Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

  “May the foul fiend fly away with thee!” he cried in rage, as he flung the astonished reptile back into the pit, and bewailed his kismet, while Boy shouted with infidel laughter.

  Anna added no words of reproof to the old man’s misery, seeing that he had been sufficiently punished by the severity of his disappointment. For several days after this the spade stood neglected in its corner. Then she surmised from the cautious drift of Moonshee’s remarks at the close of her evening Sanskrit lesson that his thoughts still clung to the possibility of discovering hidden treasure. Somehow he had become obsessed with the idea that there was gold buried in the compound, gold for the needs of his Mem sahib and himself, if his spade could only find it. Gold would free them all from the grievous necessity of living longer in this land of Kafirs. Anna was touched by his concern on her behalf, and tried to disillusion him gently. But her cold sense made no impression on him. The more he dreamed, the more he believed. But the spot? The right spot? “Only wait!” he said mysteriously with a wag of his turbaned head.

  For a week he said nothing more. Then one morning before breakfast while Boy was reciting his lessons, Moonshee entered the room with one of his profoundest salaams, and an expression at once so earnest and so comical that Anna asked him anxiously what was the matter. Panting a little from the combination of eagerness and age, he stammered: “I have something of the greatest importance to confide to you, Mem sahib! Now is the accepted time. Now you shall prove the devotion of your faithful Moonshee, who swears by Allah not to touch a grain of gold without your leave, in all those bursting sacks, if the Mem sahib will but lend him ten ticals, only ten ticals, to buy a screwdriver!”

  “A screwdriver!” Anna looked at her old servant as if she thought he had lost his senses. “What in the world can you want with a screwdriver, Moonshee?”

  “Oh, Mem, listen to me!” he cried, his face glowing with the rapture of possession. Then he lowered his voice to a sepulchral whisper and leaned close to her. “I have found the exact spot on which the old duke, the Somdet Ong Yai, expired. It is a secret, a wonderful secret, Mem sahib. And not a creature in Siam knows it!” He looked at her triumphantly, expecting curiosity, praise.

  “Then how did you come by it, Moonshee,” Anna asked in mounting amusement, “since you don’t speak a word of the language, which you scorn as unworthy to be uttered by the Faithful, and of no use on earth except to confound philosophers and Moonshees?”

  “Listen, Mem, listen,” he said with a grandiose wave of his hand, ignoring her levity. “No human tongue revealed it to me.” He paused impressively. “It was the Angé Gibhrayeel. He came to me last night as I slept, and said, ‘O son of Jaffur Khan! To your prayers is granted the knowledge that for all these years has been denied to Kafirs. Arise! Obey! And with humility receive the treasures reserved for thee, thou faithful follower of the Prophet!’ And so saying he struck the golden palm fronds he bore in his hand; and though I was now awake, Mem sahib, I was so overpowered by the beauty and effulgence of his person that I was as one about to die. The radiant glory of his wings, which were the hue of sapphires, blinded my vision. I could neither speak nor see. But I felt the glow of his presence and heard the rustle of his pinions, as once more he beat the golden palms and cried, ‘Behold, O son of Jaffur Khan. Behold the spot where lie the treasures of that haughty Kafir chief!’ I arose and immediately the angel flashed from my sight. And as I gazed there appeared a luminous golden hen with six golden chickens, which pecked at bits of blazing coal that, as they cooled, became nuggets of pure gold. When suddenly I beheld a great light of rooshnees (fireballs), and it burst upon the spot where the hen had been. And then all was darkness again. Mem sahib, your servant ran down and placed a stone upon that spot, and kneeling on that stone, with his face to the south, repeated his five Kalemahs.”

  Anna threw back her head and laughed. The next minute she was sorry that she had, for Moonshee’s face fell. “I tell you, Mem sahib, I saw it. And all I require is ten ticals for a screwdriver and I will find the treasure for you.”

