On the 21st of March, 1882, all the Siamese officials in the province met upon the top of the mountain nearest to the town of Petchaburee and drank the water of allegiance, pledging their loyalty to their sovereign. They met in the audience-hall belonging to the king’s country palace, which crowns the summit of this picturesque eminence. Upon the throne erected for the king an image of Lord Buddha was temporarily placed. Before the idol were burned incense-sticks and sacred candles made of yellow wax. Below the idol was a large brasen basin containing the water of allegiance. Across this basin were placed a sword, gun, spear and other warlike weapons; a cord was tied to the idol, and, passing around the basin of water, passed through the hands of a line of yellow-robed priests, whose vain repetitions in the Pali language were supposed to pass along the string to their gilded god. Before each priest was placed two large salvers containing a great variety of tempting-looking eatables, upon which, as soon as they had finished their prayers, they fell to work in good earnest. The repast finished, they brushed their teeth with the ends of soft sticks, lit their cigarettes and puffed away complacently while the oath was being administered. The oath of allegiance is a long, horrible affair, which should they fail to keep, they said, “We beseech the power of the deities to plague with poisonous boils rapidly fatal and all manner of diseases the dishonorable, perverse and treacherous with untimely, wretched and appalling deaths, manifest to the eyes of the world; when we shall have departed this life from earth cause us to be sent and all to be born in the great hell, where we shall burn with quenchless fire for tens and hundreds of thousands of ages and limitless transmigrations; and when we have expiated our penalty there, and are again born into any world, we pray we may fail to find the least happiness in worlds of pleasurable enjoyments; let us not meet the god Buddha, the sacred teachings, the sacred priests that come to be gracious to animals, helping them escape misery, reach heaven and attain a succession of births and deaths; should we meet them, let them grant us no gracious assistance.” This is not all, but it is enough to show the fearfulness of the oath, to which the officials listened with apparent indifference.