The English Governess at the Siamese Court Part 19

There can be no just doubt that, at the time, it was his sincere purpose to carry these generous impulses into practical effect; for certainly he was, in every moral and intellectual respect, n.o.bly superior to his predecessor, and to his dying hour he was conspicuous for his attachment to a sound philosophy and the purest maxims of Buddha. Yet we find in him a deplorable example of the degrading influence on the human mind of the greed of possessions and power, and of the infelicities that attend it; for though he promptly set about the reforming of abuses in the several departments of his government, and invited the ladies of the American mission to teach in his new harem, nevertheless he soon began to indulge his avaricious and sensual propensities, and cast a jealous eye upon the influence of the prime minister, the son of his stanch old friend, the Duke Ong Yai, to whom he owed almost the crown itself, and of his younger brother, the Second King, and of the neighboring princes of Chiengmai and Cochin China. He presently offended those who, by their resolute display of loyalty in his hour of peril, had seated him safely on the throne of his ancestors.

From this time he was continually exposed to disappointment, mortification, slights, from abroad, and conspiracy at home. Had it not been for the steadfast adherence of the Second King and the prime minister, the sceptre would have been wrested from his grasp and bestowed upon his more popular brother.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, he appeared, to those who observed him only on the public stage of affairs, to rule with wisdom, to consult the welfare of his subjects, to be concerned for the integrity of justice and the purity of manners and conversation in his own court, and careful, by a prudent administration, to confirm his power at home and his prestige abroad. Considered apart from his domestic relations, he was, in many respects, an able and virtuous ruler. His foreign policy was liberal; he extended toleration to all religious sects; he expended a generous portion of his revenues in public improvements,-- monasteries, temples, bazaars, ca.n.a.ls, bridges, arose at his bidding on every side; and though he fell short of his early promise, he did much to improve the condition of his subjects.

For example, at the instance of her Britannic Majesty's Consul, the Honorable Thomas George Knox, he removed the heavy boat-tax that had so oppressed the poorer ma.s.ses of the Siamese, and constructed good roads, and improved the international chambers of judicature.

But as husband and kinsman his character a.s.sumes a most revolting aspect. Envious, revengeful, subtle, he was as fickle and petulant as he was suspicious and cruel. His brother, even the offspring of his brother, became to him objects of jealousy, if not of hatred. Their friends must, he thought, be his enemies, and applause bestowed upon them was odious to his soul. There were many horrid tragedies in his harem in which he enacted the part of a barbarian and a despot. Plainly, his conduct as the head of a great family to whom his will was a law of terror reflects abiding disgrace upon his name. Yet it had this redeeming feature, that he tenderly loved those of his children whose mothers had been agreeable to him. He never snubbed or slighted them; and for the little princess, Chow Fa-ying, whose mother had been to him a most gentle and devoted wife, his affection was very strong and enduring.

But to turn from the contemplation of his private traits, so contradictory and offensive, to the consideration of his public acts, so liberal and beneficent. Several commercial treaties of the first importance were concluded with foreign powers during his reign. In the first place, the Siamese government voluntarily reduced the measurement duties on foreign s.h.i.+pping from nineteen hundred to one thousand ticals per fathom of s.h.i.+p's beam. This was a brave stride in the direction of a sound commercial policy, and an earnest of greater inducements to enterprising traders from abroad. In 1855 a new treaty of commerce was negotiated with his Majesty's government by H.B.M.'s plenipotentiary, Sir John Bowring, which proved of very positive advantage to both parties. On the 29th of May, 1856, a new treaty, substantially like that with Great Britain, was procured by Townsend Harris, Esq., representing the United States; and later in the same year still another, in favor of France, through H. I. M.'s Envoy, M. Montigny.

Before that time Portugal had been the only foreign government having a consul residing at Bangkok. Now the way was opened to admit a resident consul of each of the treaty powers; and shortly millions of dollars flowed into Siam annually by channels through which but a few tens of thousands had been drawn before. Foreign traders and merchants flocked to Bangkok and established rice-mills, factories for the production of sugar and oil, and warehouses for the importation of European fabrics.

