ry, the garment is pulled up to the knees--a raining-in-London
effect, as it were,--it is freely predicted that the country will
suffer from floods. But if the folds of the silk reach to a point
midway between knee and ankle, then the farmers look forward to a
moderate rainfall and a prosperous season. It is as though the United
States Weather Bureau were to base its forecasts on the height at which
the Secretary of Agriculture wore his trousers.

The _panung_--a strip of silk or cotton about three yards long is the
national garment of Siam and among the poorer classes constitutes the
only article of clothing. It is admirably adapted to the climate, being
easy to wash and easy to put on: all that is necessary is to wind it
about the waist, pass the ends between the legs, and tuck them into the
girdle, thus producing the effect of a pair of knickerbockers. As both
sexes wear the _panung_, and likewise wear their hair cut short, it is
somewhat difficult to distinguish between men and women. Siamese women
keep their hair about four or five inches long and brush it straight
back, like American college students, without using any comb or other
ornament, thus giving them a peculiarly boyish appearance. In
explanation of this fashion of wearing the hair there is an interesting
tradition. Once upon a time, it seems, a Siamese walled city was
besieged by Cambodians while the men of the city were fighting
elsewhere and only women and children remained behind. A successful
defense was out of the question. In this emergency, a woman of militant
character--the Sylvia Pankhurst of her time--proposed to her terrified
sisters that they should cut their hair short and appear upon the walls
in men's clothing on the chance of frightening away the Cambodians. The
ruse succeeded, for, while the invaders were hesitating whether to
carry the city by storm, the Siamese warriors returned and put the
enemy to flight. The Siamese prince who told me the story, an officer
who had spent much of his life in Europe, remarked that he understood
that American women were also cutting off their hair.

"True enough," I admitted. "In the younger set bobbed hair is all the
vogue. But they don't cut off their hair, as your women did, to
frighten away the men."

* * * * *

If you will take down the family atlas and turn to the map of Southern
Asia you will see that Siam, with an area about equivalent to that of
Spain, occupie