Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/335

 be of some service to her. I went, and upon arriving at the place, a sort of enclosed court with open rooms, I inquired for her, and her pleasant face peeped out from behind a screen, where she was confined, and returned my salutations. She seemed totally untroubled by her situation; its commonness made the disgrace unfelt, I suppose. Presently a female officer passed and turned a stern eye upon me, and I quietly left, seeing that I could be of no service there.

The king we seldom saw. There was to be a procession on the river one day, and His Majesty, with the ladies of the court, was to go to the river's edge to view it. The ladies invited me to accompany them, and I did so, and sat with them at some distance from the king. His Majesty recognized me among them, and called me to him. I approached him as I would approach the President of the United States. He received me with politeness and pleasant salutations, and handed me the glass with which he was viewing the procession. I received it from his hand, and with it watched for a while the pageant as it slowly moved over the river. I then returned the glass, bade His Majesty adieu and returned to my seat among the princesses. For their sakes I was glad of this little episode, for in those days Siamese etiquette required inferiors to prostrate themselves upon hands and knees, with faces to the earth, before superiors. In this position their