Each country professing Buddhism appears to adopt its own idea as to the shape of its images. Those of Siam have an attenuated figure, comporting with our associations of the ascetic. These images have a complacent, sleepy look, the long ears resting on the shoulders, the fingers and toes of equal length. The best images are of bronze or brass, one large brass idol of Bangkok being a perfect giant in size. There are also silver and plate-gold idols, but the more numerous are a composite of plaster, resin and oil mixed with hair, and, after the figure is shaped, covered with varnish, upon which is laid a thick coat of gilding. Into the composition of the great “sleeping idol” of Bangkok were put thousands of bushels of lime, molasses, quick-silver and other materials, at a cost of several thousand dollars. These idols are not only in the temples, but everywhere――on mountain-tops and caves and in the homes of the people. In the famous Wat P’hra Keäu (the private temple of the royal family within the palace enclosure, and connecting by a secret passage with the most private apartments of His Majesty’s harem) is perhaps the finest specimen of an altar. It is at least sixty feet high, tapering to a golden spire. The shelves are loaded with rare and costly specimens of Siamese, Chinese and European art――idols covered with plate gold, solid silver vases of beautiful workmanship, golden candlesticks, marble statuary, ivory ornaments, clocks, garments studded with precious stones; crowning all, the beautiful emerald idol flashing with a molten mass of diamonds, sapphires and other gems. This cross-legged statue of Buddha, one foot high and eight inches wide at the knees, is of great value and antiquity. The kings and nobles of Siam spend large sums on their temples and idols. There are between one and two hundred temples in the city of Bangkok alone. Several cost one hundred thousand dollars, and it is estimated that the Wat P’hra Keäu, with its lofty gilded roof, rich carvings, fine paintings and floor paved with diamond-shaped bricks of polished brass, cost nearly a million dollars. Such expensive temples and monstrous images are built not only to impress and awe the people, but to make a large amount of merit. _Tam boon_, or “merit-making,” is, after all, the sum and substance of Siamese Buddhism. The words are on the lips of young and old, rich and poor, almost every hour of the day. They are anxious to make all the merit possible, believing that their pilgrimage through the forms of animal life and the duration of their purgatorial existence in the several Buddhist hells is the result of _Karma_――_i. e._ merit and demerit. Speaking of the future, the Siamese always say, “_Tam boon, tam kam_”――“according to merit or demerit.”