TOMB OF A BONZE 263 BANYAN TREE 270 SIAMESE TEMPLE 271 TEMPLE AT AYUTHIA 275 MONASTERY OF WAT SISAKET 277 BRASS IDOL IN A TEMPLE AT BANGKOK 279 THE GREAT TOWER OF THE PAGODA WAT CHEUG 283 BUDDHIST PRIEST 285 BUDDHIST PRIESTS GATHERING FOOD 295 RUINS OF A TEMPLE AND STATUE AT AYUTHIA 303 ATTACHÉ OF SIAMESE EMBASSY: COURT-COSTUME IN 1883 313 THE LATE FIRST KING AND QUEEN 323 SOMDETCH CHOWFA CHULALANGKORN 339 HALL OF AUDIENCE, PALACE OF BANGKOK 341 BRAHMAN AT WORSHIP 345 CORONATION OF A LAOS KING 421 A LAOS FUNERAL 429 TAPPING THE BORASSUS PALM 449 A LAOS HOME 499 CAMPING IN A LAOS FOREST 529 SIAM AND LAOS. PART I. SIAM. CHAPTER I. _THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA._ When about to visit a foreign country the prudent traveler is careful to seek in guidebooks and from maps some data in regard to its position, prominent features and relation to adjacent regions. Such information adds interest to each stage of his journey. Climbing a mountain, he overlooks two kingdoms. Such a valley opens into a rich mining district; the highlanders of that range are descendants of the original lords of the soil; the navigability of this river is of commercial importance as a possible trade-route. In like manner, bold outlines of the whole peninsula furnish the best introduction to a careful study of Central Indo-China, showing the trade-connection of Northern Laos with Burmah and the richest mining province of China, and the relation of Siamese progress to certain Asiatic commercial problems. New views also are thus gained of the great work actually accomplished by our American missionaries for science and civilization in this corner of the globe during their self-imposed exile of half a century. Indo-China is the south-east corner of Asia, a sharply-defined, two-pronged peninsula outjutting from China just below the Tropic of Cancer, its long Malayan arm almost touching the equator, bounded east, south and west by water. Southward, the Eastern Archipelago stretches toward Australia, “a kind of Giants’ Causeway by means of which a mythological Titan might have crossed from one continent to another.”