| Show SIAM AT washington washington june 28 the siamese are still anxious to have the friendship ot of uncle sam and they have not given up their idea of establishing a legation here they want the united states to aid them in warding off the invasions of the french who own countries adjoining them and they will send some of their ablest men here to pave the way siam is one of the least known of the great countries of asia and the society people here are reading up that they may talk intelligently to these princes erinnes of the far east it lies you 0 know now at ath the lower owe r part of the pen peninsula inge ua yf of farther art r id india ia and it is cut up by the gulf of siam the mighty river 4 benam runs through it from north to south and the whole country is a network of canals in the winter a large part of it is covered with water and the people go from house to house and from place to place in boats the city ot of bangkok which lies on the benam about twenty five miles from its mouth is the venice of the tar east it contains a half million inhabitants and a hundred thousand of these live in houses which float upon the water bangkok is in fact a sort of river city and it is stretched for a distance of ten miles up and down the banks of the benam siam is about four times as big as the state of new york it contains about people and the country and the people body bo v and soul belong to the king the king has the right to every mans labor and any woman whom he calls must enter his harem he has the most arbitrary power of any king of the east and lie he is one of the rich monarchs of the world his palace in bangkok is a magnificent structure with golden elephants guarding its entrances it has twenty five acres of ground about it and it is said that people live within the palace walls the king is is said to have wives but the queen who is the chief of these is his maje half sister she is a very bright woman and has made herself noted for her charity she rules the harem and when I 1 was in siam I 1 was told that she smoked cigarettes and chewed the betel nut THEY WILL CHEW THE BETEL r the new siamese siamese legation will undoubtedly be betel chewers every one in siam is addicted to this habit and there is a big store just opposite to the palace alace of the king in bangkok in which f I 1 was shown during my stay there a lot of little china spittoons spit about the size of a shaving mug this store supplied the palace with goods and these spittoons spit were used by the ladies of the harem for the expectoration of betel juice the betel nut is a native a siam it is about as big as a black walnut and Q it has a green skin it is sold in pieces the size of a hickory nut and it is of a soft spongy nature having a bitter astringent astr igent taste the siamese mix mix this nut with lime and tobacco the lime is colored red and it is ia carried about in green leaves having mixed his quid the siamese chews and spits and spits and chews all day long it makes the teeth black and the juice which the people expectorate is as red as blood I 1 saw both men and women using it when I 1 was in siam and I 1 was told that babies were given it almost as soon as they were weaned both women and men smoke in siam and children are taught to puff cigarette i as soon as they are old enough to crawl it any ladies come with the e aaion hey fohey will probably be smokers and betel chewers and of i the he kings harem half of the women have black teeth the siamese s say ay that any dog can have wh te teeth I 1 b but ut 0 only those who are rich enough t buy the betel nut can have black ones OUR FIRST BUDDHIST LEGATION this legation will be the first for foreign eign mission if 4 i f pure buddhists which has ever come comet t washington the ministers from europe are to a large extent catholics the chinese are confucian ests the japanese are liberal free thinkers and the koreans about the same buddhism is the religion of 06 siam and every man of any prominence there has been at some time of his life a buddhist priest the king himself was at one time a priest and an he once shaved his head and and gave up his crown and harem to wear a yellow cotton scarf about his waist and go about fasting and pra praying ving any one who wants to become a priest in siam can do so in a moments notice the result is that when a man gets into financial difficulties he enters the priesthood and in this way his debts arl are forgiven him after they have remained here for some time they come out and start into business anew when a man has done anything wicked her he goes into the priesthood for a certain number ot of years to cleanse himself and this becoming a buddhist priest is one of the simplest methods of siamese divorce the I 1 he man who enters the church has the right to dismiss his wife and when he comes out again at atthe the end of a few months or a year he can marry her again or not as he chooses THE ROME HOME OF BUDDHISM siam is the home of buddhism and while I 1 was in bangkok I 1 saw the purest of the simon pure article there are buddhist priests in the siamese capital and these are of all ages from sixteen en to eighty they go about with shaved heads and yellow vellow strips of cloth wound w about their the ir half naked bodies and they chew the betel and smoke cigarettes