Page:Brief sketches of Siam (Smith, 1909).pdf/14

 K’laung Bahngluang connects it with the Tahcheen River on the west. In 1833 the only European residents in Bangkok were a few French priests, a Portuguese Consul and his clerk and only one British European resident Robert Hunter, Esq. who owned a schooner which plied regularly between this port and Singapore, calling at Tringanu, Singora , Kelantan and Patani , the towns on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. In those days the Siamese men and women Wolle a bunch of hair on the head adjoining the forehead, the rest of the head of the men was closely shaven , of the women the hair was cut short, leaving a circular ring round the top -knot from which the hairs had been plucked. On each side of the head the women left à small strip of hair. The men and women wore a waist cloth in undress the fronts of which hung loose. When they were going out those ends were rolled together passed between the legs and turned in at the back. The men usually had on the left shoulder a small cloth. The women wore a long cloth passing from the right shoulder under the left arm, or the rest of their bodies from the knees down and from the waist up were bare and exposed. at that time. Such was the appearance of the people II. M. Somdetch P'ranangklau was then in the 9th year of his reign. His brother the son of a mother higher in rank than his, not being crowned king entered the priesthood for personal safety and was kuown as the T'oonkramaum Ongyai. His younger brother by the same mother was known as Kromak’un Itsarate was allowed to live in peace at his palace near the temple Wat Chaang. H. M. Pranangklau was a cautious and judicious ruler studiously avoiding complications with all the European powers, whose agressive and encroaching