reason that the heat of the day dissipates all their Spirits Our Flowers have most scent about the Evening and we have some but few that smell only at Night Whatever has not naturally a great deal of taste and smell Why there is no Muscadine Grapes in Persia nor at Suratt cannot keep them in Countries extreamly hot Thus though there be Grapes in Persia and at Suratt yet there can be no Muscadine Grapes what care soever is therein employed The best Plants which are transported thither from Europe do presently degenerate and yield the second year ordinary Grapes only But at Siam where the Climate is much hotter there are no good Grapes Nor Grapes at Siam The few Vines which are planted at Louvo in the King's Garden produce only some bad Grapes which are small and of a bitter taste Pure Water is their ordinary Drink they love only to drink it perfum'd Pure water the ordinary drink of the Siameses whereas to our Palate Water which has no smell is the best As the Siameses go not to draw it at the Springs which are doubtless too remote it is wholesom only when it has been setled more or fewer days according as the Inundation is higher or lower or wholly run out For when the Waters retire and they are filled with Mud and perhaps with the ill Juices which they take from the Earth or when the River is re-entred into its Channel sufficiently muddy they are more corrosive do cause Disenteries and Lasks and cannot be drunk without danger till they have let them stand in great Jars or Pitchers the space of three Weeks or a Month. At Louvo the Waters are much more unwholsome than at Siam The Waters of Louvo and of Tlee Poussone by reason that the whole River flows not thither but only an Arm which has been turned thither which runs always decreasing after the Rains and at last leaves its Channel dry The King of Siam drinks water from a great Cistern made in the Fields on which is kept a continual Watch. Besides that this Prince has a little house called Tlee Poussone or Rich Sea about a League from Louvo It is seated on the brink of certain Low-lands about two or three Leagues in extent which receive the Rain-waters and preserve them This little Sea is of an irregular figure its Shores are neither handsom nor even but its Waters are wholesome by reason they are deep and setled and I have also heard that the King of Siam drinks thereof For pleasure and conversation the Siameses do take Tea Tea I mean the Siameses of the City of Siam For the use of Tea is unknown in all the other places of the Kingdom But at Siam the Custom is throughly setled and 't is amongst them a necessary Civility to present Tea to all that visit them They call it Tcha as do the Chineses and have not two Terms the one for what we call Tea and the other for what we call Cha or Flower of Tea 'T is certain that it is not a Flower But to assert whether they are the budding Leaves and consequently the tenderest or the highest and consequently the less nourished or the point of the Leaves which have been boil'd at China or a kind of particular Tea is what I cannot determine by reason that various Accounts have been given me thereof The Siameses do reckon three sorts of Tea the Tchaboui or Boui Tea Three sorts of Tea which is reddish which some say fattens and is astringent 't is look'd upon at Siam as a Remedy for the Flux The Somloo Tea which on the contrary purges gently And the third sort of Tea which has no particular Name that I know and which neither loosens nor binds The Chineses and all the Orientals use Tea as a Remedy against the Head-ach Tea is a sudorifick But then they make it stronger and after having drunk five or six Cups they lye down in their bed cover themselves up and sweat It is not very difficult in such hot Climates for Sudorificks to operate and they are looked upon there almost as general Remedies The manner of preparing Tea They prepare the Tea in this manner They have Copper Pots tinn'd on the inside wherein they boil the Water and it boils in an instant by reason the Copper thereof is very thin This Copper comes from Japan if my Memory fails me not and 't is so easie to work that I question whether we have any so pliant in Europe These Pots are called Boulis and on the other hand they have Boulis of red Earth which is without taste tho without Varnish They first rince the Earthen Bouli with boiling water to heat it then they put in as much Tea as one can take up with the Finger and Thumb and afterwards fill it with boiling water and after having covered it they still pour boiling water on the outside they stop not the Spout as we do When the Tea is sufficiently infused that is to say when the Leaves are precipitated they pour the Liquor into China dishes which at first they fill only half to the end that if it appear too strong or too deep they may temper it by pouring in pure water which they still keep boiling in the Copper Bouly Nevertheless if they will still drink they do again fill the Earthen Bouly with this boiling water and so they may do several times without adding any more Tea until they see that the water receives no tincture They put no Sugar into the Dishes by reason they have none refin'd which is not candy and the candy melts too slowly They do therefore take a little in their mouth which they champ as they drink their Tea When they would have no more Tea they turn the Cup down on the Saucer because that 't is the greatest incivility among them to refuse any thing and that if they leave the Cup standing they fail not to serve them again with Tea which they are oblig'd to receive But they forbear to fill the Dish unless they would testifie to him unto whom they present it full that 't is as some say for once and that it is not expected that he ever come again to the House Excellent water necessary for Tea The most experienced do say that the Water cannot be too clear for Tea that Cistern-water is the best as being the most pure and that the finest Tea in the world becomes bad in water which is not excellent Whether it is necessary to drink the Tea hot In a word if the Chineses drink Tea so hot 't is not perhaps that they have found it either more wholesom or more pleasant after this manner for they drink all sorts of Liquor at the same degree of heat unless the Tartars have now taught them as it is said to drink Ice 'T is true that the infusion of Tea is perform'd quicker in hot water than cold but I have
throughout the East even amongst Strangers that an European who has liv'd there a long time finds much difficulty to re-accustom himself to the Familiarities of these Countries The Indian Princes being very much given to Traffic they love to invite Strangers amongst them and they protect them even against their own Subjects And hence it is that the Siameses do for Example appear savage and that they eschew the Conversation of Strangers They know that they are thought always to be in the wrong and that they are always punish'd in the Quarrels they have with them The Siameses do therefore educate their Children in an extream Modesty by reason that it is necessary in Trade and much more in the Service which for six Months in the Year they render unto the King or to the Mandarins by order of their King Their Inclination to Silence Silence is not greater amongst the Carthusians than it is in the Palace of this Prince the Lords dispense not therewith more than others The sole desire of speaking never excites the Siameses to say any thing that may displease 'T is necessary that they be thoroughly convinced that you would know the truth of any thing to embolden them to declare it against your opinion They do in nothing affect to appear better instructed than you not in the things of their own Country altho' you be a Stranger The Raillery amongst them They appear'd to me very far from all sort of Raillery by reason they understand not any perhaps thro' the fault of the Interpreters 'T is principally in matter of Raillery that this ancient Proverb of the Indians is verified That things best weighed when delivered by an Interpreter are as a pure Spring which runs thro' mud Most safe it is to droll little with Strangers even with those that understand our Language because that Railleries are the last thing that they understand and that it is easie to offend them with a Raillery which they understand not I doubt not therefore that the Siameses know how to jest wittily one with another Some have assur'd me that they do it frequently amongst Equals and even in Verse and that as well the Women as the Men are all very readily verst therein the most ordinary method of which is amongst them a continued Raillery wherein emulously appears the briskness of the Answers and Repartees I have observ'd the same thing amongst the people of Spain The Politeness of the Siamese Language But when they enter into earnest their Language is much more capable than our's of whatever denotes Respect and Distinction They give for instance certain Titles to certain Officers as amongst us are the Titles of Excellence and Greatness Moreover these words I and Me indifferent in our Language do express themselves by several terms in the Siamese Tongue the one of which is from the Master to the Slave and the other from the Slave to the Master Another is from the Man of the people to a Lord and a fourth is us'd amongst Equals and some there are which are only in the mouth of Talapoins The word You and He are not expressed in fewer manners And when they speak of Women because that in their Tongue there is no distinction of Genders into Masculine and Feminine they add to the Masculine the word Nang which in the Balie Language signifies Young to imply the Feminine as if we should say for Example Young Prince instead of Princess It seems that their Civility hinders them from thinking that Women can ever grow old By the same Complaisance they call them by the most precious or most agreeable things of Nature as young Diamond young Gold young Crystal young Flower The Names of the Siameses The Princess the King's Daughter is called Nang fa young Heaven if he had a Son he would be called as some report Tchaou fa Lord of Heaven 'T is certain that the white Elephant which Mr. de Chaumont saw at Siam and which was dead when we arriv'd there had attain'd to an extream old Age yet because it was a Female and that they believe moreover that in the Body of white Elephants there is always a Royal Soul they called her verbatim Nang Paya Tchang peuac young Prince white Elephant The words which the Siameses use by way of Salute are cavai Tchaou The words which the Siameses use in saluting I salute Lord. And if 't is really a Lord that salutes an Inferior he will bluntly answer Raou vai I salute or ca vai which signifies the same thing altho' the word ca which signifies me ought to be naturally only in the mouth of a Slave speaking to his Master and that the word Raou which also signifies me denotes some dignity in him that speaks To ask How do you they say Tgiou de Kindi That is to say Do you continue well Do you eat well But it is a singular Observation How they are permitted to ask News of their King's health that it is not permitted a Siamese to ask his Inferior any News concerning their King's health as if it was a Crime in him that approaches near the person of the Prince to be less informed thereof than another that is obliged to keep at a greater distance Their civil posture of Sitting is as the Spaniards sit crossing their Legs How they sit and they are so well accustom'd thereunto that even on a Seat when given them they place themselves no otherwise When they bow they do not stand but if they sit not cross-leg'd Their Postures they bow themselves out of respect to one another The Slaves and the Servants before their Masters and the common People before the Lords keep on their knees with their Body seated on their heels their head a little inclin'd and their hands joined at the top of their forehead A Siamese which passeth by another to whom he would render Respect will pass by stooping with joined hands more or less elevated and will salute him no otherwise In their Visits if it is a very inferior person that makes it Their Ceremonies in Visits he enters stooping into the Chamber he prostrates himself and remains upon his knees and sitting upon his heels after the manner that I have described but he dares not to speak first He must wait till he to whom he pays the Visit speaks to him and thus the Mandarins that came to visit us on the behalf of the King of Siam waited always till I spake to them first If it is a Visit amongst Equals or if the Superior goes to see the Inferior the Master of the House receives him at the Hall-door and at the end of the Visit he accompanies him thither and never any further Moreover he walks either upright or stooping according to the degree of Respect which he owes to the Visitor He likewise observes to speak first or last according as he can or as he ought but he always offers
