"Your faithfully, (Signed)

"S. S. P. P. MAHA MONGKUT."


About a week before our departure for Bangkok, the captain and mate of
the steamer Rainbow called upon me. One of these gentlemen had for
several years served the government of Siam, and they came to warn me of
the trials and dangers that must inevitably attend the enterprise in
which I was embarking. Though it was now too late to deter me from the
undertaking by any arguments addressed to my fears, I can nevertheless
never forget the generous impulse of the honest seamen, who said:
"Madam, be advised even by strangers, who have proved what sufferings
await you, and shake your hands of this mad undertaking." By the next
steamer I sailed for the Court of Siam.

In the following pages I have tried to give a full and faithful account
of the scenes and the characters that were gradually unfolded to me as I
began to understand the language, and by all other means to attain a
clearer insight into the secret life of the court. I was thankful to
find, even in this citadel of Buddhism, men, and above all women, who
were "lovely in their lives," who, amid infinite difficulties, in the
bosom of a most corrupt society, and enslaved to a capricious and often
cruel will, yet devoted themselves to an earnest search after truth. On
the other hand, I have to confess with sorrow and shame, how far we,
with all our boasted enlightenment, fall short, in true nobility and
piety, of some of our "benighted" sisters of the East. With many of
them, Love, Truth, and Wisdom are not mere synonyms but "living gods,"
for whom they long with lively ardor, and, when found, embrace with joy.