A wooden model of the desired image is first made. It is next covered with very thin silver-leaf, after which the wooden model is removed and the interior filled up with pitch. This is perhaps the most common method of making small cheap idols. The larger ones are first modelled in wax, and then covered with a cement made of fine sand and clay. This is dried in the sun and finally heated in a furnace, when the wax melts and is collected for use another time. Melted brass is then poured over the image and evenly spread until the whole surface is covered with a thin coating of metal. A great many gilded images are made, the gold-leaf being laid over a covering of black pitch. Until the outer layer of gold, silver, or brass has been deposited on the carved or moulded figure, and until the eyes have been placed therein, it is not considered in any way sacred. The two last operations are frequently attended with great ceremony at the home of the owner, in the presence of many priests. In every temple there are "printed gods". These are very small idols, about an inch or two in length, made of clay and having a flat surface at the back. They are stuck in rows, on a piece of board painted with some bright colour, and are then gilded and placed in the temple. In the remotest alley, the most secluded corner, the broadest highway, or the most open of public spaces, roam the most disreputable and degraded members of the canine family--the pariah dogs. Black, brown, white, and spotted dogs with skeleton frames and sunken eyes, many of them in the last stages of disease and decay, snap at the dirtiest bone, or feast upon the filthiest rubbish they can find. They own no master, and no man owns them. They may be counted till one is weary of counting, and yet the eye will still discover many that remain unnumbered. Often it would be a kindness to the poor starved and crippled creatures to put them speedily out of pain, but the Buddhist law, "Thou shalt not kill", is all powerful here, and so the pariahs breed and multiply, giving in return for the permission to live, their effective services as vigilant and industrious scavengers. In the markets, the natives squat cross-legged upon their stalls, offering for sale vegetables and fruit, betel nut and cigars, salted fish and queer-looking sweetmeats; or busying themselves, in the absence of customers, by vigorously waving a big palm or banana leaf to drive away the clouds of flies that would otherwise immediately settle upon their perishable wares. The dealers are chiefly Siamese women, and are amongst the most polite and obliging saleswomen in the world.