hat—an ordinary black bowler of conventional shape, decorated with a vast cockade of outsize diamonds and a spike of diamonds and pearls rising from the top of the crown. Such a neat combination of the convenience of the present with the glories of the past may well be recommended to other monarchs.
The history of the city is a similar blend of poetry and prose. At the top of an artificial hill in the middle of the town is the tomb of Mrs. Penh. Some six hundred years ago this lady saw a yao tree floating down the river. With the aid of some friends she dragged it to land, and in the hollow of the trunk found three images of Buddha. This convinced her that the gods did not wish the capital to remain at Ankar, and the scat of government was accordingly moved to this place, the junction of four rivers, renamed after the lady's death, " Phnom Penh," the hill of the lady of Penh.
Cambodia is a French Protectorate, and the develop. ment of the country is due to French influence. The whole State presents a remarkable instance of good colonial government. There are already more than twelve thousand miles of excellent roads, radiating from the capital and served by lines of motor-buses. A number of car ferries cross the rivers at points too wide for bridges. Even more impressive are the number of schools. One drives through miles of agricultural country, fields of rice, maize and bananas, and at intervals of about five miles notices little mat and grass buildings labelled, " Communal School." The cities have large modern secondary schools and technical colleges.
A good deal of attention has been given to encouraging native arts and crafts. Attached to an excellently arranged museum is the State Handicraft School, where some three hundred boys receive training in modelling, metal work, weaving and carving. The museum has also a bureau for selling the products of village industry. And vast amounts of money and scholarly work have gone into the excavations at Ankar, which are probably the best preserved and most methodically worked ruins in the world.
At Phnom Penh the royal elephant and the royal motor-car are stabled in adjacent sheds. One hopes this may be a happy augury of the reasonable adoption of scientific invention with the preservation of ancient pomp.
Previous page
