Since the world began the peacock's tail which we call the Malay Peninsula has swung down from Siam to sweep the Sumatran shore. A peacock's tail not merely in configuration but in its gorgeousness of color. Green jungle—a bewildering tangle of trees, shrubs, bushes, plants, and creepers, hung with ferns and mosses, bound together with rattans and trailing vines—clothes the mountains and the lowlands, its verdant riot checked only by the sea. Penetrating the deepest recesses of the jungle a network of little, dusky, winding rivers, green-blue because the sky that is reflected in them is filtered through the interlacing branches. Orchids—death-white, saffron, pink, violet, purple, crimson—festooned from the higher boughs like incandescent lights of colored glass. The gilded, cone-shaped towers of Buddhist temples rising above steep roofs tiled in orange, red, or blue, their eaves hung with hundreds of tiny bells which tinkle musically in every breeze. The scarlet splotches of spreading fire-trees against whitewashed walls. Shaven-headed priests in yellow robes offering flowers and food to stolid-faced images of brass and clay. Long files of If you will look at the map you will see that Lower Siam extends half-way down the Malay Peninsula, running across it from coast to coast and thus forming a barrier between British Burmah and British Malaya, precisely as German East Africa formerly separated the British holdings in the northern and southern portions of the Dark Continent. And, were I to indulge in prophecy, I should say that the day would come when the fate of German East Africa will overtake Lower Siam. History has shown, again and again, that the nation, particularly if it is as small and feeble as Siam, which forms a barrier between two portions of a powerful and aggressive empire is in anything but an enviable position. Politically that portion of the Malay Peninsula Starting at Johore, which, some Biblical authorities assert, is identical with the Land of Ophir, and running through the heart of British Malaya from south to north, is the Federated Malay States Railway, which has recently been linked up with the Siamese State Railways, thus making it possible to travel by rail from Singapore to Bangkok in about four days. Aside from the heat (in the railway carriages the mercury occasionally climbs to 120), the insects, the dust, and the swarms of sweating natives who pile into every compartment regardless of the class designated on their tickets, the journey is a comfortable one. That section of the F. M. S. Railways which traverses the Sultanate of Johore runs through the greatest tiger country in all Asia. The tiger is to Johore what the elephant is to Siam and the kangaroo to Australia—a sort of national trademark. Even the postage stamps bear an engraving of the striped monarch of the jungle. There is no place in the world, so far as I am aware, save only a zoo, of course, where one can get a shot at a tiger so quickly and with such minimum of effort. In this connection I heard a story at the Singapore Club, the truth of which is vouched for by those with whom I was having tiffin. Shortly before the war, it seems, an American business man who had amassed a fortune in the export business, and who was noted even in down-town New York as a hustler, was returning from a business trip to China. "Johore's the place for tigers," the Englishman remarked, pouring himself another peg of whiskey. "The beggars are as thick as foxes in Leicestershire. You're jolly well certain of bagging one the first day out." "I've always wanted a tiger skin for my smoking room," commented the American. "Could buy one at a fur shop on the Avenue, of course, but I want one that I shot myself. Think I'll run over to Johore while we're at Singapore and get one." "But I say, my dear fellow," expostulated the Briton, "you really can't do that, you know. We only stop at Singapore for half a day—get in at daybreak and leave again at noon. You can't get a tiger in that time." "There's no such word as 'can't' in my business. Business methods will bring results in tiger shooting as quickly as in anything else," retorted the American, rising and heading for the wireless room. A few hours later the American's representative in Singapore, a youngster who had himself been educated in the school of American business, received a wireless message from the head of his house. It read: "Arriving Singapore daybreak Thursday. Leaving noon same day. Wish to shoot tiger in Johore. Make arrangements." When the steamer bearing the American magnate dropped anchor in the harbor, the local representative went aboard with the quarantine officer. Ten minutes later, thanks to arrangements made in advance, a launch was bearing him and his chief to the shore, where a motor car was waiting. It is barely a dozen miles from the wharf at Singapore to Woodlands, the ferry station opposite Johore, and the driver had orders to shatter the speed laws. A waiting launch streaked across the two miles of channel which separates the island from the mainland and drew up alongside the quay at Johore, where another car was waiting. The roads are excellent in the sultanate, and thirty minutes of fast driving brought the two Americans to the zareba, within which the tiger, guarded by natives, was peacefully breakfasting