They found a ready market for their wares, and an aspect of thrift and comfort began to enliven the once neglected and cheerless land.

A new and superb palace was erected, after the model of Windsor Castle, together with numerous royal residences in different parts of the country. The n.o.bility began to emulate the activity and munificence of their sovereign, and to compete with each other in the grandeur of their dwellings and the splendor of their _corteges_.

So prosperous did the country become under the benign influence of foreign trade and civilization, that other treaties were speedily concluded with almost every nation under the sun, and his Majesty found it necessary to accredit Sir John Bowring as plenipotentiary for Siam abroad.

Early in this reign the appointment of harbor-master at Bangkok was conferred upon an English gentleman, who proved so efficient in his functions that he was distinguished with the fifth t.i.tle of a Siamese n.o.ble. Next came a French commander and a French band-master for the royal troops. Then a custom-house was established, and a "live Yankee"

installed at the head of it, who was also glorified with a t.i.tle of honor. Finally a police force was organized, composed of trusty Malays hired from Singapore, and commanded by one of the most energetic Englishmen to be found in the East,--a measure which has done more than all others to promote a comfortable sense of "law and order" throughout the city and outskirts of Bangkok. It is to be remembered, however, in justice to the British Consul-General in Siam, Mr. Thomas George Knox, that the sure though silent influence was his, whereby the minds of the king and the prime minister were led to appreciate the benefits that must accrue from these foreign innovations.

The privilege of constructing, on liberal terms, a line of telegraph through Maulmain to Singapore, with a branch to Bangkok, has been granted to the Singapore Telegraph Company; and finally a sanitarium has been erected on the coast at Anghin, for the benefit of native and foreign residents needing the invigoration of sea-air. [Footnote: "His Excellency Chow Phya Bhibakrwongs Maha Kosa Dhipude, the P'hraklang, Minister for Foreign Affairs, has built a sanitarium at Anghin for the benefit of the public. It is for benefit of the Siamese, Europeans, or Americans, to go and occupy, when unwell, to restore their health. All are cordially invited to go there for a suitable length of time and be happy; but are requested not to remain month after month and year after year, and regard it as a place without an owner. To regard it in this way cannot be allowed, for it is public property, and others should go and stop there also."--_Advertis.e.m.e.nt, Siam Monitor_, August 29, 1868.]

During his retirement in the monastery the king had a stroke of paralysis, from which he perfectly recovered; but it left its mark on his face, in the form of a peculiar falling of the under lip on the right side. In person he was of middle stature, slightly built, of regular features and fair complexion. In early life he lost most of his teeth, but he had had them replaced with a set made from sapan-wood,--a secret that he kept very sensitively to the day of his death.

Capable at times of the n.o.blest impulses, he was equally capable of the basest actions. Extremely accessible to praise, he indiscriminately entertained every form of flattery; but his fickleness was such that no courtier could cajole him long. Among his favorite women was the beautiful Princess Tongoo Soopia, sister to the unfortunate Sultan Mahmoud, ex-rajah of Pahang. Falling fiercely in love with her on her presentation at his court, he procured her for his harem against her will, and as a hostage for the good faith of her brother; but as she, being Mohammedan, ever maintained toward him a deportment of tranquil indifference, he soon tired of her, and finally dismissed her to a wretched life of obsoleteness and neglect within the palace walls.

The only woman who ever managed him with acknowledged edged success was Khoon Chom Piem: hardly pretty, but well formed, and of versatile tact, totally uneducated, of barely respectable birth,--being Chinese on her father's side,--yet withal endowed with a nice intuitive appreciation of character. Once conscious of her growing influence over the king, she contrived to foster and exercise it for years, with but a slight rebuff now and then. Being modest to a fault, even at times obnoxious to the imputation of prudishness, she habitually feigned excuses for non-attendance in his Majesty's chambers,--such as delicate health, the nursing of her children, mourning for the death of this or that relative,--and voluntarily visited him only at rare intervals. In the course of six years she ama.s.sed considerable treasure, procured good places at court for members of her family, and was the means of bringing many Chinamen to the notice of the king. At the same time she lived in continual fear, was warily humble and conciliating toward her rival sisters, who pitied rather than envied her, and retained in her pay most of the female executive force in the palace.

