BOOKS.

SIAM.* PEOPLE who want to go from Singapore to Siam must take any ship they can get, and be thankful. M. de Beauvoir got probably one of the worst that ever floated, and is both thankful and merry, after the fact, about his voyage in that "singular, dangerous, and ill-smelling vessel the Chow Pya," which was overladen with a very unpleasant cargo, piled about the deck any- how ; whose crew, and much worse, whose cooks, were Chinese ; where the bill of fare was restricted to eggs in the green stage, stale cocoa-nut oil, and decomposed pine-apples ; whose captain was a pardoned pirate, which was entirely overrun with white ants, and whose mate and chief engineer were brought on board just before the time of sailing, dead-drunk and handcuffed. The Mark Tapley of travellers and of writers gives these little particulars in the cheeriest tone, and adds :— " Among our companions are a merchant returning to Siam an old Frenchwoman and her cat, and a young Asiatic baby placed under the protection of the Prince and myself by a benevolent priest. The baby's name is Ludovic Lamache. We nurse him by turns, and are most anxious to hand him over in good case to his father, who was formerly coxswain of a French corvette, and is now generalissimo of the armies of the King of Siam. The child is plum-juice colour, and, if he had not a coral and bells of the noisiest kind, and if he had a more maritime stomach, especially at meal-times, he would be delight- ful. I am holding him on one knee at this moment, while I write on the other, endeavouring to preserve the equilibrium of any camp-stool, amid the tumbling packages, and he and I are both devoured by multitudes of our little enemies. It is no consolation to us that when they bite us they leave their heads in the wounds. This is our fifth day of this queer existence amidships 7 which is, how- ever, paradisiacal in comparison with that of the threehundred passen- gers, Malay, Chinese, and Arab, who are fore and aft, piled up in heaps upon the isles of merchandise which rise above the water we are con- stantly shipping. They smoke opium, and they play with dice ; these are the two characteristic vices of their races, and as they are heavily taxed on land, they devote themselves to them on sea with an inde- scribable eagerness. This human ant-heap, which exhales most deleterious odours, is noisy, disgusting, and cowardly. At every high wave they all scream as if we were going to the bottom, then howl out verses from the Koran, get drank, and fight freely."

The second King of Siam, who had not since been replaced, had died ten months previously, and the first strange sample of the manners of Siam noticed by the travellers, after they had landed and delivered up the plum-coloured baby to his father, was a long line of dismantled ships, permitted to fall into decay in honour of the deceased prince, who had occupied himself with maritime matters, and cherished a dream, never to be fulfilled, of going to Singapore with his squadron. For the greatest personage in the realm, as for the meanest fellah, the custom is inexorable ; all that was personal property of the dead is given over to the lengthsome death of abandonment and decay. After the dead king's ships oome the "punishment kiosks" of his living Majesty, Mongkut, a long row of bamboo buildings, within which subjects who have offended his Majesty have "their souls transferred into the brain of a white sparrow" by the knife of the executioner ; and then, behind a bend of the river M6-nam, the town of Bangkok appears in its astonishing splendour and grandeur, unsur- passed, according to M. de Beauvoir, who ought to know, in the world :— " Over a space of eight miles, the great city spreads its marvels. The river is wide and majestic ; more than sixty great ships anchor upon its bosom; its shores are formed by rows of several thousands of floating houses, whose roofs, whose fantastic roofs, form long lines, and whose inhabitants look like brilliant water plants in their many- coloured garments. Behind and above this foremost city of amphibious beings on terra firma is the Royal city, with its crenelated walls and its white towers, whence hundreds of pagodas lift their golden spires towards heaven, and their multitudinous domes enamelled in china and glittering crystals. On the right and left, the entire horizon is formed of roofs of out glass, in five or six stages ; of turrets of gigantic masonry, covered with a sheen which dazzles the eyes ; and of lofty shafts spring- ing two hundred feet into the air, which indicate the King's palace, a palace which, like an 'immense prism, reflects all the rays of the sun. It seems to us that we are gazing on a vast panorama of porcelain cathedrals. Oar first sight of Bangkok surpassed all we had hoped in our travellers' dreams. We are impatient to find ourselves in a gondola traversing those animated canals, the boulevards of the floating city, and which are full of movement, noise, and life."

