There used to be a story current in Bangkok that every new king made it his pious care to set up in one of the royal temples a life-size image of Buddha of solid gold. Though we need not believe this tale, it would be hard to exaggerate the impression of lavishness and distinction produced upon the visitor to this city, full of temples. Nothing in great China or artistic Japan can compare with their peculiar brilliance or their wonderful array of color flashing in the tropical sunlight. We have no reason to repeat the enthusiastic descriptions which travellers never tire of giving, impressed as they are sure to be by an architecture which, with all its wealth and oddity of detail, harmonizes perfectly with the rich vegetation in the midst of which it is placed. Change and decay are, however, doing their part in reducing the picturesqueness of this strange city. No Oriental thinks of perpetuating a public monument by means of constant attention and repairs, and many of these gay edifices already lose their fine details by long exposure to the effects of a climate in which nothing endures long if left to itself. With the improvements introduced by the present king and his father are disappearing also many of those features of daily life in the capital which once heightened its oriental charm. A pleasure park has been made, in which, and on some of the new macadam roads about the city, the foreigners and richer natives drive in wheeled vehicles. So long, however, as the roads are covered by the annual inundations and made unserviceable for months at a time, the use of carriages must be almost as restricted here as that of horses in Venice. A more regrettable innovation is that of dress-coats, starched linens, and to some extent dresses, in the fashionable circles of Siam. Taken out of their easy and becoming costumes, and encased in ill-fitting and uncomfortable Western clothes, the Siamese nobles can hardly be said to have improved on the old days. With the removal of their nakedness the lower classes, too, are becoming more conscious, while contact with a higher civilization has introduced vices among them without always bringing in their train the Christian virtues of cleanliness and truth. The population of Bangkok increases steadily with its prosperity and influence, and is to-day variously estimated at from three hundred thousand to half a million souls, nearly half of whom perhaps are Chinese. Its main article of export is rice, which goes not only to every country of Asia, but to Australia and America. Sugar and spices, as well as all products of tropical forests, are also largely exported. The customs returns of 1890 show a considerable improvement of the Bangkok trade over previous years, the exports being $19,257,728 against $13,317,696 for 1889, a difference of over $5,540,000; the imports of 1890 were $15,786,120, against $9,599,541 in 1889, a gain of more than six millions.