Simian

“ To desire communion with gods is a lofty desire, but hard to attain through an ignobly definite creed. Dealing with the highest, most wordless states of being, the simians will attempt to conceive them in material form. They will have beliefs, for example, as to the furnishings and occupations in heaven. And why? Why, to help men to have religious conceptions without themselves being seers,--which in any true sense of "religious" is an impossible plan.
In their efforts to be concrete they will make their creeds amusingly simian. ”

“ The simians are always being stirred by desire and passion. It constantly excites them, constantly runs through their minds. Wild or tame, primitive or cultured, this is a brand of the breed. Other species have times and seasons for sexual matters, but the simian-folk are thus preoccupied all the year round. ”

“ What fairy story, what tale from the Arabian Nights of the jinns, is a hundredth part as wonderful as this true fairy story of simians! It is so much more heartening, too, than the tales we invent. A universe capable of giving birth to many such accidents is—blind or not—a good world to live in, a promising universe. ”

“ Thus the erect attitude became stereotyped and fixed and the limbs specialized, and these upright simians emerged from their ancestral forests in societies, armed with sticks and stones and with the rudiments of all the powers that eventually enabled them to conquer the world. ”

“ It is seen in the Prince's. choice of the things he deems most memorable in all his reign:—the invention of writing; the solemn reverence paid by him and by his people to the sacred relics—symbols of the best and the highest they knew in human life and character; and the consecration and setting up of the inscribed stones which were to record in Siamese words the achievement of a united Siam. It is seen in the love of justice and the passion for righteousness which everywhere flash forth from the writing. ”

“ Now, in the same way, the people who live in Siam at the present time are the descendants of invaders who swept into the country and drove the original inhabitants into the hills. No one is quite certain where the Siamese actually came from, but it is likely that their home was upon the mountain-slopes of Tibet. ”

“ A freight carrier crossing the stream that separates Burma from Siam.
The day was not yet done when we came in sight of the first clearing in Siam. We were met at the edge of the jungle by a Siamese with ape-like countenance, who led us to the hut of the village head man.
Picture to yourself a very fat, important-looking brown man, with a face like an Alaskan totem-pole and the general appearance of a wild man in a circus, a skin the color of a door-mat that has been in use for many years, dressed in a castoff dish-cloth, and you have an exact image of the ruler of this Siamese village. ”

“ In Siam was organised the first Protestant church of Chinese Christians. In Siam the first zenana mission work was undertaken. Siam is the last independent state in which Buddhism is the established religion.
Yet Siam is little known to Western people. She is neither belligerent nor turbulent, therefore offers no military spectacle. She has no foreign ambitions, therefore arouses no diplomatic concern. Her trade is largely with China, therefore she makes no impress upon the commercial mind of the west. She lies off the beaten path of world traffic, therefore tourists seldom visit the land. ”

“ And if they have children, these frequently cut their tails, and become for a certain time Siamese priests. Within two or three generations, all the distinguishing marks of the Chinese character dwindle entirely away; and a nation which adheres so obstinately to its national customs becomes wholly changed to Siamese. These people usually neglect their own literature, and apply themselves to the Siamese. ”

“ Sympathy for Belgium and the popular aversion to Teutonic methods had left no doubt as to the duty of Siam. The motive of Siam had a curious fitness, though there was a certain quaintness in her expression of a desire to make, “the world safe for democracy.”
The native name of Siam is Muang-Thai, which means the Kingdom of the Free. Siam is about as large as France, and has a population of about eight millions. Its people, who are of many shades of yellowish-brown, have descended into this corner of Asia from the highlands north of Burma and east of Tibet. ”

“ Far as the history of Siam is recorded in the traditions of the race, it has been the custom to perform a strange ceremony, intended to impress the common people with awe for the ruler. Even now the King of Siam, he who sends the silver tree to China in token of subjection, still adheres to it, and on the day when the waters of the Meinam have reached their highest point he sends a royal barge down the swollen waters manned by a hundred bonzes, who command the turbid stream to rise no higher. ”

“ The king of Siam, who takes amongst his other titles that of Paecan Salsu, i.e.—Sacred Member of God—has this to boast of, that, next to the Mogul, he can deduce his descent from more kings than any other in the Indies. He is absolute, his privy councillors, called mandarins, being chosen and deposed barely at his pleasure. When he appears in public it is done with so much pomp and magnificence as is scarce to be imagined, which draws such a veneration to his person from the common people, that, even in the streets as he passes by, they give him godlike titles and worship. ”

“ A year ago I was in Siam, and the king told me he meant to take the railway to Kong Khai. It will be the best thing for the salvation of his country, and there is no Englishman present who does not wish to see Siam strong, independent, and wealthy, and capable of holding its own. For my own part, I shall never cease to feel the greatest and warmest interest in that singularly attractive country, and my own opinion is, that it is the duty of every British Government to see that the integrity of that country is not wiped out, and that its vitality is maintained. ”

“ At first sight the children, with their straight black hair and their brown faces, strike the white man as being rather funny-looking little creatures. But after a while, when one has seen more of them, it is recognised that they possess a distinct charm and beauty of their own. Their features are quite different from those of the European, because they belong to a different race of people. The Siamese are Mongols, as are also the people of Japan, China, Burma, and Tibet. ”

“ They are frugal in their habits, quick to learn, and utilise everything. According to M. Gaston Rautier, in an article in a recent number of the ‘Revue Française,’ the most recent estimate of the population of Siam puts it down at about 10,000,000, roughly composed of over 3,000,000 Siamese, 3,000,000 Chinese, 1,000,000 Malays, 1,000,000 Cambodians, 1,300,000 Lao, and about 400,000 Peguans, Karens, and other tribes. The Chinese, therefore, form about a third of the population of Siam, and are nearly as numerous as the Siamese. ”

