The process is exactly like tattooing. The name of the chief is pricked into the skin with a long slender steel having a lancet-shaped point, just deep enough to draw a little blood; after which the bile of peacock mixed with Chinese ink is rubbed over the scarification. This leaves an indelible mark. All the male children of those so marked are obliged at the age of fourteen to appear in person to have their names enrolled on their master's books, and themselves branded on their arms. The king's men, that is, those who have to attend on royalty as soldiers, guards, or in any other capacity, are marked on the side, a little below the armpit, to distinguish them from the other serfs of the princes, dukes, or lords of the realm. Among the vast crowds who were pouring through the many gates and avenues into the city in July, 1862, was seen a stately old Rajpoot, weary and travel-stained, leading a low-sized, shaggy pony on which was seated a closely veiled figure of a young woman. A stranger could not but observe the proud, forbidding look of the old man as he urged and stimulated his weary beast through the crowd. Behind the veiled figure were two leathern bags which contained some wearing apparel and a supply of provisions to serve them during their stay in the capital. There are no such places as inns or caravansaries to lodge the multitude who are thus forced into Bangkok every year. Those who have boats live in them on the river and its numerous canals, others take refuge in the Buddhist monasteries, while the poorer classes have the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather may be, for their couch. It was not until they were quite exhausted, and could no longer maintain the pace at which they had been making their way through the crowded city, that the old man began to look around him for some spot where they could encamp. The place at which they had arrived was the southern gate of the citadel, called Patoo Song Khai (Gate of Commerce). Here they came upon the haunts of commerce and traffic,--market and tradeswomen were hurrying to and from the inner city. All around was noise and confusion, and here, beneath the shadow of a projecting porch and wall, the old man suddenly halted, and, lifting the girl lightly to the ground, said in a low, deep, and not unmusical voice, "Let us abide here, my child; and though we can call nothing our own, we shall live like the bright gods, feeding on happiness." There was something tender in the way he said this, but the girl did not appear to heed him. Looking about her with a startled and bewildered gaze, she seemed to be haunted by apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy place, where she would be chained and scourged, and, worse than all, where she would never see her father but through iron gratings and bars. Her terrors at length became so real that she wrapped her faded "saree" more closely around her, and burst into tears.