Java, indeed, is far East, but Siam is pule, unmixed Asia, with its stamp of brilliancy and strangeness, its curious perfumes, its types without amalgamation, its manners utterly free from any admixture of our civilisation, its people who have adopted only the simplest expression of clothing, but who are, even to the unweaned infants, laden with jewels and with flowers. The travel- lers, who had not yet seen Canton, were susceptible of astonish-

• Blem. Par Le Comte de Beauvoir. Paris : Henri Pion.

meat, even after Java, at the swarming population which fills the thousands of laden boats, and the countless kiosk-like houses, each one a separate island. What strange houses ! At the end of each is a little altar of carved wood, surrounded with illumi- nated papers ; lighted torches impregnated with incense and cocoa- nut oil placed in lachrymatories of red clay burn unceasingly before statues of Buddha and the household gods ; and further off, tubs filled with indigo or pink lime are ranged upon the surrounding mat-covered terrace.

It is well to enjoy to the utmost the picture which M. de

Beauvoir draws of this marvellous city and kingdom, for when he passes on to the moral aspects of life, the habits and the prospects of the people, there is much which must pain all but the most hardened and cynigal readers. We gladly linger among the pagodas, of which he says in general :—" Having since visited Canton, Shanghai, and Pekin, I retain my impression that the finest pagoda in those cities is to the least of those in the kingdom of Siam what Quimperle is to Paris," a well-chosen, proverbial standard of comparison. Here is a description of the most splendid and characteristic of those great heathen temples, served by mendi-

cant but well-born Buddhist priests, called talapoins, from among whose number the present King of Siam passed without any

intermediate stage—from the rigour and the isolation which the author describes, to an existence of incredible luxury and bound- less power :—

4, The pagoda is on the right bank of the river, surrounded by green and majestic woods. It consists of a cluster of turrets dominated by a central pyramid three hundred feet high. This is formed at its base of a conical block, with a hundred and fifty steps ; then it 'becomes a hexagonal tower, with windows supported by three white elephants' trunks ; then rises from a crown of turrets a single graceful column, which at the summit rounds itself into a cupola, from whence a spire of gilded bronze spreads forth twenty giant branches, and seems to pierce the clouds. When the sun is shining the whole of this is one glittering mass, the coloured enamel of burnished porcelain, the shining of millions of varnished designs, standing out from a surface of alabaster, lend to this pagoda—of a style pure, brilliant, and not to be seen elsewhere tinder heaven—the magic of a dream, with the colossal lines of reality."

The promontory on which it stands is like a separate city of heaped-up kiosks, painted belvederes, Italian terraces, and statues of pink marble and red porphyry. But when the travellers-land from their pirogue, and enter the lanes and ditches which lie beneath the sacred ramparts, they perceive the reverse of this magnificent spectacle. Here, walking about with measured steps, is a multitude of men, with shaven heads and eyebrows, dressed in long Roman togas of saffron-coloured stuff. These are the "talapoins." Each holds in one hand an iron pot, and in the other the " talapat," or large palm-leaf fan, the distinctive symbol of their dignity. The lanes in which they live are horribly dirty, and their huts are made of broken bricks or rotten planks. In these places, which might pass for the drains of the porcelain palaces above, 700 talapoins looked at the travellers with con- temptuous indifference, a sentiment apparently shared by

some 1,500 ragged boys, who are enfants de chow., and who vegetate in those dens, covered with vermin, to-

gether with geese, pigs, fowls, and stray dogs, which are sup- posed to find sanctuary there, but are all cheerfully eaten. The lives of these men furnish a painful chapter of this delightful book, as the interior of the great pagoda contrasts horribly with the beauty of the exterior. There is another wonderful pagoda, that of Xetaphon, which is approached by avenues of immense length, lined by regiments of monsters in marble, encased with coloured crystals, and representing women springing from the crests of gigantic cocks, three-headed elephants, winged crocodiles, tigers with serpents' tails, and in which is lodged, under a:colonnade of sculptured teak-wood, an image of Buddha, which measures fifty yards from the shoulders to the soles of the feet. This figure lies upon its right side, on a gilded terrace ornamented with sculptures which forms its bed. Its head, which rises twenty-five yards above the ground, is supported by the right arm. The left arm is stretched along the thigh, the eyes are silver, the lips are pink enamel, and on the head is a crown of red gold. The travellers were like Lili- putians beside Gulliver, as they stood in the rich, subdued, many- coloured light, beside this gigantic figure in solid masonry, entirely covered with gold ; and when they climbed upon it, venturesome in the solemn, gorgeous solitude, they tumbled out of sight into its nostrils. Neither was so tall as one of the god's finger-nails. "We stood confounded," says M. de Beauvoir, "in the presence of this Titanic structure, whose architect it must have taken the

