ese department of the Baptist mission ceased now to exist.
An unusually protracted total eclipse of the sun was to occur this year in August, and the Siamese dominions afforded the very best place in the world to observe it. His Majesty the king of Siam, himself a practical astronomer and very fond of the science, generously invited the French astronomical expedition to be his guests on the occasion—the governor of Singapore also, and the foreigners in Bangkok generally, including the missionaries. He went himself with his entire court, with quite a fleet of steamers, down the west coast of the gulf, some two hundred miles, to Hua Wan, the point selected, where the jungle had been cleared and a bamboo palace with other buildings had been put up, expending upon his right royal hospitalities in the whole affair about ninety-six thousand dollars. A malarial fever taken there brought on, not long after his return to his capital, the death of this martyr to science, the most enlightened of all the sovereigns of Asia. He died with Buddha's last words as the last upon his lips: "All that exists is unreliable." He used to say to the missionaries, "The sciences I receive, astronomy, geology, chemistry,—these I receive; the Christian religion I do not receive; many of your countrymen do not receive it." And now he died as the philosopher dieth, stepping out into the darkness beyond, on which neither sci-
