Should a member of the family be sick, you might be invited nominally to see her, but you may be assured that you would have more occasion to use your ears than your eyes, for the only window in the room is a round hole about three inches in diameter and several feet from the floor. The mattress is placed on the floor and surrounded by thick mosquito-netting, through which you would think it scarcely possible to breathe. In the kitchen the stove consists of a wooden frame about four feet square and six inches high, filled with earth or sand. On this are placed three stones or bricks as rests for the pots, and between them the fire is kindled. As there is neither pipe nor chimney, the smoke is suffered to make its escape through openings as best it may, and if it is a bamboo house there is little difficulty. In the dry season cooking is often done in the yard. Setting the table is not a laborious process. The table is round, about a foot and a half in diameter and six inches high. When meal-time arrives the table is taken down from its shelf and placed on the floor, and by it the tall, slender basket of steamed glutinous rice. On the table is a bowl of curry, hot with pepper and other spices, a dish of pickled fish and some vegetables and fruit. Every member of the family dips his rice into the common bowl of curry; but if any is very fastidious he may have a dish of his own, but when he has finished his meal, in order to avoid being considered extremely lazy, he must wash his own dish. The women are not kept in bondage, as in China or India, but are a great power in the land; and the present queen has virtually the reins of government in her own hands, although her husband is the nominal head. She and her husband have always been friendly to the mission, and although the last persecution occurred since they came to the throne, it was carried on through the influence and power of the second king. As the queen walks out a maid walks behind, carrying over Her Majesty a large lined and fringed silk umbrella with silvered handle, which may be about six or eight feet long. Behind this maid is another, carrying a gold betel-nut box, while dozens of others follow her, all walking in single file, for two persons are never seen walking side by side. The queen has several times visited the missionaries in their homes. While she and the first maids-of-honor are quietly talking in a lady-like manner in the parlor, her more inquisitive servants are making a thorough examination of the house and what are, to them, its curious and strange contents. This annoyance does not arise from ignorance or lack of refinement of feeling among the people, but because there are about this court, as well as about every other court, undesirable satellites.