The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Iv

THE city of Bangkok is commonly supposed to have inherited the name of the ancient capital, Ayudia ; but in the royal archives, to which I have had free access, it is given as Krung Thepha Maha-Nakhon Si-ayut-thia Maha-dilok-Racha-thani,— “ The City of the Royal, Invincible, and Beautiful Archangel.” It is ramparted with walls within and without, which divide it into an inner and an outer city, the inner wall being thirty feet high, and flanked with circular forts mounted with cannon, making a respectable show of defence. Centre of all, the heart of the citadel, is the grand palace, encompassed by a third wall, which encloses only the royal edifice, the harems, the temple of Watt Phra Këou, and the Maha Phrasat.

The Maha Phrasat is an immense structure of quadrangular façades, surmounted by a tall spire of very chaste and harmonious design. It is consecrated ; and here dead sovereigns of Siam lie in state, waiting twelve months for their cremation ; here also their ashes are deposited in urns of gold, after that fiery consummation. In the Maha Phrasat the supreme king is crowned and all court ceremonies performed. On certain high holidays and occasions of state, the high-priest administers here a sort of mass, at which the whole court attend, even the chief ladies of the harem, who, behind heavy curtains of silk and gold that hang from the ceiling to the floor, whisper and giggle and peep and chew betel, and have the wonted little raptures of their sex over furtive, piquant glimpses of the world ; for despite the strict confinement and jealous surveillance to which they are subject, the outer life, with all its bustle, passion, and romance, will now and then steal, like a vagrant, curious ray of light, into the heart’s darkness of these tabooed women, thrilling their childish minds with eager wonderment and formless longings.

Within these walls lurked lately fugitives of every class, profligates from all quarters of the city, to whom discovery was death ; but here their “ sanctuary” was impenetrable. Here were women disguised as men, and men in the attire of women, hiding vice of every vileness and crime of every enormity,— at once the most disgusting, the most appalling, and the most unnatural, that the heart of man has conceived. It was death in life, a charnel-house of quick corruption ; a place of gloom and solitude indeed, wherefrom happiness, hope, courage, liberty, truth, were forever excluded and only mother’s love was left.

The king ¹ was the disk of light and life round which these strange flies swarmed. Most of the women who composed his harem were of gentle blood, — the fairest of the daughters of Siamese nobles, and of princes of the adjacent tributary states ; the late queen consort was his own half-sister. Beside many choice Chinese and Indian girls, purchased annually for the royal harem by agents stationed at Peking, Foo-chou, and different points in Bengal, enormous sums were offered, year after year, through “solicitors” at Bangkok and Singapore, for an Englishwoman of beauty and good parentage, to crown the collection; but when I took my leave of Bangkok, in 1868, the coveted specimen had not yet appeared in the market. The cunning commissionnaires contrived to keep their places and make a living by sending his Majesty, now and then, a piquant photograph of some British Nourmahal of the period, freshly caught, and duly shipped, in good order for the harem ; but the goods never arrived.

Had the king’s tastes been Gallic, his requisition might have been filled. I remember a score of genuine offers from French demoiselles, who enclosed their cartes in billets more surprising and enterprising than any other “ proposals ” it was my office to translate. But his whimsical Majesty entertained a lively horror of French intrigue, whether of priests, consuls, or lionnes; and stood in vigilant fear of being beguiled, through one of these adventurous sirens, into fathering the innovation of a Franco-Siamese heir to the throne of the celestial Phra-batts.

The king, as well as most of the principal members of his household, rose at five in the morning, and immediately partook of a slight repast, served by the ladies who had been in waiting through the night; after which, attended by them and his sisters and elder children, he descended and took his station on a long strip of matting, laid from one of the gates through all the avenues to another. On his Majesty’s left were ranged, first, his children in the order of rank; then the princesses, his sisters ; and lastly, his concubines, his maids of honor, and their slaves. Before each was placed a large silver tray containing offerings of boiled rice, fruit, cakes, and the seri leaf; some even had cigars.

A little after five, the Patoon Dharmina (“Gate of Merit,” called by the populace “ Patoo Boon ”) was thrown open and the Amazons of the guard drawn up on either side. Then the priests entered, always by that gate, — one hundred and ninety-nine of them, escorted on the right and left by men armed with swords and clubs, — and as they entered they chanted : “ Take thy meat, but think it dust! Eat but to live, and but to know thyself, and what thou art below ! And say withal unto thy heart, 't is earth I eat, that to the earth I may new life impart.”

