Then you may notice several bundles of palm-leaf manuscripts at his side, and two or three manuscript chests near at hand, and express your curiosity as to their contents, which are generally birth-stories of Gaudama, or sermons preached by him, both in Pali or else Shan translations, and explanations by various learned writers. The leaves of these manuscripts are formed of strips, 2 inches wide and 20 inches long, cut out of the leaves of the corypha, or book-palm, rendered smooth and pliable by water and friction. Each collection of leaves is enclosed between two boards, sometimes beautifully carved and gilded, with two wooden pegs, one near each end, to keep the leaves in correct sequence, and to allow them to be raised one after the other as required. When not in use they are either bound round with a crocheted ribbon about an inch and a half broad, with the name, titles, and distinctions of the owner worked on it—or enclosed in a square piece of silk, often with narrow slips of bamboo worked in to give it stiffness. Some of the larger monasteries have a handsome building erected in their grounds, and set apart for a library, in which are to be found, besides religious books, medical treatises, astrological and cabalistic books, and some treating of alchemy. Such books are not allowed in the monasteries in Burmah. In Siam the study of alchemy has led some of the monks to coin false money. In the Shan States the monks are generally more lax in their observances and rules than in Burmah, and, if rumour is to be credited, are frequently more immoral than laymen; but violations of the laws of chastity are less frequent in Siam than in the Shan States, as the monks in Siam, on their sin being exposed, are severely punished. In Bangkok, when adultery or fornication is proved against a monk, the culprit is publicly caned, and then paraded round the city for three days, a crier going before him proclaiming his crime. He, and his posterity after him to the utmost remote generation, are then condemned to cut grass for the king’s elephants for life. The woman is condemned to turn the king’s rice-mill for life, and the same punishment is imposed upon her posterity from generation to generation for ever. When a man becomes a monk he dissolves all secular relations, and cannot be called away to do _corvée_ labour. A husband ceases to be the husband of his wives, and, by the act, his wives are absolved from all obligations towards their husband. Even a king on becoming a monk, if only for a few days, must abdicate the crown and throne during the time that he is in the monastery, and be recrowned and remarried on returning to secular life.