on a goat. "He's a real man-eater," whispered the agent, handing his employer a loaded express rifle. "We only The magnate, trembling with excitement for the first time in his busy life, drew bead on the tawny stripe behind the tiger's shoulder. There was a shattering roar, the great beast pawed convulsively at the air, then rolled on its side and lay motionless. "Good work," the local man commented approvingly. "It's only an hour and forty minutes since we left the boat a record for tiger shooting, I fancy. We'll be back at Raffles' for breakfast by nine o'clock and after that I'll show you round the city. Don't worry about the skin, sir. The natives'll tend to the skinning and I'll have it on board before you sail." Now—so the story goes—after dinner in the magnate's New York home he takes his guests into the smoking room for cigars and coffee. Spread before the fireplace is a great orange and black pelt, a trifle faded it is true, but indubitably the skin of a tiger. "Yes," the host complacently in reply to his guests' admiring comments, "a real man-eater. Shot him myself in the Johore jungle. Easy enough to get a tiger if you use American business methods." When, upon reaching Singapore, the great seaport at the tip of the Malay Peninsula which is the gateway to the Malay States and to Siam, I learned that When the people whom I met in Singapore learned that I was contemplating visiting Siam they attempted to dissuade me. I was warned that the train service up the peninsula was uncertain, that the steamers up the gulf were uncomfortable, that the hotel in Bangkok was impossible, the dirt incredible, the heat unendurable, the climate unhealthy. And when, desiring to learn whether these indictments were true, I attempted to obtain reliable information about the country to which I was going, I found that none was to be had. The latest volume on Siam which I could find in Singapore bookshops bore an 1886 imprint. The managers of the two leading hotels in Singapore knew, or professed to The Siamese are by no means opposed to foreigners visiting their country, and they would welcome the development of its resources by foreign capital, but, owing to the insularity, indifference, timidity and pride which are inherent in the Siamese character, they have taken no steps to bring their country to the attention of the outside world. When one notes the energetic advertising campaigns which are being conducted by the governments of Japan, China, Java, and even Indo-China, where the visitor is confronted at every turn by advertisements urging him to "Spend the Week-End at Kamakura," "Go to the Great Wall," "Don't Miss Boroboedor and Djokjakarta," "Take Advantage of the Special Fares to the Ruins of Angkor," you wonder why Siam, which has so much that is novel and picturesque to offer, makes no effort to swell its revenues by encouraging the tourist industry. That the royal prince who is the Minister of Communications recently made a tour of the United States for the purpose of studying American railway methods suggests, however, that the Land of the White I might as well admit frankly that my first impressions of the Siamese capital were extremely disappointing. I didn't expect to be conveyed to my hotel atop a white elephant, through streets lined with salaaming natives, but neither did I expect to make a wild dash through thoroughfares as crowded with traffic as Fifth Avenue, in a vehicle which unmistakably owed its paternity to Mr. Henry Ford, or to be bruskly halted at busy street crossings by the upraised hand of a helmeted and white-gloved traffic policeman. Nor, upon my arrival at the hotel—there is only one in Bangkok deserving of the name—did I expect to find on the breakfast table a breakfast food manufactured in Battle Creek, or beside my bed an electric fan made in New Britain, Connecticut, or behind the desk a very wide awake American youth—the son, I learned later, of one of the American advisers to the Siamese Government—who eagerly inquired whether I had brought any American newspapers with me and whether I thought the pennant would be won by the Giants or the White Sox. Bangkok, which, with its suburbs, has a population about equal to that of Boston, is built on the banks of the country's greatest river, the Menam, some forty miles from its mouth. Though the city has a number of fine thoroughfares, straight as though laid out with a pencil and ruler, between them lie labyrinths of dim and evil-smelling bazaars, their narrow, winding, Pushing their way through the crowded thoroughfares, their raucous cries rising above the clamor, go the ice cream and curry vendors, carrying the Though the streets of Bangkok are crowded with The Oriental Hotel, the banks, the shipping offices, the business houses, and all the legations save only the There are said to be nearly four hundred Buddhist temples within a two-mile radius of the royal palace, of which by far the most interesting and magnificent is the famous Wat Phra Keo, or Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is really a royal chapel, being within the outer circumference of the palace walls. I doubt if any space of similar size in all the world contains such a bewildering display of barbaric magnificence, such a riot of form and color, as the walled enclosure in which this