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[Illustration: GREAT PAGODA WAT CHANG.]




  _ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF TRAVEL_

  SIAM

  THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT

  _AS IT WAS AND IS_

  COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY
  GEORGE B. BACON

  REVISED BY
  FREDERICK WELLS WILLIAMS

  NEW YORK
  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
  1893.

  COPYRIGHT, 1881, 1892, BY
  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  TROW DIRECTORY
  PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
  NEW YORK




  REVISER'S NOTE

The present editor's aim in revising this little volume has been to
leave untouched, so far as possible, Mr. Bacon's compilation, omitting
only such portions as were inaccurate or obsolete, and adding rather
sparingly from the narratives of a few recent travellers. The
authoritative history and description of Siam has yet to be written, and
until this work appears the accounts of Pallegoix, of Bowring, and of
Mouhot convey as satisfactory and accurate impressions of the country as
those of later writers. Though the wonderful ruins at Angkor are now
technically within the confines of Siam, their consideration still
belongs to a treatise on Cambodia, and this as a separate country could
not fairly be joined to Siam in carrying out the plan of the series. In
other respects, without attempting to be exhaustive, the reviser's
endeavor has been to neglect no important part or feature of the
kingdom.

The regeneration effected in Siam during the past half century presents
a suggestive contrast to that ebullition of new life which has within an
even briefer period transformed despotic Japan into a free and ambitious
state. Here, as there, the stranger is impressed with those outward
symbols of nineteenth-century life, the agencies of steam, gas, and
electricity that appear in many busy centres in whimsical incongruity
to their Oriental setting; but these are the adjuncts rather than the
essentials of that Western civilization which both countries are
striving to imitate. In Siam, it must be confessed, there is no such
evidence of popular awakening as now directs the world's attention to
the Mikado's empire. The languor and content of life in the tropics
disposes the people to seek new ideals and accept new institutions less
eagerly than under Northern skies. Siam's policy of gradual progress
toward a condition of higher enlightenment is in admirable accordance
with her needs, and promises to achieve its purpose with no such risks
of reaction or shipwreck as beset the course of more ambitious states in
the East.

                                                  F. W. W.




 CONTENTS                                          PAGE

 CHAPTER I.                                           1

 CHAPTER II.
 GEOGRAPHY OF SIAM,                                  10

 CHAPTER III.
 OLD SIAM--ITS HISTORY,                              17

 CHAPTER IV.
 THE STORIES OF TWO ADVENTURERS,                     36

 CHAPTER V.
 MODERN SIAM,                                        65

 CHAPTER VI.
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS,                                  73

 CHAPTER VII.
 A ROYAL GENTLEMAN,                                  86

 CHAPTER VIII.
 PHRABAT SOMDETCH PHRA PARAMENDR MAHA MONGKUT,      104

 CHAPTER IX.
 AYUTHIA,                                           121

 CHAPTER X.
 PHRABAT AND PATAWI,                                130

 CHAPTER XI.
 FROM BANGKOK TO CHANTABOUN--A MISSIONARY JOURNEY
 IN 1835,                                           146

 CHAPTER XII.
 CHANTABOUN AND THE GULF,                           170

 CHAPTER XIII.
 MOUHOT IN THE HILL-COUNTRY OF CHANTABOUN,          183

 CHAPTER XIV.
 PECHABURI OR P'RIPP'REE,                           200

 CHAPTER XV.
 THE TRIBES OF NORTHERN SIAM,                       216

 CHAPTER XVI.
 SIAMESE LIFE AND CUSTOMS,                          234

 CHAPTER XVII.
 NATURAL PRODUCTIONS OF SIAM,                       258

 CHAPTER XVIII.
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN SIAM--THE OUTLOOK FOR THE
 FUTURE,                                            270

 CHAPTER XIX.
 BANGKOK AND THE NEW SIAM,                          277




                    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 GREAT PAGODA WAT CHANG,                        _Frontispiece_

 INUNDATION OF THE MEINAM,                                  11

 PAGODA AT AYUTHIA,                                         21

 VIEW TAKEN FROM THE CANAL AT AYUTHIA,                      31

 RUINS OF A PAGODA AT AYUTHIA,                              38

 GENERAL VIEW OF BANGKOK,                                   76

 THE LATE FIRST KING AND QUEEN,                            105

 ONE OF THE SONS OF THE LATE FIRST KING,                   109

 A FEW OF THE CHILDREN OF THE LATE FIRST KING,             120

 REMOVAL OF THE TUFT OF A YOUNG SIAMESE,                   122

 ELEPHANTS IN AN ENCLOSURE OR PARK AT AYUTHIA,             127

 PAKNAM ON THE MEINAM,                                     129

 PAGODA AT MOUNT PHRABAT,                                  130

 MOUNTAINS OF KORAT FROM PATAWI,                           141

 PORT OF CHANTABOUN,                                       149

 MONKEYS PLAYING WITH A CROCODILE,                         180

 SIAMESE ACTORS,                                           194

 MOUNTAINS OF PECHABURI,                                   200

 SIAMESE WOMEN,                                            234

 SIAMESE RO