“ The original population of the Siamese peninsula was a race of black dwarfs, remnants of whom still dwell in caves and nests of palm leaves, so shy that it is almost impossible to catch a glimpse of them. The literary and religious culture of Siam comes mainly from southern India. Buddhism is the dominant religion, but there are many Mohammedans also. ”

“ Frank contemplated a lot of these laborers with the captain's glass, and remarked that the Siamese resembled the Chinese so much that it was impossible to distinguish between them. The Doctor laughed, and then gave this explanation:
"The men that you see are Chinese, and not the people of Siam. Nearly all these rice and sugar plantations employ Chinese laborers; and of the five millions of people in Siam not less than two millions are Chinese. They come here, just as they go to America or to Australia, in search of employment; and, though the wages are low, they are quite content. ”

“ There is not in Siam, at least there is not in the same degree, that obstinate conceit behind which, as behind a barrier, the Chinese have stood for centuries, resisting stubbornly the entrance of all light and civilization from without. I do not know what possible power could extort from a Chinese official the acknowledgment which this king freely made, that his people were "half civilized and half barbarous, being very ignorant of civilized and enlightened customs and usages." ”

“ Hitherto all the views I had seen in Siam had been limited in extent, but here the beauty of the country is exhibited in all its splendour. Beneath my feet was a rich and velvety carpet of brilliant and varied colours; an immense tract of forest, amidst which the fields of rice and the unwooded spots appeared like little streaks of green; beyond, the ground, rising gradually, swells into hills of different elevations; farther still to the north and [127] east, in the form of a semicircle, is the mountain-chain of Phrabat and that of the kingdom of Muang-Lôm ”

“ Even still, although hemmed in on one side by the British possessions, on the other by the French protectorate of Camboja, Siam comprises beyond the Menam Valley a considerable part of the Malay Peninsula, and draws tribute from numerous people in the Mekong and Salwen basins. But this State, with an area about half as large again as that of France, has a population probably less than 6,000,000. ... The inhabitants of Siam, whether Shans, Laos, or Siamese proper, belong all alike to the same Thai stock, which is also represented by numerous tribes in Assam, Manipur, and China. ”

“ Ordinarily, the religious enlightenment of a people comes first, and the civilization follows as a thing of course. But here the Christianization of the nation has scarcely begun, but its civilization has made (as this volume has abundantly shown) much more than a beginning.
For it is to the labors of the Christian missionaries in Siam that the remarkable advancement of the kings and nobles, and even of some of the common people, in general knowledge and even in exact science, is owing. ”

“ The Eurasian population of Siam is very small compared with that of other large cities of the East. Of the tribes which occupy the mountains of Siam some are the remnants of the very ancient inhabitants of the country, probably of the Mohn-Khmer family, who were supplanted by a later influx of more civilized Khmers from the south-east, the forerunners and part-ancestors of the Siamese, and were still farther thrust into the remoter hills when the Lao-Tai descended from the north. ”

“ When the monks, in their studies and teaching, adopt the Siamese, as it is now the intention of the government to have them do, Lāo books will soon be without readers throughout Siam. When for the young a choice is possible in the matter of such a transcendent instrument of thought and culture as language, all surely would wish their training to be in that one which has in it the promise of the future. ”

“ Language, as well as customs, derived from the Chaou-chow Chinese, are prevalent throughout the country. They delight to live in wretchedness and filth, and are very anxious to conform to the vile habits of the Siamese. In some cases when they enter into matrimonial alliances with these latter, they even throw away their jackets and trowsers, and become Siamese in their very dress. As the lax, indifferent religious principles of the Chinese, do not differ essentially from those of the Siamese, the former are very prone to conform entirely to the religious rites of the latter. ”

“ The women were fairer than the Siamese or Birmese; and it was a pleasant sight to see them always cheerful and industrious—pounding paddy, weaving their garments, or otherwise occupied in their simple household duties, and lightening their toil by singing plaintive native songs." Owing to a tradition that they would one day receive a religion from the West, these people are said to be peculiarly amenable to the influence and instruction of Christian missionaries.
Of the Lao or Shan tribes owning allegiance to the King of Siam, we have spoken very briefly in the second chapter of this volume. ”

“ But there can be little doubt with those who take a truly philosophical view of the future of Siam, and still less with those who take a religious view of it, that this advancement in civilization must open the way for religious enlightenment as well. Thus far there has come only the knowledge which "puffeth up." And how much it puffeth up is evident from the pedantic documents which used to issue from the facile pen of his majesty the late first king. A little more slowly, but none the less surely, there must come as well that Christian charity which "buildeth up." ”

“ Marco Polo, the greatest of Asiatic travellers, dismisses Siam in a few words as a "country called Locac; a country good and rich, with a king of its own. The people are idolaters and have a peculiar language, and pay tribute to nobody, for their country is so situated that no one can enter it to do them ill. Indeed, if it were possible to get at it the Great Kaan [of China] would soon bring them under subjection to him. In this country the brazil which we make use of grows in great plenty; and they also have gold in incredible quantity. They have elephants likewise, and much game. ”

“ When ice itself was first introduced to the Siamese by the European residents, they promptly coined for it the short and expressive name of "hard-water." It is amusing to hear the little ones exclaim as they swallow the frozen fluid, "Golly! How it burns!"
As far as the casual observer can judge, in this capital of Siam there are no Siamese engaged in any hard manual labour at all. There are of course, many Siamese employed in various kinds of domestic or official work, but in the streets nearly every workman is Chinese. There are nearly as many Chinese in the country as there are Siamese. ”