remarkable edifice and its attendant structures stand. From the center of the marble-paved courtyard rises an enormous, cone-shaped prachadee, round at the bottom but tapering to a long and slender spire said to be covered with plates of gold. It certainly looks like a solid mass of that precious metal, and at daybreak and nightfall, when it catches the level rays of the sun, it can be seen from afar, shining and glittering above the gorgeously colored roofs of the temples and the many-tinted lesser spires which surround it. Close by the gilded prachadee is the bote or chapel used by the king, surmounted by a similar spire which is overlaid with sapphire-colored plates of glass and porcelain, while a little distance away stands the temple itself, its gilded The interior of the main temple is extremely lofty. The walls and rafters are of teak and the floor is covered with a matting made of silver wire. At the far end of this imposing room an enormous, pyramidal shrine of gold rises almost to the roof, its dazzling brilliancy somewhat subdued by the semi-obscurity of the interior. Wat Phra Keo is unique amongst Siamese temples in containing objects of real value. Everything is genuine and costly, as becomes the gifts of a king, though it must be admitted that certain of the royal offerings which are ranged at the foot of the shrine, such as jeweled French clocks, figurines of SÈvres and Dresden porcelain, and a large It is the custom in Siam for every man to spend a portion of his life in a monastery. This rule applies to everyone from the poorest peasant upward, the king and all the male members of the royal family having at some period worn the yellow robe of a monk. This curious custom is, no doubt, an imitation of the so-called Act of Renunciation of Gautama, the future Buddha, who, at the age of twenty-nine, moved by the sufferings of humanity, renounced his rights to his The periods of time which men devote to monastic life are not uniform. Some spend between a month and a year, others their entire lives. Some enter the monastery in their youth, others in middle age or when old men. But they all shave their heads and don the coarse yellow robe and lead practically the same existence. Each morning, carrying their "begging bowls," they beg their food at the doors of To visit Siam without seeing the royal white elephants would be like visiting Niagara without seeing the falls. The elephant stables stand in the heart of the palace enclosure, sandwiched in between the palace gardens and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Each animal—there were only three in the royal stables at the time of my visit—has a separate building to itself, within which it stands on a sort of dais, one hind leg lashed with a rope to a tall, stout post painted scarlet and surmounted by a gilded crown. Much as I dislike to shatter cherished illusions, were I to assert that Though the albino elephants are never used nowadays save on occasions of great ceremony, being regarded by the educated Siamese with the same amused tolerance with which an Englishman regards the great gilt coach, drawn by eight cream-colored horses, in which the king goes to open Parliament, the ordinary elephant is of enormous economic value to the country, being a combination, as it were, of a motor truck, a portable derrick, and a freight car. Almost anywhere in the back country, where the only roads are trails through the jungle, one can see "elephants a-pilin' teak in the sludgy, squdgy creeks" or being loaded with merchandise for transport into the far interior. Indeed, the traveler who wishes to take a "The elephant ate all night, The elephant ate all day; Do what he would to furnish food, The cry was 'Still more hay!'" elephants being herded Although, as I have already remarked, sophisticated Siamese regard the white elephant with amusement tinged with contempt, there is no doubt that among the bulk of the people the animals are considered as sacred and are treated with great veneration. Indeed, when Siam was forced to cede certain of her eastern provinces to France, the treaty contained a clause providing that any so-called white elephants which might be captured in the ceded territory should be considered the property of the King of Siam and delivered to him forthwith. A number of years ago, a traveling show known as Wilson's English Circus, gave a number of exhibitions in Bangkok, which were attended by the King, the nobility, and members of the European "Hey, you!" bawled one of them, "Have you seen the white elephant?" "Sure, I have," was the response. "The King has a stable full of them." "Oh, no, he ain't," shouted the first fun-maker. "The King ain't got any white elephants. His are all gray ones. I'll show you the only genuine white elephant in the world," whereupon a small elephant, as snowy as repeated coats of whitewash could make it, ambled into the ring. Though a suppressed titter ran through the more sophisticated portion of the audience when it was observed that the ridiculous looking animal left white marks on everything it touched, it was quite apparent that the bulk of the spectators resented fun being made of an animal which they had been taught to consider sacred, certain of the more devout asserting that the sacrilegious performance would call down the wrath of