Then the chief priest, who led the procession, advanced with downcast eyes and lowly mien, and very simply presented his bowl (slung from his neck by a cord, and until that moment quite hidden under the folds of his yelhousehold, who offered their fruit or cakes, or their spoons full of rice or sweetmeats. In like manner did all his brethren. If, by any chance, one before whom a tray was placed was not ready and waiting with an offering, no priest stopped, but all continued to advance slowly, taking only what was freely offered, without thanks or even a look of acknowledgment, until the end of the royal train was reached, when the procession retired, chanting as before, by the gate called Duin, or in the Court language Prithri, “ Gate of Earth.”

After this, the king and all his company repaired to his private temple, Watt Sasmiras Manda - thung, ² so called because it was dedicated by his Majesty to the memory of his mother. This is an edifice of unique and charming beauty, decorated throughout by artists from Japan, who have represented on the walls, in designs as diverse and ingenious as they are costly, the numerous metempsychoses of Buddha.

Here his Majesty ascended alone the steps of the altar, rang a bell to announce the hour of devotion, lighted the consecrated tapers, and offered the white lotus and the roses. Then he spent an hour in prayer, and in reading texts from the Phrajana Paramita and the Phra-ti-Mok-sha.

This service over, he retired for another nap, attended by a fresh detail of women, — those who had waited the night before being dismissed, not to be recalled for a month, or at least a fortnight, save as a peculiar mark of preference or favor to some one who had had the good fortune to please or amuse him ; but most of that party voluntarily waited upon him every afternoon.

At two o’clock he rose again, and with the aid of his women bathed and anointed his person. Then he de scended to a breakfast-chamber, where he was served with the most substan tial meal of the day Here he chatted with his favorites among the wives and concubines, and caressed his children, taking them in his arms, embracing them, plying them with puzzling or funny questions, and making droll faces at the babies : the more agreeable the mother, the dearer the child The love of children was the constant and hearty virtue of this forlorn despot. They appealed to him by their beauty and their trustfulness, they refreshed him with the bold innocence of their ways, so frolicsome, graceful, and quaint.

From this delusive scene of domestic condescension and kindliness he passed to his hall of audience to consider official matters. Twice a week at sunset he appeared at one of the gates of the palace, to hear the complaints and petitions of the poorest of his subjects, who at no other time or place could reach his ear. It was most pitiful to see the helpless, awestricken wretches, prostrate and abject as toads, many too terrified to present the precious petition after all.

At nine he retired to his private apartments, whence issued immediately peculiar domestic bulletins, in which were named the women whose presence he particularly desired, in addition to those whose turn it was to “wait” that night.

And twice a week he held a secret council or court, at midnight. Of the proceedings of those dark and terrifying sittings I can. of course, give no exact account. I permit myself to speak only of those things which were but too plain to one who lived for six years in or near the palace.

In Siam the king — Maha Mongkut especially — is not merely enthroned, he is enshrined. To the nobility he is omnipotence, and to the rabble mystery. Since the occupation of the country by the Jesuits, many foreigners have fancied that the government is becoming more and more silent, insidious, secretive ; and that this midnight council is but the expression of a “ policy of stifling.” It is an inquisition — not overt, audacious, like that of Rome, but nocturnal, invisible, subtle, ubiquitous, like that of Spain ; proceeding without witnesses or warning ; kidnapping a subject, not arresting him, and then incarcerating, chaining, torturing him, to extort confession or denunciation. If any Siamese citizen utter one word against the “ San Luang,” the royal judges, and escape, forthwith his house is sacked and his wife and children kidnapped. Should he be captured, he is brought to secret trial, to which no one is admitted who is not in the patronage and confidence of the royal judges. In themselves the laws are tolerable, but in their operation they are frustrated or circumvented by arbitrary and capricious power in the king, or craft or cruelty in the council. No one not initiated in the mystic séances of the San Luang can depend upon Siamese law for justice. No man will consent to appear there even as a true witness, save for large reward. The citizen who would enjoy, safe from legal plunder, his private income, must be careful to find a patron and protector in the king, the prime minister, or some other formidable friend at court. Spies in the employ of the San Luang penetrate into every family of wealth and influence. Every citizen suspects and fears always his neighbor, sometimes his wife. On more than one occasion when, vexed by some act of the king’s, more than usually wanton and unjust, I instinctively gave expression to my feelings by word or look in the presence of certain officers and courtiers, I observed that they rapped, or tapped, in a peculiar and stealthy manner. This I afterward discovered was one of the secret signs of the San Luang; and the warning signal was addressed to me, because they imagined that I also was a member of the council.

