VI.] THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS. 2OQ 



penetrate into the darkest corners 1 of the social system. The 

 open slave -markets, which in the vassal Lao states fostered 

 systematic raiding-expeditions amongst the unreduced aborigines, 

 were abolished in 1873, and since 1890 all born in slavery are free 

 on reaching their 2ist year. 



Siamese Buddhism is a slightly modified form of that prevail- 

 ing in Ceylon, although strictly practised but by few. 



,_. , Buddhism. 



1 here are two classes or ' ' sects, the reformers who 

 attach more importance to the observance of the canon law than 

 to meditation, and the old believers, some devoted to a contem- 

 plative life, others to the study of the sunless wilderness of 

 Buddhist writings. But, beneath it all, spirit or devil-worship is 

 still rife, and in many districts pure animism is practically the 

 only religion. Even temples and shrines have been raised to the 

 countless gods of land and water, woods, mountains, villages and 

 households. To these gods are credited all sorts of calamities, 

 and to prevent them from getting into the bodies of the dead the 

 latter are brought out, not through door or window, but through 

 a breach in the wall, which is afterwards carefully built up. Simi- 

 lar ideas prevail amongst many other peoples, both at higher and 

 lower levels of culture, for nothing is more ineradicable than such 

 popular beliefs associated with the relations presumed to exist 

 between the present and the after life. 



Incredible sums are yearly lavished in offerings to the spirits, 

 which give rise to an endless round of feasts and revels, and also 

 in support of the numerous Buddhist temples, convents, and their 

 inmates. The treasures accumulated in the " royal cloisters " 

 and other shrines represent a great part of the national savings 



1 How very dark some of these comers can be may be seen from the sad 

 picture of maladministration, vice, and corruption still prevalent so late as 1890, 

 given by Mr Hallett in A Thotisand Miles on an Elephant, ch. xxxv. ; and 

 even still later by Mr H. Warington Smyth in Five Years in Siam, from 1891 

 to 1896 (1898). This observer credits the Siamese with an undeveloped sense 

 of right and wrong, so that they are good only by accident. " To do a thing 

 because it is right is beyond them ; to abstain from a thing because it is against 

 their good name, or involves serious consequences, is possibly within the power 

 of a few; the question of right and wrong does not enter the calculation." 

 But he thinks they may possess a high degree of intelligence, and mentions the 

 case of a peasant, who from an atlas had taught himself geography and politics. 

 K. 14 