In his daily habits his Majesty was remarkably industrious and frugal.

His devotion to the study of astronomy never abated, and he calculated with respectable accuracy the great solar eclipse of August, 1868.

The French government, having sent a special commission, under command of the Baron Hugon le Tourneur, to observe the eclipse in Siam, the king erected, at a place called _Hua Wann_ ("The Whale's Head"), a commodious observatory, besides numerous pavilions varying in size and magnificence, for his Majesty and retinue, the French commission, the Governor of Singapore (Colonel Ord) and suite, who had been invited to Bangkok by the king, and for ministers and n.o.bles of Siam. Provision was made, at the cost of government, for the regal entertainment, in a town of booths and tabernacles, of the vast concourse of natives and Europeans who followed his Majesty from the capital to witness the sublime phenomenon; and a herd of fifty n.o.ble elephants were brought from the ancient city of Ayudia for service and display.

The prospect becoming dubious and gloomy just at the time of first contact (ten o'clock), the prime minister archly invited the foreigners who believed in an overruling Providence to pray to him "that he may be pleased to disperse the clouds long enough to afford us a good view of the grandest of eclipses." Presently the clouds were partially withdrawn from the sun, and his Majesty observing that one twentieth of the disk was obscured, announced the fact to his own people by firing a cannon; and immediately pipes screamed and trumpets blared in the royal pavilion,--a tribute of reverence to the traditional fable about the Angel Rahoo swallowing the sun. Both the king and prime minister, scorning the restraints of dignity, were fairly boisterous in their demonstrations of triumph and delight; the latter skipping from point to point to squint through his long telescope. At the instant of absolute totality, when the very last ray of the sun had become extinct, his Excellency shouted, "Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" and scientifically disgraced himself. Leaving his spygla.s.s swinging, he ran through the gateway of his pavilion, and cried to his prostate wives, "Henceforth will you not believe the foreigner."

But that other Excellency, Chow Phya Bhudharabhay, Minister for Northern Siam, more orthodox, sat in dumfoundered faith, and gaped at the awful deglut.i.tion of the Angel Rahoo.

The government expended not less than a hundred thousand dollars on this scientific expedition, and a delegation from the foreign community of Bangkok approached his Majesty with an address of thanks for his indiscriminate hospitality.

But the extraordinary excitement, and exposure to the noxious atmosphere of the jungle, proved inimical to the const.i.tution of the king. On his return to Bangkok he complained of general weariness and prostration, which was the prelude to fever. Foreign physicians were consulted, but at no stage of the case was any European treatment employed. He rapidly grew worse, and was soon past saving. On the day before his death he called to his bedside his nearest relatives, and parted among them such of his personal effects as were most prized by him, saying, "I have no more need of these things. I must give up my life also." Buddhist priests were constant in attendance, and he seemed to derive much comfort from their prayers and exhortations. In the evening he wrote with his own hand a tender farewell to the mothers of his many children,--eighty-one in number. On the morning of his last day (October 1, 1868) he dictated in the Pali language a farewell address to the Buddhist priesthood, the spirit of which was admirable, and clearly manifested the faith of the dying man in the doctrines of the Reformer; for he hesitated not to say: "Farewell, ye faithful followers of Buddha, to whom death is nothing, even as all earthly existence is vain, all things mutable, and death inevitable. Presently I shall myself submit to that stern necessity. Farewell! for I go only a little before you."