They are innumerable at the Isle of Luban which is one of the Phillipines And a little after he subjoyns the Seguejes are brought from the Isles of Baldivia which are the Maldiviae 'T is not easie to say how far the use of this Money extends it self How much the use of this Money is extended It is current throughout India and almost over all the coasts of Africk and some have informed me that it is received in some places of Hungary but I can hardly believe it by reason I see it not worth the trouble to carry it thither It breaks much in the use and as there is less of it it is more worth in respect to the Silver Money as likewise it lowers its price when there arrives any considerable cargo by any Ship for it is a kind of Merchandise The ordinary price at Siam is that a Fouan or the eighth part of a Fical is worth eight hundred Coris or that 7 or 800 Coris are hardly worth a Penny The lowness of Money being a certain sign of a good Market or rather of the cheapness of Commodities CHAP. XV. A Character of the Siameses in general AS easiness of living consists in the reasonable price of things necessary for life The Siameses are good People and as good manners are more easily preserved in a moderate easiness than in a Poverty attended with too much labour or in an over-abundant Idleness it may be affirm'd that the Siameses are good men Vices are detestable amongst them and they excuse them not as witty conceits nor as sublimity of mind A Siamese never so little above the refuse of the people is so far from making himself drunk that he accounts it a shame to drink Arak Adultery is rare at Siam Adultery is rare at Siam not so much because the Husband has the power of doing himself Justice over his Wife that is to say to kill her if he finds her in a palpable offence or to sell her if he can convict her of Infidelity as because the Women are not corrupted by Idleness for it is they that maintain the men by their Labour nor by the Luxury of the Table or of Cloaths nor by Gameing nor by Shows The Siamese Women do not play they receive no Visits from men and Plays are very rare at Siam and have no appointed days nor certain price nor publick Theater It must not however be thought that all Marriages are chaste but at least any other Love more immoderate than that of the Wives is they say without example Jealousie is amongst them only a meer opinion of Glory The Jealousie of the Siameses to their Wives which is greater in those that are most highly advanced in Dignity The Wives of the People managing all the Trade do enjoy a perfect Liberty Those of the Nobles are very reserved and stir not abroad but seldom either upon some Family visit or to go to the Pagodes But when they go out they go with their face uncovered even when they go on foot and sometimes it is hard to distinguish them from the Women-slaves which accompany them In a word they not only find nothing austere in the constraint under which they live but they place their glory therein They look upon a greater liberty as a shame and would think themselves slighted and contemned by a Husband that would permit it them They are jealous for them as much as they are themselves The Glory of the Asiatick Women There is not a vertuous Woman in Asia who in time of War chuses not rather that her Husband should kill her than that he should suffer her to fall under the power of the Enemies Tacitus in the Twelfth Book of his Annals gives an example thereof in Zenobia the wife of Rhadamistus The Husbands themselves do think it the most shameful thing in the world to them that their Wives should fall into the Enemies hands and when this happens the greatest affront that can be done them is not to restore them their Wives But tho the Women of Asia be capable of sacrificing their life to their glory there ceases not to be some amongst them who take secret pleasures when they can and who hazard their glory and their life upon this account 'T is reported that there have been some examples hereof amongst the King of Siam's Wives How closely soever they be shut up they do sometimes find out a way to have Lovers Some have assur'd me that the ordinary method by which this Prince punishes them is first to submit them to a Horse accustomed I know not how to the love of Women and then to put them to death 'T is some years since he gave one to the Tygers and because these Animals spared her at the first he offered her a Pardon but this Woman was so unworthy as to refuse it and with so many affronts that the King looking upon her as distracted ordered again that she should dye They irritated the Tygers and they tore her in pieces in his presence It is not so certain that he puts the Lovers to death but at the least he causes them to be severely chastized The common opinion at Siam is that 't was a fault of this nature which caused the last disgrace of the late Barcalon elder Brother to the King of Siam's first Ambassadour to the King The King his Master caused him to be very severely bastinado'd and forbore to see him yet without taking away his Offices On the contrary he continued to make use of him during the six months that he survived the blows which he had received and he with his own hand prepared all the Remedies which the Barcalon took in his last sickness because no person dared to give him any for fear of being accused of the death of a man who appeared so dear to his Master Bernier relates some examples by which it appears that the Great Mogul does not always punish the Women of his Seraglio that offended in their duty nor the Men that are their Accomplices with death These Princes consider these sorts of Crimes like the others which may be committed against their Majesty unless any sentiment of Love renders them more sensible of Jealousie The Jealousie of the Siameses towards their Daughters The Siamese Lords are not less jealous of their Daughters than of their Wives and if any one commits a fault they sell her to a certain man who has a priviledge of prostituting them for Money in consideration of a Tribute which he pays the King 'T is said that he has six hundred all Daughters of Officers in esteem He likewise purchases Wives when the Husbands sell them being convicted of Infidelity Their respect towards Old Men. Disrespect towards Old Men is not less rare at Siam than at China Of the two Mandarins which came on board the Kings Ambassadours Ship to bring them the first Compliment from the King of Siam the younger tho the
highest in dignity yielded the first place and speech to the elder who was not above three or four years older The Siameses great Lyars Lying towards Superiours is punished by the Superiour himself and the King of Siam punishes it more severely than any other and notwithstanding all this they lye as much or more at Siam than in Europe Great Union in their Families The Union of Families there is such that a Son who would plead against his Parents would pass for a Monster Wherefore no person in this Country dreads Marriage nor a number of Children Interest divides not Families Poverty renders not Marriage burdensome Begging is rare and Shameful at Siam Our Domesticks observed only three sorts of Beggars Aged Impotent and Friendless persons Relations permit not their Kindred to beg Alms They charitably maintain those that cannot maintain themselves out of their Estate or Labour Begging is shameful there not only to the Beggar but to all his Family But Robbing is much more ignominious than Begging The Siameses are Robbers I say not to the Robber himself but to his Relations The nearest Friend dare not concern themselves about a Man accused of Theft and it is not strange that Thievery should be reputed so infamous where they may live so cheap Thus are their Houses much less secure then our worst Chests Nevertheless as it is not possible to have true Vertue but in the eternal prospects of Christianity the Siameses do seldome as I may say refuse to steal whatever they meet with 'T is properly amongst them that opportunity makes the Thief They place the Idea of perfect Justice in not gathering up lost things that is to say in not laying hold on so easie an occasion of getting After the same manner the Chineses to exaggerate the good Government of some of their Princes do say that under their Reign Justice was in so high an esteem among the People that no person meddled with what he found scattered in the high Road and this Idea has not been unknown to the Greeks Anciently in Greece the Stagyritae made a Law in these words What you have not laid down take not up and it is perhaps from them that Plato learned it when he inserted it amongst his Laws But the Siameses are very remote from so exquisite a probity Father d' Espagnac Some examples of Theft committed by the Siameses one of those pious and learned Jesuits which we carried to Siam being one day alone in the Divan of their House a Siamese came boldly to take away an excellent Persian Carpet from off a Table that was before him and Father d' Espagnac let him do it because he imagined not that he was a Robber In the Journey which the King caused the Ambassadors from Siam to make into Flanders one of the Mandarins which accompanied them took twenty Scions in a house where the Ambassadors were invited to dine as they sojourned in one of the principal Cities of Picardy The next day this Mandarin conceiving that these Scions were Money gave one to a Footman to drink and his Theft was hereby discovered but no Notice taken thereof Behold likewise an ingenious prank which proves that the opportunity of stealing has so much power over them that it sometimes sways them even when it is perilous One of the Officers of the King of Siam's Magazines having stolen some Silver this Prince ordered him to be put to death by forcing him to swallow three or four Ounces of melted Silver and it happened that he who had order to take those three or four Ounces of Silver out of that Wretch's throat could not forbear filching part of it The King therefore caused him to die of the same punishment and a third exposed himself to the same hazard by committing the like Offence I mean by stealing part of the Silver which he took out of the last dead Man's throat So that the King of Siam pardoning him his Life said there is enough punisht I should destroy all my Subjects if I should not resolve to pardon them at last It must not be doubted after this Robbers in the Woods of Siam and China which do very rarely kill of what is reported of the Siameses who live in the Woods to withdraw themselves from the Government that they frequently rob the Passengers yet without killing any The Woods of China have been continually pestered with such Robbers and there are some who after having enticed a great many Companions with them have formed whole Armies and at last rendered themselves Masters of that great Kingdom On the other hand Fidelity is exceeding great at Siam in all sorts of Traffick The fidelity of the Siameses in Commerce their boundless Usury and their Avarice as I have elsewhere remarked but Usury is there practised without bounds Their Laws have not provided against it though their Morality prohibits it Avarice is their essential Vice and what is more wonderful herein is that they heap not up riches to use them but to bury them As they traffick not almost with immoveables make no Wills They are very revengful and how nor publick Contracts and as in a word they have no Notaries it seems that they cannot almost have any Suits and they have indeed few Civil but a great many Criminal causes 'T is principally out of spight that they exercise their secret Hatreds and Revenges and they find facility therein with the Judges who in this Country as in Europe do live on their profession The Siameses have naturally an aversion to blood but when they hate even unto death which is very rare they assassinate or they poyson and understand not the uncertain Revenge of Duels yet most of their quarrels do terminate only in blows or reciprocal defamations Other qualities of the Siameses The Ancients have remark'd that it is the Humidity of the Elements which defends the Indians against that action of the Sun which burns the Complexion of the Negro's and makes their Hair to grow like Cotton The Nourishment of the Siameses is likewise more aqueous than that of any other People of the Indies and unto them may be safely attributed all the good and all the bad qualities which proceed from Phlegm and Spittle because that Phlegm and Spittle are the necessary effects of their Nourishment They are courteous polite fearful and careless They contain themselves a long time but when once their Rage is kindled they have perhaps less discretion than we have Their Timidity their Avarice their Dissimulation their Silences their Inclination to lying do increase with them They are stiff in their Customs as much out of Idleness as out of respect to their Ancestors who have transmitted them to them They have no curiosity and do admire nothing They are proud with those that deal gently with them and humble to those that treat them with rigour They are subtile and variable like all those that perceive their own
