CHAPTER III 

 PHRA RAM MAKES A PILGRIMAGE 



THREE things are dearer to the Siamese heart 

 than life itself: (1) chewing the betel-nut; 

 (2) " making merit "; (3) a pilgrimage to the an- 

 cestral home. The first is at once his joy and 

 solace, the second his simple method of mollifying 

 Buddha through the building of prachadis, or mon- 

 umental sacred spires, of greater or less preten- 

 sion ; the third the Mecca of his active years, and 

 the comforting reminiscence of old age. 



Now, although Phra Ram was the governmental 

 chief of the line separating Burma from Siam, the 

 king's representative to the Karens— jungle folk 

 living on both sides the boundary— and an official 

 before whom the common people prostrated them- 

 selves, yet was he none the less Siamese. As to 

 temperament he was distinctly native, but exotic 

 in the clever ways and means devised to satisfy 

 appetite and tradition simultaneously. He was 

 an enlightened Oriental who acquiesced in the 

 harmless and somewhat delightful superstitious 

 humbuggery surrounding him — but lost never an 

 eye to the main chance. In the vernacular of the 

 street, he was " sawing wood " all the time. 



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