[Illustration: THE IDOL OF BUDDHA]
THE
ROMANCE OF THE HAREM.
BY
MRS. ANNA H. LEONOWENS,
AUTHOR OF "THE ENGLISH GOVERNESS AT THE SIAMESE COURT."
Illustrated.
[Illustration: THE EMERALD IDOL.]
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
"Truth is often stranger than fiction," but so strange will some of the
occurrences related in the following pages appear to Western readers,
that I deem it necessary to state that they are also true. Most of the
stories, incidents, and characters are known to me personally to be
real, while of such narratives as I received from others I can say that
"I tell the tale as it was told to me," and written down by me at the
time. In some cases I have substituted fictitious for real names, in
order to shield from what might be undesired publicity persons still
living.
I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Francis George Shaw for
valuable advice and aid in the preparation of this work for the
press, and to Miss Sarah Bradley, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Bradley of
Bangkok, for her kindness in providing me with photographs, otherwise
unattainable, for some of the illustrations.
NEW BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND,
September 13, 1872.
DEDICATION.
To the noble and devoted women whom I learned to know, to esteem, and
to love in the city of the Nang Harm, I dedicate the following pages,
containing a record of some of the events connected with their lives
and sufferings.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
I. The Idol of Buddha _Frontispiece._
II. The Emerald Idol _Vignette._
III. A Siamese Slave-Girl Page 32
IV. A Siamese Flower-Girl " 48
V. Guard of Amazons " 64
VI. Palm-Trees near the New Road, Bangkok " 80
VII. A Young Siamese Nobleman " 104
VIII. Smâyâtee " 120
IX. A Royal Actress " 128
X. Rungeah, the Cambodian Proselyte " 144
XI. Ladies of the Royal Harem at Dinner " 160
XII. A Laotian " 168
XIII. Crenellated Towers of the Inner City " 176
XIV. An Amazon of the Royal Body Guard " 184
XV. Queen of Siam " 240
XVI. King of Siam " 264
XVII. Temple and Ruins of Kampoot " 270
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "Muang Thai," or the Kingdom of the Free 1
II. Tuptim: A Tragedy of the Harem 14
III. Tuptim's Trial 25
IV. The King changes his Mind 35
V. Slavery in the Grand Royal Palace of the "Invincible
and Beautiful Archangel" 42
VI. Khoon Thow App, the Chief of the Female Judges 58
VII. The Rajpoot and his Daughter 65
VIII. Among the Hills of Orissa 72
IX. The Rebel Duke P'haya Si P'hifoor 77
X. The Grandson of Somdetch Ong Yai, and his Tutor
P'hra Chow Sâduman 84
XI. The Heroism of a Child 102
XII. The Interior of the Duke Chow P'haya Mândtree's
Harem 107
XIII. A Night of Mysteries 112
XIV. "Weeping may endure for a Night, but Joy cometh in
the Morning" 118
XV. The Favorite of the Harem 122
XVI. May-Peâh, the Laotian Slave-Girl 145
XVII. An Accidental Discovery of the Whereabouts of the
Princess Sunartha Vismita 151
XVIII. Lady Thieng, the Head Wife and Superintendent of
the Royal Cuisine 155
XIX. The Princess Sunartha Vismita 160
XX. Pak Laut, or the Mouth of the Ocean 165
XXI. Narrative of the Princess of Chiengmai 171
XXII. "Bijrepuree," or the Diamond City 175
XXIII. The Deaf and Dumb Changeling 180
XXIV. Witchcraft in Siam in Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Six,
compared with Witchcraft in England in Seventeen
Hundred and Sixteen 184
XXV. Trial for Witchcraft 188
XXVI. The Christian Village of Tâmsèng, or of Thomas the
Saint 202
XXVII. Nang Rungeah, the Cambodian Proselyte 213
XXVIII. Ad ogni Uccello suo Nido è bello,--"To every Bird
its own Nest is charming" 221
XXIX. Stray Leaves from the Royal School-Room Table 237
XXX. The Siamese System of Slavery 257
XXXI. The Royal Proclamations 264
* * * * *
A Legend of the Gold and Silver Mines of Siam 271
FOOTNOTES:
ROMANCE OF THE HAREM.
CHAPTER I.
"MUANG THAI," OR THE KINGDOM OF THE FREE.
Siam is called by its people "Muang Thai" (the kingdom of the free).
The appellation which we employ is derived from a Malay word _sagûm_
(the brown race), and is never used by the natives themselves; nor
is the country ever so named in the ancient or modern annals of the
kingdom.
In the opinion of Pickering, the Siamese are of Malay origin. A
majority of intelligent Europeans, however, regard the population
as mainly Mongolian. But there is much more probability that they
belong to that powerful Indo-European race to which Europe owes its
civilization, and whose chief branches are the Hindoos, Persians,
Greeks, Latins, Kelts, and the Teutonic and Sclavonic tribes. The
original site of this race was in Bactria, and the earliest division
of the people could not have been later than three or four thousand
years before the Christian era. Comparative philology alone enables us
to trace the origin of nations of great antiquity. According to the
researches of the late king, who was a very studious and learned man,
of twelve thousand eight hundred Siamese words, more than five thousand
are found to be Sanskrit, or to have their roots in that language, and
the rest in the Indo-European tongues; to which have been superadded
a great number of Chinese and Cambodian terms. He says: "The names of
temples, cities, and villages in the kingdom of Siam are derived from
three sources, namely, Sanskrit, Siamese, and Cambodian. The names
which the common people generally use are spoken according to the idiom
of the Siamese language, are short and easily pronounced; but the names
used in the Court language and in the government documents, which
receive the government seals, are almost all of Sanskrit derivation,
apt to be long; and even though the Sanskrit names are given at full
length, the people are prone to speak them incorrectly. Some of our
cities and temples have two and even three names, being the ancient and
modern names, as they have been used in the Court language or that of
the people."
As the words common to the Siamese and the Sanskrit languages must have
been in use by both peoples before their final separation, we have here
a clew to the origin and degree of civilization attained by the former
before they emigrated from the parent stock.
Besides the true Siamese, a great variety of races inhabit the Siamese
territories. The Siamese themselves trace their genealogy up to the
first disciples of the Buddha, and commence their records at least
five centuries before the Christian era. First, a long succession of
dynasties, with varying seats of government, figure in their ancient
books, in which narrations of the miracles of the Buddhas, and of the
intervention of supernatural beings, are frequently introduced. Then
come accounts of matrimonial alliances between the princes of Siam
and the Imperial family of China; of embassies to, and wars with, the
neighboring countries, interspersed with such relations of prodigies
and such marvellous legends as to surpass all possible conception
of our less fertile Western imaginations. It is only after the
establishment of Ayudia as the capital of Siam, A.D. 1350, that history
assumes its rightful functions, and the course of events, with the
regular succession of sovereigns, is registered with tolerable accuracy.
The name of Siam was first heard in Europe--that is, in Portugal--in
the year 1511, nine years after Alfonso d'Albuquerque, the great
Viceroy of the Indies, had landed on the coast of Malabar with
his soldiers, and conquered Goa, which he made the seat of the
Portugo-Indian government, and the centre of its Asiatic operations.
After establishing his power in Goa, D'Albuquerque subdued the whole
of the Malabar, the island of Ceylon, the Sunda Isles, the peninsula
of Malacca, and the beautiful island of Ormuz, at the entrance to the
Persian Gulf.
It was here that D'Albuquerque is said to have received the ambassadors
of the Emperor of Persia, sent to collect the tribute formerly paid to
him by the sovereigns of the island, and, instead of the customary gold
and silver, to have laid before them iron bullets and a sword, with:
"This is the coin in which Portugal pays those who demand tribute from
her." Whether this incident really occurred or not, it is certain that
D'Albuquerque made the name of Portugal so feared and respected in the
East, that many of the potentates in that region, and among them the
kings of Siam and Pegu, sent embassies to him, and sought his alliance
and protection. The profitable relations anticipated from this opening
were interrupted, however, by the long and bitter war which shortly
broke out between Siam and Birmah, and the intercourse between the
Siamese and Portuguese was not renewed for a long time. As early as the
fifteenth century the celebrated German traveller, Mandelslohe, visited
Ayudia, the capital of Siam, and called it the Venice of the East,--a
title equally applicable to the modern capital, Bangkok. The Portuguese
explorer, Mendez Pinto, who was in Siam in the sixteenth century, gives
a very favorable account of the country, and, in my opinion, deserves
more credit for the truth of his statements than was accorded to
him by his contemporaries. In 1632 an English vessel is said to have
reached Ayudia, and to have found it in ruins, the country having been
laid waste by successive incursions of the Birmese.
The great river Mèinam is the Nile of Siam. Rising among the southern
slopes of the snow-covered mountains of Yunan, it traverses the whole
length of the valley, receiving in its course the waters of many other
streams, the most important being the Mèikhong, which in its length
of nearly one thousand miles drains the eastern provinces of Laos and
Cambodia. Ancient annals relate that in the fifteenth and as late as
the seventeenth century, Chinese junks ascended the river as far as
Sangkalok, nearly one hundred and twenty leagues from its mouth; now,
owing to the increasing alluvial deposit, it is not navigable more than
fifteen leagues at most.
In the month of June, the mountain snows begin to melt, the deluging
rains of the wet season set in, the strong southerly winds dam up the
waters of the Mèinam, and it begins to rise,--an event most eagerly
looked for by the people, and hailed by them as a blessing from Heaven.
In August the inundation is at its height, and the whole vast valley is
like one immense sea, in which towns and villages look like islands,
connected by drawbridges, and interspersed with groves and orchards,
the tops of which only are seen, while boats pass to and fro without
injury to the rice and other crops starting beneath them. The whole
valley is intersected by canals, some of great size and extent, in
order to distribute as far as possible the benefits of this grand
operation of nature; but the lands situated about the middle of the
great plain derive the greatest advantage therefrom.
When the inundation is supposed to have reached its height, a
deputation of Talapoins, or priests, sent by the king, descend the
river in magnificent state barges, and with chants and incantations and
movements of magical wands command the waters to retire. Sometimes,
however, the calculations prove to have been incorrect, the river
continues to rise, and it is they who are compelled to retire, filled
with chagrin and disappointment.
The popular river festival, which takes place after the waters begin to
subside, both in origin and character belongs to the Hindoos, rather
than to the Buddhists. It is an annual festival held at night, and
the scene which is exhibited during its celebration is exceedingly
beautiful. The banks of the Mèinam are brilliantly lighted up;
accompanied and announced by numerous flights of rockets, a number
of floating palaces, built on rafts, come sailing down the stream,
preceded by thousands of lamps and lanterns wreathed with chaplets of
flowers, which cover with their gay brilliancy the entire surface of
the flashing water. The rafts, which are formed of young plantain-trees
fastened together, are often of considerable extent, and the structures
which they bear are such as Titania herself might delight to inhabit.
Towers, gates, arches, and pagodas rise in fantastic array, bright with
a thousand colors, and shining in the light of numberless cressets,--so
the fairy-like spectacle moves on, while admiring crowds of men, women,
and children throng the banks of the river, not only to join the
brilliant pageant, but to watch their own frail little bark, freighted,
perchance, with a single lamp, yet full of life's brightest hopes, as
it floats unextinguished down the rapid stream, glimmering on with
ruddy flame amidst the shadows of night.
The products of Siam, as may be supposed from its range of latitude,
its tropical heats, its variety of climate, and the fertility of the
valley, annually renewed by the inundation, are very diversified,
and almost unlimited in quantity. Its rice, of which there are forty
varieties, is excellent, and its sugar is esteemed the best in the
world. Among the other exports are cotton, tobacco, hemp, cutch, dried
fish and fruits, cocoanut-oil, beeswax, precious gums, spices, dye and
other woods, especially teak, ivory, and many articles too numerous to
mention. The mineral riches of the country are still almost entirely in
an undeveloped state.
