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

by George B. Bacon

When at last, after our stay in Bangkok was almost at an end, we were invited by "supremus rex" to spend the evening at his palace, we found our friend of the beaver hat and sky-blue coat and purple breeches in charge of a squad of attendants in one of the outer buildings of the court, where we were to beguile the time with more refreshments until his majesty should be ready for us. Everything about us was on a larger scale than at the second king'sthe grounds more spacious, and the various structures with which they were filled, the temples, armories, and storehouses, of more ambitions size and style, but not so neat and orderly. A crowd of admiring spectators clustered about the windows of the room in which we were waiting, watching with breathless interest to see the strangers eat: so that as we sat in all the glory of cocked hats and epaulets, we had the double satisfaction of giving and receiving entertainment.

But presently there came a messenger to say that the king was ready for us. And so we walked on between the sentries, who saluted us with military exactness, between the stately halls that ran on either hand, until a large, closed gateway barred our way. Swinging open as we stood before them, the gates closed silently behind us, and we found ourselves in the august presence of "Rex Supremus Siamensium."

It might almost have been "the good Haroun Alraschid" and "the great pavilion of the caliphat in inmost Bagdad," that we had come to, it was so imposing a scene, and so characteristically Oriental. What I had read of in the "Arabian Nights," and hardly thought was possible except in such romantic stories, seemed to be realized. Here was a king worth seeing, a real king, with a real crown on, and with real pomp of royalty about him. I think that every American who goes abroad has a more or less distinct sense of being defrauded of his just rights when, in Paris or Berlin, for example, he goes out to see the king or emperor, and is shown a plainly-dressed man driving quietly and almost undistinguished among the throng of carriages. We feel that this is not at all what we came for, nor what we had been led to expect when, as schoolboys, we read about imperial magnificence and regal splendor, and the opulence of the "crowned heads." The crowned head might have passed before our very eyes, and we would not have known it if we had not been told. Not so in Bangkok. This was "a goodly king" indeed. And all the circumstances of time and place seemed to be so managed as to intensify the singular charm and beauty of the scene.

We stood in a large court, paved with broad, smooth slabs of marble, and open to the sky, which was beginning to be rosy with the sunset. All about us were magnificent palace buildings, with shining white walls, and with roofs of gleaming green and gold. Broad avenues, with the same marble pavement, led in various directions to the temples and the audience halls. Here and there the dazzling whiteness of the buildings and the pavement was relieved by a little dark tropical foliage; and, as the sunset grew more ruddy every instant,

"A sudden splendor from behind
Flushed all the leaves with rich gold green,"

and tinged the whole bright court with just the necessary warmth of color. There was the most perfect stillness, broken only by the sound of our footsteps on the marble, and, except ourselves, not a creature was moving. Here and there, singly or in groups, about the spacious court, prostrate, with faces on the stone, in motionless and obsequious reverence, as if they were in the presence of a god and not of a man, grovelled the subjects of the mighty sovereign into whose presence we were approaching. It was hard for the stoutest democrat to resist a momentary feeling of sympathy with such universal awe; and to remember that, after all, as Hamlet says, a "king is a thing ... of nothing." So contagious is the obsequiousness of a royal court and so admirably effective was the arrangement of the whole scene.

The group toward which we were advancing was a good way in front of the gateway by which we had entered. There was a crouching sword-bearer, holding upright a long sword in a heavily embossed golden scabbard. There were other attendants, holding jewel-cases or elegant betel-nut boxes—all prostrate. There were others still ready to crawl off in obedience to orders, on whatever errands might be necessary. There were three or four very beautiful little children, the king's sons, kneeling behind their father, and shining with the chains of jewelled gold which hung about their naked bodies. More in front there crouched a servant holding high a splendid golden canopy, beneath which stood the king. He wore a grass-cloth jacket, loosely buttoned with diamonds, and a rich silken scarf, which, wound about the waist, hung gracefully to his knees. Below this was an unadorned exposure of bare shins, and his feet were loosely slippered. But on his head he wore a cap or crown that fairly blazed with brilliant gems, some of them of great size and value. There was not wanting in his manner a good deal of natural dignity; although it was constrained and embarrassed. It was in marked contrast with the cheerful and unceremonious freedom of the second king. He seemed burdened with the care of government and saddened with anxiety, and as if he knew his share of the uneasiness of "the head that wears a crown."

He stood in conversation with us for a few moments, and then led the way to a little portico in the Chinese style of architecture, where we sat through an hour of talk, and drink, and jewelry, mixed in pretty equal proportions. For there were some details of business in connection with the treaty that required to be talked over. And there were sentiments of international amity to be proposed and drunk after the Occidental fashion. And there were the magnificent royal diamonds and other gems to be produced for our admiring inspection—great emeralds of a more vivid green than the dark tropical foliage, and rubies and all various treasures which the Indian mines afford, till the place shone before our eyes, thicker

"With jewels than the sward with drops of dew,
When all night long a cloud clings to the hill,
And with the dawn ascending lets the day
Strike where it clung; so thickly shone the gems."

All the while the nobles were squatting or lying on the floor, and the children were playing in a subdued and quiet way at the king's feet. Somehow the beauty of these little Siamese children seemed to me very remarkable. As they grow older, they grow lean, and wrinkled, and ugly. But while they are children they are pretty "as a picture"—as some of those pictures, for example, in the Italian galleries. Going quite innocent of clothing, they are very straight and plump in figure, and unhindered in their grace of motion. And they used to bear themselves with a simple and modest dignity that was very winning. They have the soft and lustrous eyes, the shining teeth (as yet unstained by betel-nut), the pleasant voices, which are the birthright of the children of the tropics. In default of clothes, they are stained all over with some pigment, which makes their skin a lively yellow, and furnishes a shade of contrast for the deeper color of the gold which hangs around their necks and arms. I used to compare them, to their great advantage, with the Chinese children.