Occasionally the interruption in school routine was interesting enough to compensate for the loss of time. On a certain cool morning in that first year a number of her pupils rushed up to Anna crying excitedly, “Mem, Mem, he has come! The great prince has come! Isn’t it wonderful?”
“What prince has come?” she asked, thinking it was strange that she had not heard in advance of the visiting royalty.
“The white elephant! The white elephant! Our guardian angel prince!” they shouted together. As the news spread over the city, King and peasant, master and slave, young and old congratulated each other in jubilation. Prayers and offerings were made immediately in all the temples. The town crier who shouted the news along the streets was showered with gifts of money, cloth, rice, and bottles of perfumed oil.
Seventy-five royal barges and a hundred boats were ordered prepared at once and provisioned with a week’s supplies to take the King and his family, the Amazons, and court officers to the place where the white elephant had been found. Anna asked permission to go with the cortege to the old capital of Ayuthia. The auspicious animal had been sighted there during the annual round-up of elephants in the forest.
Before sunset the procession was off to the firing of guns and the shouts of the thousands of people who lined the river banks. The boats reached Ayuthia the next morning. The court transferred at once to horses and rode for miles through beautiful country to the stockade or kraal where the round-up was to take place. As soon as they arrived at the King’s palace on the north side of the kraal they climbed a steep flight of stairs to an open tower with a magnificent view of the countryside. The kraal itself lay before them, made of heavy piles driven into the ground very closely to form a circle three or four miles in extent.
Beside the tower was a chamber that held an immense drum, around which twelve men were stationed ready to sound the moment for the beginning of the chase. A hundred and fifty trained elephants were ranged before the palace. There were two men on each, one at the back with a forked goad to urge the beast to the onslaught, and one in the front armed with lances, spears, and a quiver of arrows. The moment the royal party appeared the elephants wheeled and formed a semi-circle. Each hunter raised his spear in salute. There was a shouted command and the great beasts sank to their knees and raised their trunks into the air, bringing them down in a mass salaam.
As soon as this was finished the colossal drum thundered the signal for the hunt. The company of elephants divided and spread out through the countryside where the wild elephants were grazing, having been cautiously moved up toward the stockade from their feeding grounds during the previous weeks. The royal party could see the hunting elephants appear and disappear through the trees for many miles. Round and round they went, each time decreasing the circle of their movements and hemming the wild beasts into a smaller and smaller compass. Sometimes they could be seen distinctly; sometimes they were lost for a while in the clumps of forest. Then came a terrific succession of wild trumpetings from the trapped elephants and shouts from the hunters, “Don’t let them escape!” and a deafening peal of bugles, horns, and trumpets.
As the wild elephants moved nearer the shouts grew shriller, until at last the court could see the animals plunging madly, caught in a perfect circle formed by the hunters on their mounts. All at once a tremendous black creature thought he saw an opening close by and made a bound head foremost through the entrance to the kraal. In charged the whole herd, screaming with anger and fright, their trunks thrown high in the air. It was almost noon and the hunt was successfully over. To the hysterical joy of the royal party one great salmon-colored beast heaved and trumpeted in the sea of gray and black ones.
For hours the trapped animals ran back and forth, lashing the solid posts with their trunks, twisting them and trying to uproot them, throwing their weight against the barrier of piles. All in vain. The sun set and the weary beasts finally huddled close together with the white elephant in their midst.
The next morning they tried again to free themselves. It was afternoon before they became so faint from hunger that they gave up and tore branches from trees growing in the stockade to eat. This was a sign for the hunters on their tame elephants to enter the kraal. About sixty men with fine grass, cut and prepared, and heaps of sugar cane followed the hunters into the kraal. The tame beasts were turned loose while the newly trapped elephants were tempted with the grass and cane. In a few moments they all flocked around the men and began to feed. If any showed impatience or snatched the food too greedily, the hunters withheld it and struck the animal fierce blows. In less than half an hour the wild elephants took what was given them without snatching and even fondled with their long trunks the hands of the men that fed them. Meanwhile other men fastened chains to their legs and bound them to the tame elephants.
The white elephant alone was not bound to another of its kind. Several long silken cords were fastened about his neck and these were tied to one of the posts of the kraal. Moreover, cakes were given to him in addition to the grass and sugar cane. Immediately a wide path was begun for him through the country he must traverse to the river on his royal progress to Bangkok. A day or so later when it was complete a gold cloth was laid on his back and the triumphal return to the capital was begun. Even the King played second fiddle to the new “prince.” In front of the elephant young girls danced and sang and played musical instruments; a number of men performed feats of strength and skill, tumbling, and wrestling, and knocking each other down for his amusement. Other men fanned him and fed him. Priests prayed for him. When he reached the river he was put on board a floating palace of wood, surmounted by a gorgeous roof and hung with crimson curtains. This he seemed to dislike in spite of the fact that the roof was literally thatched with flowers, ingeniously arranged to form symbols and mottoes, which the learned beast was supposed to be able to decipher with ease.
