Booddhist.

Incremation of the dead is the custom in Siam, and while there I was
present at several royal funerals, each marked by more lavish display
of costly magnificence than we Americans ever see on this side the
water. Shortly after I left the country occurred the death of the
patriotic second king, so well and favorably known among us as Prince
T. Momfanoi, the introducer of square-rigged vessels and many other
improvements, and afterward as King Somdet Phra Pawarendr Kamesr Maha
Waresr. The body was embalmed, and lay in state for nearly a year
before the burning took place. The count de Beauvoir reached Bangkok
just in time to see the royal catafalque, of which he gives a somewhat
amusing account. He says: "The body, having been thoroughly dried
by mercury, was so doubled that the head and feet came together, and
after being tied up like a sausage was deposited in a golden urn
on the top of the mausoleum." He speaks of the state officers in
attendance by day and by night, and the dead king, from the golden urn
on the very summit of the altar, holding his court with the same pomp
and parade as during his life. A more affecting ceremony is the coming
at noon and eve of the crowds of beautiful women, not yet absolved
from their wifely vows, to converse with their loved and lamented
lord, and the depositing of letters and petitions in the great golden
basket at the foot of the mausoleum, with the confident expectation
that these loving missives will reach the deceased and be answered by
him. These royal catafalques are costly and magnificent, being covered
with plates of gold, while the silks and perfumes consumed with a
single body cost thousands of dollars.

M. de Beauvoir describes an interview with the king, surrounded by ten
of his offspring, including the seventy-second child. I well remember