murderers, robbers, spirits of the earth, woods, or water, or air, or all the divinities who adore Budha; or from the gods of the four elements, and all other spirits. May blood flow out of every pore of my skin, that my crime may be made manifest to the world. May all or any of these evils overtake me within three days, or may I never stir from the spot on which I now stand; or may the lightning cut me in two, so that I may be exposed to the derision of the people; or if I should be walking abroad, may I be torn in pieces by either of the supernaturally endowed lions, or destroyed by poisonous serpents. If on the water of the river or ocean, may supernatural crocodiles or great fish devour me; or may the winds and waves overwhelm me, or may the dread of such evils keep me a prisoner during life at home, estranged from every pleasure. May I be afflicted with intolerable oppression of my superiors, or may a plague cause my death; after which may I be precipitated into hell, there to go through innumerable stages of torture, amongst which may I be condemned to carry water over the flaming regions in wicker baskets, to assuage the heat of Than Tretonwan, when he enters the infernal hell of justice, and thereafter may I fall into the lowest pit of hell; or if these miseries should not ensue, may I after death migrate into the body of a slave, and suffer all the pain and hardship attending the worst state of such a being, during the period measured by the sand of the sea; or may I animate the body of an animal or beast during five hundred generations, or be born a hermaphrodite five hundred times, or endure in the body of a deaf, dumb, blind, and houseless beggar every species of disease, during the same number of generations; and then may I be buried to narok, and there be crucified by Phya Yam."

They have also a way of extorting confessions from criminals, which is terribly severe. The first way is by the use of the lash or ratan. He first receives ninety stripes, and then, if he don't confess, he is allowed a respite of a few days and receives ninety more; and if he stills holds out, he is allowed another respite, and receives ninety the third time. Any one who can endure three times ninety without confessing is presumed to be innocent. They have also other modes, by putting split bamboos on their fingers, something like the thumb screw of old. Persons often confess when they are innocent, from fear of the torture.

They punish with death murder, highway-robbery, and treason. Their mode of execution is decapitation. The criminals are brought out in chains, and a clamp consisting of two bamboo poles is placed on the neck. He is then made to sit down on the ground, the one end of the clamp resting on the ground. They then most generally drug the criminal, so as to produce stupor, amounting oftentimes to unconsciousness, and also stop up their ears with soft mud. At a signal the executioner runs out with a sword and cuts off the head. He generally does it very neatly with one stroke, but I have known one or two instances in which the executioner, to give him nerve, took quite too much liquor, and made wonderful hacking of it.

Corporal punishment with the ratan is very common—so common that there is little or no stigma attached to it. I have known high officers to be severely thrashed. On public occasions I have seen those in charge of certain things, who displeased the King, taken out and thrashed. They were made to lie down on their face on the pavement, and a man stood over with a ratan and put it down in no light manner, the victim crying, "Ooey! ooey!" at every stroke. So you perceive that it may in some respects be called a ratan government.

The revenue of the country is derived from various sources. Certain things are sold out by the government to the highest bidder, who, when he receives it, has full control of the whole matter. He sub-lets again to other minor parties and retailers, and has full powers to punish all those who violate the right which he has so dearly purchased. These are called farms. The most lucrative is the opium farm. There is also the spirit farm, that is liquor distilled from rice; the gambling farm; the rice farm; the cocoanut-oil farm, and some others. There is also a tax on fisheries, on trading-boats, on fruit orchards, on shops and stores; an export duty on rice, and an import duty of three per cent, on all goods imported. There is also a triennial poll tax of about two dollars on every Chinaman in the kingdom, which amounts to a large sum every three years.

CHAPTER III.

RELIGION.

The religion of Siam is Budhism. It would however be impossible on an occasion of this kind to give any extended outline of Budhism, and besides this the principal works on that subject in the English language are dry and uninteresting to the general reader or listener. Any translations from the Budhist classics must also be necessarily stiff, and many of the names unintelligible, unless accompanied with explanations; I shall only, therefore, give as brief an outline as I can of the Budhist faith, and describe, as nearly as possible, the manner in which it is practised in Siam.

Budhism arose from a man of royal blood called Gautama, but by the Siamese, Somanakodome. His father ruled a small kingdom in the province of Oude, near the Himelaya mountains. Gautama died probably about 534 B.C., and is supposed to have been nearly cotemporary with the prophet Daniel. Becoming disgusted with the luxuries and pleasures of courtly life he adopted that of a hermit, and like all hermits became an enthusiast, and fancied that he had found the only true road to all good, and thus leaped from the circle of eternal transmigration into a "sublimation of existence that has no attribute and knows no change."

The late king of Siam speaks of the founder of the Budhist faith thus: "Budha was a man who came into being on a certain time, by ordinary generation; that he was a most extraordinary man, more mysterious and wonderful than all heavenly beings, because he made vast merit by the use of his body, his words and his will. He reigned as king twenty-nine years, (meaning doubtless that he lived in princely state until twenty-nine years old); that he then practised the most severe asceticism, and with the greatest assiduity for a period of six years, when his mind became so sublimated and refined that he habitually numbered and measured every thought he had, fixing his mind upon that single object, to the utter exclusion of every other care, and that consequently he attained to the highest perfection, not knowing anything alike of happiness or sorrow, being in a middle state between the two; and as a result of this, he then had power to remember many of the transmigrations of being through which he had come, and could see with angelic eyes distinctly all the various and numberless transmigrations of human, angelic, and animal being throughout the universe; and thence onward to the time of his death he gave his mind entirely to the destroying of sin in his own body and soul, and became the most pure and spotless, not only externally, but also in all the secret recesses of his life and soul, and thence is worthily denominated Arahang. He then saw by his own power alone, that all the forms and bodies which merit and demerit have caused to come into being, and all other things which exist without any cause, are altogether illusive, unreal, unsubstantial, and evanescent; without a maker, proprietor, or lord, and that hence is he also Samma Sampootó. This says he is the sacred Budh, whom others before us have thus eulogized as having come into the world, and lived in it, and is commonly called according to his family name, Gótama. He spent forty-five years in publishing the way to holiness and substantial and eternal peace, and then extinguished his life, and departed