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The long and peaceful reign of the late king, however, has almost effaced from the minds of the youth of Siam the remembrance of such monstrous oppressions. The Siamese are but indifferent sailors, their nautical excursions being mainly confined to short coasting trips, or boating in safe and familiar channels. The more adventurous export trade is carried on almost wholly by foreigners.
Rapid and pitiless as Attila or Napoleon, he "smote" the Amalekites, and the Ammonites, and the neighboring warlike peoples, and compelled them to pay tribute. He was not more rapacious than France has recently shown herself to Siam, or than England to India, and he was emphatically the "battle-axe of God."
The pyramid and sun and the star and crescent both belong to Egypt. The lion comes from Norway, the sun from the Argentine Republic, the wreath of oak leaves from Hanover, the lotus flower from Siam. Here is one from Travancore, it represents a shell sacred to the god Vishnu. On the stamps of Shanghai we find these Chinese characters.
In reviewing his efforts in the cause of religion he mentions neither a council nor foreign missions, although we know from other inscriptions that such missions were despatched. The sessions of the council may be equally true and are in no way improbable, for in later times kings of Burma, Ceylon and Siam held conventions to revise the text of the Tripitaka.
Moonshee covertly mumbles his five prayers, ejaculating between, Mash-Allah! The captain stepped forward and introduced us. "His Excellency Chow Phya Sri Sury Wongse, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Siam!"
Nowhere else in Burma can the people be better studied than here, all classes being represented, and it may be interesting if I describe them more closely. Like their neighbours of Siam and China, the Burmese are Mongolian in type, but, without so pronounced a cheekbone and slanting eye as the Chinese, are more pleasing in appearance.
Direct interference in the Government of Kĕlantan and Trĕnggânu has been more than once attempted by the Siamese, during the last few years, strenuous efforts having been made to increase their influence on the East Coast of the Peninsula, since the visit of the King of Siam to the Malay States in 1890.
I had retired from Government service in Siam, after spending twenty years there, and we had decided to spend some months at least, possibly "the duration," or even longer, in South Africa before proceeding home. It seemed hard lines that after twenty years in the Far East we were to come to Europe only to be imprisoned in Germany!
The shame and outrage of his beating was the occasion of much sorrow and trouble to me, for my Persian teacher now begged to be sent back to Singapore, and I thought that Beebe could not be persuaded to let him go alone, though my heart had been set on keeping them with me as long as I remained in Siam.
"The most many foreigners being under belief of such general rumour, were endeavoring to draw money from him in various operations, as aiming him with valuable curiosities and expectations of interest, and flattering him, to be glad of them, and deceiving him in various ways; almost on every opportunity of Steamer coming to Siam, various foreigners partly known to him and acquainted with him, and generally unknown to him, boldly wrote to him in such the term of various application and treatment, so that he can conclude that the chief object of all letters written to him, is generally to draw money from him, even unreasonable.
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