En passant: a word as to the ordinary and familiar costumes of the palace. Men and women alike wear a sort of kilt, like the pu’sho of the Birmans, with a short upper tunic, over which the women draw a broad silk scarf, which is closely bound round the chest and descends in long, waving folds almost to the feet. Neither sex wear any covering on the head. The uniform of the Amazons of the harem is green and gold, and that of the soldiers scarlet and purple.

There are usually four meals : breakfast about sunrise ; a sort of tiffin at noon ; a more substantial repast in the afternoon ; and supper after the business of the day is over. Wine and tea are drunk freely, and perfumed liquors are used by the wealthy. An indispensable preparation for polite repast is by bathing and anointing the body. When guests are invited, the sexes are never brought together; for Siamese women of rank very rarely appear in strange company ; they are confined to remote and unapproachable halls and chambers, where nothing human, being male, may ever enter. The convivial entertainments of the Court are usually given on occasions of public devotion, and form a part of these.

The fact is remarkable, that though education in its higher degrees is popularly neglected in Siam, there is scarcely a man or woman in the empire who cannot read and write. Though a vain people, they are neither bigoted nor shallow ; and I think the day is not far off when the enlightening influences applied to them, and accepted through their willingness, not only to receive instruction from Europeans, but even to adopt in a measure their customs and their habits of thought, will raise them to the rank of a superior nation.

The language of this people advances but slowly in the direction of grammatical perfection. Like many other Oriental tongues, it was at first purely monosyllabic ; but as the Pali or Sanskrit has been liberally engrafted on it, polysyllabic words have been formed. Its pronouns and particles are peculiar, its idioms few and simple, its metaphors very obvious. It is copious to redundancy in terms expressive of royalty, rank, dignity ; in fact, a distinct phraseology is required in addressing personages of exalted station. Repetitions of word and phrase are affected rather than shunned ; sententious brevity and simplicity of expression belong to the pure spirit of the language, and when employed impart to it much dignity and beauty. But there is no standard of orthography, nor any grammar, and but few rules of universal application. Every Siamese writer spells to please himself, and the purism of one is the slang or gibberish of another.

The Siamese write from left to right, the words running together in a line unbroken by spaces, points, or capitals ; so that, as in ancient Sanskrit, an entire paragraph appears as one protracted word,

When not written with a reed on dark native paper, the characters are engraved with a stile (of brass or iron, one end sharp for writing, the other flat for erasing) on palm-leaves prepared for the purpose.

In all parts of the empire the boys are taught by priests to read, write, and cipher. Every monastery is provided with a library, more or less standard. The more elegant books are composed of tablets of ivory, or of palmyra leaves delicately prepared ; the characters engraved on these are gilt, the margins and edges adorned with heavy gilding, or with flowers in bright colors.

The literature of the Siamese deals principally with religious topics. The “ Kammarakya,” or Buddhist Ritual, — a work for the priesthood only, and therefore, like others of the Vinnâyâ, little known, — contains the vital elements of the Buddhist Moral Code, and, per se, is perfect ; on this point all writers, whether partial or captious, are of one mind. Spence Hardy, a Wesleyan missionary, speaking of that part of the work entitled “DhammâPadam,” ³ which is freely taught in the schools attached to the monasteries, admits that a compilation might be made from its precepts, “which in the purity of its ethics could hardly be equalled from any other heathen author.”

M. Laboulaye, one of the most distinguished members of the French Academy, remarks, in the Débats of April 4, 1853, on a work known by the title of “ Dharmna Maitree,” or “ Law of Charity”: —

“It is difficult to comprehend how men, not aided by revelation, could have soared so high and approached so near the truth. Besides the five great commandments, — not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to get drunk, — every shade of vice, hypocrisy, anger, pride, suspicion, greed, gossip, cruelty to animals, is guarded against by special precepts. Among the virtues commended we find, not only reverence for parents, care for children, submission to authority, gratitude, moderation in time of prosperity, resignation and fortitude in time of trial, equanimity at all times, but virtues unknown to any heathen system of morality, such as the duty of forgiving insults and of rewarding evil with good.”

All virtues, we are told, spring from maitrî, and this maitrî can only be rendered by charity and love.