Feeling sure that he must die before midnight, he summoned his half-brother, H. R. H. Krom Hluang Wongse, his Excellency the prime minister, Chow Phya Kralahome, and others, and solemnly imposed upon them the care of his eldest son, the Chowfa Chulalonkorn, and of his kingdom; at the same time expressing his last earthly wish, that the Senabawdee, in electing his successor, would give their voices for one who should conciliate all parties, that the country might not be distracted by dissensions on that question. He then told them he was about to finish his course, and implored them not to give way to grief, "nor to any sudden surprise," that he should leave them thus; "'tis an event that must befall all creatures that come into this world, and may not be avoided." Then turning his gaze upon a small image of his adored teacher, he seemed for some time absorbed in awful contemplation. "Such is life!" Those were actually the last words of this most remarkable Buddhist king. He died like a philosopher, calmly and sententiously soliloquizing on death and its inevitability. At the final moment, no one being near save his adopted son, Phya Buroot, he raised his hands before his face, as in his accustomed posture of devotion; then suddenly his head dropped backward, and he was gone.

That very night, without disorder or debate, the Senabawdee elected his eldest son, Somdetch Chowfa Chulalonkorn, to succeed him; and the Prince George Was.h.i.+ngton, eldest son of the late Second King, to succeed to his father's subordinate throne, under the t.i.tle of Krom P'hra Raja Bowawn Shathan Mongkoon. The t.i.tle of the present supreme king (my amiable and very promising scholar) is Prabat Somdetch P'hra Paramendr Maha Chulalonkorn Kate Klou Chow-yu-Hua.

About a year after my first ill-omened interviews with Maha Mongkut, and when I had become permanently installed in my double office of teacher and scribe, I was one day busy with a letter from his Majesty to the Earl of Clarendon, and finding that any attempt at partial correction would but render his meaning more ambiguous, and impair the striking originality of his style, I had abandoned the effort, and set about copying it with literal exactness, only venturing to alter here and there a word, such as "I hasten with _wilful_ pleasure to write in reply to your Lords.h.i.+p's _well-wis.h.i.+ng_ letter," etc. Whilst I was thus evolving from the depths of my inner consciousness a satisfactory solution to this conundrum in King's English, his Majesty's private secretary lolled in the sunniest corner of the room, stretching his dusky limbs and heavily nodding, in an ecstasy of ease-taking. Poor P'hra-Alack! I never knew him to be otherwise than sleepy, and his sleep was always stolen. For his Majesty was the most capricious of kings as to his working moods,--busy when the average man should be sleeping, sleeping while letters, papers, despatches, messengers, mail-boats waited. More than once had we been aroused at dead of night by noisy female slaves, and dragged in hot haste and consternation to the Hall of Audience, only to find that his Majesty was, not at his last gasp, as we had feared, but simply bothered to find in Webster's Dictionary some word that was to be found nowhere but in his own fertile brain; or perhaps in excited chase of the cla.s.sical term for some trifle he was on the point of ordering from London,--and that word was sure to be a stranger to my brain.

Before my arrival in Bangkok it had been his not uncommon practice to send for a missionary at midnight, have him beguiled or abducted from his bed, and conveyed by boat to the palace, some miles up the river, to inquire if it would not be more elegant to write _murky_ instead of _obscure_, or _gloomily dark_ rather than _not clearly apparent_. And if the wretched man should venture to declare his honest preference for the ordinary over the extraordinary form of expression, he was forthwith dismissed with irony, arrogance, or even insult, and without a word of apology for the rude invasion of his rest.

One night, a little after twelve o'clock, as he was on the point of going to bed like any plain citizen of regular habits, his Majesty fell to thinking how most accurately to render into English the troublesome Siamese word _phi_, which admits of a variety of interpretations.

[Footnote: Ghost, spirit, soul, devil, evil angel.] After puzzling over it for more than an hour, getting himself possessed with the word as with the devil it stands for, and all to no purpose, he ordered one of his lesser state barges to be manned and despatched with all speed for the British Consul. That functionary, inspired with lively alarm by so startling a summons, dressed himself with unceremonious celerity, and hurried to the palace, conjecturing on the way all imaginable possibilities of politics and diplomacy, revolution or invasion. To his vexation, not less than his surprise, he found the king in dishabille, engaged with a Siamese-English vocabulary, and mentally divided between "deuce" and "devil," in the choice of an equivalent. His preposterous Majesty gravely laid the case before the consul, who, though inwardly chafing at what he termed "the confounded coolness" of the situation, had no choice but to decide with grace, and go back to bed with philosophy.