The floor of the barge was covered with a gilt matting woven in curious patterns. The elephant was installed in the middle of this. Around him were stationed attendants who bathed and perfumed him, sang lullabies to him, fanned him and praised him all the way to the capital. The royal barges were carefully disposed near his float with silken cords passed between so that the King and nobles might aid in floating him down the river.
News of his imminent arrival had preceded him to Bangkok, and he was greeted with shouts of joy, the beating of drums, the sounding of trumpets, and the boom of cannon. A great company was waiting to meet him on the river bank and to follow him to the temporary pavilion where the custodians of the Palace and the principal personages of the royal household welcomed him with imposing ceremonies. The King, the courtiers, and the chief priests gathered around him for a thanksgiving service. Then the lordly beast was knighted, after the ancient manner of the Siamese, as a conch shell of holy water was poured over his head. The title by which he was ennobled was Phya Sri Wongsi Decha Saralai Krasat, which meant “Handsome Lord of Powerful Family.” Gold rings were fastened around his tusks, a gold chain was hung around his neck, and a purple velvet cloak, fringed with scarlet and gold, was thrown over him.
For seven days he was pampered and petted while the whole city engaged in a carnival of celebration because such a token of favor from on high had appeared. Anna discovered that, contrary to the idea widely held abroad, the Siamese did not worship the albino as a deity. They did believe, however, that each successive Buddha in passing through a series of transmigrations necessarily occupied in turn the forms of white animals of certain classes, particularly the swan, the stork, the white sparrow, the dove, the monkey, and the elephant. They thought that the forms of these creatures were reserved for the souls of the good and great. Thus almost all white animals were held in reverence, because they had once been superior human beings. The white elephant, in particular, was supposed to be animated by the spirit of some king or hero. Since he had once been a great man, he was thought to be familiar with the dangers that surround the great, and to know what was best and safest f
or those whose condition had once been his own. So he was supposed to avert national calamity and bring prosperity and peace to the people.
A magnificent new stable had been commenced at once for the “prince.” He was assiduously fed with the finest herbs, the tenderest grass, the sweetest sugar cane, the mellowest bananas, and the most delicious cakes, served on huge trays of gold and silver. His water was perfumed with jessamine. It was all too much for him. He was taken with a severe attack of indigestion during the seventh night, and although the King’s own doctor was summoned to prescribe for him he died in a few hours.
No man dared to carry the catastrophic tidings to the King. But the Kralahome, always a man of prompt expedients and unfailing presence of mind, called up thousands of slaves and pulled down the new stables. They worked in nervous haste, terrified by fear that the King might come before they were through. It was not until the cool of the late afternoon that he appeared, to see for himself the progress of the building which had been nearly completed the night before. He stood rooted to the ground when his gaze met nothing but vacancy and a large patch of bare earth. The truth flashed upon him at once and with a cry of pain he sank down upon a stone and wept bitterly. The little Fa-ying, who had been judiciously coached in her part, crept close to him and kneeling before him said, “Weep not, O my father. Perhaps the stranger lord has left us but for a time.” But the King could hardly control his grief.
It was some time before he could rally himself to give the necessary orders for the obsequies. The whole nation went immediately into mourning. But although the stranger lord was counted royal he was not cremated. Only his brain and his heart were thought worthy of this last and highest honor. His carcass was shrouded in fine white linen and laid on a bier. It was then floated down the river with much wailing and many dirges to be deposited at last in the Gulf of Siam.
The King memorialized the “stranger lord” in a proclamation that he caused to be issued by the royal press. He read it to Anna later when normal life had once more begun after the paralyzing interval of sorrow. Part of it described the dead animal: “His eyes were light blue, surrounded by a beautiful salmon color; his hair was fine, soft and long; his complexion pinkish white; his tusks like long white pearls; his ears like silver shields; his trunk like a comet’s tail; his legs like the feet of the sky; his tread like the sound of thunder; his looks full of meditation; his expression full of tenderness; his cry like the voice of a mighty warrior; and his whole bearing like that of an illustrious monarch.”
It reminded Anna forcibly of the description of Queen Victoria written by the King’s ambassador on his return from her court some years before. He had said of her: “One cannot but be struck with the aspect of the august Queen of England, or fail to observe that she must be of pure descent from a race of goodly and warlike kings and rulers of the earth, in that her eyes, complexion, and above all her bearing, are those of a beautiful and majestic white elephant.”
20
THE MANSION OF THE BRASS DOOR
In March, while the King and court went to Petchaburi, Anna and Louis took a vacation in Singapore. Louis wrote to Avis when it was over that he “enjoyed it very much and had no lessons to learn and we have come back to Siam where they all love us well.” Avis was in school at last. The Ranu had taken six months to reach England instead of three so that she had missed the entire fall term. It was a relief to Anna to have a letter from the Misses King saying that her small daughter had arrived at their school shortly after the beginning of the year. Before the end of April Anna returned to Bangkok and again took up her dual role of teacher and secretary.