Buddha. Their prophecies proved to be well founded, for the "white" elephant died at sea a few days later—as the Being a young nation, so far as the adoption of Western methods are concerned, the Siamese are extremely sensitive, being almost pathetically eager to win the good opinion of the Occidental world. Thus, upon Siam's entry into the Great War (perhaps you were not aware that the little kingdom equipped and sent to France an expeditionary force composed of aviation, ambulance and motor units, thus being the only independent Asiatic nation whose troops served on European soil) the king abolished the white elephant upon a red ground which from time immemorial had been the national standard, substituting for it a nondescript affair of colored stripes which at first glance appears to be a compromise between the flags of China and Montenegro. In doing this, I think that the king made a mistake, for he deprived his country of a distinctive emblem which was associated with Siam the whole world over. Fortune was kind to us in the Siamese capital, for we reached that city on the eve of a series of royal cremations, the attendant ceremonies providing enough action and color to satisfy even Hawkinson. It should be explained that instead of cremating a body immediately, as might be expected in so torrid a climate, the remains are placed in a large jar and kept When I first suggested to friends in Bangkok that I wished to obtain permission for Hawkinson to take pictures of the cremation, they told me that it was out of the question. "But why?" I demanded. "Motion-pictures were taken of the funerals of the Pope, and of King Edward, and of President Roosevelt, without anyone dreaming of protesting, so why should there be any objection here? Nothing in the least disrespectful is intended." "But this is Siam," my friends replied pessimistically, "and such things simply aren't done here. No one has ever taken a motion-picture of a royal cremation." "It's never too late to begin," I told them. So I took a rickshaw out to the American Legation and enlisted the cooperation of our charge d'affaires, Mr. Donald Rodgers, the very efficient young diplomatist who was representing American interests in Siam pending the arrival of the new minister. "I'll do my best to arrange it," Rodgers assured me, "but I'm not sanguine about meeting with success. The Siamese are fine people, kindly, hospitable and all that, but they're as conservative as Bostonians." Two days later, however, he sent me a letter, signed by the minister of the royal household, authorizing "What happened?" I inquired, by way of greeting. "What didn't happen?" he retorted. "They turned me out just as the cremation was commencing. When we reached the meru I was met by an official wearing bright-blue pants, who told me that he had been sent to assist me in taking the pictures. Well, I got a few shots of the meru itself, and of the royal pavilion, and of some of the priests and soldiers, but there wasn't much doing because there wasn't any action. So I sat down to wait for things to happen. Pretty soon the troops began to arrive—lancers and a battery of artillery and a company of the royal body-guard in red coats—and after them came the guests: officials and dignitaries in all sorts of gorgeous uniforms covered with decorations. A few minutes later I heard someone say, 'The King is coming,' so I got the camera ready to begin cranking. Just then up comes my Siamese chaperone. 'You will have to leave now,' says he. 'Leave? What for?' said I. 'Because the cremation is about to begin,' he tells me. 'But that's what I've come to take pictures of,' I told him. 'What "Then you didn't get any pictures?" I queried, deep disappointment in my tone. "Sure, I got the pictures," was the answer. "Some of them, at any rate. That's what I went there for, wasn't it?" "But how did you work it?" I demanded. "Easy," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "I told the driver to back his car up against the iron fence which encircles the meru; then I set up the camera in the tonneau, so that it was above the heads of the crowd, screwed on the six-inch lens which I use for long-distance shots, and took the pictures." The present ruler of Siam, King Rama VI, is in most respects the antithesis of the popular conception of an Oriental monarch. Though polygamy has been practised among the upper classes in Siam from time beyond reckoning, he has neither wife nor concubines. Instead of riding atop a white elephant, in a gilded howdah, or being borne in a palanquin, as is always the custom of Oriental rulers in fiction, he shatters the speed laws in a big red Mercedes. For the flaming silks and flashing jewels which the movies have educated the American public to believe are habitually worn by Eastern potentates, King Rama substitutes the uniform of a Siamese general, or, for evening functions In one respect, however, King Rama lives up to the popular conception of an Oriental ruler: like his father before him, he is generous to the point of prodigality. This trait was illustrated not long ago, when he sent eight thousand pounds to the widow of Mr. Westengaard, the American who was for many years general adviser to the Government of Siam, accompanied by a message that it was to be used for the education of her son. This