ir sight were various horrible
instruments of torture;--spears with which to pierce them;--an iron
boiler, in which to heat oil to scald them;--a gallows on which to hang
their bodies, and--a pestle and mortar in which to pound the children to
powder. You see how Satan fills the heart of the heathen with his own
cruel devices. The people who came to see this miserable family, rejoiced
at the sight of their misery: but they lost the delight they expected in
tormenting the old king, for he died of a broken heart; and all they
could do _then_, was to insult his body; they beheaded it, and then hung
it upon a gibbet, where every one might see it, and the beasts and birds
devour it.

What became of his unhappy family is not known.

But though so barbarous to their _enemies_, the Siamese in some respects
are better than most other heathen nations, for they treat their
_relations_ more kindly. They do not kill their infants, nor shut up
their wives, nor cast out their parents. Yet they show their cruelty in
this:--they often sell one another for slaves. They also purchase slaves
in great numbers; and there are wild men in the mountains who watch
Burmans and Karens to sell them to the great chiefs of Siam. It is the
pride of their chiefs to have thousands of slaves crawling around them.

BANKOK.

This city is built on an island in a broad river, and part of it on the
banks of the river. It ought therefore to be a pleasant city, but it is
_not_, owing to its extreme untidiness. The streets are full of mud, and
overgrown with bushes, amongst which all the refuse is thrown; there are
also many ditches with planks thrown across. There is only one pleasant
part of the town, and that is, where the Wats are built. The Wats are the
idol-houses. Near them are shady walks and fragrant flowers, and elegant
dwellings for the priests. The people think they get great merit by
making Wats, and therefore they take so much trouble: for the Siamese are
very idle. So idle are they that there would be very little trade in
Bankok, if it were not for the Chinese, who come over here in crowds, and
make sugar, and buy and sell, and get money to take back to China. You
may tell in a moment a Chinaman's garden from a Siamese garden; one is
so neat and full of flowers;--the other is overgrown with weeds and
strewn with litter.

The most curious sight in Bankok, is the row of floating houses. These
houses are placed upon posts in the river, and do no