May 2, 1863, was a day that she would never forget. She could divide her life into many segments. There was the old time in Wales, a dreamlike time, when she had been a child. Then the gaudy pageant of India, the brief interim in England, the Singapore years, and her life in Siam. But always afterward the Siam life fell apart across that morning in May.
She had gone as usual to her temple schoolroom just as the great clock on the tower struck nine. Louis had not come with her that day because he had had a slight touch of fever. The Temple of the Mothers of the Free was empty. Her pupils were absent at a ceremony in the Maha Prasat on the other side of the Palace, and word had been left that she, too, was to attend. It was the Wisakha Bucha, Festival of the Birth, Enlightenment, and Death of Buddha. King Mongkut had revived the ancient observance and made it one of the most important religious occasions of the year.
Anna set off at once. She was careful to attend every ceremony to which she was invited, for she was trying to comprehend more intelligently the alien life about her. Every time she thought with satisfaction that she understood the intricacies of the physical and mental world in which the women and children who were her pupils lived, something happened to show her that the Inside was as unknowable and confusing as ever. In the long galleries and corridors she was still bewildered by the twilight of eye and mind, the unexpected shafts of dazzling sunlight or Stygian blackness. The smile on a baby’s face; a sister bearing without sound or tears a brother’s beating; a mother singing to her “sacred infant”; a slave sobbing prostrate before an impassive Buddha; a concubine with her back laid open by scourging, ministered to by silent, furtive slaves—these sights filled her with a deep sense of pity. She felt to new levels within herself the utter loneliness of the human spirit in sorrow and pain; the hopelessness of those without rights and therefore without redress.
Whenever she passed within the massive gates of the harem the oppressive feeling settled upon her that here was a jail in which women and children innocent of crime were imprisoned for life. It seemed impossible that beyond the walls of the Palace fields were green and bright with flowers, or that the children of the poor played there naked and neglected, but rich in the freedom of earth and air. Down the close and gloomy lanes of the city within a city lovely women came and went softly, the feet of many little children pattered, and infant royalties were carried in the arms of their slaves. To Anna they all seemed to move under a cloud—endlessly, sadly, hopelessly beating their wings against the bars of their cage.
Sometimes she tried to comfort herself, and so gain respite from the smothering sense of obligation which this denial of human values produced in her, by remembering that since few of them had known anything better they were not unhappy, and that she was attributing to them her own passionate love of freedom. Then she would talk with a quiet woman, catch a word or look, and feel her heart wrung again with pity. She would be forced to admit that the love of freedom was born in human hearts and was not the product of environment. Once she missed a pretty girl who had attended her classes occasionally. The girl was the mother of two children, and when Anna saw them besieging their aunt with the question, “When will mother come back?” and getting no answer, she herself inquired of one of her pupils. The woman whom she had asked looked at her without a word. Then she placed her forefinger significantly on her lips and drew it slowly across her throat to intimate that the children’s mother had been executed. Anna was revolted once more by the knowledge that the women around her had no more control over their lives than the beasts of the field. Many of them entered the Palace unwillingly, knowing that they would not go forth alive. And yet there were some who accepted their fate with a repose of manner that told her even better than the discontented faces of the others how dead must be the hearts under those still exteriors. She wrote rebelliously to Francis Cobb in Singapore:
Only twenty minutes between bondage and freedom, such freedom at least as may be found in Siam! Only twenty minutes between these gloomy, hateful cells and the fair fields and radiant skies! Only twenty minutes between the cramping and the suffocation and the fear, and the full, deep, glorious inspirations of freedom and safety!
I never beheld misery until I found it here; I never looked upon the sickening hideousness of slavery until I encountered its features here; nor, above all, had I comprehended the perfection of the life, light,
blessedness and beauty, the all-suffering fulness of the love of God as it is in Jesus, until I felt the contrast here,—pain, deformity, darkness, death and eternal emptiness, a darkness to which there is neither beginning nor end, a living which is neither of this world nor of the next. The misery which checks the pulse and thrills the heart with pity in one’s common walks about the great cities of Europe is hardly so saddening as the nameless, mocking wretchedness of these women, to whom poverty were a luxury, and houselessness as a draught of pure, free air.
On that morning in May, however, the Inside seemed to have been emptied of its inhabitants. Anna had started to find the Maha Prasat rather hesitantly, without any clear idea of which street to take. After some random wandering she met a flower-girl who gave her directions. Following these she entered a long dark alley, passed into another, and then another. The alleys brought her in about ten minutes to a gloomy street. No sunlight penetrated between the blank house walls that lined it. The farther end was veiled in mist and darkness.
Stone benches, black with moss and fungi, stood at intervals along this road, and a sort of colorless night-grass carpeted the pathway. Anna walked on more slowly, convinced that she had lost her way. She looked first on one side and then on the other for a cross street, but there was none. Nor did she meet anyone along the entire length of it. There was something about it that gave her the uneasy feeling it was not intended for public use. Suddenly she reached the end, and faced a high brick wall.
Anna and the King of Siam Page 21