or rather his Anti-chamber do expect his Orders He has Forty four young men the oldest of which hardly exceeds twenty five years of Age the Siameses do call them Mahatlek the Europeans have called them Pages These Forty four Pages therefore are divided into four Bands each consisting of eleven the two first are on the right hand and do prostrare themselves in the Hall at the King 's right hand the two others are on the left hand and do prostrate themselves on the left hand This Prince gives them every one a Name and a Sabre and they carry his Orders to the Pages without which are numerous and which have no Name that is imposed on them by the King The Siameses do call them Caloang and 't is these Caloangs that the King ordinarily sends into the Provinces upon Commissions whether ordinary or extraordinary Besides this the Forty four Pages within have their Functions regulated Some Their Functions for example do serve Betel to the King others take care of his Arms others do keep his Books and when he pleases they read in his presence This Prince is curious to the highest degree How the King of Siam loves Reading He caused Q. Curtius to be translated into Siamese whilst we were there and has since order'd several of our Histories to be translated He understands the States of Europe and I doubt not thereof because that once as he gave me occasion to inform him that the Empire of Germany is Elective he asked me whether besides the Empire and Poland there was any other Elective State in Europe And I heard him pronounce the word Polonia of which I had not spoken to him Some have assur'd me that he has frequently asserted that the Art of Ruling is not inspired and that with great Experience and Reading he perceived that he was not yet perfect in understanding it But he design'd principally to study it from the History of the King he is desirous of all the News from France and so soon as his Ambassadors were arrived he retain'd the third with him until he had read their Relation to him from one end to the other The Officers which command the Pages within To return to the Forty-four Pages Four Officers command them who because they so nearly approach the Prince are in great esteem but yet not in an equal degree for there is a great difference from the first to the second from the second to the third and from the third to the fourth They bear only the Title of Oc-Meuing or of Pra-Meuing Meuing Vai Meuing Sarapet Meuing Semeungtchai Meuingsii The Sabres and Poniards which the King gives them are adorned with some precious Stones All four are very considerable Nai having a great many subaltern Officers under them and though they have only the Title of Meuing they cease not to be Officers in chief The Pa-ya the Oc-ya the Oc-pra and the other Titles are not always subordinate to them only the one must command more persons than the other In a word 't was Meuingsii which accompany'd Meuing Tchion on Board our Ships to bring to the King's Ambassadors the first Compliment from the King of Siam and it was to him that Meuing Tchion tho' higher in dignity gave the precedency and the word because that Meuingsii was three or four years older but the eldest of both was not thirty Of the single Officer which prostrates not himself before the King of Siam Whilst the Ambassadors were at Audience there was in one place an Officer whom we perceived not who alone as they informed me has the Priviledge of not prostrating himself before the King his Master and this renders his Office very honourable I forgot to write down his Title in my Memoirs He always has his Eyes fixed upon this Prince to receive his Orders which he understands by certain Signs and which he signifies by Signs to the other Officers which are without the Hall Thus when the Audience was ended I wou'd say when the King had done speaking to us this Prince in that silence which is profound gave some Signal to which we gave no heed and immediately at the bottom of the Hall and in an high place which is not visible was heard a tinkling Noise like that of a Timbrel This Noise was accompany'd with a Blow which was ever and anon struck on a Drum which is hung up under a Penthouse without the Hall and which for being very great renders its sound grave and Majestie it is cover'd with an Elephant's Skin yet no person made any motion till that the King whose Chair an invisible hand did by little and little draw back removed himself from the window and closed the Shutters thereof and then the Noise of the tinkling and of the great Drum ceased CHAP. XIII Of the Women of the Palace and of the Officers of the Wardrobe The King of Siam's Chamber AS to the King of Siam's Chamber the true Officers thereof are Women 't is they only that have a Priviledge of entering therein They make his Bed and dress his Meat they cloath him and wait on him at Table but none but himself touches his Head when he is attir'd nor puts any thing over his Head The Pourveyors carry the Provisions to the Eunuchs and they give them to the Women and she which plays the Cook uses Salt and Spices only by weight thereby never to put in more nor less A practice which in my opinion is only a Rule of the Physicians by reason of the King 's unhealthy disposition and not an ancient custom of the Palace The Women do never stir out but with the King Of the late Queen his Wife and his Sister nor the Eunuchs without express Order 'T is reported that he has eight or ten Eunuchs only as well white as black The late Queen who was both his Wife and his Sister was called Nang Achamahisii It is not easie to know the King's Name they carefully and superstitiously conceal it for fear lest any Enchantment should be made on his Name And others report that their Kings have no Name till after their death and that it is their Successor which names them and this would be more certain against the pretended Sorceries Of Queen Achamahisii is born as I have related in the other Part the Princess Of the Princess his only Daughter the King of Siam's only Daughter who now has the Rank and House of a Queen The King 's other Wives which in general are called Tchaou Vang because that the word Tchaou which signifies Lord signifies likewise Lady and Mistress do render Obedience to her and respect her as their Soveraign They are subject to her Justice as well as the Women and Eunuchs which serve them because that not being able to stir out to go plead elsewhere it necessarily follows that the Queen should judge them and cause them to be chastised to keep them in peace
other does greatly illustrate them I hope also that a pardon will be granted me for the Siamese names which I relate and explain These remarks will make other relations intelligible as well as mine which without these Illustrations might sometimes cause a doubt concerning what I assert In a word those with whom I am acquainted do know that I love the Truth but it is not sufficient to give a sincere relation to make it appear true 'T is requisite to add clearness to sincerity and to be thoroughly inform'd of that wherein we undertake to instruct others I have therefore considered interrogated and penetrated as far as it was possible and to render my self more capable of doing it I carefully read over before my arrival at Siam several Antient and Modern Relations of divers Countreys of the East So that in my opinion this preparation has supplied the defect of a longer residence and has made me to remark and understand in the three Months I was at Siam what I could not perhaps have understood or remark'd in three Years without the assistance and perusal of those Discourses A MAPP of the KINGDOME of SIAM PART I. Of the Country of Siam CHAP. I. The Geographical Description NAvigation has sufficiently made known the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom of Siam and many Authors have described them How much this Kingdom is unknown but they know almost nothing of the Inland Country because the Siameses have not made a Map of their Country or at least know how to keep it secret That which I here present is the work of an European who went up the Menam the principal River of the Country to the Frontiers of the Kingdom but was not skilful enough to give all the Positions with an entire exactness Besides he has not seen all and therefore I thought it necessary to give his Map to Mr. Cassini Director of the Observatory at Paris to correct it by some Memorials which were given me at Siam Nevertheless I know it to be still defective but yet it fails not to give some notices of this Kingdom which were never heard of and of being more exact in those we already have Its Frontiers extend Northward to the 22d. Degree or thereabouts Its Frontiers Northward and the Road which terminates the Gulph of Siam being almost at the Latitude of 13 degrees and a half it follows that this whole extent of which we hardly have any knowledge runs about 170 Leagues in a direct Line reckoning 20 Leagues to a degree of Latitude after the manner of our Seamen The Siameses do say that the City of Chiamai is fifteen days journey more to the North than the Frontiers of their Kingdom that is to say at most The City of Chiamai and its Lake between sixty and seventy Leagues for they are Journeys by water and against the Stream 'T is about thirty years since their King as they report took this City and abandon'd it after having carried away all the People and it has been since repeopled by the King of Ava to whom Pegu does at present render Obedience But the Siameses which were at that expedition do not know that famous Lake from whence our Geographers make the River Menam arise and to which according to them this City gives its Names which makes me to think either that it is more distant than our Geographers have conceived or that there is no such Lake It may also happen that this City adjoyning to several Kingdoms and being more subject than another to be ruined by War has not always been rebuilt in the same place And this is not difficult to imagine of the Cities which are built only with wood as all in these Countreys are and which in their destruction leave not any Ruines nor Foundations However it may be doubted whether the Menam springs from a Lake by reason it is so small at its entrance into the Kingdom of Siam that for about fifty Leagues it carries only little Boats capable of holding no more than four or five Persons at most The Kingdom of Siam is bounded from the East to the North by high Mountains which separate it from the Kingdom of Laos The Country of Siam is only a Valley and on the North and West by others which divide it from the Kingdoms of Pegu and Ava This double Chain of Mountains inhabited by a few savage and poor but yet free People whose Life is innocent leaves between them a great Valley containing in some places between fourscore and an hundred Leagues in bredth and is watered from the City of Chiamai to the Sea that is to say from the North to the South with an excellent River which the Siameses call Me-nam or Mother-water to signifie a great water which being encreased by the Brooks and Rivers it receives on every side from the Mountains I have mentioned discharges it self at last into the Gulph of Siam by three months the most navigable of which is that toward the East Cities seated on the River On this River and about seven Miles from the Sea is seated the City of Bancok and I shall transiently declare that the Siameses have very few habitations on their Coasts which are not far distant from thence but are almost all seated on Rivers navigable enough to afford them the Commerce of the Sea As to the names of most of these places which for this reason may be called Maritime they are disguised by Foreigners Thus the City of Bancok is called Fon in Siamese it not being known from whence the name of Bancok is derived altho there be several Siamese Names that begin with the word Ban which signifies a Village The Gardens of Bancok The Gardens which are in the Territory of Bancok for the space of four Leagues in ascending towards the City of Siam to a place named Talacoan do supply this City with the Nourishment which the Natives of the Country love best I mean a great quantity of Fruit. Other Cities on the Menam The other principal places which the Menam waters are Me-Tac the first City of the Kingdom to the North North-West and then successively Tian-Tong Campeng pet or Campeng simple which some do pronounce Campingue Laconcevan Tchainat Siam Talacoan Talaqueou and Bancok Between the two Cities of Tchainat and Siam and at a distance which the Maeanders of the River do render almost equal from each other the River leaves the City of Louvo a little to the East at the 14 d. 42 m. 32 S. of Latitude according to the observations which the Jesuites have published The King of Siam does there spend the greatest part of the year the more commodiously to enjoy the diversion of Hunting but Louvo would not be habitable were it not for a channel cut from the River to water it The City of Me-Tac renders obedience to an Hereditary Lord who they say is a Vassal to the King of Siam whom some call Paya-Tac
