The Pridi Banomyong Library Rare Book Room, Thammasat University, Tha Prachan campus, owns a number of rare and useful items of potential interest to students and researchers, especially those interested in history, literature, education, political science, Asian studies, and related subjects.

Among them is the book Through the Buffer State. A Record of Recent Travels Through Borneo, Siam, and Cambodia (1896).

Its author is Colonel John MacGregor, M.D. of the Indian Medical Service, a Scottish military surgeon.

Colonel MacGregor saw active service in India, Arabia, Baluchistan and Burma, during the Third Burma War, 1885 -87.

His book describes travels made through a region that was in the news because of rising tension due to French claims on the Mekong.

The Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893, known in Thailand as the Incident of Rattanakosin Era 112, was a conflict between the French Third Republic and the Kingdom of Siam.

Auguste Pavie, French vice consul in Luang Prabang in 1886, was the chief agent in furthering French interests in Laos.

His intrigues, which took advantage of Siamese weakness in the region and periodic invasions by Vietnamese rebels from Tonkin, increased tensions between Bangkok and Paris.

The conflict concluded with the Paknam Incident, in which French gunboats sailed up the Chao Phraya River to blockade Bangkok.

The Siamese subsequently agreed to cede the area that constitutes most of present-day Laos to France, an act that led to the significant expansion of French Indochina.

The book’s title refers to a buffer state, or country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers.

Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them.

In the nineteenth century, Siam was an independent buffer state between the British Raj, British Malaya, French Indochina, and their competing colonial interests in Laos and Cambodia.

The TU Library collection also includes a number of other books about nineteenth century Siam.

Here are some excerpts from Colonel MacGregor’s account of his travels:

The Siamese, like the Burmese, are extremely fond of the drama, and especially of plays of a comic or burlesque character. They generally act in the open air, or nearly in the open air, and their stage decorations are of the simplest and most primitive kind. 

On our way back, we met a company of these actors, powdered and painted in great style, and preparing for a play that evening at the corner of a street. There were lots of masks and false faces, with other paraphernalia of the stage. 

I tried on some of these masks, but none of them were big enough. Some of them were intended to come down over the head, and at last I got one big enough to slip over mine. It was obviously intended for a stage monarch, as it was very gaudy, and surmounted by miniature pagoda. 

The eye-sockets, however, did not hit off my eyes, and I could scarcely see at all when having it on.

But pretending to be a terrible bogey, and playing Blind Man’s Buff with the actors, I am sure we gave as much pleasure to the spectators as if it were a real play.

They are also great believers in superstition and demonology in the town of Pechim, and we saw some houses in the outskirts with buttressed cactuses in front of their doors, to guard them against evil spirits. 

It is a strange belief among many uncivilized people, that evil spirits can only go in a straight line, the same as is said to be the case with mad dogs.

One would think that evil spirits, being so canny, would be particularly handy in dodging round the corners. Yet this is not the case; for they don’t seem to be dodgy in that way at all, but go as it were straight in a bee line, till they reach their victim, or squash themselves like jelly fish against the first opposing obstacle in the way.

So practical a form does this belief take that, among the Shan and Kuchin mountaineers, the bamboo-lined passages leading up to their dwellings are made winding and crooked on purpose, so that the evil spirits or Nats will not be able to find their way when wishing to do them any harm.

But primitive man seldom attributes any great degree of ‘cuteness to the evil spirits that haunt him, and in the stage of Fetishism, the worshipper sometimes whips his fetish to bring him better luck next time.. […]

We stopped longer than we expected, for at this village we witnessed the ceremony of preparing young aspirants for the Siamese priesthood. There were five candidates, four of whom would be under twenty years of age, while the fifth would be considerably over fifty.

We mentioned before that a good pious Buddhist may become a priest or cease to be a priest at pleasure. But a candidate must go through those ceremonies all the same, and as long as he remains a priest must conform of course to the rules of the order, of which celibacy is one, and living on alms is another.

Three older ‘phras,’ or priests, were putting the neophytes through their facings, which consisted of much muttering and posturing of various kinds. The word ‘ phra,’ by the way, though generally used for a priest in Siam, is by no means confined to that order, but is also a title of rank among the laity, as in the case of Phra Yott, for example, who was not a priest but a civil official.

Indeed, the king himself is a phra, and his full title is Phra Bat Somdetch Phra Paramindr Maha Chulalongkorn Chula Chom-Klao Chow Yuhua, which I hope the reader will be able to remember better than the writer. But, in case he cannot, he will naturally be pleased to find out that His Majesty the King of Siam is generally known under the name of Chulalongkorn- only.

The elder priests were kneeling, and, when questioning the candidates, screened themselves by a large fan which they placed between them. Part of the trial consisted of vows and responses from the candidates, and partly in repeating long rigmaroles of something, which were probably passages from the ancient Pali writings.

Then the company, led by the priests and neophytes, marched in procession three times round the small temple, but yet the ceremony was not over. I tried to take a snap shot at this procession with my camera, but it was not successful.

And I wanted badly to take the photo of one of the neophytes, who looked rather picturesque with his shaven head and new canonicals, but the ceremony took too long, and we had to go away before it was all over.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)