Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/324

diamonds, emeralds and other precious stones is valued at five million dollars, to say nothing of the gold lunch-baskets eighteen inches in height and as much or more in circumference, the solid gold soup-dishes and ladles, the tea-pots, betel-trays, meat-dishes and a thousand other things made of the same precious materials, and many of silver also. This magnificence is beyond description in such narrow limits as a letter. Scarlet and gold are freely mingled in cloth, and everything is gorgeous that meets the eye in that room. The exhibition buildings radiate from a high domed theatre in the central part of the grounds, and these again have halls crossing their extremities, in the form of our Capitol. The Queen's Room and the one adjoining, decorated constantly with fresh-cut flowers (under the supervision of the queen's sister, herself also a wife of the king), are the only rooms enclosed with substantial teak-wood boards alternating with ornamental glass windows, the whole forming nicely-finished and beautiful walls. The second king's department is next in beauty of finish, and then come those of the highest princes. All have vied with each other in their attempt to make the finest show. On Friday preceding the opening the king dedicated a monument to the founder of the present dynasty, and one to some other dead man (I forget his name), and they had a wonderful