The City of Merguy lies on the North-West Point of a great and populous Island which at the extremity of its course forms a very excellent River which the Europeans have called Tenasserim from the Name of a City seated on its Banks about 15 Leagues from the Sea This River comes from the North and after having passed through the Kingdoms of Ava and Pegu and enter'd into the Lands under the King of Siam's Jurisdiction it discharges itself by three Chanels into the Gulph of Bengal and forms the Island I have mention'd The Ports of Merguy which some report to be the best in all India is between this Isle and another that is inhabited and lies opposite and to the West of this wherein Merguy is situated CHAP. III. Concerning the History and Origine of the Siameses The Siameses little curious of their History THE Siamese History is full of Fables The Books thereof are very scarce by reason the Siameses have not the use of Printing for upon other Accounts I doubt of the report that they affect to conceal their History seeing that the Chineses whom in many things they imitate are not so jealous of theirs However that matter is notwithstanding this pretended Jealousy of the Siameses they who have attain'd to read any thing of the History of Siam assert that it ascends not very high with any character of truth The Epocha of the Siameses Behold a very dry and insipid Chronological Abridgment which the Siameses have given thereof But before we proceed it is necessary to tell you that the current year 1689 beginning it in the month of December 1688 is the 2233 of their Aera from which they date the Epocha or beginning as they say from Sommona-Codom's death But I am persuaded that this Epocha has quite another foundation which I shall afterwards explain Their Kings Their first King was named Pra Poat honne sourittep-pennaratui sonanne bopitra The chief place where he kept his Court was called Tchai pappe Mahanacon the situation of which I ignore and he began to reign An. 1300. computing after their Epocha Ten other Kings succeeded him the last of which named Ipoja sanne Thora Thesma Teperat remov'd his Royal Seat to the City of Tasco Nacora Louang which he had built the situation of which is also unknown to me The twelfth King after him whose Name was Pra Poa Noome Thele seri obliged all his People in 1731 to follow him to Locintai a City seated on a River which descends from the Mountains of Laos and runs into the Menam a little above Porselouc from which Locontai is between 40 and 50 Leagues distant But this Prince resided not always at Locontai for he came and built and inhabited the City of Pipeli on a River the mouth of which is about two Leagues to the West of the most occidental mouth of Menam Four other Kings succeeded him of which Rhamatilondi the last of the four began to build the City of Siam in 1894 and there established his Court. By which it appears that they allow to the City of Siam the Antiquity of 338 years The King Regent is the twenty fifth from Rhamatilondi and this year 1689 is the 56th or 57th year of his age Thus do they reckon 52 Kings in the space of 934 years but not all of the same Blood The Race of the present King Mr. Gervaise in his Natural and Political History of the Kingdom of Siam gives us the History of the now Regent King's Father and Van Vliet gives it us much more circumstanciated in his Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam printed at the end of Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels into Persia I refer the Reader thither to see an Example of the Revolutions which are common at Siam for this King who was not of the Royal Race tho' Vliet asserts the contrary took away the Scepter and Life of his Natural Lords and put to death all the Princes of their Blood except two which were alive when Vliet writ but of whom I could not learn any News Without all doubt this Usurper put them to death like the rest And in truth John Struys in the First Tome of his Voyages asserts that this was the Fate of the last of these two Princes who was alive in the year 1650 and was then 20 years old the Tyrant put him to death that very year with one of his Sisters upon an Accusation notoriously false But a remarkable Circumstance of the History of his Usurpation was that entering by force of Arms into the Palace he forced the King to quit it and flie into a Temple for refuge and having drag'd this unfortunate Prince out of this Temple and carry'd him back a Prisoner to the Palace he caus'd him to be declared unworthy of the Crown and Government for having deserted the Palace To this Usurper who died in 1657 after a Reign of 30 years succeeded his Brother because his Son could not or durst not then to dispute the Crown with him On the contrary to secure his Life he sought a Sanctuary in a Cloyster and cloath'd himself with the inviolable Habit of a Talapoin But he afterwards so politickly took his measures that he dispossess'd his Uncle who flying from the Palace on his Elephant was slain by a Portuguese with a Musquet Ferdinand Mendez Pinto relates that the King of Siam Another Example of the Revolutions of Siam who reigned in 1547 and to whom he gives great Praises was poyson'd by the Queen his Wife at his return from a military Expedition This Princess deliberated thus to prevent the vengeance of her Husband by reason that during his absence she had maintain'd an amorous Commerce by which she prov'd with Child And this Author adds that she soon after destroy'd the King her own Son in the same manner and had the Credit to get the Crown set upon her Lover's Head the 11th of November 1548. But in January 1549 they were both assassinated in a Temple and a Bastard Prince the Brother and Uncle of the two last Kings was taken out of a Cloyster to be advanced on the Throne The Crowns of Asia are always instable and those of India China and Japan much more than the others As for what concerns the Origine of the Siameses it would be difficult to judge whether they are only a single People A Doubt as to the Origine of the Siameses directly descended from the first Men that inhabited the Countrey of Siam or whether in process of time some other Nation has not also setled there notwithstanding the first Inhabitants The principal Reason of this Doubt proceeds from the Siameses understanding two Languages viz. the Vulgar which is a simple Tongue Two Languages at Siam consisting almost wholly of Monosyllables without Conjugation or Declension and another Language which I have already spoken of which to them is a dead Tongue known only by the Learned which is called the Balie Tongue and
which is enricht with the inflexions of words like the Languages we have in Europe The terms of Religion and Justice the names of Offices and all the Ornaments of the Vulgar Tongue are borrow'd from the Balie In this Language they compose their best Songs so that it seems at least that some Foreign Colony had formerly inhabited the Countrey of Siam and had carry'd thither a second Language But this is a Dispute that might be rais'd concerning all the Countries of India for like Siam they all have two Languages one of which is still remaining only in their Books The Siameses assert that their Laws are Foreign What the Siameses report concerning the Origine of their Laws and Religion and came to them from the Countrey of Laos which has perhaps no other Foundation than the Conformity of the Laws of Laos with those of Siam even as there is a Conformity between the Religions of these two Nations and with that of the Peguins Now this does not strictly prove that any of these three Kingdoms hath given its Laws and its Religion to the rest seeing that it may happen that all the three may have deriv'd their Religion and their Laws from another common Source However it be as the Tradition is at Siam that their Laws and Kings came from Laos the same Tradition runs at Laos that their Kings and most of their Laws came from Siam Of the Balie Language The Siameses speak not of any Country where the Balie Language which is that of their Laws and their Religion is now in use They suspect indeed according to the report of some amongst them which have been at the Coast of Coromandel that the Balie Language has some similitude with some one of the Dialects of that Country but they agree at the same time that the Letters of the Balie Language are known only amongst them The secular Missionaries established at Siam are of opinion that this Language is not entirely extinct by reason they saw in their Hospital a man come from about the Cape of Comorin who interspers'd several Balie words in his discourse affirming that they were used in his Country and that he had never studied and knew only his Mother Tongue They moreover averr for truth that the Religion of the Siumeses came from those Quarters because that they have read in a Balie Book that Sommona-Codom whom the Siameses adore was the Son of a King of the Island of Ceylon The Siameses resemble their Neighbours But setting aside all these uncertainties the vulgar Language of the Siameses like in its Simplicity to those of China Tonquin Cochinchina and the other States of the East sufficiently evinces that those who speak it are near of the same Genius with their Neighbours Add hereunto their Indian Figure the colour of their Complexion mixt with red and brown which corresponds neither to the North of Asia Europe nor Africk Add likewise their short Nose rounded at the end as their Neighbours generally have it the upper Bone of their Cheeks high and raised their Eyes slit a little upwards their Ears larger than ours in a word all the Lineaments of the Indian and Chinese Physiognomy their Countenance naturally squeez'd and bent like that of Apes and a great many other things which they have in common with these Animals as well as a marvellous passion for Children For nothing is equal to the Tenderness which the great Apes expressed to their Cubs except the Love which the Siameses have for all Children whether for their own or those of another The King of Siam loves Children till 7 or 8 years old The King of Siam himself is incompass'd with them and delights to educate them till seven or eight years old after which as they lose the childish Air they do also lose his Favour One alone say some was there kept till between twenty and thirty years of Age and is still his favourite Some do call him his adopted Son others suspect him to be his Bastard He is at least Foster Brother to his Lawful Daughter That the Siameses came not from far to Inhabit their Country But if you consider the extreamly Low Lands of Siam that they seem to escape the Sea as it were by miracle and that they lye annually under rain water for several Months the almost infinite number of very incommodious Insects which they engender and the excessive Heat of the Climate under which they are seated it is difficult to comprehend that others could resolve to inhabit them excepting such as came thither by little and little from places adjacent And it may be thought that they have been inhabited not many Ages if a Judgment may be made thereof by the few Woods that are stubbed as yet Moreover it would be necessary to travel more to the North of Siam to find out the warlike People which could yield those innumerable swarms of men which departed out of their own Country to go and possess others And how is it possible that they should not be stopp'd on the Road among some of those soft and effeminate People which lye between the Country of the Scythians and the Woods and impassable Rivers of the Siameses 'T is not therefore probable that the Lesser Siameses which we have spoken of are descended from the Greater and that the Greater withdrew into the Mountains which they inhabit to free themselves from the Tyranny of the neighbouring Princes under which they were born Three Baly Alphabets Kià Keù̈ Keuà Koù̈a Koüà Ké Kê Ko Kaou Koum Kam Karama Ko Koüaà Keua reu reû leu leû Ca Kha Kha go nga Tcha Tcha Tcha Tcha ya thá tha da na Ta tha tâ—a da na pa ppa da me Ca ra la ua ta ha la ang Ka Kaa Ki Ku Kou Koû Ke Kái Ko Káon KamÌ€ Ká Ka-na Ka nâ Kad-ni Kard Kanou Kanou Ka-ne Kanai Ka na Ka naoÅ„ Kananǵ Ka-na The Siamese Cyphers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The Siamese numeral Names 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 20 30 A Smoaking Instrument which the Modâ—â— of Siamâ—do use AA a Pipe of Bambou 8 or 9 footlong The Chinese-Chese-Boord 1 The King 2 The Guards 3 The Elephants 4 The Knights 5 The Waggons 6 The Canons 7 The Pawns 8 The River A Musical Instrument w th Bells The Chinese Abacus or Arithmetical Instrume nt or Counting They inhabit different quarters in the City or Suburbs of Siam The people of the Kingdom of Siam not very numerous and yet this City is very little inhabited in respect to its Bigness and the Country much less in Proportion It must be imagined that they desire not a greater People for they count them every year and do well know what no person ignores that the only secret to encrease them would be to ease them in the Taxes and Impositions The Siameses do therefore keep an exact account
