Siam : The Land of the White Elephant as It Was and Is

by George B. Bacon

THE LATE FIRST KING AND QUEEN.

This polyglot variety of titles indicates a varied, though somewhat superficial, learning. Before he came to the throne the king had lived for several years in the seclusion of a Buddhist monastery. Promotion from the priesthood to the throne is an event so unusual in any country except Siam, that it might seem full of risk. But in this instance it worked well. During the years of his monastic life he grew to be a thoughtful, studious man, and he brought with him to his kingly office a wide familiarity with literature which marked him as a scholar who knew the world through books rather than through men. His manner of speaking English was less easy and accurate than his brother's; but, on the other hand, the "pomp and circumstance" of his court was statelier and stranger, and is worthy of a better description. The second king received us with such gentlemanly urbanity and freedom that it was hard to realize the fact that we were in the presence of royalty. But our reception by the first king was arranged on what the newspapers would call "a scale of Oriental magnificence," and it lingers in memory like some dreamy recollection of the splendors of the Arabian Nights.

One of the most singular illustrations of the ups and downs of nations and of races which history affords, is to be seen in the position of the Portuguese in Siam. They came there centuries ago as a superior race, in all the dignity and pride of discoverers, and with all the romantic daring of adventurous exploration. Now there is only a worn-out remnant of them left, degraded almost to the level of the Asiatics, to whom they brought the name and knowledge of the Western world. They have mixed with the Siamese, till, at the first, it is difficult to distinguish them as having European blood and lineage. But when we asked who the grotesque old creatures might be who came to us on messages from the king, or guided us when we went to see the wonders of the city, or superintended the cooking of our meals, or performed various menial services about our dwelling, we found that they were half-breed descendants of the Portuguese who once flourished here. When we landed at the mouth of the river on our way to Bangkok for an audience with the king, one of the first persons whom we encountered was one of these demoralized Europeans. He made a ridiculous assertion of his lineage in the style of his costume. Disdaining the Siamese fashions, he had made for himself or had inherited a swallow-tailed coat of sky-blue silk, and pantaloons of purple silk, in which he seemed to feel himself the equal of any of us. Had any doubt as to his ancestry lingered in our minds, it must have been removed by a most ancient and honorable stove-pipe hat, which had evidently been handed down from father to son, through the generations, as a rusty relic of grander days. This old gentleman was in charge of a bountiful supply of provisions which the king had sent for us. It was hard not to moralize over the old man as the representative of a nation which had all the time been going backward since it led the van of discovery in the Indies centuries ago; while the people whom his ancestors found heathenish and benighted are starting on a career of improvement and elevation of which no man can prophesy the rate or the result.

The old Portuguese referred to would seem to be the same whom Sir John Bowring mentions in the following passage, and who has been so long a faithful servant of the government of Siam that his great age and long-continued services entitle him to a word of honorable mention, notwithstanding the droll appearance which he presented in his remarkable costume. Sir John Bowring, writing in 1856, says:

"Among the descendants of the ancient Portuguese settlers in Siam there was one who especially excited our attention. He was the master of the ceremonies at our arrival in Paknam, and from his supposed traditional or hereditary acquaintance with the usages of European courts, we found him invested with great authority on all state occasions. He wore a European court dress, which he told me had been given him by Sir James Brooke, and which, like a rusty, old cocked hat, was somewhat the worse for wear. But I was not displeased to recognize in him a gentleman whom Mr. Crawford (the British ambassador in 1822) thus describes:

"'July 10 (1822). I had in the course of this forenoon a visit from a person of singular modesty and intelligence. Pascal Ribeiro de Alvergarias, the descendant of a Portuguese Christian of Kamboja. This gentleman holds a high Siamese title, and a post of considerable importance. Considering his means and situation, his acquirements were remarkable, for he not only spoke and wrote the Siamese, Kambojan, and Portuguese languages with facility, but also spoke and wrote Latin with considerable propriety. We found, indeed, a smattering of Latin very frequent among the Portuguese interpreters at Bangkok, but Señor Ribeiro was the only individual who made any pretence to speak it with accuracy. He informed us that he was the descendant of a person of the same name, who settled at Kamboja in the year 1685. His lady's genealogy, however, interested us more than his own. She was the lineal descendant of an Englishman, of the name of Charles Lister, a merchant, who settled in Kamboja in the year 1701, and who had acquired some reputation at the court by making pretence to a knowledge in medicine. Charles Lister had come immediately from Madras, and brought with him his sister. This lady espoused a Portuguese of Kamboja, by whom she had a son, who took her own name. Her grandson, of this name also, in the revolution of the kingdom of Kamboja, found his way to Siam; and here, like his great-uncle, practising the healing art, rose to the station of Maha-pet, or first physician to the king. The son of this individual, Cajitanus Lister, is at present the physician, and at the same time the minister and confidential adviser of the present King of Kamboja. His sister is the wife of the subject of this short notice. Señor Ribeiro favored us with the most authentic and satisfactory account which we had yet obtained of the late revolution and present state of Kamboja.'"

ONE OF THE SONS OF THE LATE FIRST KING.

It is not safe always to judge by the appearance. This grotesque old personage, whom the narrative describes, represented a story of strange and romantic interest, extending through two centuries of wonderful vicissitude, and involving the blending of widely separated nationalities. But to resume the narrative: