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In 834 the undisputed sovereignty of the kingdom fell to another P'hra Rama Thibodi, who reigned thirty years, and is famous in Siamese annals for the casting of a great image of Buddha, fifty cubits high, of gold very moderately alloyed with copper.
But he is a dexterous manager; he knows how to work the oracle; he understands catering for the mob; in short, he is a very clever showman, who deals in religion just as other showmen deal in wild animals, giants, dwarfs, two-headed sheep, fat women, and Siamese twins.
When he was a boy, had the Burmese been at war with the Siamese, like the elephant wars of yesteryear, he would have enlisted as a soldier, for to be impaled with metal blades was less of a travail than to be impaled with mental ones, these spoken words; but ironically here he was now in his own sad concoction of family as one diminishing plume of smoke begot another.
There they learned that the mandarins of Camboja had united against the Siamese whom they had conquered and driven from the kingdom; and that one of these mandarins, Anacaparan by name, had taken possession of the country, and was governing under the title of king, although against the will of the others.
Thieving and plundering are carried on almost without check in Bangkok, which includes about all there is of Siam except a great deal of spare territory, and property is very unsafe there. I think I have wearied you, Mr. Commander, and ladies and gentlemen." "Not at all!" shouted several. "Did you ever see the Siamese twins, General Noury?" inquired Uncle Moses.
The evening is devoted to feasting and merriment. A Siamese king may have two queens at the same time; in which case the more favored lady is styled the "right hand," and the other the "left hand," of the throne. His late Majesty, Maha Mongkut, had two queens, but not "in conjunction."
The slighter those peculiarities, the greater is the merit of the limner who can catch them and transfer them to his canvas. To paint Daniel Lambert or the living skeleton, the pig-faced lady or the Siamese twins, so that nobody can mistake them, is an exploit within the reach of a sign-painter.
The entertainments of the theatre are devoured by the Siamese with insatiable appetite, and the popular preference is awarded to those intellectual contests in which the tragic and comic poets compete for the prize. The laughter or the tears of the sympathetic groundlings are accepted as the expression of an infallible criticism, and by their verdict the play is crowned or damned.
The practice of decorating walls and ceilings with paintings may be traced to a remote period in the history of Siamese art.
Fortune was kind to us in the Siamese capital, for we reached that city on the eve of a series of royal cremations, the attendant ceremonies providing enough action and color to satisfy even Hawkinson.
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