favour of those that love to reason on Philosophical matters The Siameses do not give many forms to their Lands The time of ploughing and reaping They till them and sowe them when the Rains have sufficiently softened them and they gather their harvest when the waters are retired and sometimes when they are yet remaining on the ground and they can go only by Boat All the land that is overflowed is good for Rice and 't is said that the Ear always surmounts the waters and that if they encrease a foot in twenty four hours the Rice grows a foot also in twenty four hours but though it be averr'd that this happens sometimes I cannot without much difficulty believe it in so vast an Inundation And I rather conceive that when the Inundation surmounts the Rice at any time it rots it They gather Rice also in divers Cantons of the Kingdom which the Rains do not overflow and this is more substantial better relisht and keeps longer Another sort of Rice When it has grown long enough in the Land where it was sown it is transplanted into another which is prepared after this manner They overflow it as we do the Salt Marshes until it be throughly soft and for this purpose it is necessary to have high Cisterns or rather to keep the Rain-water in the Field it self by little Banks made all round Then they let the water go to feed the Land level it and in fine transplant the Rice-Roots one after the other by thrusting them in with the Thumb I am greatly inclin'd to believe The original of Agriculture with the Siameses that the Ancient Siameses lived only upon Fruits and Fish as still do several people of the Coasts of Africk and that in process of time Husbandry has been taught them by the Chineses We read in the History of China that 't was anciently the King himself that annually first set his hand to the Plough in this great Kingdom and that of the Crop which his Labour yielded him he made the Bread for the Sacrifices The Lawful King of Tonquin and Cochinchina together who is called the Buado's likewise observe this Custom of first breaking up the Lands every year and of all the Royal Functions this is almost the only one remaining to him The most important are exercised by two Hereditary Governors the one of Tonquin and the other of Cochinchina who wage war and who are the true Soveraigns although they profess to acknowledge the Bua which is at Tonquin for their Soveraign The Ceremony of the Siameses touching Agriculture The King of Siam did formerly also set his hand to the Plough on a certain day of the year For about an Age since and upon some superstitious Observation of a bad Omen he labours no more but leaves this Ceremony to an imaginary King which is purposely created every year yet they will not permit him to bear the Title of King but that of Oc-ya-Kaou or Oc-ya of the Rice He is mounted upon an Ox and rides to the place where he must plough attended with a great train of Officers that are obedient to him This Masquerade for one day gets him wherewithal to live on the whole year And by the same superstition has deterred the Kings themselves It is look'd upon as ominous and unlucky to the person I suspect therefore that this custom of causing the lands to be ploughed by the Prince came from China to Tonquin and Siam with the Art of Husbandry It is Politick and Superstitious both together It may perhaps have been invented only to gain credit to Husbandry by the example of Kings themselves but it is intermixt with a great many superstitions to supplicate the good and evil Spirits whom they think able to help or hurt the goods of the Earth Amongst other things the Oc-ya-Kaou offers them a Sacrifice in the open field of an heap of Rice-sheaves whereunto he sets fire with his own hand CHAP. IX Of the Gardens of the Siameses and occasionally of their Liquors Their Pulse and Roots The Potatoe THE Siameses are not less addicted to the manuring of Gardens than to the ploughing of Arable Lands They have Pulse and Roots but for the most part different from ours Amongst the Roots the Potatoe deserves a parcular mention It is of the form and size almost of a Parsenep and the inside thereof is sometimes white sometimes red sometimes purple but I never saw any but the first sort Being roasted under the Ashes it eats like the Chesnut The Isles of America made it known to us it there frequently supplies as some report the place of Bread At Siam I have seen Chibbols and no Onions Garlick Turneps Cucumbers Citruls Water-melons Parsley Bawm Sorrel They have no true Melons nor Strawberries nor Raspberries nor Artichoaks but a great deal of Asparagus of which they do not eat They have neither Sallory nor Beets nor Coleworts nor Coleflore nor Turneps nor Parseneps nor Carrots nor Leeks nor Lettuce nor Chervil nor most of the Herbs whereof we compose our Sallads Yet the Dutch have most of all these Plants at Batavia which is a sign that the Soil of Siam would be proper thereunto It bears large Mushromes but few and ill tasted It yields no Truffles not so much as that insipid and scentless kind which the Spaniards do call Criadillas de tierra and which they put into their pot Cucumbers Chibbols Garlick Radishes The Siameses do eat Cucumbers raw as they do throughout the East and also in Spain and it is not impossible but their Cucumbers may be more wholsom than ours seeing that Vinegar doth not harden them They look upon them and call them a kind of Water-Melons Mr. Vincent inform'd me that a Persian will eat 36 pound weight of Melons or Cucumbers at the beginning of the season of these Fruits to purge himself The Chibbols Garlick and Radishes have a sweeter taste at Siam than in this Country These sort of Plants do lose their Rankness by the great Heat And I easily believe what those who have experienc'd it have assured me that nothing is more pleasant than the Onions of Aegypt which the Israelites so exceedingly regretted Flowers I have seen a great many Tuberoses in the Gardens of Siam and no Roses nor Gillyflowers but it is said there are plenty of Gillyflowers and few Roses and that these Flowers have less scent here than in Europe so that the Roses have hardly any The Jasmine is likewise so rare that 't is said there are none but at the King's House We were presented with two or three Flowers as a wonder They have a great many Amaranthus and Tricolors Except these most of the Flowers and Plants which adorn our Gardens are unknown to them But in their stead they have others which are peculiar to them and which are very agreeable for their Beauty and Odor I have remark'd of some that they smell only in the Night by
sufficient to raise themselves by Learning A third defect of Relations is to describe things only in one Particular Another Reflection on the same Subject if I may so say The Reader conceives that in every thing else the Nation whereof he is inform'd resembles his and that in this only it is either extravagant or admirable Thus if it be simply said that the King of Siam puts his Shirt over his Vest this would appear ridiculous to us but when the whole is understood it is found that tho' all Nations act almost on different Principles the whole amounts almost to the same and that there is not in any place any thing marvellous or extravagant But enough is spoken on this Subject I return to the good Cheer of the Siameses They have Milk from the Female Buffalo which has more Cream The Milk at Siam than the Milk of our Cows but they make not any sort of Cheese and scarce any Butter Butter does hardly take any Consistence there by reason of the Heat and that which is brought from Suratt and Bengale through Climates so extreamly hot is very bad and almost melted in arriving there They disguise dry Fish after several manners How the Siameses disguise their Meats without varying the Preparation For Example they will cut it into thin Slices twisted like the Virmicelli of the Italians or the oeufs filez of the Spaniards The Chineses are so addicted to this way of disguising their Meats that of a Drake for Example they will make a Soldier of an Ananas a Dragon and this Dragon shall be painted in several Colours Heretofore in Europe several Sugar Figures were serv'd up amongst the Fruit but they eat them not and the Germans call'd them Schaw-essen or Food to look upon Of more than thirty Dishes A Chinese Repast wherewith we were served at Siam after the Fashion of the Chineses it was not possible for me to eat of one Altho' it be naturally as easie to me as to any other to accommodate my self to strange Tastes At the sight therefore of so strange a Repast I rested more satisfy'd with what some report of the Chineses that they taste without loathing the Excrements of Men and other Animals to chuse out the most proper to manure and improve their Lands and that they commonly eat of all the Viands which we abhor as Cats Dogs Horses Asses Mules c. In which they are very opposite to the Siameses The Siameses do love Flesh little and have no Butchers Meat who do rarely eat of any Flesh tho' it be given them But when they vouchsafe so far as to eat thereof they rather chuse the Guts and whatever is most loathsom to us in the Intestines In their Bazars or Markets they do sell Insects broil'd or roasted and they have not any other Roast-meat The King of Siam gave us some Poultry and other live Animals for our Servants to kill and dress for our Table But in general all Food there is tough Juiceless and Crude and by degrees the Europeans themselves which inhabit at Siam do refrain eating thereof The ancient Inhabitants of the Isle of Rhodes according to Aelian esteemed not those who preferred Flesh before Fish The Spaniards and Italians do eat little and do eat it dry roasted and we find that the English eat too much and that they eat it too raw 'T is that as the Countries are hotter Sobriety is more natural The Siameses take no care of Poultry They have two sorts of Hens The Poultry some are like to ours others have the Skin and Comb black but the Flesh and the Bones white and when these black Hens are boil'd it is impossible to distinguish them from the white ones either by the taste or colour altho' there are some persons who generally esteem the black best Ducks are very plentiful and very good but 't is a Food which as it is said does easily cloy The Indian Cocks are brought to us from the West-Indies and there are none at Siam Game Peacocks and Pigeons are wild there all Partridges are gray Hares are very scarce and no Rabbets to be seen It may be that the Race could not preserve itself in the Woods amongst all the carnivorous Animals wherewith they are stored There is great plenty of Francolins and excellent Snipes here they do eat Turtle-doves whose Plumage is variegated Parrots and divers small Birds which are good Wild-Fowl But Wild-Fowl is secure amongst the Siameses they love neither to kill them nor hinder their liberty They hate the Dogs that will take them and moreover the heighth of their Herbage and the thickness of the Woods do render the Chace difficult yet the Moors do exceedingly divert themselves in the flight of Faulcons and these Birds do come to them from Persia The Peculiarity of the Birds of Siam A thing which will appear singular altho' it be common at Brasil and it may be in other hot Countries is that almost all the Birds at Siam are beautiful to behold and are all very unpleasant to hear There are several sorts which imitate the Voice all have some Cry but no warbling Note And tho' in this Country there are some of the Birds which we have here they are for Example neither Nightingales nor Canary-Birds but Sparrows Peacocks Crows and Vultures The Sparrows do enter boldly into the Chambers there to pick up the little Insects wherewith they swarm The Crows and Vultures are very plentiful and very familiar because no person frights them and the people feed them out of Charity They do generally give them the Children which die before three or four years old What we call Butcher's Meat is worth nothing at Siam Goats and Sheep are here very scarce small and not over-good they are to be bought only of the Moors the King of Siam caused a quantity of them to be nourished for himself They generally keep the Ox and Buffalo for Tillage and sell the Cows and the whole is very bad to eat The goodness of the Pig The Pig is there very small and so fat that it is distasteful yet the flesh thereof is the wholsomest that can be eaten in most of the Countries of the Torrid Zone and is given to sick persons The Pigs are excellent also on the Sea when they eat Bisket whereas the Sheep do frequently taste of the wooll by reason they eat it one from another as Poultry eats their feathers The price of Meats As to the price of Meats in the Kingdom of Siam a Cow is not worth above ten Sols in the Provinces and a Crown or thereabouts in the Metropolis A Sheep four Crowns A Goat two or three Crowns tho' the Moors do sell them very unwillingly because this is their principal Food A Pig is not worth above seven Sols by reason the Moors eat not thereof Hens are worth about twenty pence a dozen and a dozen of Ducks is worth a
