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I afterward learned that these were daily offerings, which the king, on awakening from his forenoon slumber, sent to the Watt P'hra Keau. This apparition was the signal for much stir. The Lady Talap started to her feet and fled, and we were left alone with the premier's sister and the slaves in waiting.
Arrayed in costly robes and ornaments, similar to those worn at a coronation, he was taken in charge by a body of priests at his father's palace, and by them conducted to the temple Watt P'hra Keau, his yellow-robed and barefooted escort chanting, on the way, hymns from the Buddhist liturgy.
Over the portal on the eastern facade of the Watt P'hra Keau is a bass-relief representing the Last Judgment, in which are figures of a devil with a pig's head dragging the wicked to hell, and an angel weighing mankind in a pair of scales. He is called Suchus, and they feed him with meat and corn and wine, the contributions of strangers.
Thence he pushed on to Cambodia, and arriving there on the Siamese Sabato, or Sabbath, he issued a solemn proclamation to his army, assuring them that he would that evening worship in the temple of the famous emerald idol, P'hra Keau.
On the thirteenth, the double urn, with its melancholy moral, was removed from the pyramid, and the inner one, with the grating, was laid on a bed of fragrant sandalwood, and aromatic gums, connected with a train of gunpowder, which the king ignited with a match from the sacred fire that burns continually in the temple Watt P'hra Keau.
Leaving this temple, we approached a low circular fort near the palace, a miniature model of a great citadel, with bastions, battlements, and towers, showing confusedly over a crenellated wall. Passing these, we next came to the famous Watt P'hra Keau, or temple of the Emerald Idol.
The most remarkable work of this kind is, I imagine, that which is lavished on the temple Watt P'hra Keau, the walls, pillars, windows, roofs, towers, and gates being everywhere overlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, and profusely gilded. The several facades are likewise inlaid with ivory, glass, and mother-of-pearl, fixed with cement in the mortar, which serves as a base.
Chow Khoon Sah, or "His Lordship the Lake," whose functions in the Watt P'hra Keau I have described, was the High-Priest of Siam, and in high favor with his Majesty. He had taken holy orders with the double motive of devoting himself to the study of Sanskrit literature, and of escaping the fate, that otherwise awaited him, of becoming the mere thrall of his more fortunate cousin, the king.
My interesting pupil, the Lady Talap, had invited me to accompany her to the royal private temple, Watt P'hra Keau, to witness the services held there on the Buddhist Sabato, or One-thu-sin. Accordingly we repaired together to the temple on the day appointed.
The day was young, and the air was cool and fresh; and as we approached the place of worship, the clustered bells of the pagodas made breezy gushes of music aloft. One of the court pages, meeting us, inquired our destination. "The Watt P'hra Keau," I replied. "To see or to hear?" "Both." And we entered. On a floor diamonded with polished brass sat a throng of women, the elite of Siam.
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