Siamese holidays are very different from those of Europe and America. They have no Christmas, for, as a nation, they know nothing about Christ. Their New Year holidays, strange to say, are not celebrated in the first month of the year, but in the fifth, which corresponds to our March or April. On one of the three days that they then observe the doors of the temples are thrown open, and the people――women and children especially――dressed in their best attire, enter, and, bowing down before the idol, make offerings of flowers. The more wealthy have prayers and preaching at their own houses, when they feast the priests and make presents to them. During these days all are allowed to gamble, and men, women and children engage in games of chance with all their hearts. On New Year’s Day we, in Christian lands, pray our heavenly Father to watch over and bless us and our friends through the year. In this heathen land the king has companies of priests on the tops of the walls around the city proper going through certain ceremonies in concert to drive away evil spirits, and on one of these nights large and small guns are fired for this purpose from the top of the walls every twenty minutes till morning. Soon after New Year’s Day, and again some six months later, the Siamese princes, lords and nobles, and all among the people who hold any office, however small, take the oath of allegiance. They assemble at the royal palace and drink the “water of vengeance” and sprinkle it upon their foreheads. Do you ask, “What is the water of vengeance?” It is water in which have been dipped swords, daggers, spears and other instruments by which the king executes vengeance on those who rebel against him. By drinking of it they express their willingness to be punished with these instruments if found disloyal. The priests are excused from this service by virtue of the sanctity of their office, but they meet in the royal temple on that day and perform appropriate religious services. Some of this water is sent to the residences of the governors in the distant provinces, and the neighboring people assemble there to drink it. Soon after the ceremony of taking the oath of allegiance the Siamese have for four days a kind of _second New Year_, the time for which is fixed by the sun instead of the moon. The priests are invited to meet at the palace for a royal festival, and the people too feast the priests and one another and play at their games of chance. The women bring water, and bathe first the idols, and then their grandparents and other aged relatives, by pouring water freely upon them.