  “But, Moonshee,” she said kindly, “ten ticals is a lot of money for me. And besides, I do not believe that your dream was anything more than a dream. The old duke’s treasure became the property of his son, the Kralahome, a long time ago. And if part of it had been hidden someone would have found it when his palace was torn down, anyway.”

  But the old man’s face was stubbornly set. “I tell you, Mem sahib, it was a vision. And this is the part of the treasure that was buried. All these Kafir chiefs bury part of their gold against an evil day. And no one has found it yet.”

  The only part of the story that Moonshee could persuade her to believe, however, was that the old duke might at some time have buried a part of his riches. She knew that Siamese did bury their gold and silver to save it from confiscation by those in power. In such cases a slave was often immolated on the spot to make a guardian genius. Many Siamese spent years digging for such caches in abandoned temples. It was said that the ruins of Ayuthia were for decades a heap of diggings where families tried to recover treasure hidden during the siege of the city by the Burmese in 1767, which had resulted in its razing. Even in 1862 treasure hunters were still digging for unrecovered caches at the old capital. These treasure seekers first passed a night near the supposed place of concealment. At sunset they offered to the guardian spirit of the site oblations of candles, perfumed tapers, and roasted rice. When they fell asleep a genie was expected to appear in their dreams and indicate precisely the hiding place of the gold. If the spirit offered to permit the sacking he expected the usual fee, “one pig’s head and two bottles of arrack.” On the other hand, if the genie appeared in an angry aspect, flourishing a club, the dreamer awoke and ran. Perhaps the old duke had buried part of his vast fortune. It was, of course, possible that it had never been found. Even so, the idea that the Angel Gabriel should have made a personal appearance to Moonshee was ridiculous. Anna’s failure to believe the tale and to help him, especially after the promise of riches he had made, mortified Moonshee so much that he vowed the next time the angel appeared he would call her to come and witness the miracle for herself.

  “All right, Moonshee,” she said, glad to escape with so easy a promise. “You call me the next time the Angel Gabriel comes. And I agree that, if I see the nuggets of pure gold which Gabriel’s chickens peck, I’ll immediately give you the ten ticals to buy the screwdriver.” Though why a screwdriver? she thought after he had gone. Perhaps Moonshee meant some sort of tool to pry open the boxes of gold and jewels and precious stones he seemed so sure he was to discover. But the most expensive screwdriver would hardly cost ten ticals. Impractical old man, fond of wine and words, no doubt he felt that ten ticals was a small investment for her to make in an enterprise that was to yield such dazzling profit. She was amused to see that Moonshee’s faith in his vision was so perfect that he accepted the promise with complete satisfaction.

  Anna quickly forgot the matter in the rush of earning what little gold she thought herself likely to obtain, by dint of teaching at the Palace. But not many nights later she was aroused by Beebe and Moonshee calling, “Awake! Awake! Mem sahib! Come and see! Come and see!”

  Drowsy with sleep, Anna leaped from bed in alarm, thinking the house must be on fire. She threw a dressing gown around her and ran into the next room with Boy in her arms. The night was dark, a thick mist rose from the river, and gusty puffs of wind swept through the compound. Moonshee and Beebe were by the window. Silently they pointed to a light glowing in a far corner of the compound. In the wind it cast fitful shadows. Moonshee was staring at it with fixed eyes. “In a moment, Mem sahib, you’ll see. The Angé Gibhrayeel will rise out of the flame.”

  It was an eerie night, the sky and the stars invisible. There was no sound but the lapping of the water in the river and the intermittent sighing of the trees. Anna stirred impatiently, but Beebe put a soft hand on her arm as if to plead for patience. Anna grew weary of waiting at last when no
thing happened, and went downstairs followed by her awestricken household. Cautiously she stepped out across the yard toward the far corner where the glow still flickered.

  The fire was real enough. Smoke rose from it in the wind, and low flames whipped back and forth. But no Angel Gabriel, no celestial poultry rose from it, as Anna with Moonshee and Beebe trembling behind her reached it. On a remnant of matting, with a stone for a pillow, lay an old Siamese woman asleep. She had evidently been driven by the heat to sleep out-of-doors, and she had kindled a tiny fire to keep off mosquitoes.

