The _Tum kwun_ that had occurred was an offering to the _kwun_ of the prince to induce them not to afflict him by taking their departure. At the same time, special offerings were made to the demons to keep them in a good temper, so that no harm might come to him. A description of the ceremony of _Tum kwun_ as performed on Siamese princes when visiting Zimmé in 1859, and seen by him, was given by Sir Robert Schomburgh, formerly her Majesty’s consul at Bangkok, in the Siamese Repository of 1869, which runs as follows:[19]— “Chao Operat (the second chief of Zimmé) had expressed a wish to present some gifts, according to Lao custom, to the young Princes Ong Teng and Ong Sawat who were with me. The ceremony took place in the large _sala_ adjacent to our residence. The Deputy Viceroy (Chow Ooparat) did not come himself, but sent one of his high nobles accompanied by some other officers of rank. “Two pyramids of flowers, consisting of three rows, one above the other, but each smaller than the preceding, and the whole about 5 feet high, were carried before the procession. Then came two smaller ones of more intrinsic value, each of the branchlets of the pyramids ending in a kind of network with a rupee in it. There were fifty of these on one tree, and forty-one on the other, the missing one having probably found its way to the fob of one of the attendants, or rather to the corner of his girdle. “The pyramids having been placed in the middle of the _sala_, a number of dishes with legs of pork, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables, &c., were placed around them. Ong Teng and Ong Sawat squatted on the ground near the pyramids. One of the noblemen then stepped forward, and having seated himself near the young princes, he made his salaam and took a book out of his girdle, and read a homily or prayer of ten tedious pages addressed to Buddha, invoking him to protect the young princes during their journey, and to vouchsafe their safe return to their parents and friends. “The prayer finished, he tore down one of the long cotton threads which were hanging from the branches of the larger pyramids, and taking the end part, about four inches in length, in his hands, he passed the rest from the wrist of Ong Teng to the end of the boy’s forefinger, murmuring all the time some sentence or incantation. He then tore off the short end which he had kept in his hand, and threw it away, for in it, according to their superstition, all the evil was embodied, winding, as already mentioned, the long part of the thread around the wrist as a talisman. “The same operation was gone through with the left hand. Some of the noblemen who were present followed his example, and the second prince, Ong Sawat, having been performed upon in a similar manner, the ceremony was over. Not the slightest decorum was observed during it, the people present talking, smoking, and making jokes while the exhortation was being read.”