Anna Harriette Leonowens

“ A burst of wild Oriental melody flooded the pavilion, and all at once the Nautchnees started to their feet. Poised on tiptoe, with arms raised aloft over their heads, they began to whirl and float and glide about in a maze of rhythmic movement, fluttering and quivering and waving before us like aspen-leaves moved by a strong breeze. It must have cost them years of labor to have arrived at such ease and precision of movement. The dance was a miracle of art, and all the more fascinating because of the rare beauty of the performers. ”

“ There was no singing, no standing up and sitting down, no changing of robes or places, no turning the face to the altar, nor north, nor south, nor east, nor west. All knelt still, with hands folded straight before them, and eyes strictly, tightly closed. Indeed, there were faces there that expressed devotion and piety, the humblest and the purest, as the lips murmured: "O Thou Eternal One, Thou perfection of Time, Thou truest Truth, Thou immutable essence of all Change, Thou most excellent radiance of Mercy, Thou infinite Compassion, Thou Pity, Thou Charity!" ”

“ A great part of its beauty, however, is derived from the singularly shaped hills that are found in its vicinity. Old as the world, they appear to have gone through the hands of some gigantic architect—some so exquisitely rounded, some regularly terraced, and others, again, sharply pointed, not unlike spires. Lifting themselves proudly above the broad glittering sea that bathes their palm-fringed base, they help to make the scenery distinct from that of any other bay in the world. Then, beyond question, there is nothing to equal in grace and beauty the palm forest. ”

“ Combined with her fine organization, she inherited a passionate nature, and an intense love for the mountains and woods, the earth and sky, which were to her so many beautiful gods. To some she had been accustomed to offer flowers, to others fruit, oil, wine, honey, water. She always set apart a portion of every meal for her favorite god Dâvee, the earth-goddess. To such a nature only to live was worship. To see, to hear, to gather thoughts and pictures, to feel the throbbing pulses; to fill the eye with images of beauty, the heart with impulses of love and joy ”

“ The ladies of the harem amuse themselves in the early and late hours of the day by gathering flowers in the palace gardens, feeding the birds in the aviaries and the gold-fishes in the ponds, twining garlands to adorn the heads of their children, arranging bouquets, singing songs of love or glory, dancing to the music of the guitar, listening to their slaves' reading, strolling with their little ones through the parks and parterres, and especially in bathing. ”

“ At high water the Hoogley is nearly a mile broad in front of the town, and is very pleasant to look upon. Fine ships and steamers of all nations and countries lie here within sight and sound; picturesque-looking craft of every kind are seen gliding swiftly hither and thither. But at low water the scene suddenly changes; the river becomes a shrunken and muddy ghost of itself, with filthy borders, whence myriad floating particles of miasma are wafted on the air to the poor humanity who are doomed to live and labor in its vicinity. ”

“ O, I wish you could be brought to see how much more beautiful this religion of P'hra Jesu is than that of Buddha; and then think of the beautiful 'Marie,' his Holy Mother, who is ever at his side, ready to whisper words of tender love and pity in behalf of such poor sinners as we are. I feel as if I should never go astray, or do any evil thing, now that I have the good priest to pray for me, and the Holy Mother and her Son to be my gods. ”

“ In the distance were several hulks of Siamese men-of-war, seemingly as old as the flood; and on the right towered, tier over tier, the broad roofs of the grand Royal Palace of Bangkok,—my future "home" and the scene of my future labors.
The circus people are preparing to land; and the dogs, running to and fro with anxious glances, have an air of leave-taking also. Now the China coolies, with pigtails braided and coiled round their low, receding brows, begin their uncouth bustle, and into the small hours of the morning enliven the time of waiting with frantic shouts and gestures. ”

“ Such is the real doctrine of Zoroaster, while the hymns of the Zend-Avesta glow and burn with the assurance of the mystic and essential life of the soul with the spiritual essence of all pure thought. The pure heavens are like light; thought is likened to a drop of pure light, and the departing spirit has a sunbeam for its guide to conduct it to immortal light. ”

“ A magnificent new Buddhist temple is seen gradually raising its head close by the side of an ancient one which has so far crumbled to decay that the bright sun pours down unchecked a flood of golden light on the tapering crown of a huge brass image of the Buddha, which sits with its hands folded in undisturbed and profound contemplation on its glittering altar. On the other side, as far as the eye can reach, stretch unlimited groves of bananas and extensive plantations of cocoanut and betel-nut palms. ”

“ And because the seven-headed serpent, Phya Naghk, had shown the way to the mines of gold and silver and iron, and the quarries of marble and granite, the grateful builders laid the sign of the serpent on the foundations, terraces, and bridges; but on the walls they left the effigy of the Queen Thawadee, the beautiful and bountiful lady.
Then swift-winged angels flew to heaven, and, returning, brought fruits and flowers the most curious and exquisite; and immediately there bloomed a garden there, of such ravishing loveliness and perfume that the gods themselves delighted to visit it. ”

