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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	work_n	write_v	yield_v	23	3	6.7056	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48403	A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam by Monsieur De La Loubere ... ; done out of French, by A.P. Gen. R.S.S.; Du royaume de Siam. English	La Loubère, Simon de, 1642-1729.; A. P.	1693 (1693)	Wing L201; ESTC R5525	377,346	277

countervail ours by much but their Sails have this advantage that spontaneously supporting themselves they do better receive the Wind when it is near it that is to say when it blows as much against us as possibly it can without being contrary to the Course In fine the Siameses have Timber proper for building of Houses Wood for other uses for Wainscotting and Carving they have both light and very heavy Wood some easie to cleave and others which cleaveth not what Wedges soever it receives This last is called by the Europeans Wood-Mary and is better than any to make the Ribs of Ships That which is heavy and tough is called Iron-wood very well known in our Islands of America and it is affirmed in process of time it eats the Iron They have a Wood which for its Lightness and Colour some conceive to be Fur but it takes the Carver's Chisel in so many different ways without splitting that I question whether we have any like it in Europe But above all the Siameses have Trees so high and so strait Trees for Balons that one alone is sufficient to make a Boat or Balon as the Portugueses speak between 16 and 20 Fathom long They hollow the Tree and then by the heat of the Fire enlarge the Capacity thereof which done they raise the sides with an edge that is to say with a Board of the same length And in fine at both the ends they fasten a Prow and a Poop very high and a little bending out frequently adorn'd with sculpture and gilding and with some pieces of Mother of Pearl Nevertheless amongst so many different sorts of Wood They have none of our Wood. they have none of those which we know in Europe They have not been able to raise any Mulberry Trees and for this reason they have no Silk-worms No Flax also grows amongst them nor in any other place of India or at least it is not in any esteem The Cotton which they have in abundance is they say more agreeable and more healthful to them by reason that Cotton-cloth grows not cold by being wet with sweat and consequently occasions not the catching cold as Linnen does They have the Cinnamon Tree The Cinnamon and Fir Tree inferior indeed to that of the Island of Ceylon but better than any other they have the Sapan and other Woods proper for Dying They have also the Wood Aquila or Aloes Wood Aquila not so good indeed as the Calamba of Cochinchina but better than the Wood Aquila of any other Country This Wood is found only in pieces by reason they are only certain rotten places in Trees of a certain kind And every Tree of this same Species has it not and those which have have them not all in the same place so that it requires a tedious search in the Wood. 'T was formerly very dear at Paris but is at present to be had at a reasonable rate CHAP. V. Concerning the Mines of Siam NO Country has a greater Reputation of being rich in Mines than the Country of Siam The Reputation of the Mines of Siam and the great quantity of Idols and other cast works which are there seen evinces that they have been better cultivated there in former times than now they are 'T is believed likewise that they thence extracted that great quantity of Gold wherewith their Superstition has adorned not only their almost innumerable Idols but the Wainscot and Roofs of their Temples They do likewise daily discover Pits anciently dug and the remains of a great many Furnaces which are thought to have been abandon'd during the ancient Wars of Pegu. Nevertheless the King that now reigns has not been able to find any Vein of Gold or Silver that is worth the pains that he has therein employed The State of the Mines at present although he hath applied unto this work some Europeans and amongst the rest a Spaniard that came from Mexico who found if not a great fortune at least his Subsistence for twenty years even to his Death by flattering the Avarice of this Prince with the imaginary promises of infinite Treasures After having dug and min'd in several places they light only on some very mean Copper Mines tho intermixt with a little Gold and Silver Five hundred weight of Ore scarce yielding an Ounce of Metal neither understood they how to make the separation of Metals Tambac But the King of Siam to render his mixture more precious caus'd some Gold to be added thereunto and this is what they call Tambac 'T is said that the Mines of the Isle of Borneo do naturally produce it very Rich and the scarceness augments the price thereof as it formerly increased that of the famous Corinthian Brass but certainly that which makes the true value thereof amongst the Siameses is the quantity of Gold wherewith it is thought to be mixed When their Avarice creates desires it is for the Gold and not for the Tambac and we have seen that when the King of Siam has ordered Crucifixes to be made to present to the Christians the most noble and smallest part which is the Christ has been of Gold the Cross alone of Tambac Vincent le Blanc relates that the Peguins have a mixture of Lead and Copper which he calls sometimes Ganze and sometimes Ganza and of which he reports that they make Statues and a small Money which is not stampt with the Kings Coin but which every one has a right to make Mr. Vincent the Physitian retained by the King of Siam to work in his Mines From Siam we brought back Mr. Vincent the Physitian He departed from France to go into Persia with the late Bishop of Babylon and the report of the arrival of the King 's first Ships at Siam made him to go thither as well out of a desire to travel as in hopes of procuring his return into France He understood Mathematicks and Chymistry and the King of Siam retained him some time at the work in his Mines What he relates concerning the Mines of Siam He informed me that he rectified the labours of the Siamese in some things so that they obtain a little more profit than they did He show'd them a Mine of very good Steel at the top of a Mountain which had been already discovered and which they perceived not He discovered to them one of Crystal one of Antimony one of Emeril and some others with a Quarry of white Marble Besides this he found out a Gold Mine which to him appear'd very rich as far as he was able to judge without trying it but he has not showed it them Several Siameses most Talapoins came secretly to consult him about the Art of purifying and separating Metals and brought him divers specimens of very rich Ore From some he extracted a very good quantity of fine Silver and from others the mixture of several Metals Tin and Lead As for Tin and Lead the Siameses have long

