disturbed my moral equilibrium; but I held my peace and awaited the
result with resignation. A few strokes of the oars, seconded by the
swift though silent current, brought us to a wooden pier surmounted by
two glaring lanterns. Captain B---- handed us out. My child, startled
from a deep sleep, was refractory, and would not trust himself out of my
fond keeping. When finally I had struggled with him in my arms to the
landing, I saw in the shadow a form coiled on a piece of striped
matting. Was it a bear? No, a prince! For the clumsy mass of reddish-
brown flesh unrolled and uplifted itself, and held out a human arm, with
a fat hand at the end of it, when Captain B---- presented me to "his
Royal Highness." Near by was his Excellency the Prime Minister, in the
identical costume that had disgraced our unpleasant interview on the
Chow Phya; he was smoking a European pipe, and plainly enjoying our
terrors. My stalwart friend contrived to squeeze us, and even himself,
first through a bamboo door, and then through a crowd of hot people, to
seats fronting a sort of altar, consecrated to the arts of jugglery. A
number of Chinamen of respectable appearance occupied the more distant
places, while those immediately behind us were filled by the ladies and
gentlemen of the foreign community. On a raised dais hung with kincob
[Footnote: Silk, embroidered with, gold flowers.] curtains, the ladies
of the Prince's harem reclined; while their children, shining in silk
and ornaments of gold, laughed, prattled, and gesticulated, until the
juggler appeared, when they were stunned with sudden wonder. Under the
eaves on all sides human heads were packed, on every head its cherished
tuft of hair, like a stiff black brush inverted, in every mouth its
delicious cud of areca-nut and betel, which the human cattle ruminated
with industrious content. The juggler, a keen little Frenchman, plied
his arts nimbly, and what with his ventriloquial doll, his empty bag
full of eggs, his stones that were candies, and his candies that were
stones, and his stuffed birds that sang, astonished and delighted his