The search for sparkling gems has in all ages been eagerly engaged in;
diamonds and other precious stones are frequently offered for sale,
but the precise locality in which they are found is kept secret by the
natives. The thousand-fold more valuable seams of coal and iron have
remained unsought and most imperfectly worked as yet. A beginning has
at last been made by the present king, and the last and best, though
poetically maligned, age of iron is about to spread its blessings over
the Siamese Empire.
The population of Siam cannot be ascertained with correctness, owing
to the custom of enumerating only the men. When I was in Bangkok, the
native registers gave the number of them as four million Siamese, one
million Laotians, one million Malays and Indians, one million five
hundred thousand Chinese, three hundred and fifty thousand Cambodians,
fifty thousand Peguans, and the same number of mountain tribes; in all,
nearly eight millions. If these figures are even approximately correct,
and the women and children bear the same proportion to the men as in
other countries, the total population of Siam far exceeds the numbers
which have hitherto been assigned to it.
No people in the world exhibit so many exceptional developments of
human nature as the different races occupying the eastern peninsula
of India. The most impressible of races, ideas and views of life
take root among them such as would find no acceptance elsewhere.
Supple and pliant in their bodily frames, they are equally so in their
mental and moral constitution; and upon no other race has the force of
circumstance and the contagion of example so potent an influence in
determining them towards good or evil. Royalty, therefore, to them,
is not a mere name. It has taken such hold on their affections that
it usurps the place of a religious sentiment. The person of the king
is sacred. He is not only enthroned, he is enshrined. His rule may be
called despotic, but it is tempered by law and by not less revered
custom. He may name his successor by Will, but the Royal or Secret
Council will determine whether that Will shall be carried into effect.
A second king, selected, like the first or supreme king, from the royal
family, is also appointed by the Secret Council. Whatever may have
originally been the functions of this second king, his exercise of them
appears, from incidents of the late reign, to be dependent upon the
disposition of the supreme king, and his desire or disinclination to
concentrate in his own person all the powers of the throne.
The whole empire is divided into forty-nine provinces, with their
respective Phayas, or governors; and these again are subdivided into
districts under inferior officers, respecting whose administration but
little that is good can be said.
Every subject, even the most humble, has by law the right to complain
to the king in person against any official, however exalted; and the
king sits in public at the eastern gate of the palace to receive the
petitions of his people.
Two or three centuries after Brahminism and caste had been
authoritatively established in the Hindoo code, there arose a new
religion which totally ignored the old one, and almost immediately
supplanted it as the state religion of India. This was Buddhism,
founded by Gotama, otherwise called Sakya Muni, a Kshatrya Prince
of Oude. A high-priest of the Abstract, and believing that the only
possible revelation from the Supreme is that which comes from within,
Gotama educed a new faith from the luminous depths of his own soul.
His object was not only a religious but a social revolution. A good
deal of what was venerated as religion he found to be merely social
usage, for which a Divine sanction was feigned. Gotama, without
hesitation, rejected all this, by denying the inspiration of the
Vedas, the existence of the popular gods, and the spiritual supremacy
of the Brahmins. His greatest blow to the old religion, however, was
in his explicit repudiation of caste. He offered his religion to all
men alike, Brahmin and Sudra, high and low, bond and free; whereas,
for a Sudra even to look on the Vedas, or to be taught their contents,
was strictly forbidden by the Brahminical system. Buddha boldly
expounded to the people that, according to their own books, all men
were equal; that Brahma himself, when asked to whom all the prayers of
the different nations and races of the earth were addressed, replied:
"I bear the burden of all those who labor in prayer. I, even I, am he
who prayeth for them through their own lips; and they, even they, who
involuntarily worship other gods believingly, worship even me."[1]
He also did away with the endless formalism of the old faith, and
enjoined only a simple observance of the fundamental points of
morality; and it was only after he had aided in removing the social and
spiritual shackles that oppressed the people, that he directed their
attention to the simple and weightier matters of religion.
Hence the popularity it attained, spreading among the low caste as well
as among the rich and great, until it has become the dominant faith
from the Himalayas to Ceylon, and thence to Siam, China, Japan, and
the neighboring isles.
Buddhism, therefore, the religion of the Eastern world, as Christianity
is that of the Western, is the state religion of Siam and that of most
of its inhabitants, but all religions are tolerated and absolutely free
from interference. All the pagan sects who inhabit this part of India
agree excellently, and each frequently takes part in the festivals
of the other; and I also observed that not a few Buddhists, his late
Majesty included, wear on their foreheads the sectarial mark of Vishnu
and Siva united.
The doctrine of Buddha inculcates a belief in one God, Adi Buddha.[2]
This I infer, not only from the universally avowed conviction of the
Buddhists with whom I have conversed, but from Buddha's own words,
where he says: "Without ceasing shall I run through a course of many
births, looking for the _maker_ of this tabernacle,[3] who is not
represented by any outward symbol, but in a series of Buddhas, who
have been sent with divine powers to teach the human race and lead
it to salvation." These are represented by images, often of colossal
size and great beauty, and to them the prayers of worshippers are
addressed. It inculcates, also, a belief in the law of retribution or
compensation, and of many births or stages of probations, through which
the human soul may finally attain beatitude. Buddhism has its priests
and nuns, separated from the world, and vowed to poverty, celibacy,
and the study of the Divine law. Unlike the silent and long-forsaken
temples of Egypt, Greece, and Italy, the architectural grandeur of the
Buddhist pagodas and temples is enhanced by the presence of thousands
of enthusiastic worshippers. The sound of a bell, or gong, or of the
sacred shell, indicates the hours of the priests' attendance at the
temples. At such times the priests are to be seen officiating at the
shrines, where, amid the noise of many instruments playing in concert,
the smoke of fragrant incense, and the perfumes of fresh flowers, they
are uttering sacred invocations or incantations, and presenting the
offerings of the worshippers. In the sermons preached daily in these
immense temples, thronged with men and women, the chief themes are
humanity, endurance, patience, submission. Among the practical precepts
are these: "Love your enemies. Sacrifice your life for truth. Be gentle
and tender. Abstain from war, even in self-defence. Govern yourselves
in thought, word, and deed. Avoid everything that may lead to vice. Be
obedient to your parents and superiors. Reverence old age. Provide food
and shelter for the poor, the aged, and the oppressed. Despise no man's
religion. Persecute no man."
But alas! in Siam, as in all the rest of the world, the practice falls
far short of the precept.
Nevertheless, I have found among the Siamese, also, men and women who
observe faithfully the precepts of their religion, whose lives are
devoted to charity and good works; and there were some--not one alone,
but many--who during the years I lived in Bangkok sacrificed their
lives for truth, and even under the torture and in death showed a
self-sacrificing devotion and a courage not to be excelled by the most
saintly of the Christian martyrs.
Polygamy--or, properly speaking, concubinage--and slavery are the
curses of the country. But one wife is allowed by law; the king only
may have two, a right and a left hand wife, as these dual queens are
called, whose offspring alone are legitimate. The number of concubines
is limited only by the means of the man. As the king is the source of
all wealth and influence, dependent kings, princes, and nobles, and
all who would seek the royal favor, vie with each other in bringing
their most beautiful and accomplished daughters to the royal harem.
Here it is that the courage, intrepidity, and heroism of these poor,
doomed women are gradually developed. I have known more than one
among them who accepted her fate with a repose of manner and a sweet
resignation that told how dead must be the heart under that still
exterior; and it is here, too, that I have witnessed a fortitude under
suffering of which history furnishes no parallel. And I have wondered
at the sight. Though the common people have but one wife, the fatal
facility of divorce, effected by the husband's simply taking the
priestly vows, which can be revoked at will, is often the cause of
great suffering to the women. The husband and father have unlimited
power, even of life and death, over the wife and children, but murders
are extremely rare. Woman is the slave of man; but when she becomes a
mother her position is changed, and she commands respect and reverence.
As a mother with grown children she has often more influence than her
husband. Hence maternity is the supreme good of the woman of Siam; to
be childless, the greatest of all misfortunes.
As was ancient Ayudia, so is Bangkok, the present capital of Siam, the
Venice of the East. Imagine a city with a large network of water-roads
in the place of streets, and intersected with bridges so light and
fanciful that one might almost fancy them to have been blown together
by the breath of fairies. A large proportion of its inhabitants live
in floating houses, which line both banks of the Mèinam, and, tier
upon tier, extend for miles above and below the walls. The city itself
is surrounded by a battlemented and turreted wall, fifteen feet high
and twelve feet broad, which was erected in the early part of the
reign of Phaya Tak, about 1670. The grand palaces and royal harem
are situated on the right hand as you ascend the river, on a circular
plot of ground formed by a sudden bend of the river, enclosing it on
the west; while the eastern side is bounded by a large, deep canal.
This plot of ground is encompassed by two walls running parallel to
each other. Within the outer of these walls are the magazines, the
royal exchange, the mint, the supreme courts of justice, the prisons,
temples, and fantastic pleasure-grounds, dotted with a multitude of
elegant edifices, theatres, and aviaries, some of which are richly
gilt and ornamented. In the centre of a very handsome square rise the
majestic buildings of the Maha Phra Sâât, the roof of which is covered
with tiles, beautifully varnished, and surmounted by gilded spires,
while the walls are studded with sculptures, and the terraces decorated
with large incense vases of bronze, the dark color and graceful forms
of which stand in beautiful relief against the white marble background
of the palace.
Not far from this is another semicircular space surrounded by a high
wall, which defends all entrance to the part enclosed by the inner
of the two parallel walls before mentioned; and here stands the city
of the Nang Harm, or Veiled Women. In this city live none but women
and children. Here the houses of the royal princesses, the wives,
concubines, and relatives of the king, with their numerous slaves and
personal attendants, form regular streets and avenues, with small
parks, artificial lakes, and groups of fine trees scattered over
miniature lawns and beautiful flower-gardens. These are the residences
of the princesses of Siam. On the east, high above the trees, may be
seen the many-towered and gilded roofs of the grand royal palace,
brilliant as sapphire in the sunlight, and next to this is the old
palace, to both of which is a private covered entrance for the women;
at the end of each of these passages is a bas-relief representing the
head of an enormous sphinx, with a sword through the mouth, and this
inscription: "Better that a sword be thrust through thy mouth than that
thou utter a word against him who ruleth on high." Not far from this
are the barracks of the Amazons, the women's hall of justice, and the
dungeons (where, as in the days of old, female judges daily administer
justice to the inhabitants of this woman's city), the beautiful temple,
with its long, dim gallery and antique style of architecture, in which
I taught the royal children, the gymnasium, and the theatre, where the
princesses and great ladies assemble every afternoon to gossip, play
games, or watch the exercises of the dancing-girls.
In the southern part of this strange city, which is the most populous,
the mechanical slaves of the wives, concubines, and princesses live,
and ply their trades for the profit of their mistresses. This woman's
city is as self-supporting as any other in the world: it has its own
laws, its judges, police, guards, prisons, and executioners, its
markets, merchants, brokers, teachers, and mechanics of every kind
and degree; and every function of every nature is exercised by women,
and by them only. Into this inmost city no man is permitted to enter,
except only the king, and the priests, who are admitted every morning
under guard, in order that the inmates may perform the sacred duty
of giving alms. The slave women are allowed to go out to visit their
husbands, or on business of their mistresses; but the mistresses
themselves never leave it except by the covered passages to the
palaces, temples, and gardens, until they have by age and position
attained to a certain degree of freedom. The permanent population of
this city is estimated at nine thousand. Of the life passed therein,
volumes would not give an exact description; but what I am about to
relate in the pages that follow will give the general reader, perhaps,
some idea of many of the stirring incidents of that life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: See the Siamese work, "Phra thi Sang."]
[Footnote 2: Supreme Intelligence.]
[Footnote 3: See Siamese work, "Phra thi Sang," and Lecture on Buddhist
Nihilism, by F. Max Müller.]