"I will close this letter by telling you something about the last of the temples we visited. It is the _Wat P'hza Keau_, or the Temple of the Emerald Idol, and is so called on account of an idol of emerald a foot high and eight inches wide. It stands on an altar about fifty feet high, and all over the surface of the altar there are images representing idols, human figures, and animals, the latter including some forms that are very grotesque. The emerald idol stands in a niche which is beautifully ornamented, and the altar terminates in a long spire above the idol's head. There are paintings on the walls superior to anything we saw in the other temples, and we found that the bricks on the floor were of polished brass instead of baked clay. The hair and collar of the idol are of pure gold, and from the way the light fell upon them it looked as though they were thickly set with precious stones. Some one who has seen it more closely than we did, says that while the gold was in a melted state a handful of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and other precious stones were stirred into it; perhaps this was so, but I should think it would be injurious to the diamonds to be thrown into melted gold, which must be of a very great heat. "This is the temple where the king comes most frequently to say his prayers. We had hoped to see him there, but were disappointed." CHAPTER X. ASCENDING THE MENAM, FROM BANGKOK TO AYUTHIA. Doctor Bronson had a letter of introduction to the American Consul at Bangkok, which a friend in New York had given him before his departure. A few mornings after his arrival in Siam, he called at the consulate to deliver the letter and make the acquaintance of his country's representative. He found the consul seated in a large arm-chair on the veranda of a spacious building on the east bank of the river, in the foreign portion of the city. A yard with shade-trees and gravelled walks surrounded the building, and near the landing-place there was a tall staff from which the flag of the United States waved in the breeze. The consul was a man of pleasing manners, and he was heartily glad to meet a compatriot, as the visits of Americans to Bangkok are not at all numerous. "Until you arrived," said he to the Doctor, "there had not been an American tourist here for nearly eight months. I wish more would come, as we lead rather a lonely life in Siam, and are very glad of anything to break the monotony." In a frank, open-hearted way, the consul offered his services to Doctor Bronson and his young friends, in case there was anything he could do for them. The Doctor thanked him for the proffered courtesy, and said they hoped to be able to see his majesty, the King of Siam, before their departure.