“ This vital fire of the universe, with every upward dart of flame issuing out of the cold, hard rock, starting out of dried wood, streaming in jets spontaneously out of the heart of the earth itself, and flaming luridly from mountain-tops, was an object so full of mystery, so potent, ever present, even when invisible, ever within call, lurking in the rock and air, water and tree, waiting to be called into life, vanishing at a breath, naturally became the highest symbol of the unseen to those primitive worshippers of nature. ”

“ The priests are hushed, and the temple is more and more flooded with light; and the faint, sweet, pleading voice of the girl is again heard: "Mother, dear mother, pray to P'hra Jesu that he shut not the heavenly gates upon me"; and the strong love of the mother conquers her religious scruples, and, lying there with her head cushioned on the bosom of her dying child, she raises her voice and prays:—
"O thou who art called P'hra Jesu, free my child from sin. O forgive her, sacred One. She has loved thee to the last. She believes in none but thee. ”

“ Then P'hra Indara laid his hand upon the brow of the lad, and showed him the generations yet to come, rejoicing in his prayers and precepts; and Somannass, beholding, stretched his arms to the earth again. And P'hra Indara promised to build him a palace hardly less grand and fair than the heavenly abode, a temple which should be the wonder of the world, a stupendous and everlasting monument of his love to men.
So Somannass returned to the Queen, his mother; and P'hra Indara sent down myriads of angels, with Phya Kralewana, chief of angels, to build a dwelling fit for the heavenly prince. ”

“ There is a massive silver statue of Siva seated on the altar, holding on his knees his wife Parvati and their son Ganesa. These smaller idols, it is said, are of pure gold; a princely fortune in precious gems adorns their headdresses, their necks, and gleams out of their eyes. There were dusky arches and dingy, time-stained columns and all kinds of figures on the walls, and over them all a smoky atmosphere and an odor of incense mingled with that of burnt-offerings. ”

“ Deep in the glen, sloping down to the stream, amid picturesque and romantic surroundings, stood the old temple of Kalee Durga; and running along, like a huge, jagged shadow, dark even in the brightest sunlight, rose the roofs of the monastic dwellings of the Brahmin ascetics, from which the place is named.
I alighted, and told my syce to wait outside for me; but he, being a pious Hindoo, bestrode the pony and rode off, to return in a quarter of an hour with oil and fresh flowers and sweetmeats enough to propitiate a great many dark goddesses. ”

“ In the long galleries and corridors, bewildering with their everlasting twilight of the eye and of the mind, one is forever coming upon shocks of sudden sunshine or shocks of sudden shadow,—the smile yet dimpling in a baby's face, a sister bearing a brother's scourging; a mother singing to her "sacred infant," [Footnote: P'hra-ong.] a slave sobbing before a deaf idol. And O, the forlornness of it all! You who have never beheld these things know not the utterness of loneliness. Compared with the predicament of some who were my daily companions, the sea were a home and an iceberg a hearth. ”

“ Light, as seen in the sun, moon, and stars, dawn and sunrise, fire in all its mysterious forms—the spark struck from the flint, the fire that burned their oblations, the holy flames that were lighted on the domestic hearth—became their earliest objects of worship. ”

“ Happy memories, every sweet emotion he had known, came crowding upon him, as he once more recognized, in the partial darkness, the faint outlines of the images of his long-forgotten gods, Dâvee and Indra and Dhupiyâ.
There is compensation in all things. He had lost his child, and found his gods. Joy and sorrow are bound up in every event of life,—even as opposite poles are inseparable in the magnet. The pity is that the night of trouble is at times so dark that the interwoven gold with which Providence relieves the woof of calamity remains undiscovered. ”

“ Through an immense, continuous level of unfailing fertility, the Meinam rolls slowly, reposefully, grandly, in its course receiving draughts from many a lesser stream, filling many a useful canal in its turn, and, from the abundance the generous rains bestow, distributing supplies of refreshment and fatness to innumerable acres.
In a soil at once so rich and so well watered, the sun, with its vivifying heats, engenders a mighty vegetation, delighting the eye for more than half the year with endless undulations of grain and a great golden Eden of fruit. ”

“ The finest strawberries I ever saw in India were brought me one morning by the pundit, cultivated by the Brahmans on these hills as offerings to their gods. The hills are also covered with fine trees—the willow, the jambul with its dazzling green foliage, the iron-wood, and the arrowroot plant. There are here several kinds of jessamines—one, the night-blooming jessamine, a large and beautiful flower and peculiarly fragrant after sunset. Ferns abound: one called by the natives pryha khud, or "the lover's leap," is extraordinarily beautiful, but not very abundant. ”

“ Towers, gates, arches, and pagodas rise in fantastic array, bright with a thousand colors, and shining in the light of numberless cressets,—so the fairy-like spectacle moves on, while admiring crowds of men, women, and children throng the banks of the river, not only to join the brilliant pageant, but to watch their own frail little bark, freighted, perchance, with a single lamp, yet full of life's brightest hopes, as it floats unextinguished down the rapid stream, glimmering on with ruddy flame amidst the shadows of night. ”