Crown Volatiles do multiply exceedingly at Siam All Volatiles do multiply extreamly at Siam the heat of the Climate almost hatches the Eggs. Venison also is not wanting notwithstanding the spoil which the wild Beasts make thereof if the Siameses were greedy of Dainties But when they kill Bucks and other Beasts it is only to sell the Skins thereof to the Dutch who make a great Trade thereof to Japan The Distempers of the Siameses Yet to the discredit in my opinion of Sobriety or because that in proportion to the heat of their Stomach the Siameses are not more sober than us they live not longer and their Life is not less attack'd with Diseases than ours Amongst the most dangerous the most frequent are Fluxes and Dissenteries from which the Europeans that arrive at this Country have more trouble to defend themselves than the Natives of the Country by reason they cannot live sober enough The Siameses are sometimes attackt with burning Fevers in which the transport to the Brain is easily formed with defluxions on the Stomach Moreover Inflamations are rare and the ordinary continual Fever kills none no more than in the other places of the Torrid Zone Intermitting Fevers are also rare but violent tho' the cold Fit be very short The External does so exceedingly weaken the Natural Heat that here are not seen almost any of those Distempers which our Physitians do call Agues and this is so throughout India and also in Persia where of an hundred sick persons Mr. Vincent the provincial Physician whom I have already mention'd declar'd that he scarce found one which had the Fever or any other hot distemper Coughs Coqueluches or Quinancies and all sorts of Defluxions and Rheumatisms are not less frequent at Siam than in these Countries and I wonder not thereat seeing that the weather is inclined to Rain so great a part of the year but the Gout Epilepsy Apoplexy Pthysick and all sorts of Cholick especially the Stone are very rare There are a great many Cankers Abcesses and Fistula's Fresipeli are here so frequent that among twenty men nineteen are infected therewith and some have two thirds of their body cover'd therewith There is no Scurvy nor Dropsie but a great many of those extraordinary distempers which the people conceive to be caused by Witchcraft The ill consequences of a debauch are here very frequent but they know not whether they are ancient or modern in their Country In a word there are some contagious diseases What is the Plague at Siam but the real Plague of this Country is the Small Pox It oftentimes makes dreadful ravage and then they interr the bodies without burning them but because their Piety always makes them desire to render them this last respect they do afterwards dig them up again and that which exceedingly surprizes me is that they dare not do it till three years after or longer by reason as they say that they have experimented that this Contagion breaks out afresh if they dig them up sooner CHAP. V. Concerning the Carriages and Equipage of the Siameses in general BEsides the Ox and Buffalo which they commonly ride Their domestick Animals the Elephant is their sole Domestick Animal The Hunting of Elephants is free for all but they pursue this Chase only to catch them and never to kill them They never cut them but for ordinary service they use only the Female Elephants the Males they design for the War Their Country is not proper for the breeding of Horses or they know not how to breed them but I believe also that their Pastures are too course and moorish to give Courage and Mettle to their Horses and this is the reason that they need not to cut them to render them more tractable They have neither Asses nor Mules but the Moors which are settled at Siam have some Camels which come to them from abroad The King of Siam only keeps about two thousand Horses The King of Siam's Horses He has a dozen of Persian which are now nothing worth The Persian Ambassador presented them to him about four or five years since from the King his Master Ordinarily he sends to buy some Horses at Batavia where they are all small and very brisk but as resty as the Javan people are mutinous either for that the Country makes them so or that the Hollanders know not to manage them I have more than once seen in the streets of Batavia the Burgesses of the City on Horseback but in an instant their Ranks were broken The Cavalry and Infantry of Batavia by reason that most of their Horses would stop on a sudden and would refuse to march and mine Host hereupon inform'd me that the common fault of the Javan Horses was to prove very resty The Dutch Company maintain Infantry at Batavia amongst which there is a good number of French As for what concerns the Cavalry there is no other than the Burgesses who notwithstanding the heat of the Climate do cloath themselves with good Buff with rich trappings embroider'd with Gold and Silver No Burgher serves in the Infantry but if a Souldier demonstrates that he has wherewith to settle and maintain himself at Batavia either by a Marriage or a Trade they never refuse him neither his liberty nor his right of Burghership The King of Siam rides little or not at all on Horseback When we arriv'd there were two Siameses to buy two hundred Horses for the King their Master about an hundred and fifty of which they had already sent away for Siam 'T is not that this Prince loves to ride on Horseback this way seems to him both too mean and of too little defence for the Elephant appears to them much more proper for Battel though when all comes to all it may reasonably be doubted whether he be more proper for War as I shall show in the sequel They report that this Animal knows how to defend his Master and to set him upon his back again with his Trunk if he is faln and to throw his Enemy on the ground When the King of Siam seiz'd on the Crown the King his Unkle fled from the Palace on an Elephant and not on Horseback altho a Horse seems much properer to fly A Guard Elephant in the Palace In the Palace there is always an Elephant on the Guard that is to say Harnessed and ready to mount and no Guard-Horse Yet some have assur'd me that the King of Siam disdains not absolutely to ride on Horseback but that he does it very rarely The King of Siam never seen on Foot In this place of the Palace where the Guard-Elephant stands there is a little Scaffold to which the King walks from his Apartment and from this Scaffold he easily gets upon his Elephant But if he would be carry'd in a Chair by men which he sometimes is he comes to this sort of carriage at the due heighth of placing himself therein either by a
King chances to pass by the Mandarin himself descends upon this Table and there prostrates himself his whole Equipage does likewise follow his example and his Balon stirs not till the King's be out of sight The Balons of the Body which are called Balons of State The Imperials of the Balons of State are all over gilded as well as the Pagayes They are supported by Columns and loaded with several pieces of Sculpture in Pyramids and some have sheds against the Sun In the Balon where the King's Person is there are four Captains or Officers to command the Equipage two before and two behind they sit cross-leg'd and this is the Ornament of the Balons The Swiftness of the Balons Now as these Vessels are very narrow and very proper to cut the water and the Equipage thereof numerous it cannot be imagin'd with what swiftness it carries them even against the Stream and how pleasant a sight it is to behold a great number of Balons to row together in good order The Enterance of the Kings Ambassadors into the River I confess that when the King's Ambassadors entred in the River the Beauty of the Show surpriz'd me The River is of an agreeable breadth and notwithstanding its Maeanders there is always discover'd a very great extent of its Channel the Banks whereof are two Hedge-rows continually green This would be the best Theater in the World for the most sumptuous and magnificent Feasts but no Magnificence appears like a great number of men devoted to serve you There were near three Thousand embarkt in seventy or eighty Balons which made the Train of the Ambassador They rowed in two ranks and left the Balon with the King's Ambassadors in the middle Every one was animated and in motion All eyes were taken up with the diversity and number of the Balons and with the pleasantness of the River's Channel and yet the ears were diverted by a barbarous but agreeable noise of Songs Acclamations and Instruments in the intervals of which the Imagination ceased not to have a sensible taste of the natural silence of the River In the night there was another sort of Beauty by reason that every Balon had its Lanthorn and that a noise which pleases is much more pleasant in the night The ancient Magnificence of the Court of Siam 'T is asserted at Siam that the Court was formerly very magnificent that is to say there was a great number of Lords adorn'd with rich Stuffs and a great many precious Stones and always attended with an hundred or two hundred Slaves and with a considerable number of Elephants but this is gone ever since the Father of the present King cut off almost all the most considerable and consequently the most formidable Siameses as well those who had served him in his Revolt as those which had opposed him At present three or four Lords only have permission to use those Chairs or Sedans which I have spoken of The Palankin which is a kind of Bed that hangs almost to the ground from a great Bar which men carry on their Shoulders is permitted to sick persons and some diseased old men for 't is a Carriage wherein they can only lie along But though the Siameses may not freely use these sorts of Conveniences the Europeans which are at Siam have more permission herein Vmbrella's The use of Vmbrella's in Siamese Roum is also a Favour which the King of Siam grants not to all his Subjects although the Umbrella be permitted to all the Europeans Those which are like to ours that is to say which have but one round is the least honorable and most of the Mandarins have thereof Those that have more rounds about the same handle as if they were several Vmbrella's fix'd one upon another are for the King alone Those which the Siameses do call Clot which only have one round but from which do hang two or three painted Cloaths like so many Hangings one lower than the other are those which the King of Siam gives to the Sancrats or Superiors of the Talapoins Those which he gave to the King's Ambassadors were of this last sort and with three Cloaths You may see the figure thereof in that of the Balons of the King's Ambassadors The Umbrella of the Talapoins and the Origine of the word Talapoin The Talapoins have Vmbrella's in the form of a Screen which they carry in their hand They are of a kind of Palmito leaf cut round and folded and the folds thereof are tyed with a thread near the stem and the stem which they make crooked like an S is the handle thereof In Siamese they call them Talapat and 't is probable that from hence comes the name of Talapoi or Talapoin which is in use amongst Foreigners only and which is unknown to the Talapoins themselves whose Siamese name is Tchaou-cou The Elephant is the carriage of every one that can take one by hunting The Elephant and Boat permitted to all or purchase one but the Boat is the more universal carriage no person can travel without one by reason of the annual Inundation of the Country Whilst the King of Siam is in his Metropolis When and how the King of Siam shews himself the ancient custom of his Court requires that he show himself to the people five or six days of the year only and that he does it with Pomp. Heretofore the Kings his Predecessors did first break up the ground every year till they left this Function to the Oc-ya-kaou and it was attended with great Splendor They also went out another day to perform on the water another Ceremony which was not less superstitious nor less splendid 'T was to conjure the River to return into its Channel when the Agriculture requir'd it and when the Wind inclining to the North assured the return of fair weather The present King was the first that dispenc'd with this troublesom work and it is several years since it seem'd abolished because say they that the last time he perform'd it he had the disgrace of being surpriz'd with rain altho his Astrologers had promised him a fair day Ferdinand Mendez Pinto relates that in his time the King of Siam used to shew himself one day in a year upon his white Elephant to ride through nine streets of the City and to extend great Liberalities to the People This Ceremony if it has been in use is now abolished The King of Siam never mounts the white Elephant and the reason which they give is that the white Elephant is as great a Lord as himself because he has a King's soul like him Thus this Prince shews himself in his Metropolis no more than twice a year at the beginning of the sixth and twelfth month to go and present Alms of Silver yellow Pagnes and fruits to the Talapoins of the Principal Pagods On these days which the Siameses do call Van pra a holy or excellent day he goes upon an