  Moonshee regarded her with mouth agape. “There, Moonshee!” Anna said crossly as she started back for bed, “there is your Angel Gabriel! Don’t you ever again trouble me for ticals to invest in screwdrivers. Treasure indeed!”

  17

  THE KING’S ENGLISH

  After the school routine was well organized, King Mongkut demanded Anna’s assistance with his English and French letters. This work proved no sinecure since His Majesty’s correspondence was enormous.

  He had begun it long before in the priesthood. During those years of meditation and study his mind had been probing the scientific knowledge of the West, especially astronomy. This interest was the source of many exchanges with learned men all over the world. But the bulk of the correspondence had been undertaken for diplomatic reasons. Almost alone among his Siamese contemporaries, he had realized early that some revision of his country’s traditional foreign policy was necessary, if its independence was to be maintained.

  Ever since the French had tried to gain control of Siam in the seventeenth century, Europeans had been objects of suspicion to Thai kings. They had driven the French out by force. The Dutch they had starved of trade. The Portuguese they had reduced to the most menial of positions, until the descendants of this once proud race lived in squalor in one of the poorest sections of Bangkok.

  In the nineteenth century, however, the acquisitive fingers of both France and England were reaching out for the Malayan peninsula. During the previous six hundred years this long arm of land that early cartographers called the Golden Chersonese had been under the suzerainty of Siam, and Thai rule had not been oppressive. The various principalities had been required merely to render certain goods in time of peace, and troops and supplies in time of war. Their own princes, having received investiture from the King of Siam, ruled them with little or no supervision. At stated intervals gold and silver trees or flowers of gold were sent to the capital in token of allegiance to the feudal lord.

  Only Malacca and Johore had slipped out of Thai control before the British arrived. In 1772 the British East India Company made a first attempt to purchase Penang Island from the Sultan of Kedah, but he told the Company agent plainly that he was the vassal of Bangkok and that “the King of Siam has strictly forbidden me ever to let any Europeans settle in my kingdom.” Francis Light worked the corruption of the Sultan with gold and the promise of protection, and succeeded in hoisting the British flag over the island in 1786.

  When word of this reached Bangkok, the Thai sent a punitive expedition and drove the Sultan from his throne. Light failed to keep his promise of protection, and the disillusioned Sultan made up his mind to ingratiate himself once again with his rightful sovereign by recovering Penang. But Light collected a small force and attacked him on the mainland before his preparations were complete, for Light intended to keep Penang in the name of the Company, by diplomacy if possible, by arms if necessary, or by both.

  In a few more years the Company had a foothold on the mainland opposite Penang also. Then they secured Malacca from the Dutch. And when Prince Mongkut was an astute boy of fourteen, news reached Bangkok that two agents of the Company were intriguing to place a pretender on the throne of Johore—for a consideration. They succeeded. Their fee was the Island of Singapore, and their names were Farquhar and Thomas Stamford Raffles.

  The very next year the Company, now seemingly ubiquitous, declared war on Burma, Siam’s traditional foe. After a disastrous defeat Burma bought peace with her valuable maritime provinces, which Siam also claimed.

  All this Mongkut had seen many years before he came to the throne, but he had observed something else. His political acumen had recognized instantly the significance of the Opium Wars. China, the greatest power in Asia, had failed in a policy of isolation and exclusion. She had been forced to admit representatives of Great Britain for trade and intercourse. The old order, therefore, had passed; and certain things about the new were already apparent. First, that England intended to replace China as the dominant power in East Asia; and second, that, since England was a nation of merchants who traded at the point of a gun, exclusion had become untenable as a policy not only for great states like China, but also for smaller states like Siam. Furthermore, it was obviously important for Eastern nations to acquire the general education and knowledge of science that made European nations formidable.