No wonder, then, that P'hra-Alack experienced an access of grat.i.tude for the privilege of napping for two hours in a snuggery of suns.h.i.+ne.

"Mam-kha," [Footnote: Kha, "your slave."] he murmured drowsily, "I hope that in the Chat-Nah [Footnote: The next state of existence.] I shall be a freed man."

"I hope so sincerely, P'hra-Alack," said I. "I hope you'll be an Englishman or an American, for then you'll be sure to be independent."

It was impossible not to pity the poor old man,--stiff with continual stooping to his task, and so subdued!--liable not only to be called at any hour of the day or night, but to be threatened, cuffed, kicked, beaten on the head, [Footnote: The greatest indignity a Siamese can suffer.] every way abused and insulted, and the next moment to be taken into favor, confidence, bosom-friends.h.i.+p, even as his Majesty's mood might veer.

Alack for P'hra-Alack! though usually he bore with equal patience his greater and his lesser ills, there were occasions that sharply tried his meekness, when his weak and goaded nature revolted, and he rushed to a snug little home of his own, about forty yards from the Grand Palace, there to s.n.a.t.c.h a respite of rest and refreshment in the society of his young and lately wedded wife. Then the king would awake and send for him, whereupon he would be suddenly ill, or not at home, strategically hiding himself under a mountain of bedclothes, and detailing Mrs.

P'hra-Alack to reconnoitre and report. He had tried this primitive trick so often that its very staleness infuriated the king, who invariably sent officers to seize the trembling accomplice and lock her up in a dismal cell as a hostage for the scribe's appearance. At dusk the poor fellow would emerge, contrite and terrified, and prostrate himself at the gate of the palace. Then his Majesty (who, having spies posted in every quarter of the town, knew as well as P'hra-Alack himself what the illness or the absence signified) leisurely strolled forth, and, finding the patient on the threshold, flew always into a genuine rage, and prescribed "decapitation on the spot," and "sixty lashes on the bare back," both in the same breath. And while the attendants flew right and left,--one for the blade, another for the thong,--the king, still raging, seized whatever came most handy, and belabored his bosom-friend on the head and shoulders. Having thus summarily relieved his mind, he despatched the royal secretary for his ink-horn and papyrus, and began inditing letters, orders, appointments, before scymitar or lash (which were ever tenderly slow on these occasions) had made its appearance.

Perhaps in the very thick of his dictating he would remember the connubial accomplice, and order his people to "release her, and let her go."

Slavery in Siam is the lot of men of a much finer intellectual type than any who have been its victims in modern times in societies farther west.

P'hra-Alack had been his Majesty's slave when they were boys together.

Together they had played, studied, and entered the priesthood. At once bondman, comrade, cla.s.smate, and confidant, he was the very man to fill the office of private secretary to his royal crony. Virgil made a slave of his a poet, and Horace was the son of an emanc.i.p.ated slave. The Roman leech and chirurgeon were often slaves; so, too, the preceptor and the pedagogue, the reader and the player, the clerk and the amanuensis, the singer, the dancer, the wrestler, and the buffoon, the architect, the smith, the weaver, and the shoemaker; even the _armiger_ or squire was a slave. Educated slaves exercised their talents and pursued their callings for the emolument of their masters; and thus it is to-day in Siam. _Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur_, P'hra-Alack!

The king's taste for English composition had, by much exercise, developed itself into a pa.s.sion. In the pursuit of it he was indefatigable, rambling, and petulant. He had "Webster's Unabridged" on the brain,--an exasperating form of king's evil. The little dingy slips that emanated freely from the palace press were as indiscriminate as they were quaint. No topic was too sublime or too ign.o.ble for them. All was "copy" that came to those cases,-from the glory of the heavenly bodies to the nuisance of the busybodies who scolded his Majesty through the columns of the Bangkok Recorder.

