1 
A dream-like scene, peculiar to this Venice of the East.
—Anna Leonowens, The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870)
Siam, August 1824. A sweltering late afternoon rather like the inside of a steamer basket. After a torrential monsoon storm, Meklong, a fishing village about sixty miles west of Bangkok, showed signs of life again. The red-hot disk of the tropical sun blazed as it dipped into the Gulf of Siam, spilling a pool of liquid gold. Inside the sand bar, up the paknam (river mouth), where the water turned brown and muddy after a rain, the Meklong River came alive with Chinese junks, swift sampans, and tiny canoes, all sculled expertly by peddlers who screamed the praises of their wares in shrill, singsong voices. Uneven rows of floating houses, thatched with nipa leaves and grounded by bamboo poles drilled into the river bottom, wobbled on water like oversize matchboxes. Fronting many of these boathouses were single-table stalls that sold anything from dried fish, fresh vegetables, fruits, and utensils to other household items. Competing for attention with the peddlers zigzagging the river on their craft, the houseboat traders also bellowed as if in a yodeling match. It was the cacophony of a floating bazaar.
Amid the clang and din, a shiny 30-ton cutter, imperiously sporting an English nameboard, The Friends, nosed into this tableau like a haughty bird of prey alight in a chicken yard. Standing on the stern was a European man with a head of wild hair, a chiseled chin, a high nose, and penetrating eyes. He was the boat’s owner, Robert Hunter, a British businessman hailing from Greenock, Scotland. His family had been tobacco traders in colonial Virginia until they were driven out by the Revolutionary War and began to dabble in the manufacture of glass, linen, and cotton. Adopting the family trade, Hunter had first gone to India. As soon as Singapore transformed itself, seemingly overnight, from an island of mangrove swamps to an international free port in 1819, Hunter ventured there and operated a few businesses, including Hunter-Watt & Company. Using Singapore as his base, Hunter traveled frequently to various parts of the Malay Archipelago and eventually arrived at Bangkok in the summer of 1824.1
In fact, that year was a time of uncertainty in the capital of Siam. King Rama II had died in July, leaving the throne to Phra Nangklao, widely believed to be a usurper because he was the king’s son by a concubine. The more legitimate heir, Prince Mongkut, Rama II’s son by a queen, was bundled off to a monastery to shield him from the perils of the power struggle. Ishmael was crowned while Isaac was exiled. In addition to palace intrigues, 1824 also witnessed the outbreak of the Anglo-Burmese War in March. Even though they were happy to see the defeat of the hostile neighbor who had invaded Siam many times, the Siamese were shocked by the technical superiority of the British and alarmed by rumors that their own country would be next in line for a British attack.2
The Siamese desperation made Hunter look like a godsend, for he came bearing a thousand muskets as a gift for the king. Rama III was so pleased that he awarded Hunter the honorary title of Luang Avudh Viset and ordered a dwelling place to be arranged for the smooth-talking Scotsman. Hunter would soon take a Siamese wife and become a partner in trade with the king and his ministers, who had enjoyed a virtual monopoly on commerce with other nations.3 As a businessman, Hunter was said to be shrewd and hardheaded. Arrogant beneath his Scottish reserve, he was socially adaptable, “with a persuasive tongue and the useful ability of ‘getting in’ with the right people.” In the words of Kay Hunter, one of the Hunter descendants who has tracked down the colorful stories of her illustrious ancestor: “In many ways he was typical of the Westerner who had adopted the East; he had money, he had power, and was thus inclined to throw his weight about, but he was without that bluff bonhomie so peculiar to the English abroad. Instead, he had the studied reserve of the Scot, unless he was roused, when a quick temper and an infuriating arrogance betrayed him. On the surface his ways were smooth and relaxed, but the fact remained that Robert Hunter never missed opportunities.”4
Cruising down the Meklong on that steamy summer day in 1824, Hunter would stumble upon a so-called golden opportunity. A sportsman fond of sailing and hunting, Hunter often took his friends in his boat and went on shooting expeditions to the swamps along the bold, rocky coast of western Siam. On that day, after bagging enough ducks and snipes, Hunter and friends set sail for home in Bangkok.5
With the sun gone, dusk set in swiftly. A half-moon hove into view on the far horizon, faint as a partial thumbprint on a windowpane. One by one, lanterns appeared in front of the floating houses and torches blazed on junks, dappling the brackish river with flickering reflections. Standing by the gunwale, Hunter suddenly saw something moving in the water: Like a mysterious creature crawling out of Greek mythology, two bodies naked from the waist up, two heads and four arms, swam in perfect tandem like one body. Amazed, Hunter drew his boat closer to the two-headed, Hydra-like creature, which by now had effortlessly climbed into a little dinghy. In the dim light, against glimmering reflections, Hunter was astonished to find that the creature was not some amphibious reptile but in fact two teenage boys, connected by a band of flesh at the bases of their chests.6
Eighteenth-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico once said, “All barbarian histories have fabulous beginnings.” The story of the Siamese Twins is not necessarily one that contains much barbarity, unless we believe, perhaps rightly so, that the nineteenth-century obsession with abnormality—that insatiable desire of humans looking at other humans as monsters—reveals something disturbingly barbaric. Nor does an adventurous, curio-seeking Scotsman’s so-called discovery of a pair of conjoined twins rise to the level of a fable. But the chance encounter certainly set the stage for two of the most fabulous showmen the world would ever see.