recalls a characteristic little anecdote of the present ruler's father, the late King Chulalongkorn. The early youth of the late king and his brothers was spent under the tutelage of an English governess, who was affectionately addressed by the younger members of the royal family as "Mem." Upon her return to "Mem," he said, in a course of conversation, "how could you write such unkind things about my father? He was always very good to you." "That is true, Majesty," the former governess admitted in some confusion, "but the publishers wouldn't take the book unless I made it sensational. And I had to do it because I was in financial difficulties." When she had departed the King turned to one of his equerries. "Send the poor old lady a hundred pounds," he directed. "She meant no harm and she needs the money." The chief hobby of the present ruler is, curiously enough, amateur dramatics, of which his orthodox and conservative ministers do not wholly approve. In addition to having translated into Siamese a number of Shakesperian plays, he is the author of several original dramas, which have been produced at the palace under his personal direction and in several of which he has himself played the leading parts. As a result of this predilection for dramatics, he has accumulated an extensive theatrical wardrobe, to which he is constantly adding. When I was in Bangkok I had some "You'll excuse my taking the liberty, I hope, sir," he said during the course of a fitting, "but, being as you are an American, perhaps you could assist me with some information. I've received a very pressing order for a costume such as is worn by the cowboys in your country, sir, but, though I've found some pictures in the English illustrated weeklies, I don't rightly know how to make it." "A cowboy's costume?" I exclaimed. "In Siam? Who in the name of Heaven wants it?" "It's for his Majesty," was the surprising answer. "He's written a play in which he takes the part of an American cowboy and he's very particular, sir, that the costume should be quite correct. Seeing as you come from that country, I thought I'd make so bold, sir, as to ask if you could give me some suggestions." It was quite apparent that he believed that when I was at home I customarily went about in chaps, a flannel shirt and a sombrero, and, knowing the English mind, I realized that nothing was to be gained by attempting to disillusionize him. "Let's see what you've made," I suggested, whereupon he produced an outfit which appeared to be a compromise between the costume of an Italian bandit, the uniform of an Australian soldier, and the regalia of a Spanish bull-fighter. Suppressing my inclination to give way to laughter, I sketched for the grateful tailor the sort of garments to which cowpunchers King Rama's literary efforts have not been confined to playwriting, however, for his book on the wars of the Polish Succession is one of the standard authorities on the subject. If you go to Siam expecting to see an Oriental potentate such as you have read about in novels, His Majesty, Rama VI, is bound to prove very disappointing. rice planting ceremony But, though the monarch and his court are as up-to-the-minute as the Twentieth Century Limited, many of the spectacular and colorful ceremonies of old Siam are still celebrated with all their ancient pomp and magnificence. For example, each year, at the close of the rainy season, the King devotes about a fortnight to visiting the various temples in and near Bangkok. On these occasions he goes in the royal barge, a gorgeously decorated affair, 150 feet in length, looking not unlike an enormous Venetian gondola, rowed by three-score oarsmen in scarlet-and-gold liveries. The King, surrounded by a glittering group of court officials, sits on a throne at the stern, while attendants hold over his head golden umbrellas. From the landing place to the temple he is borne in a sedan chair between rows of prostrate natives who bow their foreheads to the earth in adoration of this short, stout, olive-skinned, good-humored looking young man whom Another picturesque observance, the Rice-Planting Ceremony, takes place early in May, when the Minister of Agriculture, as the deputy of the King, leads a long procession of officials and priests to a field in the outskirts of the capital, where a pair of white bullocks, yoked to a gilded plough, are waiting. Surrounded by a throng of functionaries glittering like Christmas trees, the Minister ploughs a few furrows in the field, being followed by four young women of the court who scatter rice grains on the freshly turned soil. Until quite recent years, the officials taking part in this procession claimed the privilege of appropriating any articles which caught their fancy in the shops along the route. But this quaint practise is no longer followed. It was not popular with the merchants. The Siamese, like all Orientals, place much reliance on omens, the position of the lower hem of the panung worn by the Minister of Agriculture on this occasion indicating, it is confidently believed, the sort of weather to be expected during the ensuing year. If the edge of the panung comes down to the ankles a dry season is anticipated, even a drought, perhaps. If, on the contrary, the garment is pulled up to the knees—a raining-in-London effect, as it were,—it