treasure of Crcesus to pay. No worship has ever elicited such a display of wealth ; this golden garb is of the,purest metal and worth

milliards; each plate of gold—and there are thousands—is two feet square, and weighs 450 ounces."

After the pagodas and the King's palace, of which and the superb stables for the royal stud of elephants the author gives a fascinating description, the bazaar of the floating town is of the greatest interest. Here one learns from the things which form their food the life and habits of the people. First, there is the supply of pink paste which is chewed all day by every Siamese man and woman, and which is composed of betel, areca nut, tobacco, and lime. It is a stimulant of the most insidious kind, and makes the teeth quite black, which the Siamese hold to be essential to beauty. A short time before the Frenchmen's visit, the King permitted two sisters of St. Vincent, accompanied by an American lady, whose husband he prudently left at the door, to see the eight hundred ladies who compose his harem. The King gallantly led the American lady back to her husband, to whom he said, " What a fine woman ! She is really very handsome, Viit how unfortunate it is that she should be so disfigured by having *bite teeth !" The market of fruit and vegetables is not repulsive, but the fish market offers for sale principally sharks, monstrous eels, a horrible kind of ray which bites furiously, and " portions " of serpents of the boa kind. Pere Lamandu, of the "Mission," assured his compatriots that the flesh of the boa is very good eating, but they did not test the assertion. The fish is brought to market in reservoir-boats, and kept alive until the sale. "But," says the author, "a Siamese purchaser would regard it as criminal to kill them by putting a knife into their gills, because of the metempsychosis, so he only allows them to die by exposing them to the air." The chief article of food, the unvarying delight of the Siamese, is an awful compound called " kapi," heaps of which came in the way of the visitors to the market. " Kapi " is composed of the spawn of shrimps pickled in wooden tubs until it has reached a state of putrid fermentation ; then it is crushed under the feet of the operators, in a round dance, into a sickening kind of putty, which is the dainty dish par excellence of every one in every rank of life. Not the least curious feature of this bazaar is the shop where Chinese sell "articles de Paris," and toys from the fair at St. Cloud, close beside a jeweller's booth where priceless gems and workmanship of inconceivable beauty are displayed at prices which in general far exceed the means of foreign purchasers. Fhe wealth of Siam is immense, that is evident to strangers in everything, and especially on visiting the gambling-houses, of which M. de Beauvoir gives a most interesting description. We have not space to transcribe it, or many other passages equally attractive, of a book which almost merits the treatment which Sidney Smith said every author expects at the hands of a friendly reviewer,—" Everything praised and the whole quoted." What a picture he suggests, and how some of his countrymen would paint it, as he describes group after group around the scarlet cloth, where there is the tinkling of a ceaseless rain of gold. He ends it with this striking passage :—" See, these are slaves who coine to risk the coins of the poor, the little shells called 'conchs of Venus,' a thousand worth five sons. At the bottom of the tent, almost outside, in a framework of verdure gilded by the sun, groups of young girls, eager, breathless, slaves who have escaped for an hour, half dressed when they come in, frequently stripped of all their clothing before they leave. They hold themselves a little above the floor, their loins straightened, their arms and elbows serving them for supports, their heads:and necks stretched out con- vulsively, their little feet swinging in the air, and their slender, elegantly moulded bodies shuddering at every cast of the dice. Who knows ? The purchase of their liberty may depend upon a happy chance, the escapade of an hour may secure the freedom of a life."

