The Project Gutenberg EBook of Siam: Its Government, Manners, Customs, &c., by N. Abraham McDonald

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Title: Siam: Its Government, Manners, Customs, &c.

Author: N. Abraham McDonald

Release Date: January 7, 2014 [EBook #44615]

Language: English

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SIAM:

                                  ITS
                   GOVERNMENT, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, &c.

                                  BY
                         Rev. N. A. McDONALD,
              For ten years a Missionary in that country.

                             PHILADELPHIA:
                            ALFRED MARTIEN,
                         1214 CHESTNUT STREET.
                                 1871.

      Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
                            ALFRED MARTIEN,
      In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

                             To the Memory
                  Of the Founder of Milnwood Academy,
                         REV. J. Y. McGINNES,

Who had the cause of Foreign Missions very much at heart;

AND TO ALL WHO HAVE BEEN PUPILS OF THAT INSTITUTION, THIS LITTLE VOLUME

           Is respectfully dedicated, by one of the earliest
                     Students of the Institution,

The Author.

[Illustration: The present King of Siam.]

Contents.

CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHY

CHAPTER II. THE GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER III. RELIGION

CHAPTER IV. EDUCATION AND LITERATURE

CHAPTER V. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

CHAPTER VI. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE

CHAPTER VII. CEREMONIES FOR THE DYING AND DEAD

CHAPTER VIII. THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE

CHAPTER IX. FARMING AND PRODUCTS

CHAPTER X. MODE OF DIVIDING TIME

CHAPTER XI. MISSIONARY OPERATIONS

PREFACE.

In giving these pages to the public the author has no ambition to make a book. Having been invited by the Principal of Milnwood Academy, at Shade Gap, Pa., to deliver in that Institution a series of lectures, or talks, on Siam, its government, manners, customs, &c., a few friends have requested that they be reduced to paper and published, which is his only apology for giving them to the public in book form. A few additions have been made, and the facts are narrated as seen and understood by the author. In a few instances, to refresh his memory, he has referred to articles on Siam, published in the Bangkok Calendar and elsewhere. The work is intended chiefly for a class of readers who may not have access to the more pretending works recently published on that country.

N. A. M.

Shade Gap, Pa., April, 1871.

SIAM.

CHAPTER I.

GEOGRAPHY, Etc.

On my "overland" journey from Siam to the United States, through France and England, many persons were accustomed to accost me saying, "Pardon me, Sir, but what nationality is that young man who is with you?" referring to my Siamese boy. That boy, Sir, is a Siamese. "A Siamese! Well, I must confess my geography is a little shaky,—I scarcely know where Siam is,—but I remember now that is where the Siamese twins came from." Referring, of course, to those unfortunate beings who by some "lusus naturæ" are inseparably connected together, and have been obliged to spend a long life in that condition, and who have consequently become almost the only means by which their native country is known to a vast majority of Europeans. When I, in 1860, determined to go to Siam, I found it next to impossible to gather from books any reliable information concerning it, and consequently took shipping at New York almost as ignorant of the country to which I was going, as I was of the moon. Fortunately however, some of our party were returning, and before we arrived at our destination I was pretty well prepared for what I was to encounter. Geographies are nearly silent in regard to Siam, from the simple fact that geographers themselves know nothing about it. It is also to be regretted that, until very recently, chiefly all the books concerning Oriental countries were written by mere cursory travellers, whose knowledge of the countries through which they passed, or at which they touched, must necessarily have been limited, and the chief object of many of them appears to have been to make a readable book, oftentimes at the expense of truth.

You will naturally ask, where is Siam? At the extreme point of that vast continent extending from the snows of Siberia to the Equator, and terminating in the long narrow Malay peninsula, is the little island of Singapore, separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. The island is about twenty-five miles long, and about fourteen miles broad, and commands the entrance of the China sea. The English, who have ever had an eye to strategic points, and especially in the East, took possession of it in 1819, being then little more than a Malay fishing village, and a nest for pirates. The present town of Singapore, well laid out and neatly built, and situated on the southern extremity of the island commanding the anchorage, contains perhaps one hundred thousand inhabitants, whilst the principal English merchants live in palatial residences on the hills in the rear of the town. The government of the island, together with Malacca, Penang, and Province Wellesley, has lately teen transferred from the Indian Government directly to the Crown. It is a beautiful little island, with a genial climate, and I know of no place in the East where I would rather live.

Leaving Singapore, and passing through the strait, up the peninsula, over the lower part of the China sea, and up the gulf of Siam about eight hundred miles, you come to the kingdom