54 THROUGH THE KLAWNGS 



The exterior decorations of these wats is fanciful 

 and not always pleasing, but the interior usually 

 presents a lavish display of gold and silver orna- 

 ments. Wat Phra Keo in Bangkok has a fortune 

 in vases, candelabra and altar vessels ; not to men- 

 tion innumerable gold statues of Buddha, or the 

 Emerald Image of the presiding deity, with its jade 

 body and eyes of emeralds. Countless little brass 

 bells hung around the eaves of this wat tinkle 

 softly with every passing breeze, and you enter the 

 temple through mother-of-pearl inlaid ebony doors 

 of a ton weight. Wats are for the more settled 

 sections, but prachadis of uniform model but vary- 

 ing size I found everywhere in Bangkok, on the 

 rivers, the klawngs, in the settlements, even on the 

 road to the jungle. Prachadis marked my path, 

 in fact, to the very edge of habitation. They are 

 built of a kind of earthen composition, often 

 fantastically decorated with broken bits of differ- 

 ent colored china, but may be as low as three feet 

 or so high as thirty feet, according to the material 

 prosperity of the supplicant. The more of these 

 one man builds the more merit he makes, conse- 

 quently he builds as frequently as the remorseful 

 spirit moves and the purse permits. I recall one 

 small bit of ground belonging to a Siamese on the 

 outskirts of Bangkok that looks like a chess board, 

 so closely placed are the tokens of his merit 