A splendid festival was in preparation at Bangkok when the French travellers reached that mysterious city, a festival destined to last seven days, to be presided over by the King in person, the ground to be kept by the famous elephants, in their war panoply ; showers of bouquets, all containing golden coins, were to fall from the royal hand, amid salvoes of artillery ; games, incense, feasting, dances, and processions were to gladden the people of a whole week. And the cause, the origin, the reason for all this ? Nothing less than a funeral ! The body, of the late second King, deceased ten months since, was to be publicly burned in two more months, amid popular rejoicings on the grandest scale. Meantime, he is held in all possible honour, and the Due de Penthievre and IL de Beauvoir were solemnly presented to his Majesty, a scene which, next to the incremation of Siamese in the cemetery, if it may so be called, the author declares to have been the most curious which they witneseed in Siam. After the king's death, a number of extraordinary ceremonies having been performed, his corpse was dried by mercury, and when it was as dry as a stick, it was doubled in two, the feet and the head were jammed together, it was tied up like a sausage, and deposited in a golden urn on the top

of a magnificent catafalque. To this bottled Majesty the strangers paid their respects previously to visiting the Sacred Elephant, the seventy-two children of the first King, the regiment, of Amazons, the royal pagoda, where the mats are of woven silver, and where there is a statue of Buddha of the length of a man whose head is one solid emerald, surmounted by a helmet of sapphire and opal ; and lastly, Mongkut himself :—

" Amid the grand colonnades of his palace hundreds of mandarins are walking about, formerly his civil and military officers. We pass under eight porticoes; slaves draw back a vast curtain, we are in the throne- room. The dead King, in his urn atop of his altar, bolds his Court pre- cisely as he held it in life. We are told to bow—we do so—great satisfaction of the mandarins in lines on the left and right, their faces on the ground, all in white, which is mourning. One of the pages goes, to the catafalque, and takes from it some huge cigars, which he brings to us in a basket of red filigree. Ile whispers some words, which are trans- lated for us to mean that he offers them on the part of the second King, and is about to light them at a funeral taper. Long silken cords of white and gold extend from the lid of the golden urn in all directions like the threads of a spider's web, and at the extremity of each is a mandarin in adoration. They believe that these cords bear their words. and prayers to the King, and they press them to their lips with lively faith and emotion. Lastly, a great golden basket stands upon the first step of the mausoleum, filled with letters and petitions addressed to the- deceased since last week ; and the replies are confidently expected. The entire spectacle is incomparably strange, stupifying, and enchanting ; and as we make profound reverences to his bottled Majesty, we gravely thank him for his gracious reception and his excellent cigars, and hope that he may burn as well as they do. All this time his harem is kept up precisely as during his lifetime. At sunrise and sunset hundreds of women come to talk, by means of the white and golden cords, to this calm and inoffensive husband. They will cease to belong to him only on the day of his fiery burial, and it is fully understood that not one of them is expected to immolate herself upon the funeral pile."

That funeral pile, or rather pagoda, was a splendid, enormously coitly structure, one of the great sights of Bangkok. It was a huge artificial mountain, covered with gilding, raised upon a scaffold of teak-wood, 150 feet high, to make which the finest trees of the forests of the interior had been dragged thither by thousands of coblies. Grottoes, flower-beds, waterfalls, rocks, made of papier- mâché, and covered with leaves of red copper, gold, Bornean anti- mony, and platinum, stud the ascent, which is also adorned with huge vases of mother-of-pearl. A winding path makes five circuits of the mountain, guarded at every step by porcelain dogs, gilded dragons, and peacocks in cut glees. All these glitter almost unendurably in the rays of the sun, dazzling with countless colours. The kiosk at the summit, in which the body of the deceased King was to be- placed, was not finished, but already 122 pounds of pure gold had been expended on the gilding of this mere detail. The funeral moun- tain was erected in front of the late King's seraglio, and from behind a latticed balcony, thrown out for the purpose, the harem watched the proceedings, and were to behold the final spectacle. The two. audiences of King Mongkut, the sight of the harem, the ludicrous and yet melancholy spectacle of the sacred White Ele- phant, the visit to the burning-places of the Siamese public, in short, all the remaining wonders which the indefatigable travellers. contrived to see in the seven days which they passed in Siam, we can but indicate, referring the reader to the book which M. de, Beauvoir did well to write day by day, under the immediate influence of the astonishing facts and contrasts of Siam.