There are placed here and there upon this bamboo floor multitudes of standards peculiar to the Siamese. Some are like the _Sawe-krachat_, or royal umbrella of several stories high. Some of them are with machinery exhibiting a variety of little paper figures in perpetual action, imaging angels or devils. Here and there you will see a niche with rude landscape views of the lower series of the Buddhists’ celestial worlds and of princely dwellings there, with delightful pools and groves and many other sensual luxuries which a heathen mind fancies a heaven of happiness must give its inhabitants. Outside of the bamboo fence are buildings for the accommodation of officers of the government and others who cannot find room within the enclosure. There are also numerous playhouses for theatrical and puppet-shows, masquerades, wire-dancing, etc., and, more interesting to many, the great victualing establishment for all classes above the vulgar, presenting a large variety of dishes and fruits, well prepared and tempting to the appetite, all freely offered without price at all hours of the day. Thus much of a bird’s-eye view of what may be termed the mere shell of the _P’ramene_. The real _P’ramene_ is erected in the centre of the whole, in the great hall directly under the loftiest spire, and in the centre of this stands the _P’ra Bencha_, or throne, on which the royal urn is placed in state. This is a splendid eight-sided pyramid, fifty or sixty feet in circumference, its base on a floor twenty feet above the ground. It diminishes by right-angled gradations upward some thirty feet to a truncated top, and on its top is placed the golden urn containing the remains of the late king most superbly decorated with gold, diamonds and other precious stones. Some ten or fifteen feet above this is suspended from the lofty ceiling a rich golden canopy, and far up above that is a white circular awning overshadowing the whole. Immediately under the golden canopy hang the sweetest and whitest flowers arranged in the form of a large chandelier. The _Pra Bencha_ is made brilliant by the skillful arrangement on its several steps of the most showy articles of porcelain, glass, alabaster, silver and gold artificial flowers and fruits intermixed with real fruits, little images of birds, beasts, men, women, children, angels, etc. For illuminating the hall splendid chandeliers are suspended from the four corners of the ceiling, assisted by innumerable lesser lights on the angular gradations of the pyramid. At the time of placing the royal remains in state on that lofty throne nearly all the princes, chief nobles and officials in the kingdom assemble just after the break of day to escort “the sacred corpse” to its last earthly throne on the summit of the new _P’ramene_.