FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 33: Chiengmai is the capital of Laos country.] [Footnote 34: The late second king was passionately fond of music, and was himself a skilful performer on several of the Laos instruments.] CHAPTER XXII. "BIJREPUREE," OR THE DIAMOND CITY. Meanwhile his Majesty was better, and it was the last day of October. So the court and I, with my boy, and all the most favored of the royal family, set out for our annual visit to Bijrepuree,--leaving the Invincible City and the disconsolate princess with her pale-faced companions to the care of the high officials Mai Ying Thaphan within, and the Kroma Than Song Wang without. Bijrepuree, or Petchabury, as it is commonly called, is the third city in size, and second in importance, in Siam, and is situated nearly one hundred and fifty miles in a south-westerly direction from Bangkok, on a river of the same name, which waters a country a thousand-fold more picturesque and beautiful than that around Bangkok. As you ascend the river, a chain of mountains varying from seventeen to nineteen hundred feet in height rises above the surrounding country, the loftiest of which is called Khoa L'huang, or Royal Mountain. This is one of his Majesty's most favored country residences. A splendid palace has been built on its summit, on which five hundred laborers have been employed daily for ten years, and it is still (1866) unfinished. A winding path which leads up to it has been admirably contrived amid the volcanic rocks which cover the surface of this mountain district. I climbed to no such favored spot during my residence in Siam. On the hither side far away stretches from north to south a chain of mountains called Khoa Dèng, and inhabited by many rude and independent tribes of the primitive Kariengs. Beyond these again rises another chain of lofty hills, the outlines of which appear like misty clouds in the distant horizon. On the slopes and in the valleys are immense forests of magnificent trees, hiding in their dark recesses myriads of unknown plants and lesser forests of ferns, with palm-trees, rice-fields, tobacco and sugar plantations looking intensely dark in the setting sun, and dividing the lights and shades into numberless soft radiating shafts which fall in a red haze of different degrees of strength on the pellucid river that flows gently through them. Then to the south and east stretches another plain, and beyond this lies the Gulf of Siam, on whose waters, fading away in the distant horizon, were sometimes sparkingly revealed a few scattered sail, outward and homeward bound.