Portions of the symbolical water are afterwards sent to the distant provinces. The local governors then assemble those people who are in any way connected with the local administration, and require them also to take the oath and drink the water of allegiance. The formula of the oath is somewhat lengthy, but the following translation of a portion of it will serve to show its general character.
"We beseech the powers of the deities to plague with poisonous boils that will rapidly prove fatal, and with all manner of terrible diseases, the dishonourable, perverse, and treacherous. May we be visited with untimely wretched and appalling deaths that our disloyalty may be made manifest in the eyes of the whole world. When we shall have departed from this life upon earth, cause us to be sent to, and all to be born again in, that great hell where we shall burn with unquenchable fire through limitless transmigrations. And when we have expiated our penalties there, and are born again into any other world, we pray that we may fail to find the least happiness in any pleasurable enjoyments that may there abound. Let us not meet the god Buddha; let us not hear the sacred teachings; let us not come into contact with the sacred priests whose mission it is to be gracious to men and animals, and to help them to escape from misery, to attain a progressive succession of births and deaths, and finally to reach heaven itself. Should we by any chance meet with holy men or priests, let us receive therefrom no gracious helpful assistance."[E]
Although the oath is rather a terrible one to take, very very little solemnity prevails on these occasions, and every one performs his part of the ceremony in a most casual manner.
Those natives who have had little or no communication with Europeans are the best exemplars of the true character of the nation. They are very gentle in their manners; timid, especially in the dark or with strangers; gay and cheerful, and fond of cheerful persons. They rarely quarrel amongst themselves, as they dislike worry and trouble of every description. They are lazy when ordinary work has to be done, but busy enough when preparations have to be made for amusements or holiday processions. Their idea of the millenium is that the tide will flow up one side of the river and down the other, so that everyone may go whithersoever he pleases without the trouble of rowing. There will be no work of any description, and men will lie in the sunshine, as happy as birds. The country people never beg, and even in the capital it is only the leprous and the blind who ask for alms. There is no clamouring for backsheesh as in other Oriental countries. The people are sharp and witty, and delight in jokes and sharp sayings. They are not nearly so imitative as the Chinese, but they absorb new ideas, and adapt themselves to changes of custom with great rapidity, when they have once overcome their initial prejudice against the innovation. When the electric tramway was first opened in Bangkok, the absence of any visible locomotive machinery caused them the greatest bewilderment, and for several days they half worshipped the cars as they passed them in the streets, murmuring to themselves the while, "It is the Devil's carriage." In less than a week, the cars were packed on every journey with a crowd who distinctly appreciated the speed and ease with which they were being carried along.
They are not greater liars than other men, except when they have come into close contact with civilisation. There are old residents living in Bangkok who remember the day when the word of a native was as good as his bond. Today the dwellers in the city are never to be trusted. Some of them carefully avoid speaking the truth on all occasions, even when it would be quite as serviceable as an untruth.
The money formerly used consisted of sea-shells of small value, eight hundred to a thousand being equal to about two pence. It was easy in those days for a man however poor to get something to eat, for there was always something on sale that could be bought for the thousandth part of two-pence. In imitation of foreign ways, a flat coin was introduced made of lead, and the old sea-shell was abolished as legal currency. The Government made a huge profit out of the transaction, for they refused to buy up any of the worthless little cowries, and they sold the leaden coins for more than they were worth. Counterfeiting naturally followed, and the coins were re-called, but as soon as the treasury-boxes were filled with a mixture of good and false money the Government refused to receive any more. All those who still had any of the leaden money in their possession experienced a serious loss. An alloy of lead and copper was issued at a reduced value; but the profit to be made by coining was still so great that counterfeit coins speedily found their way into circulation. Small bullets of gold and silver next came into use, and one of them still remains in circulation. None of these coins were stamped with the image of the king, for at that time there was a strong prejudice against the making of portraits in any medium. Europeans who travel into the jungle, have even at the present time, only to point a camera at a crowd in order to procure its instant dispersion. When a copy of the face of a person is made and taken away from him, a portion of his life goes with the picture. Unless the sovereign had been blessed with the years of a Methuselah he could scarcely have permitted his life to be distributed in small pieces together with the coins of the realm. But not many years ago the present king ordered a new issue of the coinage. Flat, round copper and silver pieces were made at the mint in the palace, and on every disc appeared the shapely profile of the reigning monarch. Postage stamps followed, with the same profile printed on them; then the king was painted and photographed; and so the old superstition has lost its power; while modern fashion requires that all who can afford it shall be photographed. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add here, that with the exception of two or three Europeans, all the professional photographers are Chinamen.
The flat, gold coins were hoarded by the people, turned into ornaments or used in the making of jewelry. They are no longer used as money, but are bought as curios for four times their original value.
Weights and scales have not as yet displaced the old methods of measurement. The table of Siamese Dry Measure is a good illustration of the devices adopted by uncivilised people to facilitate their buying and selling in the absence of any fixed legal standard.
880 Tamarind seeds make one cocoa-nut shell (kanahn)
25 Cocoa-nut shells make one bamboo basket (sat)
80 Bamboo baskets make one cart (kwien)
or
830 Tamarind seeds make one cocoa-nut shell
20 Cocoa-nut shells make one bucket (tung)
100 buckets make one cart.
In calculating time two calendars are used. One is a religious one and is only used for ecclesiastical purposes. It commences with the death of Buddha, about 543 B.C. The civil calendar is the one in general use. It dates from the founding of Bangkok in 1784 A.D. The idea of eternity is expressed in concrete form in the following manner. Eternity is divided into long periods of time, called "kops". Each "kop" is represented by a stone measuring ten miles each way. Once in every hundred years, an angel descends to one of these stones and wipes its surface with a gossamer web. When by these successive century wipings, one stone shall have been thoroughly worn away, one "kop" will have been completed, and a second period of eternity will begin.