“ I do not hesitate,” says Burnouf, in his Lotus de la Bonne Loi, “to translate by ‘ charity ’ the word maitrî, which does not express friendship, or the feeling of particular affection which a man has for one or more of his fellowcreatures, but that universal feeling which inspires us with good-will toward all men and a constant willingness to help them.”

I may here add the testimony of Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire. “I do not hesitate to add,” he writes, “ that, save Christ alone, there is not among the founders of religion a figure more pure, more touching, than that of Buddha. His life is without blemish ; his constant heroism equals his conviction; and if the theory he extols is false, the personal examples he affords are irreproachable. He is the accomplished model of all the virtues he preaches ; his abnegation, his charity, his unalterable sweetness, never belie themselves. At the age of twenty-nine he retires from the court of the king, his father, to become a devotee and a beggar. He silently prepares his doctrine by six years of seclusion and meditation. He propagates it, by the unaided power of speech and persuasion, for more than half a century ; and when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is with the serenity of a sage who has practised goodness all his life, and knows that he has found Truth.”

Another work, as sacred and more mystic, is the “ Parajikâ,” read in the temples with closed doors by the chief priests exclusively, and only to such devotees as have entered the monastic schools for life.

Then there are the “ P’ra-jana-Pârâmita,” the “ Accomplishment of Reason,” or “Transcendental Wisdom,” and other works in abstruse philosophy. The “ Lalita Vistara ” contains the life of Buddha, and is esteemed the highest authority as to the more remarkable events in the career of the great reformer. The “ Saddharma-pundikara ” (or pundariki in Ceylon), “ The White Lotus of the True Religion,” presents the incidents of Buddha’s life in the form of legend and fable.

The “ Ganda-Veyuha,” but little known, consists of remarkable and very beautiful forms of prayer and thanksgiving, with psalms of praise addressed to the Perfection of the Infinite and to the Invisible, by Sakya Muni, the Buddha. The “Nirwana” treats of the end of material existence, and is universally read and highly esteemed by Buddhists, as a treatise of rare merit.

But the most important parts of the theological study of the Siamese priesthood are found in a work revered under the titles of “Tautras” and “ KalaChakara,” that is, “ Circles of Time, Matter, Space ”; probably a translation of the Sanskrit symbolic word, Om, “ Circle.” There are twenty-two volumes, treating exclusively of mystics and mystical worship.

The libraries of the monasteries are rich in works on the theory and practice of medicine ; but very poor in historical books, the few preserved dealing mainly with the lives and actions of Siamese rulers, oddly associated with the genii and heroes of the Hindoo mythology. Like the early historians of Greece and Rome, the writers are careful to furnish a particular account of all signs, omens, and predictions relating to the several events recorded. They possess also a few translated works in Chinese history.

The late king was an authority on all questions of religion, law, and custom, and was familiar with the writings of Pythagoras and Aristotle.

The Siamese have an extravagant fondness for the drama, and for poetry of every kind. In all, the lyric form predominates, and their compositions are commonly adapted for instrumental accompaniment. Their dramatic entertainments are mainly musical, combining rudely the opera with the ballet, — monotonous singing and listless, mechanical dancing. Dialogues are occasionally introduced, the favorite subjects being passages from the Hindoo Avatars, the epic “ Ramayana,” and the “ Mahabharata,” or from legends, peculiar to Siam, of gods, heroes, and demons. Throughout their literature, mythology is the all-pervading element; history, science, arts, customs, conversation, opinion, doctrine, are alike colored and flavored with it.

With so brief and meagre a sketch of the literature of Siam, I would fain prepare the reader to appreciate the peculiarities of an English classical school in the Royal Palace at Bangkok. In Siam, all schools, literary societies, monasteries, even factories, all intellectual and progressive enterprises of whatever nature and intention, are opened and begun on Thursday,

“ One P’ra Hatt ” ; because that day is sacred to the goddess of Mind or Wisdom, probably the Hindoo Saraswati. On the Thursday appointed for the opening of my classes in the palace, one of the king’s barges conveyed us across the Mèinam. At the landing I was met by slave-girls, who conducted me to the palace through the gate called Patoo Sap, “ Gate of Knowledge.” Here I was received by some Amazons, who in turn gave notice to other slavegirls waiting to escort us to a pavilion, or more correctly temple, dedicated to the wives and daughters of Siam.⁴ The profound solitude of this refuge, embowered in its twilight grove of orange and palm trees, was strangely tranquillizing. The religion of the place seemed to overcome us, as we waited among the tall, gilded pillars of the temple. On one side was an altar, enriched with some of the most curious and precious offerings of art to be found in the East. There was a gilded rostrum also, from which the priests daily officiated ; and near by, on the summit of a curiously carved trunk of an old Bho-tree,⁵ the goddess of Mind presided.