  While he was still in the priesthood Prince Mongkut had begun a discreet correspondence with British officials at Penang, Singapore, and Hongkong. He was acutely aware of the danger hanging over his country from the stubborn exclusionism of his half-brother, the King, and he was hardly more than seated on the throne himself before he was writing to Colonel W. J. Butterworth, Governor of Prince of Wales Island—as Penang was now called—Malacca, and Singapore, to say that:

  Our people both of capital and dependent districts and tributary countries around Siam, with their principal heads of Governors, were seemed to be unanimously glad to us both for being successors to the throne. Whole Siamese country is now quite well with [out] any suspect of disturbance distress at any where.

  I hope on my [part] the affairs of trade &ca. will be well regulated with the foreign and native people, betterly than upon the time of my predecessors, but I hope you will allow me the time for reformation of custom of country and great ceremony of the funeral service to the dead body of my esteemed brother the late King.

  I trust you will be most rejoiced on hearing of my news of succession on the throne as you were longly my dear friend, and that you will write the information to my friend Sir James Brooke, K.C.B., who proceeded to England and let him be glad to me for fulfilling my late statement I had done to him. I have no time to write him now.

  I intend to send my other messengers to visit you with some golden and silver flowers which, by custom of Siam, are presents for information of new enthronement or recent crown of country, when I already was crowned …

  I am unwilling to cut off the friendship between you and me at all, though I would be in highest seat of this Kingdom. Please remember me whenever and wherever you may be in the future. Whereas I was changed from priesthood to the seat of President of country now, I have neglected all my tools and intentions of my own use or left the sacred place for the use of priests. I ought to obtain many things newly for use in my own family out of those that for the royal palace or regal residence. I have therefore placed $1000 in the hands of my man Mr. Nai Bhoom who I have ordered to purchase for me many articles of various curious weapons or articles of gold and silver clothes &ca. and some wooden tools of best wood, mahogany, &ca. I hope your Honor will aid him by directing him to obtain best articles for me, what you would think proper for my use when I am on the throne and where such best thing can be obtained.

  And again a month later he wrote rather anxiously:

  I beg to assure you that I shall be very glad to accept them if some parties of English men come to my country to visit me, but please stay or stop the affair of negociation of new treaty but one year more, until the ceremony of funeral service of my esteemed brother the late King was concluded, on about March or April of the proximate year.

  The ceremony of burning of the Royal King’s corpse ought to be done with the greatest pomp, which cannot be finished quickly. If therefore in this interval before conclusion of the King’s funeral ceremony, the Mission of British Government may come to our country, it might be great troublesome to us, wherefore I beg
to solicit your Grace to delay or expect until May or June of next year, when the proper opportunity allow or was made to us.

  By 1854 he was deep in correspondence with Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hongkong, who came to Bangkok the following year and wrote the first of the many modern treaties negotiated during Mongkut’s reign. Correspondence with Sir John lasted until the King’s death.

  Shortly thereafter he was writing to “our worthy noble Friend, Right Honorable the Earl of Clarendon, Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister Secretary of State of foreign and colonial affairs in London &ca. &ca.” And even to “our Royal affectionate Sister, and distinguished Friend, Her Majesty.”

  It was Sir John Bowring who had encouraged the King to begin the correspondence with Queen Victoria. The King was quite well aware of the irregularities of his English style, but Sir John reassured him. In his memoirs Sir John says that King Mongkut “thought of writing to Her Majesty and asked me about the style of the letter. I answered, that as His Majesty’s English was perfectly intelligible, an autograph in his own manner, uncorrected, would be more acceptable than any letter in whose composition an Englishman should be called in to assist.” So the King began the correspondence with proper formality:

  Somdetch Phra Paramendr Maha Mongkut, by the Divine blessing of the Superagency of the Universe the First King of the Siamese kingdom, consisting of Siamese proper both Northern and Southern and the adjacent tributary dependencies, Laos, Cambodia and several provinces of Malay peninsula

  &c &c &c

  To her Gracious Majesty Victoria the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the powerful Sovereign of British Colonies almost around the Globe of Human world,

  &c &c &c

  Our most respected and distinguished Friend, and by race of the royalty our very affectionate Sister.