Elephant to the Pagodes which are in the same City and by water to another which is about two leagues from the City down the River On the days following he sends the like Alms to the less considerable Pagods but this extends not above two leagues from the Metropolis or thereabouts And in the last month of the year 1687 this Prince went no where in person he contented himself with sending every where If therefore the King of Siam shews himself in his Metropolis 't is upon some Ceremonies of Religion At Louvo The King of Siam lives with less pomp at Louvo than at Sam where it is permitted him to lay aside his Kingship he frequently goes abroad either for the hunting of the Tyger and Elephant or to stir himself he goes with so little Pomp that when he marches from Louvo to his little house of Thlee-poussone with his Ladies he gives not any carriage to the women which are of the Company which is doubtless a respect from these women Slaves to their Mistresses Nevertheless he has always in his retinue two or three hundred men as well on foot as on horseback The King of Siam's Retinue but what is this in comparison of those Trains of fifteen and twenty thousand men which the Relations do give him on days of Ceremony Before him do march some Footmen with Staves or with long Truncks to shoot Peas with to drive all the People out of his way and especially when the Ladies follow him and likewise before he goes out the Europeans are therewith acquainted if there are any lately arrived to avoid meeting him As for all the Asiaticks they very well know this custom which is the same in all the Courts of Asia Barros reports that in the true India when a Nobleman walks in the Streets he is always preceded by one of his Domesticks who crys po po that is to say close close to the end that all the Ploughmen may disperse themselves Osorius reports that 't is the Ploughman that is obliged to cry out and he subjoyns that it is for fear lest any Nobleman should touch him unawares and revenge this Affront by killing him The Neiras I call Nobles who alone make profession of Arms and who think themselves defiled when they touch a Ploughman At Siam and China the principal Magistrates have Officers that go before them who make the People to stand in Ranks and who would cudgel those that would not retire or which would not render to their Master all the other respects which are due unto him and which in these Countries we found very insupportable 'T is no wonder therefore if the King of China the Great Mogul the King of Persia and the other Asiatick Potentates have thought it consistent with their Dignity thus to advertize the People of their March Those that do for this purpose precede the King of Siam are called Conlaban and Coeng The Conlaban's do keep the right hand and the Coeng's the left and we shall see in the List of certain Officers that Coeng is the Title of the Provost 'T is upon the same account that is to say to disperse the People from the person of the King of Siam when he travels that two Officers of his Horse Guard of Men and Laos do march on both sides but about 50 or 60 paces from him His Courtizans appear first at the Rendevouz or they do sometimes follow on Foot with their hands joyn'd on their Breast Sometimes they follow on Horseback sometimes on Elephants but in this case their Elephants have no Chairs The Foot and Horse-Guards do likewise follow but confusedly and without any order and if this Prince stops all that follow him on Foot prostrate themselves on their Knees and Elbows and those that follow on Horseback or on Elephants do entirely bow down themselves on these Animals Those which are named Schaou-mou do also follow a Foot They are the King 's Domesticks which are not Slaves Some do carry his Arms and others his Boxes with Betel and Arek The singular Respect of the Siameses for their King When this Prince gave to the King's Ambassadors the diversion of taking an Elephant twelve Lords cloath'd in Scarlet and with their red Caps arrived before the King at the place of the Show and seated themselves cross-leg'd on the ground before the place where the King their Master was to stand They were turn'd toward the place of the Show but so soon as they heard the Noise of this Prince's March they prostrated themselves on their Knees and Elbows towards the place from whence the sound came and as the Noise approached they turned themselves by little and little towards the Noise and still remained prostrate So that when the King their Master was come they were prostrate before him and their back was turned to the Show and whilst the Show continued they made not any motion and exprest not any sign of Curiosity But my Discourse insensibly leads me to speak of the Shows and other Diversions of the Siameses CHAP. VI. Concerning the Shows and other Diversions of the Siameses The way of catching a wild Elephant THE place where the Elephant is that they would take is as it were a very broad and very long Trench I say as it were a Trench because it is not made by digging but by raising the Earth almost perpendicular on each side and it is upon these Terrasses that the Spectators stand In the bottom which is between these Terrasses is a double row of Trunks of Trees above ten Foot high planted in the Earth big enough to resist the Attacks of the Elephant and far enough from one another to let a Man pass between but too close to let an Elephant pass through 'T is between these two rows of Trunks that the tame Female Elephants which they had led into the Woods had enticed a wild Male Elephant Those which guide them thither do cover themselves with Leaves to avoid frighting the Elephants of the Woods and the Female Elephants have understanding enough to make the Cries proper to call the Males He was already intrap'd in the double row of Trunks by following the Females and could no more return into the Woods but the design was to take him and tie him to shut him up and tame him The Egress from the space wherein he was is a strait Cortina composed also of great Trunks of Trees So soon as the Elephant is enter'd into this Cortine the Gate through which he enters and which he opens by thrusting it before him with his Proboscis shuts again with its own weight the other Gate through which he must pass is shut and besides the space is so narrow that he cannot turn himself therein The difficulty was to engage the wild Elephant in this Cortine and to engage him single for the Females were still with him in the Trench and he did not separate from them Several Siameses who stood behind the Pallisado's
of the Trunks and the Foot of the Terrasses where the Elephant could not come at them enter'd every where between the Trunks into the space where the Elephant was to vex him and when the Elephant pursued one of them he fled very swiftly behind the Pallisado's between which the enraged Elephant vainly thrust his Proboscis and against which he broke the end of one of his Teeth Whilst he thus pursued after those which provoked him others laid long Nooses for him One of the ends of which they kept and they threw them at him with so much dexterity that the Elephant in running never fail'd to put one of his hind-feet therein so that by diligently putting the end of the Noose they clos'd and fasten'd it a little above the Elephant's foot These Nooses were of great Ropes one of the ends of which was put into the other like a Slip-knot and the Elephant dragged three or four of them at each hind-foot For as soon as the Noose is once knit he lets go the end thereof to avoid being drag'd himself by the Elephant The more he is exasperated the less he associates with the Females and yet to make them quit this space a Man mounted on another Female enter'd therein and went back again several times through the Cortine and this Female which he mounted called the others by a dry blow which she struck against the ground with her Proboscis She darted it perpendicularly downwards yet avoiding to strike altogether with the end which she kept bended upwards And when she had repeated this Call twice or thrice he that rid her made her to return back again through the Cortine In fine after he had perform'd this Trick five or six times with this Female the other Female follow'd her and soon after the Elephant return'd to himself because they forbore to vex him resolv'd to go after them He push'd open the first door of the Cortine with his Proboscis and so soon as he was enter'd they threw several Buckets of water on his Body to refresh him and with an incredible swiftness and dexterity they ty'd him to the Trunks of the Cortine with the Nooses which were already at his feet Then they made a tame Elephant to enter backwards into the Cortine to whose Neck they also ty'd the savage Elephant by the Neck and at the same time unloos'd him from the Trunks and two other tame Elephants being likewise led to the Succor all the three the one on one side the other on the other and the third behind do conduct the wild Elephant under a Pent-house near adjoining where they fasten and tie him close by the Neck to a Pivot planted upright which he made to turn as he turn'd round They said that he need remain at this Pivot but 24 hours and that in this space of time they would lead some tame Elephants to him to keep him company and comfort him that after 24 hours they would carry him into the Stable appointed for him and that in eight days he would bethink himself and submit to Slavery They speak of an Elephant as of a Man What the Siameses do think of the Elephants they believe him perfectly rational and they relate such rational things of him that he only wants Speech This is one for Example to which you may give what Credit you please Some have related to us for a known Truth that a Man having crack'd a Coco on the head of an Elephant which he rode and using for this purpose the back of that kind of Punch with which I have said that they guide the Elephants this Elephant took up a resolution of revenging himself as soon as he could He gather'd up with his Proboscis as they say one of the Shells of the Coco and kept it several days never letting it go but to eat during which he kept it carefully between his two fore-feet In fine he that had affronted him approaching him to give him food the Elephant seiz'd him trampled him under his feet and slew him and for his Justification laid the Coco-Shell on the dead Body 'T is in these terms that the Relation was made to us for the Siameses do think that Elephants are capable of Justice and of profiting by the punishments one of another and they alledge that in War for Instance when these Animals mutiny it is needful only to kill one on the spot to render all the others wise But these Relations and several others which I have forgot do seem very fabulous and not to digress from the Example which I have mentioned it is in my opinion very evident that if the offended Elephant had consulted reason he would not have waited another opportunity of revenge but would have wreak'd his vengeance on the spot seeing that every Elephant can with his Proboscis throw off the Rider and having thrown him on the ground trample him under foot and kill him How the Siameses took leave of the three Elephants which the King of Siam sent into France As for my self during the time I was at Siam I saw no marvellous Act perform'd by any of these Animals tho' I am persuaded that they are more docible than others They embarked three young ones which the King of Siam sent to the three Princes the Grandsons of France The Siameses which brought them on Board our Ships to embark them took leave of them as they would have done of three of their Companions and whisper'd them in their Ears saying Go depart chearfully you will be Slaves indeed but you will be so to three the greatest Princes of the World whose Service is as moderate at it is glorious They afterwards hoisted them into the Ships and because they bow'd down themselves to go under the Decks they cry'd out with admiration as if all Animals did not as much to pass under low places The Elephant is very dangerous when he is enraged One day at Louvo an Elephant tore in pieces in the Street the Brother of a young Mandarin who was with the King's Ambassadors as Mr. Torph had been with the Ambassadors of Siam They said indeed that the Elephant was enraged but this Rage was not of a Beast more reasonable but only more cruel than the rest Thus to render the Elephants of War more tame they are accompany'd with Females when they are led out to water and wash themselves and I know not whether without this Train it could ever be accomplish'd The Siameses report that the Elephants are sensible of Grandeur that they love to have a great House that is to say several Grooms for their service and some Females for their Mistresses with whom nevertheless it is said that the Elephants desire familiarity only in the Woods so long as they are savage and at full liberty that without this state they afflict themselves at the little regard had for them and that when they commit any great Fault the severest punishment that can be inflicted on
