A Siamese wat, instead of a single lofty pagoda, as often represented in the pictures of Burmah, consists of a number of buildings scattered about a large park-like enclosure. Let us in imagination visit such a Buddhist temple connected with a monastery――say, one of the largest to be found in any part of the world――in Bangkok. Starting on such an expedition, at the entrance of the enclosure, generally near the boat-landing on the river, you would find a large garden or rest-house, called by the Burmese _zayat_ and by the Siamese _sala_. This sala is made up of two or three open pavilions, according to the size of the wat, erected as lounging-places for the inmates or as resting-places for travelers. It is to the Siamese what the inn is to the American or Englishman, and is often useful to our missionaries in their tours about the country. To build a _sala_ is considered a meritorious act by the Buddhists. [Illustration: BANYAN TREE (_Ficus indica_).] You pass the sala and enter an area, generally consisting of several acres of ground, laid out with trees and ornamental shrubbery. Here are shady walks, always hard and smooth, sometimes paved with marble; fruit- and flower-gardens; not seldom artificial grottoes; pools with fish and playing fountains; and miniature mountains. There is also one large tree, claimed to be a shoot of the veritable tree under which Shakyamuni sat when he attained to Buddha-ship――the sacred Bôdhi tree. [Illustration: SIAMESE TEMPLE.] “You may remark,” says Dr. Eitel, “that the tree before you is by no means a _Ficus religiosa_, but a _Ficus indica_, or it may happen that it is neither of the two, but a palm tree (most probably then the _Borassus flabelliformis_); but the attendant priest who acts as your guide will tell you nevertheless, with a bland smile, that it _is_ a _Ficus religiosa_, and that only ignorant and wantonly skeptical persons can have any doubt on the subject. Is there not a plate erected at the foot of the tree stating that this tree grew out of a shoot brought directly from the holy land, cut off the very Bôdhi tree at Gâya? “It is a remnant of the ancient tree-worship that almost every religious sect of Asia has a sacred tree of its own. The Brahmans revered the _Ficus indica_, for which Buddhism originally substituted the _Ficus religiosa_. But in course of time the Buddhists either reverted to the former tree or confounded the two. They were probably led to do so by the intuitive apprehension that Buddhism as it grew and spread singularly followed the mode of growth which is a distinctive mark of the sacred tree of the Brahmans, the _Ficus indica_. It is a peculiarity of the latter that it extends itself by letting its branches droop and take root, planting nurseries of its own, and thus so multiplying itself that a single tree forms a curiously arched grove.