"The glow-worms settle on some trees like a fiery cloud, with this surprising circumstance, that a whole swarm of these insects, having taken possession of one tree and spread themselves over its branches, sometimes hide their light all at once, and a moment after make it appear again, with the utmost regularity and exactness, as if they were in perpetual systole and diastole." The lapse of centuries has wrought no change in the rhythmic regularity of this surprising exhibition. Out upon the river once again; the houses on the shore began to be more numerous, and presently began to crowd together in continuous succession; and from some of them the sound of merry laughter and of pleasant music issuing proved that not all the citizens of Bangkok were asleep. The soft light of the cocoanut-oil lamps supplied the place of the illumination of the fire-flies. Boats, large and small, were passing swiftly up and down the stream; now and then the tall masts of some merchant ships loomed indistinctly large through the darkness. I could dimly see high towers of temples and broad roofs of palaces; and I stepped on shore, at last, on the
"Dark shore, just seen that it was rich,"
with a half-bewildered feeling that I was passing through some pleasant dream of the Arabian Nights, from which I should presently awake.
Even when the flooding sunlight of the tropical morning poured in through the windows, it was difficult for me to realize that I was not in some unreal land. There was a sweet, low sound of music filling the air with its clear, liquid tones. And, joining with the music, was the pleasant ringing of a multitude of little bells, ringing I knew not where. It seemed as if the air was full of them. Close by, on one side, was the palace of a prince, and somewhere in his house or in his courtyard there were people playing upon instruments of music, made of smoothed and hollowed bamboo. But no human hands were busy with the bells. Within a stone's throw of my window rose the shining tower of the most splendid temple in Bangkok. From its broad octagonal base to the tip of its splendid spire it must measure, I should think, a good deal more than two hundred feet, and every inch of its irregular surface glitters with ornament. Curiously wrought into it are forms of men and birds, and grotesque beasts that seem, with outstretched hands or claws, to hold it up. Two thirds of the way from the base, stand, I remember, four white elephants, wrought in shining porcelain, facing one each way toward four points of the compass. From the rounded summit rises, like a needle, a sharp spire. This was the temple tower, and all over the magnificent pile, from the tip of the highest needle to the base, from every prominent angle and projection, there were hanging sweet-toned bells, with little gilded fans attached to their tongues; so swinging that they were vocal in the slightest breeze. Here was where the music came from. Even as I stood and looked I caught the breezes at it. Coming from the unseen distance, rippling the smooth surface of the swift river, where busy oars and carved or gilded prows of many boats were flashing in the sun, sweeping with pleasant whispers through the varied richness of the tropical foliage, stealing the perfume of its blossoms and the odor of its fruits, they caught the shining bells of this great tower, and tossed the music out of them. Was I awake I wondered, or was it some dream of Oriental beauty that would presently vanish?