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That night the gracious Princess Thawadee conceived and became with child, and the P'hra Somannass was no longer a prince of the highest heaven. The Princess Thawadee had been the only and darling daughter of a mighty king, and still mourned her separation from her beloved sire. Her only solace was to sit in the phrasat of the Grand Palace, and look with longing toward her early home.
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.
And P'hra Indara promised to build him a palace hardly less grand and fair than the heavenly abode, a temple which should be the wonder of the world, a stupendous and everlasting monument of his love to men. So Somannass returned to the Queen, his mother; and P'hra Indara sent down myriads of angels, with Phya Kralewana, chief of angels, to build a dwelling fit for the heavenly prince.
Thrice they ravaged the country around; but on the last of these occasions great numbers of them were captured and put to cruel death by P'hra Rama Suen, successor to Thibodi, who pursued the routed remnant to the very citadel of Chiengmai, then a tributary of the Birman Empire.
He was then arrayed in silk, still white, by women of rank, and escorted to a golden pagoda on the summit of the hill, where the king, in the character of P'hra Inn Suen, waited to bestow his blessing on the heir. With one hand raised to heaven, and the other on the bowed head of his son, he solemnly uttered words of Pali, which may be translated thus:
His Majesty Somdetch P'hra Paramendr Maha Mongkut, the late Supreme King, contributed interesting souvenirs to the enlargement and adornment of this temple.
The one on which the temple stands is partly artificial, having been raised from the bed of the Meinam by the king P'hra Chow Phra-sat-thong, as a work of "merit." Visiting this island some years later, I found that this temple, like all other pyramidal structures in this part of the world, consists of solid masonry of brick and mortar.
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.
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.
The welcome emissaries were sumptuously entertained, and a Dominican friar accompanied them on their return, with costly presents for the king. This friar found P'hra Narai much more liberal in his ideas than later ambassadors, even to this day, have found any other ruler of Siam.
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