I have before me, as I write, a circular from his pen, and in the type of his private press, which, being without caption or signature, may be supposed to be addressed "to all whom it may concern." The American missionaries had vexed his exact scholars.h.i.+p by their peculiar mode of representing in English letters the name of a native city (_Prippri_, or in Sanskrit _Bejrepuri_). Whence this droll circular, which begins with a dogmatic line:--

"None should write the name of city of Prippri thus--P'et cha poory."

Then comes a pedantic demonstration of the derivation of the name from a compound Sanskrit word, signifying "Diamond City." And the doc.u.ment concludes with a characteristic explosion of impatience, at once critical, royal, and anecdotal: "Ah! what the Romanization of American system that P'etch' abury will be! Will whole human learned world become the pupil of their corrupted Siamese teachers? It is very far from correctness. Why they did not look in journal of Royal Asiatic Society, where several words of Sanskrit and Pali were published continually?

Their Siamese priestly teachers considered all Europeans as very heathen; to them far from sacred tongue, and were glad to have American heathens to become their scholars or pupils; they thought they have taught sacred language to the part of heathen; in fact, they themselves are very far from sacred language, being sunk deeply in corruption of sacred and learned language, for tongue of their former Laos and Cambodian teachers, and very far from knowledge of Hindoostanee, Cinghalese, and Royal Asiatic Society's knowledge in Sanskrit, as they are considered by such the Siamese teachers as heathen; called by them Mit ch'a thi-thi, &c., &c., i.e. wrongly seer or spectator, &c., &c."

In another slip, which is manifestly an outburst of the royal petulance, his Majesty demands, in a "displayed" paragraph:--

"Why name of Mr. Knox [Thomas George Knox, Esq., British Consul] was not published thus: Missa Nok or Nawk. If name of Chow Phya Bhudharabhay is to be thus: P'raya P'oo t'a ra P'ie. And why the London was not published thus: Lundun or Landan, if Bejrepuri is to be published P'etch' abury."

In the same slip with the philological protest the following remarkable paragraphs appear:--

"What has been published in No. 25 of Bangkok Recorder thus:--

"'The king of Siam, on reading from some European paper that the Pope had lately suffered the loss of some precious jewels, in consequence of a thief having got possession of his Holiness' keys, exclaimed, "What a man! professing to keep the keys of Heaven, and cannot even keep his own keys!"'

"The king on perusal thereof denied that it is false. He knows nothing about his Holiness the Pope's sustaining loss of gems, &c., and has said nothing about religious faith."

This is curious, in that it exposes the king's unworthy fear of the French priesthood in Siam. The fact is that he did make the rather smart remark, in precisely these words: "Ah! what a man! professing to keep the keys of Heaven, and not able to guard those of his own bureau!" and he was quite proud of his. .h.i.t. But when it appeared in the Recorder, he thought it prudent to bar it with a formal denial. Hence the politic little item which he sent to all the foreigners in Bangkok, and especially to the French priests.

His Majesty's mode of dealing with newspaper strictures (not always just) and suggestions (not always pertinent) aimed at his administration of public affairs, or the const.i.tution and discipline of his household, was characteristic. He snubbed them with sententious arrogance, leavened with sarcasm.

When the Recorder recommended to the king the expediency of dispersing his Solomonic harem, and abolis.h.i.+ng polygamy in the royal family, his Majesty retorted with a verbal message to the editor, to the purport that "when the Recorder shall have dissuaded princes and n.o.blemen from offering their daughters to the king as concubines, the king will cease to receive contributions of women in that capacity."

In August, 1865, an angry altercation occurred in the Royal Court of Equity (sometimes styled the International Court) between a French priest and Phya Wiset, a Siamese n.o.bleman, of venerable years, but positive spirit and energy. The priest gave Phya Wiset the lie, and Phya Wiset gave it back to the priest, whereupon the priest became noisy.

Afterward he reported the affair to his consul at Bangkok, with the embellis.h.i.+ng statement that not only himself, but his religion, had been grossly insulted. The consul, one Monsieur Aubaret, a peppery and pugnacious Frenchman, immediately made a demand upon his Majesty for the removal of Phya Wiset from office.