When a large English map and globes of the celestial and terrestrial spheres arrived, they created quite a sensation in the ancient temple of the "Mothers of the Free." His Majesty caused the map to be set in a massive gold frame, and placed it with the globes on ponderously gilt supporters in the very middle of the temple, and for nine days crowds of women came to be instructed in the sciences of geography and astronomy, so that I found my hands quite full. It was hard for them to see Siam reduced to a mere speck on the great globe, but there was some consolation in the fact that England occupied even a smaller space. After the first excitement had worn off, my pupils began to enjoy their lessons; they would cluster round the globes, delighted with the novel idea of a world revolving in space, and some of them were as keen as any Arctic explorer for the discovery of the North Pole, where they could some day sit astride, as they thought, with perfect ease and security, and satisfy their doubts about the form and the revolution of the earth.
I found them always full of eager inquiry, unlike most Western children, about the sun and moon and stars; but they preferred to have them peopled with demons, ghosts, and hobgoblins, rather than to have them uninhabited.
On one occasion, when I informed them that the moon was supposed to be uninhabited, all the little eager faces were clouded, and their interest flagged, and little Wanee declared, "that for her part she was convinced that the moon was the beautiful daughter of a great king of Ayudia, who lived many thousands of years ago, and the head wife of the sun, and not a great stupid ball of earth and rock rolling about in the sky to no purpose but for the sun to shine upon."
One day the steamer "Chow P'haya" brought his Majesty a box of ice from Singapore, and I obtained some for an object-lesson. The women and children found no difficulty in believing that it was water frozen; but when I went to tell them about snow, the whole school became indignant at what they considered an evident stretch of my imagination, and my dear simple friend, Hidden-Perfume, laid her hand gently upon my arm, and said, "Please do not say that again. I believe you like my own heart in everything you have taught to me, but this sounds like the story of a little child who wishes to say something more wonderful than anything that was ever said before." So my lesson of the snow proved a stumbling-block to me for several days; my pupils' imaginations had taken alarm, and they could not be brought to believe the simplest statements.