is freely predicted that the country will suffer from floods. But if the folds of the silk reach to a point midway between knee and ankle, then the farmers look forward to a The panung—a strip of silk or cotton about three yards long is the national garment of Siam and among the poorer classes constitutes the only article of clothing. It is admirably adapted to the climate, being easy to wash and easy to put on: all that is necessary is to wind it about the waist, pass the ends between the legs, and tuck them into the girdle, thus producing the effect of a pair of knickerbockers. As both sexes wear the panung, and likewise wear their hair cut short, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish between men and women. Siamese women keep their hair about four or five inches long and brush it straight back, like American college students, without using any comb or other ornament, thus giving them a peculiarly boyish appearance. In explanation of this fashion of wearing the hair there is an interesting tradition. Once upon a time, it seems, a Siamese walled city was besieged by Cambodians while the men of the city were fighting elsewhere and only women and children remained behind. A successful defense was out of the question. In this emergency, a woman of militant character—the Sylvia Pankhurst of her time—proposed to her terrified sisters that they should cut their hair short and appear upon the walls in men's clothing on the chance of frightening away the Cambodians. The ruse succeeded, for, while the invaders "True enough," I admitted. "In the younger set bobbed hair is all the vogue. But they don't cut off their hair, as your women did, to frighten away the men." If you will take down the family atlas and turn to the map of Southern Asia you will see that Siam, with an area about equivalent to that of Spain, occupies the uncomfortable and precarious position of a fat walnut clinched firmly between the jaws of a nut-cracker, the jaws being formed by British Burmah and French Indo-China. And for the past thirty years those jaws have been slowly but remorselessly closing. Until 1893 the eastern frontier of Siam was separated from the China Sea by the narrow strip of Annam, at one point barely thirty miles in width, which was under French protection. Its western boundary was the Lu Kiang River, which likewise formed the eastern boundary of the British possessions in Burmah. On the south the kingdom reached down to the Grand Lac of Cambodia, while on the north its frontiers were coterminous with those of the great, rich Chinese province of Yunnan. Now here was a condition of affairs which was as annoying as it was intolerable to the The first step in the spoilation of the helpless little kingdom was taken by France in 1893, when, claiming that the Mekong—which the French were eager to acquire under the impression that it would provide them with a trade-route into Southern China—formed the true boundary between Siam and Annam, she demanded that the Siamese evacuate the great strip of territory to the east of that river. Greatly to the delight of the French imperialists, the Siamese refused to yield, whereupon, in accordance with the time-honored rules of the game of territory grabbing, French gunboats were dispatched to make a naval demonstration off Bangkok. The forts at the mouth of the Menam fired upon the gunboats, whereupon the French instituted a blockade of the Siamese capital and at the same time enormously increased their demands. England, which had long professed to be a disinterested friend of the Siamese, shrugged her shoulders whereupon they yielded to the threat of a French invasion and ceded to France the eastern marches of the kingdom. Meanwhile the frontier between Siam and the new British possessions in Burmah had been settled amicably, though, as might have been expected, in Britain's favor, Siam being shorn of a small strip of territory on the northwest. In 1904 It was the Great War which, by diverting the attention of France and England, probably saved Siam from complete dismemberment. Now, in robbing her, they would be robbing an ally and a friend, for in July, 1917, Siam declared war on the Central Powers, despatched an expeditionary force to France, interned every enemy alien in the kingdom and confiscated their property, thus ridding France and England of the last vestige of Teutonic commercial rivalry in southeastern Asia. The Siamese, moreover, have had a national house-cleaning and have set their country in thorough order. Their national finances are now in admirable condition; they have accomplished far-reaching administrative reforms; they are opening up their territory by the construction of railway lines in all directions; and they have obtained the practical abolition of French and British jurisdiction over certain of their domestic affairs, while a treaty which provides that the United States shall likewise surrender its extra territorial rights and permit its citizens to be tried in Siamese courts has recently been signed. The future of Siam should be of interest to Americans if for no other reason than that it is the one remaining independent state of tropical Asia. Indeed, it is known to its own people as Muang-Thai—the "The good old rule ... the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." |