Peeps at Many Lands
The panoong and the pahom are of brightly coloured material, and a Siamese crowd is always a picturesque sight. According to one of the many superstitions that prevail in the country, every day of the week is under the rule of some particular planet, and to be fortunate throughout the day one should wear garments and jewels of the same colour as the ruling planet. Many rich people do actually observe this custom, and wear red silk and rubies on Sundays in honour of the sun; white and moonstones on Monday, the day of the moon; light red and coral on Tuesday, the day of Mars; green and emeralds on Wednesday, the day of Jupiter; stripes and cat's-eyes for Jupiter's Thursday; silver blue and diamonds on Friday, when Venus rules; and dark blue and sapphires on Saturday, when the chief planet is Saturn.
One of the chief commandments of the Buddhist religion is, "Thou shalt not kill." This does not refer merely to the lives of human beings, but to all creatures—mosquitoes, fleas, flies, or elephants. The reason for the commandment is that, as we have already explained, when a person dies, his soul is reborn again in another body, and this body may possibly be that of some animal. Hence, if you kill a mosquito, you may possibly be killing your own or some one else's long-
56