as the they go begging from house bouse to house the ahe city is divided up among these beggars each priest has his beat and at every door he gets an offering of rice or of something else of this kindi visited the buddhist temples while I 1 was in bangkok they are costly beyond description there is one right near the kings palace which has io oooo worth of go gold leaf on one of its spires and in another temple there is an idol made of jewels and pure gold it is about a foot high and eight inches wide when it was being made while the metal was yet in in the crucible crystals topazes to pazes sap chires rubies and diamonds were storied stirs ed into it and before this idol the kiny king comes every morning and worships I 1 could fill this paper with descriptions desi of the wonderful temples of siam and in one buddhist temple I 1 found the floor ip covered with a matting of woven silver x wire it was dirty from the bare feet of the priests and as I 1 went out L noticed that the door was ebony inlaid with mother of pearl in another temple N I 1 found an image of buddha asleep this thi solis s image was feet long and the soles of its feet by actual measurement were eighteen feet from toe to heel A two story cottage is often not more than eighteen feet high if this buddha lay outside ot of such a one on his back his big toe would be on a parallel with the lightning rod of late years a number W ot of infidels have sprung up in siam and it may be that our new legation wilt will k not hold bold last fast to their faith their religion as it is taught at bangkok i is A B full of errors and I 1 was told there that the people believed the earth to be flat and that their explanation of the lightning flash fl ash was that it came from the hatchet of a giant of the clouds who S angry at his wives wives was throwing 31 hatchets at them through the air M A the sending of a legation to wash ington is another evidence of the pro t gnes sive spirit of he is one afifie of the brightest of the asiatic rulers a and pahi he has dope done much to advance civilization in siaw siam he has put telegraph graph lines th fought a great part of his hii kingdom there is is now a street ca car line in bangkok and the city his has elic electric lights it used to be that the money used in siam was shells shelli oi or silver avet sad and gold buttons this king has b as I 1 adopted a d og t e d a coinage making money n much t the e same as th that a t of ours he has a mint of his bis own and he imports mexican dollars and casts these into coins coias for the use of his people the of value in siam is the tecal nod and the chief silver coin used is about the size or of abaft a halt dollar he has a post oace e department and siam belongs belon to the international postal union ale hile I 1 wits was in bangkok I 1 met the head of his hip royal college and I 1 saw a wonder ful fui museum iti ip the grounds of the pj the he king talks english and he is thinking n if ug of building a railroad ii which w will 0 pen open up the interior of his rich kingdom k tid om siam is lull of valuable resources it ii has mighty forests of teakwood and its mines contain the finest of gold and silver the king has an income of a year and he is said to have about stored away in his coffers he has his own secretary of the treasury but he signs i all his own checks himself and he is is said to be a very fine business man he has his cabinet just as our president has and he has his war department state department interior department and agricultural department his country is divided up into forty one provinces presided over by governors and he runs things to suit himself making such appointments as he chooses SOME QUEER TAXES the people of siam are taxed for all they are worth everything under the sun has to pay a percentage to the government ern ment and a great part of the revenue oy of the king comes from the gambling establishments the people are a nation of gamblers and the gambling taxes bring in half a million dollars a year the taxes are all farmed out as ste are also the people who as slaves of the king are ordered to work for him a part oy of the year it is only the chinese who are not subject to such ser vice and they are released from it by the payment of a poll tax there are many chinese in siam and it is said they are fast swall swallowing 09 up the country they are smarter than the siamese in a business way and they marry siamese wives and settle down there lor for life all the governors of siam make presents to the king and they sometimes pay their taxes in in the shape of gold and silver brushes in the audience chamber of the palace I 1 saw around the room trees and brushes of gold the leaves of these trees were of pure gold while the trunks are heavily plated with gold on one side of the room there were a number of silver trees and I 1 was told that these were a part of the years of fering sto to his majesty from his governors DANGERS I 1 heard a diplomat who is well posted in asiatic matters discuss last night the reason why the king sent his legation to washington said he the king of df saim is very anxious to strengthen his relations with foreign powers he realizes the danger which constantly menaces his country from its geography cal position n it is the meat of the sandwich of