The floor of this beautiful temple was a somewhat gaudy mosaic, of variegated marble and precious stones ; but the gilded pillars, the friezes that surmounted them, and the vaulted roof of gilded arabesque, seemed to tone down the whole to their own chaste harmony of design.

In the centre of the temple stood a long table, finely carved, and some gilt chairs. The king and most of the nobler ladies of the court were present, with a few of the chief priests, among whom I recognized for the first time his Lordship Chow Khoon Sâh.

His Majesty received me and my little boy most kindly. After an interval of silence he clapped his hands lightly, and instantly the lower hall was filled with female slaves. A word or two, dropped from his lips, bowed every head, and dispersed the attendants. But they presently returned laden, some with boxes containing books, slates, pens, pencils, and ink ; others with lighted tapers, and vases filled with the white lotus, which they set down before the gilded chairs.

At a signal from the king, the priests chanted a hymn from the “ P’ra-jana Paramita ” ; ⁶ and then a burst of music announced the entrance of the princes and princesses, my future pupils. They advanced in the order of their ages. The Princess Ying You Wahlacks (“First-born among Women”) having precedence, approached and prostrated herself before her royal father, the others following her example.

I admired the beauty of her skin, the delicacy of her form, and the subdued lustre of her dreamy eyes. The king took her gently by the hand, and presented me to her, saying simply, “ The English teacher.” Her greeting was quiet and self-possessed. Taking both my hands, she bowed, and touched them with her forehead ; then, at a word from the king, retired to her place on the right. One by one, in like manner, all the royal children were presented and saluted me ; and the music ceased.

His Majesty then spoke briefly, to this effect: “ Dear children, as this is to be an English school, you will have to learn and observe the English modes of salutation, address, conversation, and etiquette ; and each and every one of you shall be at liberty to sit in my presence, unless it be your own pleasure not to do so.” The children all bowed, and touched their foreheads with their folded hands, in acquiescence.

Then his Majesty departed with the priests ; and the moment he was fairly out of sight the ladies of the court began, with much noise and confusion, to ask questions, turn over the leaves of books, and chatter and giggle together. Of course no teaching was possible in such a din ; my youngprinces and princesses disappeared in the arms of their nurses and slaves ; and I retired to my apartments in the Prime Minister’s palace. But the serious business of my school began on the following Thursday.

On that day a crowd of half-naked children followed me and my Louis to the palace gates, where our guide gave us in charge to a consequential female slave, at whose request the ponderous portal was opened barely wide enough to admit one person at a time. On entering we were jealously scrutinized by the Amazonian guard, and a “ high private” questioned the propriety of admitting my boy ; whereat a general tittering, and we passed on. We advanced through the noiseless oval door, and entered the dim, cool pavilion, in the centre of which the tables were arranged for school. Away flew several venerable dames who had awaited our arrival, and in about an hour returned, bringing with them twenty-one scions of Siamese royalty, to be initiated in the mysteries of reading, writing, and arithmetic, after the European, and especially the English manner.

It was not long before my scholars were ranged in chairs around the long table, with Webster’s far-famed spelling-books before them, repeating audibly after me the letters of the alphabet. While I stood at one end of the table, my little Louis at the other, mounted on a chair, the better to command his division, mimicked me with a fidelity of tone and manner very quaint and charming. Patiently his small finger pointed out to his class the characters so strange to them, and not yet perfectly familiar to himself.

About noon, a number of young women were brought to me, to be taught like the rest. I received them sympathetically, at the same time making a memorandum of their names in a book of my own. This created a general and lively alarm, which it was not in my power immediately to allay, my knowledge of their language being confined to a few simple sentences ; but when at last their courage and confidence were restored, they began to take observations and an inventory of me that were by no means agreeable. They fingered my hair and dress, my collar, belt, and rings. One donned my hat and cloak, and made a promenade of the pavilion; another pounced upon my gloves and veil, and disguised herself in them, to the great delight of the little ones, who laughed boisterously. A grim duenna, who had heard the noise, bustled wrathfully into the pavilion. Instantly hat, cloak, veil, gloves, were flung right and left, and the young women dropped on the floor, repeating shrilly, like truant urchins caught in the act, their “ba, be, bi, bo.”

