It was carried to the cemetery Watt Sah Kâte; and there men, hired to do such dreadful offices upon the dead, cut off all the flesh and flung it to the hungry dogs that haunt that monstrous garbage-field of Buddhism. The bones, and all that remained upon them, were thoroughly burned; and the ashes, carefully gathered in an earthen pot, were scattered in the little gardens of wretches too poor to buy manure. All that was left now of the venerable devotee was the remembrance of a look.
"This," said the King, as I turned away sickened and sorrowful, "is to give one's body to be burned. This is what your St. Paul had in his mind,—this custom of our Buddhist ancestors, this complete self-abnegation in life and in death,—when he said, 'Even if I give my body to be burned, and have not charity [maitrî], it profiteth me nothing.'"
[Illustration: Priests at Breakfast.]
COMMON MAXIMS OF THE PRIESTS OF SIAM.
Glory not in thyself, but rather in thy neighbor.
Dig not the earth, which is the source of life and the mother of all.
Cause no tree to die.
Kill no beast, nor insect, not even the smallest ant or fly.
Eat nothing between meals.
Regard not singers, dancers, nor players on instruments.