IX.
Peculiar Manner of Scaring Away
the Dragon.
While lying on the river at Petchaburee, an inland city, about seventy-five miles from Bangkok, I was awakened by the most hideous noise; the firing of guns, shooting of crackers, beating of drums and tom-toms and the shouting of a vast multitude. Looking out of the window of my boat a weird spectacle presented itself to my vision. The whole place was lighted up by huge bonfires on the banks of the stream and the air full of glittering rockets. Calling my kavass I inquired what was the occasion of the hubbub? With his usual vye, touching the points of his fingers together and raising them up on a level with his breast, he replied, "Your Excellency, the great dragon has the moon swallowed up." Having heard that the natives thus celebrated the approach of an eclipse, I stepped ashore and mingled with the crowd which was mate up of all classes, old and young, with a large sprinkling of yellow-robed priests who were as active as the others in keeping up the unearthly din. It was a lovely morn, the southern cross hung like a gleaming jewel in the upper deep, gentle zephyrs perfumed by myriads of flowers fanned the brow and waved the feathery bamboo as gently as the coquette her fan, the round orbed moon, a bright silver disk, was suspended in the western heavens, burnished like the shield of Achilles, while all around burned the many
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