One who seemed the infant phenomenon of the Royal harem, so juvenile and artless were her looks and ways, despising a performance so rudimentary as the a, b, c, demanded to be steered at once into the mid-ocean of the book ; but when I left her without pilot in an archipelago of hard words, she soon showed signals of distress.

At the farther end of the table, bending over a little prince, her eyes riveted on the letters my boy was naming to her, stood a pale young woman, whose aspect was dejected and forlorn. She had entered unannounced and unnoticed, as one who had no interest in common with the others ; and now she stood apart and alone, intent only on mastering the alphabet, with the help of her small teacher. When we were about to dismiss the school, she repeated her lesson to my wise lad, who listened with imposing gravity, pronounced her a “ very good child,” and said she might go now. But when she perceived that I observed her curiously, she crouched almost under the table, as though owning she had no right to be there, and was worthy to pick only the crumbs of knowledge that might fall from it. She was neither very young nor pretty, save that her dark eyes were profound and expressive, and now the more interesting by their touching sadness. Esteeming it the part of prudence as well as of kindness to appear unconscious of her presence, and so encourage her to come again, I left the palace without accosting her, before his Majesty had awakened from his forenoon nap. This crushed creature had fallen under the displeasure of the king, and the after chapters of her story, which shall be related in their proper connection, were romantic and mournful.

Among my pupils was a little girl about eight or nine years old, of delicate frame, and with the low voice and subdued manner of one who had already had experience of sorrow. She was not among those presented to me at the opening of the school. Waine Ratâm Kania was her name (“ Sweet promise of my hopes ”), and very engaging and persuasive was she in her patient, timid loveliness. Her mother, the Lady Khoon Chom Kioa, who had once found favor with the king, had, at the time of my coming to the palace, fallen into disgrace by reason of her gambling, in which she had squandered all the patrimony of the little princess. This fact, instead of inspiring the royal father with pity for his child, seemed to attract to her all that was most cruel in his insane temper. The offence of the mother had made the daughter offensive in his sight; and it was not until long after the term of imprisonment of the degraded favorite had expired that Waine ventured to appear at a royal levée. The moment the king caught sight of the little form, so piteously prostrated there, he drove her rudely from his presence, taunting her with the delinquencies of her mother, with a coarseness that would have been cruel enough if she had been responsible for them and a gainer by them ; but against one of her tender years, innocent toward both, and injured by both, it was inconceivably atrocious.

In her first appearance at school she was so timid and wistful that I felt constrained to notice and encourage her more than those whom I had already with me. But I found this no easy part to play ; for very soon one of the court ladies, in the confidence of the king, took me quietly aside and warned me to be less demonstrative in favor of the little princess, saying, “ Surely you would not bring trouble upon that wounded lamb.”

It was a sore trial to me to witness the oppression of one so unoffending and so helpless. Yet our Waine was neither thin nor pale. There was a freshness in her childish beauty, and a bloom in the transparent olive of her cheek, that were at times bewitching. She loved her father, and in her visions of baby faith beheld him almost as a god. It was true joy to her to fold her hands and bow before the chamber where he slept. With that steadfast hopefulness of childhood, which can be deceived without being discouraged, she would say, “ How glad he will be when I can read ! ” and yet she had known nothing but despair.

Her memory was extraordinary; she delighted in all that was remarkable, and with careful wisdom gathered up facts and precepts and saved them for future use. She seemed to have built around her an invisible temple of her own design, and to have illuminated it with the rushlight of her childish love. Among the books she read to me, rendering it from English into Siamese, was one called “Spring-time.” On translating the line, “ Whom He loveth He chasteneth,” she looked up in my face, and asked anxiously : “ Does thy God do that ? Ah ! lady, are all the gods angry and cruel? Has he no pity, even for those who love him ? He must be like ray father; he loves us, so he has to be rye (cruel) that we may fear evil and avoid it.”

Meanwhile little Waine learned to spell, read, translate, almost intuitively; for there were novelty and hope to help the Buddhist child, and love to help the English woman. The sad look left her face, her life had found an interest; and very often, on fête days, she was my only pupil ; when suddenly an ominous cloud obscured the sky of her transient gladness.