the Laws which are public and which never alter they publish every fifteen days by Proclamation a small number of Precepts which are the ground of their Moral Law as the Commandments of God are ours They have not neglected Punishments seeing that the Magistrates do answer for the faults of their Family the Parents for the faults of their Children the Superiors for the crimes of their Inferiors and that they all have a right to punish the faults of those for whom they answer but I have already handled these things and some others in my Relation This is what I had to say concerning the care which the Chineses have had to to preserve their Morals the duration of which is doubtless the greatest wonder that we have seen among men It may be suspected that their History is flattering in some things They can lye without fearing to be contradicted by their Neighbors and it is probable that they have not always spoken the Truth seeing that their History is the work of their policy The Office of an Historian is amongst them a public Office The History of a King is written after his death by the order of his Successor who sometimes has been his Enemy and not any History is published till the Race of the Kings whereof it treats is extinct or at least driven from the Throne It is not lawful for any Historian to call in question the History already written nor for any particular person to write History every one only may make Abridgments of the Histories already published There is therefore but one single general History and no particular Memoirs Yet there is no appearance that they have corrupted the most important of the Events and the Roman Historians cannot perhaps have been more faithful in what they have writ to the Honor of their Country and to the Shame of their Enemies But a particular reason casts a great doubt on the Chinese History from the beginning of their Monarchy to about 200 years before Jesus Christ because that Xin the first King of the Race Cina who reigned about 200 years before Jesus Christ burnt as far as it was possible all the Books of China which treated not of Medicine or Divination Their History shows that he exercised great cruelties against those which concealed Books and that so few escaped his fury and almost none entirely A very singular event amongst those who continually destroy the Memorial of things past This therefore sufficeth in my opinion to doubt if one will whether this great Empire could be formed without any war Notwithstanding this loss of their Books the Chineses cease not to give a compleat History not only from the beginning of their Monarchy but from the Origine of Mankind which they make to re-ascend several thousands of years beyond the Truth Nevertheless they themselves acknowledge that their History has the semblance of a Fable in whatever precedes the beginning of their Monarchy but it has been hitherto difficult to perswade them that they had not had a long succession of Kings before Jesus Christ which remounts beyond the time where our common Chronology places the flood insomuch that several amongst the Missionaries have thought it necessary to have recourse to the Chronology of the Septuagint according to which the Deluge is more ancient by several Ages than according to the common Chronology What render'd the Chinese History more probable is that under every King it records the Eclipses and other celestial Phaenomena of his Reign but Monsieur Cassini having examined the time of a Conjunction of the Planets which they place under their fifth King he has found it above 500 years later than their History makes it and he proves this very misreckoning of 500 years by another Astronomical remark referred to the Reign of their seventh King Thus the Chinese Monarchy appears less ancient by 500 years than the Chineses have thought and it may be presumed that in this succession of Kings which they give us they have put those who have reigned at the same time in diverse Provinces of China when it was divided into several little Feudatary States under the same Lord. Monsieur Cassini having given me his Reflexions upon this subject I have thought fit to add them here and once again to adorn my work with a Chapter after his fancy And because he has communicated unto me a thought which he had about the sitution of the Taprobane of the Ancients I have besought him to give it me whatever respects the Indies being not improper in this Book and whatever comes from Monsieur Cassini being always well received by all Reflexions on the Chinese Chronology by Monsieur Cassini I. The System of the Chineses THe years of the Chineses are lunisolar some of which are Common of 12 lunar Months others Embolismick of 13. The first day of the month is ordinarily the first day after the Conjunction of the Moon with the Sun so that the Eclipses of the Sun do ordinarily happen the last day of the month as may be seen in the Chinese Chronology of Father Couplet If the beginnings of the months do remove from this Epooha of the Conjunctions it is easie to restore them after the observation of an Eclipse of the Sun The order of the Common and Embolismick years is regulated by the Cycle of 60 years in which 22 are Embolismick and the others Common According to Father Martinius in his Chinese History the years at the Moons Conjunction with the Sun the nearest the fifteenth degree of Aquarius that is to say the point of the Zodiack which is at equal distances from the points of the Winter Solstice and of the Vernal Equinox which according to this Author has been observed from the twenty fifth Age before the Birth of Jesus Christ to the present Age tho this beginning has varied according to the will of diverse Emperors and that they have been obliged sometimes to correct the year from the Errors which were crept therein There may be more error in the Epocha of the years than in the Epocha of the months because that the points of the Zodiack which determine the first month of the year are not immediately visible as the Eclipses of the Sun which determine the beginnings of the months It is certain as Father Martinius remarks that after a period of 60 lunisolar years the Conjunctions of the Moon with the Sun return not to the same point of the Zodiack but that they anticipate three degrees which the Sun runs through only in three days which in ten periods of 60 years amount to 30 days Thus to hinder the beginning of the year from removing above a Sign from the fifteenth degree of Aquarius it would be necessary that the Chineses should add to every period of 600 years a month extraordinary above the 22 months which are added to every period of 60 years Yet Father Martinius relates that they have no need of any intercalation which I suppose it