546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To be without a patron in Siam or Cambodia is to get your name put 

 down on the list of royal slaves. Insulting the dragon's tail is even 

 more calamitous, for the tail is a most touchy member, and would as 

 soon create an earthquake and ruin the whole township as not. The 

 reckless builder who did such a thing would, therefore, be stoned out 

 of the community as a public enemy. Touching the dragon's back is 

 simple lese-majeste. The lord of the house will soon find out his crime, 

 but the knowledge will come too late. He will die. The belly is the 

 only safe part. If you choose that quarter toward which to heap up 

 your earth, then, subject to a number of other precautions to be men- 

 tioned, you are comparatively safe. It is to be observed, however, 

 that you have only three months to do your digging in. The Nagah, 

 for all that he is so testy, sleeps during that period, or, rather, it is 

 the disturbing him in his sleep that causes all the mischief. When the 

 quarter-year has passed he rouses himself, and shifts round to the next 

 point of the compass, and there, like the Norway kraken, composes 

 himself to sleep again. Digging operations must then be conducted 

 according to the new rules. Still, the time allowed is not unreasona- 

 ble. Even an average Indo-Chinese can dig a hole for a house-post in 

 three months. When you have settled generally how you ought to 

 dig, there are a number of special rules to be observed in the digging 

 itself. It will never do to go blindly ahead, for all the world as if 

 you were a navvy on piece-work. In the first place, it is well to dig 

 at large all over the space your house is intended to cover. In fact, 

 if you have any regard for yourself, you certainly will. There are 

 divers reasons for this. If you find costly articles, silver or gold, or 

 the images of men and deities, it is a most happy sign, and will go 

 far to counteract all but willful remissness in other matters. On the 

 other hand, when bones or ashes or the figures of wild animals are 

 found, the deductions are most unpropitious, and, if you persist in 

 going on, the house will have neither luck nor peace. If the remains 

 of previous house-posts are found still lying buried in the ground, they 

 must be carefully dug out and carried away, for if this were not done, 

 and a new building were to be run up over the old remains, sickness 

 and quarrelings would be the certain result. 



In addition to such elementary rules, which are matters of universal 

 knowledge in Indo-China, there are so many others that every one but 

 a very self-sufficient person will submit his surface soil to the inspec- 

 tion of a regular professional man, an expert in the science of founda- 

 tion-digging, before he makes a final decision. For example, though 

 it is undoubtedly most lucky to find silver or old bricks in your exca- 

 vations, you may at the same time come upon a colony of ants or other 

 living creatures settled upon the spot. It is one of the fundamental 

 rules of Buddhism that the breath of no living thing is to be taken, 

 and to dispossess them is not by any means a creditable proceeding. 

 Moreover, irrespectively of this objection, ants can bite through even 