Waine was poor; and her gifts to me were of the riches of poverty, — fruits and flowers. But she owned some female slaves ; and one among them, a woman of twenty-five perhaps (who had already made a place for herself in my regard), seemed devotedly attached to her youthful mistress, and not only attended her to the school day after day, but shared her scholarly enthusiasm,— even studied with her, sitting at her feet by the table. Steadily the slave kept pace with the princess. All that Waine learned at school in the day was lovingly taught to Mai Noie in the nursery at night: and it was not long before I found to my astonishment that the slave read and translated as correctly as her mistress.

Very delightful were the demonstrations of attachment interchanged between these two. Mai Noie bore the child in her arms to and from the school, fed her, humored her every whim, fanned her naps, bathed and perfumed her every night, and then rocked her to sleep on her careful bosom, as tenderly as she would have done for her own baby. And then it was charming to watch the child’s face kindle with love and comfort as the sound of her friend’s step approached.

Suddenly a change : the little princess came to school as usual, but a strange woman attended her; and I saw no more of Mai Noie there. The child grew so listless and wretched that I was forced to ask the cause of her darling’s absence ; she burst into a passion of tears, but replied not a word. Then I inquired of the stranger, and she answered in two syllables : “ My ru ” (I know not).

Shortly afterward, as I entered the school-room one day, I perceived that something unusual was happening. I turned toward the princes’ door, and stood still, fairly holding my breath. There was the king, furious, striding up and down. All the female judges of the palace were present, and a crowd of mothers and royal children. On all the steps around innumerable slavewomen, old and young, crouched and hid their faces.

But the object most conspicuous was little Waine’s mother, manacled, and prostrate on the polished marble pavement. There, too, was my poor little princess, her hands clasped helplessly, her eyes tearless but downcast, palpitating, trembling, shivering. Sorrow and horror had transformed the child.

As well as I could understand, where no one dared explain, the wretched woman had been gambling again, and had even staked and lost her daughter’s slaves. At last I understood Waine’s silence when I asked her where Mai Noie was. By some means — spies probably — the whole matter had come to the king’s ears, and his rage was wild, not because he loved the child, but that he hated the mother.

Promptly the order was given to lash the woman; and two Amazons advanced to execute it. The first stripe was delivered with savage skill ; but before the thong could descend again the child sprang forward and flung herself across the bare and quivering back of her mother.

“ Tu cham Tha Moom ! ⁷ Poothô tu cham Tha Moom!” “Strike me, my father ! Pray strike me, O my father ! ”

The pause of fear that followed was only broken by my boy, who, with a convulsive cry, buried his face desperately in the folds of my skirt.

There indeed was a case for prayer, any prayer ! the prostrate woman, the hesitating lash, the tearless anguish of the Siamese child, the heart-rending cry of the English child, all those mothers with grovelling brows, but hearts uplifted among the stars, on the wings of the angel of prayer. Who could behold so many women crouching, shuddering, stupefied, dismayed, in silence and darkness, animated, enlightened, only by the deep whispering heart of maternity, and not be moved with mournful yearning ?

The child’s prayer was vain. As demons tremble in the presence of a god, so the king comprehended that he had now to deal with a power of weakness, pity, beauty, courage, and eloquence. “Strike me, O my father!” His quick, clear sagacity measured instantly all the danger in that challenge; and though his voice was thick and agitated (for, monster as he was at that moment, he could not but shrink from striking at every mother’s heart at his feet), he nervously gave the word to remove the child, and bind her. The united strength of several women was not more than enough to loose the clasp of those loving arms from the neck of an unworthy mother. The tender hands and feet were bound, and the tender heart was broken. The lash descended then, unforbidden by any cry.

To be free to make a stunning din is a Siamese woman’s idea of perfect enjoyment. In the Prime Minister’s palace the hubbub of the harem, in the absence of the prince, sometimes lost its quality of interest, and degenerated into nuisance. Hardly were we installed in our apartments there, when with a pell-mell rush and screams of laughter his Excellency’s ladies reconnoitred us in force, crowding in through the half-open door. They scrambled for me, with eager curiosity, all trying at once to embrace me boisterously, and promiscuously chattering in shrill Siamese, — a bedlam of parrots; while I endeavored to make myself impartially agreeable in the language of signs and glances. Nearly all were young ; and in symmetry of form, delicacy of feature, and fairness of complexion, decidedly superior to the Malay women I had been accustomed to. Most of them would have been positively attractive, but for their ingeniously ugly mode of cutting the hair and blackening the teeth.

