All the while the nobles were squatting or lying on the floor, and the children were playing in a subdued and quiet way at the king's feet. Somehow the beauty of these little Siamese children seemed to me very remarkable. As they grow older, they grow lean, and wrinkled, and ugly. But while they are children they are pretty "as a picture"--as some of those pictures, for example, in the Italian galleries. Going quite innocent of clothing, they are very straight and plump in figure, and unhindered in their grace of motion. And they used to bear themselves with a simple and modest dignity that was very winning. They have the soft and lustrous eyes, the shining teeth (as yet unstained by betel-nut), the pleasant voices, which are the birthright of the children of the tropics. In default of clothes, they are stained all over with some pigment, which makes their skin a lively yellow, and furnishes a shade of contrast for the deeper color of the gold which hangs around their necks and arms. I used to compare them, to their great advantage, with the Chinese children. There is not in Siam, at least there is not in the same degree, that obstinate conceit behind which, as behind a barrier, the Chinese have stood for centuries, resisting stubbornly the entrance of all light and civilization from without. I do not know what possible power could extort from a Chinese official the acknowledgment which this king freely made, that his people were "half civilized and half barbarous, being very ignorant of civilized and enlightened customs and usages." Such an admission from a Chinaman would be like the demolition of their great northern wall. It is true of nations as it is of individuals, that pride is the most stubborn obstacle in the way of all real progress. And national humility is the earnest of national exaltation. Therefore it is that the condition of things at the Siamese court seems to me so full of promise.