Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/269

 hind the times in this art. Immediately after this you will hear a terrible roaring like the bellowing of a dozen elephants, with an occasional crash like the bursting of a small engine-boiler. They are the fireworks called Chang rawng, which means "bellowing elephants." Suddenly innumerable fire-birds begin chirping, buzzing, hopping and flying in all directions. Some ascend high in the air and burst with a small spluttering report. Mimic volcanic eruptions, attended with jets of ignited sulphur and iron, ascending like waterspouts and falling in showers of red-hot lava, are kept going until fifty or more have been fired.

Before the burning of the body the golden urn containing the corpse is removed from the top of the Pra Bencha, and the copper urn taken out. This has an iron grating at the bottom overlaid with spices and fragrant powders. All the precious articles with which the pyramid was decorated are temporarily removed from it, and some eight or ten feet of the upper part of it taken down to form a place of suitable dimensions for the burning. Then the fragrant wood is laid in order in cross layers on the platform, having a bellows attached to the pile. Precious spices and fragrant articles, many in kind, are put among the wood. A gunpowder match is laid from a certain part of the hall set apart for the seat of the king, reaching to a spot made par