And the "child wife," who might have numbered twenty-five summers, but who looked as if she were only sixteen, blushing with a delicacy and beauty of her own, advances and greets her strange guests with all the more respect and tenderness because of their rags and poverty, leads them gently and seats them on low stools around her sparkling fountain, removes their disgusting apparel, and proceeds with the aid of her maidens to wash them clean with fragrant soap and great draughts of cool water ladled out of the silver jars. What a transformation, when the matted hair was washed and combed and parted and dressed with flowers, and the rags were replaced by new robes of purest white! Then she led them towards the hall, and seated them on the silk cushions before the silver trays, and bowed on her knees before them and served to them the delicacies prepared for them, as if they each one and all deserved from her some special token of her love and veneration. After breakfast the music struck up and the actors and puppets appeared on the stage. The music was particularly good. The royal female bands were assembled for the occasion, and relieved each other in succession; the acting was occasionally interspersed with the plaintive notes of female voices; the priestesses of this beautiful scene, who seemed sometimes deeply moved, collected from within themselves all the charms and joys of love to pour them forth with the inspiration of music at the feet of their lowly listeners.[47] And at length, as the curtain of the last act dropped, and the prolonged cadence of the voices and the instruments died away, a loud buzz of delight and pleasure broke from the listening crowd of old, decrepit women, who received each a sum of money from their kind hostess, and went on their lonely way rejoicing. "This," said my friend to me, "I do every year, to show my love and obedience to my dear teacher, the Buddha." And to my unaccustomed heart and eyes it seemed the sight in all the world the most worth gazing upon. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 44: I would here remark that all intelligent Buddhists make a very marked distinction between the Buddha and the Buddh. Buddh, or as he is sometimes called, Adi Buddha, is the Supreme Intelligence, from whom Buddha is only an emanation, has existed from all eternity.] [Footnote 45: See "English Governess at the Siamese Court," Chap. XIII. p. 116.] [Footnote 46: Professor F. Max Müller mentions this parable, in his lecture on "Buddhist Nihilism," as translated from the Birmese by Captain H.T. Rogers; but the Birmese text is slightly different from that of the Siamese.]