arther farther iredia ofie slice af pf 9 and this sandwich belongs to 1 V france ran ce and includes cochin rina china the other slice belongs to great britain and it takes up the provinces of burmah siam lies in the center and it is richer than either both france and england are land add hungry and they look with greedy eyes on siam it is one of the richest alums plums which still hang on the tree of barbarism arb arism in the far east it produces produced crop after cro crop without without the aid of manure and it ships millions of dollars worth of rice pepper and cattle every year THE THA SIAMESE ARMY what kind of an army has siam I 1 asked there was no navy there when I 1 visited the country the army is nothing to speak of was war the reply every man has to ser serve e the state for three months in the year but there is no armed militia in case of a war with england or france siam could not do much and its chief safety lies in the fact that neither of these great countries want the other to have it I 1 suppose it eventually will be divided between them and if it should it would be much better for the people As it is they are practically slaves while under france or england they would be free I 1 have no doubt but that the king appreciates the situation and he probably thinks that if he has legations at L the other capitals these two nations will be less inclined to impose upon him HOW THE KING LOOKS the king of siam is still a young man he will be forty years old on the aist ot of september he is not over fi five v e feet high but he is very straight and well formed in his court dress he wears a vast fortune of jewels his head is crowned with a golden pyramid of jewels he puts on upon state occasions a coat vest and brocaded burong which aregust are just loaded down with 1 jewels ewels and I 1 was told that he often wore upon state occasions pre precious clous i stones which were worth a million dollars the siamese do not wear pantaloons and the burong which they tie about the waist and tuck it in at the back takes their place the king wears silk stockings shoes which are pointed like those of the turk and his costume is a beautiful one he is not a bad looking man his face is olive brown his eyes are black his forehead is high and his eyes are slightly almond in shape he has a little mustache musi ache and the thickest of stiff black hair he is very fond of his wife I 1 mean his half sister wife and he makes a great deal of the crown prince the crown prince is still a boy but he has been shown a number of times to people and he is said to have remarkably good sense just outside of bangkok there is a palace which belongs to him and the boy is being educated in such a way that he will probably make a fit successor of his father SIAMESE WOMEN I 1 wonder whether the members of the legislation will ever bring their wives to washington if they do we will have a decided sensation provided they come in their native costume the common siamese women wears only a burong and a turkish towel the burong goes around her waist and between her legs and the turkish towel is wound about her bust and shoulders now and then she takes off the towel and is satisfied with the burong she rarely wears shoes and a girt girl under eight years old often wears nothing but a string around her waist the better classes wear morer costly clothing and some of the ladies have a strip of of thin cotton which they wear tightly around the body under the arm pits and fasten with a knot just over the bust leaving the shoulders and neck entirely bare some of the ladies of the harem wear upon state occasions european clothing and others add to the burong a loose jacket trimmed with swiss embroidery and covered with bows of ribbons set on in rows they all wear bracelets on n their wrists and anklets danklets on their legs and not a lew few of them are quite pretty the siamese girls girl sare are the most graceful women in the world their joints are very supple and a part of their education is made u up of bending their joints back and foia forth to make them so they are all short haired and when young they are as plump as partridges and as straight as the palm trees of their own beautiful land As they grow older they become wrinkled and ugly and the most of them ruin their teeth teem from chewing the betel only the fewest of them ate are educated and I 1 dont think that they would be happy in our high french heel shoes and they would die if bound in by our corsets and crinoline one of the prettiest women in siam is the queen she has short hair like her siamese sisters and her teeth would be pretty if she were not addicted to betel nut chewing she is of nearly the same age as the king and it is said that her marriage was to a certain extent a marria marriage lat e of love it seems stran strange geto to think that a man should fall in love with his sister but you must remember that the king of siam came of a family of eighty four children and he had thirty four half brothers and forty nine half sisters the custom of siam requires that the royal blood shall be kept pure and for years the kings have I 1 am told 1 married their sisters it is consider considered l an honor among the noble families of siam to have a daughter in the harem of the king and the only woman that the king |
