Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/268

 Still another mode of dispensing the royal gifts on such occasions is to divide them into lots, with a slip of palm-leaf attached to each lot and a copy of each on another slip, which, being rolled up or put into the wooden ball or lime, is thrown out by the king to his favored audience. He sometimes adopts a similar mode in dispensing his favors to companies of the chief priests, taking care, of course, that only such things as are suitable for priests are put into such lots.

Sundry Chinese, Malay and Siamese dramas and shadow-scenes are played, and at early candlelight the P'ramene is most brilliantly illuminated within and without. About eight or nine o'clock in the evening the fireworks are sent off, being occasionally ignited by the king himself. You first hear the crackling of the matches, then you see the sulphuric fire and smoke running up tall bamboo poles and extending out into branches. Presently a dozen tall trees of fire throw an intense light over all the premises. These quickly burn out, and another flash brings into view beautiful fire-shrubbery. In a minute or two they blossom roses, dahlias, oleanders and other flowers of all hues, and the most beautiful, continually changing their colors like the chameleon until they all fade out into darkness. You are startled by the report of rockets sent up from various places in rapid succession, a hundred or more, showing that the Siamese are not far be