The youngest were mere children, hardly more than fourteen years old. All were arrayed in rich materials, though the costume did not differ from that of their slaves, numbers of whom were prostrate in the rooms and passages. My apartment was ablaze with their crimson, blue, orange, and purple, their ornaments of gold, their rings and brilliants, and their jewelled boxes. Two or three of the younger girls satisfied my Western ideas of beauty, with their clear, mellow olive complexions, and their almond-shaped eyes, so dark yet glowing. Those among them who were really old were simply hideous and repulsive. One wretched crone shuffled through the noisy throng with an air of authority, and pointing to Louis lying in my lap, cried, “ Moolay, Moolay!”⁸ The familiar Malay word fell pleasantly on my ear, and I was delighted to find some one through whom I might possibly control the disorderly bevy around me. I addressed her in Malay. Instantly my visitors were silent and waited in attitudes of eager attention.

She told me she was one of the many custodians of the harem. She was a native of Quedah ; and “ some sixty years ago ” she and her sister, together with other young Malay girls, were captured while working in the fields by a party of Siamese adventurers. They were brought to Siam and sold as slaves. At first she mourned miserably for her home and parents. But while she was yet young and attractive, she became a favorite of the late Somdetch Ong Yai, father of her present lord, and bore him two sons, just as moolay, moolay as my own darling. But they were dead. (Here, with the end of her soiled silk scarf she furtively wiped a tear from her face, no longer ugly.) And her gracious lord was dead also ; it was he who gave her this beautiful gold betelbox.

“ But how is it that you are still a slave ? ” I asked.

“ I am old and ugly and childless : and therefore to be trusted by my dead lord’s son, the beneficent prince, upon whose head be blessings,” — clasping her withered hands, and turning toward that part of the palace where no doubt he was enjoying a “ beneficent ” nap.

“ And now it is my privilege to watch and guard these favored ones, that they see no man but their lord.”

The repulsive deformity of this woman had been wrought by oppression out of that which must have been beautiful once ; for the spirit of beauty came back to her for a moment, with the passing memories that brought her long-lost treasures with them. In the brutal tragedy of a slave’s experience, — a female slave in the harem of an Asian despot, — the native angel in her had been bruised, mutilated, defaced, deformed, but not quite obliterated.

Her story ended, the younger women, to whom her language had been strange, could no longer suppress their merriment, nor preserve the decorum due to her age and authority. Again they swarmed about me like bees, plying me pertinaciously with questions as to my age, husband, children, country, customs, possessions; and presently crowned the inquisitorial performance by asking, in all seriousness, if I should not like to be the wife of the prince, their lord, rather than of the terrible Chow-che-witt. ⁹

Here was a monstrous suggestion that struck me dumb. Without replying, I rose and shook them off, retiring with my boy into the inner chamber. But they pursued me without compunction, repeating the extraordinary question, and dragging the Malay duenna along with them to interpret my answer. The intrusion provoked me ; but, considering their beggarly poverty of true life and liberty, of hopes and joys, and loves and memories, and holy fears and sorrows, with which a full and true response might have twitted them, I was ashamed to be vexed.

Seeing it impossible to rid myself of them, I promised to answer their question, on condition that they would leave me for that day. Immediately all eyes were fixed upon me.

“ The prince, your lord, and the king, your Chow-che-witt, are pagans,” I said. “ An English, that is, a Christian, woman would rather be put to the torture, chained and dungeoned for life, or suffer a death the slowest and most painful you Siamese know, than be the wife of either.”

They remained silent in astonishment, seemingly withheld from speaking by an instinctive sentiment of respect ; until one, more volatile than the rest, cried, “ What ! not if he gave you all these jewelled rings and boxes, and these golden things ? ”

When the old woman, fearing to offend, whispered this test question in Malay to me, I laughed at the earnest eyes around, and said: “No, not even then. I am only here to teach the royal family. I am not like you. You have nothing to do but to play and sing and dance for your master ; but I have to work for my children ; and one little one is now on the great ocean, and I am very sad.”

Shades of sympathy, more or less deep, flitted across the faces of my audience, and for a moment they regarded me as something they could neither convince nor comfort nor understand. Then softly repeating Poot-thoo ! Pootthoo ! ¹⁰ they quietly left me. A minute more, and I heard them laughing and shouting in the halls.