60 PHEA EAM MAKES 



When, therefore, the king's minister ordered him 

 to escort my hunting expedition to the Burma line, 

 Phra Earn saw his opportunity for making that 

 long deferred pilgrimage through the land of his 

 fathers. 



The average Oriental is a ,bluff, inscrutable for 

 only a brief period if you are a little wise in the 

 ways of the Far East ; Phra Earn was a pastmaster 

 in wearing the disguise. In fact, just to know the 

 chief of the Siam-Burma line, was a liberal educa- 

 tion in Far Eastern life philosophy ; not that he had 

 travelled, or was beautiful to look upon, or learned 

 in his Buddhist faith ; but he was so ingenuous in 

 his ingenuity. You would never have thought he 

 even had ancestors, much less suspect him of plan- 

 ning a pilgrimage to their abiding place; on the 

 contrary the preparations making for the journey 

 would have convinced you that the jungle imme- 

 diately on the outskirts of Eathburi overflowed 

 with tiger, elephant and buffalo ; especially buffalo 

 —that being the game I sought. And he could be 

 so important and so busy and so bumptious over 

 the trifles of life ! you could not persuade yourself 

 that he had a thought above the knotting of his 

 sarong, or the quality of his betel-nut. Eeally, he 

 was deliciously artful; the most subtle gentleman 

 I ever encountered. Not that I would infer dis- 

 honesty—by no means; he was just Oriental. 



