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 last, of course, are minor matters; it is possible to clean the stone. Yet they serve to emphasize what has already been said about the need of stricter care. Still, in spite of all that it has suffered, the inscription is legible almost throughout. The letters were deeply incised at the start, and with patience and a good light, may often still be read, though the surface seems hopeless. The absolute losses are mostly of one or two letters out of a word, and these the context often enables one to supply beyond a peradventure. There are not more than twenty words completely lost from the whole inscription, and the restoration of a number of these is scarcely conjectural. In all this matter the recurrent or the aphoristic phrase, the metrical balance, the clue of rhyme—things dear to the elder Siamese speech—are often the surest guides out of the difficulty. (See further below pp. 18-20.)

"Heretofore there were no strokes of Siamese writing. In

1205 of the era, Year of the Goat, Prince Khŭn Ram Khămhæng sought and desired in his heart, and put into use these strokes of Siamese writing. And so these strokes of Siamese writing are, because that Prince put them to use." [Inscription, ll. 105-108.] Thus in phrase curt and rugged even to harshness, as if with suppressed emotion, is recorded what was by far the most important event of Prince Ram Khămhæng's reign, or indeed of the whole period of Thăi sovereignty. The Prince himself seems to have felt its importance, for he has reversed the historical order to give this achievement the place of honor at the end and climax of his story.

The general appearance of this earliest Siamese writing

may be seen in the accompanying photographic reproduction of the text. A more detailed study of it can easily be made with the help of the Transliteration into modern Siamese characters. In mass it presents itself as a singularly bold, erect, open writing, four-square, with gently rounded corners, beautifully aligned, and closely too, but without any confusion resulting from superscript or subscript elements, or from letters which extend above or below the line. Its look is therefore not unlike that