them is to retrench their House to take away their Females to remove them from the Palace and to send them into Stables abroad They say that an Elephant having been punish'd after this manner and being set at liberty returns to his Lodge at the Palace and kills the Elephant which was put in his place which seems neither incredible nor strange provided the way be free and open for every Animal loves his usual Lodging and according as he is more or less Couragious he will use more or less Violence to drive out another Animal A Fight of Elephants To return to the Diversions of the Court of Siam we saw a Fight of two Elephants of War They were retained by the hind-feet with Cables which several Siameses held and which besides this were fasten'd to Capstains The Elephants could hardly cross their Trunks in the Fight two Men were mounted on each of them to animate them but after five or six Attacks the Combat ended and they brought in the Females who parted them At the great Mogul's Palace the Elephants are permitted to approach nearer and these Animals endeavor to beat off each other's Rider and frequently they knock him down and kill him At Siam they neither expose the Life of Men nor Beasts by way of Sport or Exercise Cock-fighting They love Cock-Fighting The most Couragious are not always the biggest but those which are naturally the best armed that is to say those which have the best Spurs If a Cock falls they give him drink by reason that they experimentally know that it is oftentimes only an effect of Thirst and indeed he generally renews the Fight after quenching his Thirst But as it almost always cost the life of one of the Cocks the King of Siam prohibited these sort of Duels because the Talapoins cry'd and said That the Owners of the Cocks would for their punishment be bastinado'd in the other World with Bars of Iron I forbore going to a Fight of an Elephant and a Tyger because the King of Siam would not be there and that I knew they would not permit to these Animals the liberty of using all their Courage Some inform'd me that the Tyger had been very Cowardly and that the Show had succeeded ill The hunting of Elephants perform'd by an enclosure of Fires in the Woods has been described by others the King of Siam went not to that which was perform'd whil'st the King's Ambassadors were at his Court neither were they invited but the other Diversions which were exhibited to them all at once and in a vast Court were these The one was a Chinese Comedy A Chinese Comedy which I would willingly have seen to the end but it was adjourned after some Scenes to go to Dinner The Chinese Comedians whom the Siameses do love without understanding them do speak in the Throat All their words are Monosyllables and I heard them not pronounce one single one but with a new breath some would say that it throttles them Their Habit was such as the Relations of China describe it almost like that of the Carthusians being clasp'd on the side by three or four Buckles which reach from the Arm-pit to the Hip with great square Placards before and behind whereon were painted Dragons and with a Girdle three Fingers broad on which at equal distances were little squares and small rounds either of Tortoise-Shell or Horn or of some sort of Wood And these Girdles being loose they were run into a Buckle on each side to sustain them One of the Actors who represented a Magistrate walk'd so gravely that he first trod upon his Heel and then successively and slowly upon the Sole and Toes and as he rested on the Sole he rais'd the Heel and when he rested on his Toes the Sole touch'd the ground no more On the contrary another Actor walking like a Madman threw his Feet and Arms in several extravagant Postures and after a threatning manner but much more excessive than the whole Action of our Captains or Matamores He was the General of an Army and if the Relations of China are true this Actor naturally represented the Affectations common to the Soldiers of his Country The Theater had a Cloth on the bottom and nothing on the sides like the Stages of our Rope-dancers and Jack-puddings The Puppets are mute at Siam Puppets and those which come from the Country of Laos are much more esteemed than the Siamese Neither the one nor the other have any thing which is not very common in this Country But the Siamese Tumblers are excellent Rope-dancers and other sorts of excellent Tumblers and the Court of Siam gives the diversion thereof to the King when he arrives at Louvo Aelian reports that Alexander had some Indian Rope-dancers at his Wedding and that they were esteem'd more nimble than those of other Nations These are their Actions which it is necessary to confess I did not closely and carefully consider because I was more attentive to the Chinese Comedy than to all the other Shows which were at the same time exhibited to us They plant a Bambou in the ground and to the end of this they join another and to the end of this second a third and to the end of the third a Hoop so that this makes as it were the wood of a round Racket the Handle of which would be very long A Man holding the two sides of the Hoop with his two Hands puts his Head upon the inferior and inward part of the Hoop raises his Body and his Feet on high and continues in this posture an hour and sometimes an hour and half then he will put a Foot where he had plac'd his Head and without standing otherwise and without fixing the other Foot he will dance after their manner that is to say without raising himself but only by making Contorsions And what renders all this more perilous and difficult is the continual wavering of the Bambou A Bambou dancer of this sort they call Lot Bouang Lot signifies to pass and Bouang a Hoop There dyed one some Years since who leap'd from the Hoop A Tumbler exceedingly honour'd by the King of Siam supporting himself only by two Vmbrella's the hands of which were firmly fix'd to his Girdle the Wind carry'd him accidentally sometimes to the Ground sometimes on Trees or Houses and sometimes into the River He so exceedingly diverted the King of Siam that this Prince had made him a great Lord he had lodged him in the Palace and had given him a great Title or as they say a great Name Others do walk and dance after the mode of the Country without raising themselves but with Contorsions on a Copper-wire as big as the little Finger and stretch'd after the same manner as our Rope-dancers do stretch their Rope And they say that the more the Wire is stretched the more difficult it is to stand by reason it gives a greater spring and is so much the
extreamly liquid the Portuguese of the Indies do call it cange Meat-Broths are mortal at Siam because they too much relax the Stomach and when their Patients are in a condition to eat any thing solid they give them Pigs flesh preferable to any other They do not understand Chymistry although they passionately affect it Their Ignorance in Chymistry and their Fables about this matter and that several amongst them do boast of possessing the most profound secrets thereof Siam like all the rest of the East is full of two sorts of persons upon this account Impostors and Fools The late King of Siam the Father of the present Prince spent two Millions a great summ for his Country in the vain research of the Philosophers Stone and the Chineses reputed so wise have for three or four thousand years had the folly of seeking out an Universal Remedy by which they hope to exempt themselves from the necessity of dying And as amongst us there are some foolish Traditions concerning some rare persons that are reported to have made Gold or to have lived some Ages there are some very strongly established amongst the Chineses the Siameses and the other Orientals concerning those that know how to render themselves immortal either absolutely or in such a manner that they can die no otherwise than of a violent death Wherefore it is supposed that some have withdrawn themselves from the sight of men either to enjoy a free and peaceable Immortality or to secure themselves from all foreign force which might deprive them of their life which no distemper could do They relate wonders concerning the knowledge of these pretended Immortals and it is no matter of astonishment that they think themselves capable of forcing Nature in several things since they imagine that they have had the Art of freeing themselves from Death CHAP. XI What the Siameses do know of the Mathematics The great Heat of Siam repugnant to all application of Mind THE quick and clear Imagination of the Siameses should seem more proper for the Mathematics than the other Studies if it did not soon weary them but they cannot follow a long thread of Ratiocinations of which they do foresee neither the end nor the profit And it must be confessed for their Excuse that all application of Mind is so laborious in a Climate so hot as theirs that the very Europeans could hardly study there what desire soever they might have thereunto The Ignorance of the Siameses touching the principal parts of Mathematics The Siameses do therefore know nothing in Geometry or Mechanics because they can be absolutely without them And Astronomy concerns them only as far as they conceive it may be assistant to Divination They know only some Practical part thereof the Reasons of which they disdain to penetrate but of which they make use in the Horoscopes of particular Persons and in the Composition of their Almanac which as it were is a general Horoscope Of the Siamese Calendar and why they have two Epocha's It appears that they have twice caused their Calendar to be reformed by able Astronomers who to supply the Astronomical Tables have taken two arbitrary Epocha's but yet remarkable for some rare Conjunction of the Planets Having once established certain Numbers upon these Observations they by the means of several Additions Substractions Multiplications and Divisions have given for the following Years the secret of finding the place of the Planets almost as we find the Epact of every Year by adding eleven to the Epact of the Year foregoing The most Modern is evidently Arbitrary The most Modern of the two Siamese Epocha's is referred to the Year of Grace 638. I gave to Mr. Cassini Director of the Observatory at Paris the Siamese Method of finding the place of the Sun and Moon by a Calculation the ground of which is taken from this Epocha And the singular Merit which Mr. Cassini has had of unfolding a thing so difficult and penetrating the Reasons thereof will doubtless be admired by all the Learned Now as this Epocha is visibly the ground only of an Astronomical Calculation and has been chosen rather than another only because it appear'd more commodious to Calculation than another it is evident that we must thence conclude nothing which respects the Siamese History nor imagine that the Year 638 has been more Famous amongst them than another for any Event from which they have thought fit to begin to compute their Years as we compute ours from the Birth of the Saviour of the World The most Ancient also appears Arbitrary By the same Reason I am persuaded that their most Ancient Epocha from which in this Year 1689 they compute 2233 Years has not been remarkable at Siam for any thing worthy of Memory and that it proves not that the Kingdom of Siam is of that Antiquity It is purely Astronomical and serves as a Foundation to another way of calculating the places of the Planets which they have relinquished for that new Method which I have given to Mr. Cassini Some person may discover to them the Mistakes where in process of time this ancient Method must fall as in time we have found out the Errors of the Reformation of the Calendar made by the Order of Julius Caesar And is not taken from the death of Sommona-Codom The Historical Memoirs of the Siameses re-ascending as I have remark'd in the beginning to 900 Years or thereabouts it is not necessary to seek the Foundation of their Kingdom in the 545th Year before the Birth of Jesus Christ nor to suppose that from this time they have enjoyed a Succession of Kings which they themselves are absolutely ignorant of And tho' the Siameses do vulgarly report that this first Epocha from which they compute as I have said 2233 Years is that of the death of their Sommona-Codom and altho' it refers almost to the time in which Pythagoras liv'd who has sowed in the West the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis which he had learnt from the Egyptians yet it is certain that the Siameses have not any Memoirs of the time in which their Sommona-Codom might have lived And I cannot persuade my self that their Sommona-Codom could be Pythagoras who was not in the East nor that their ancient Epocha is other than Astronomical and Arbitrary no more than their Modern Epocha But if the Siameses do still make use thereof in their Dates The Variety of Style in their Dates after having relinquish'd it in their Astronomical Calculations it is because that in things of Style they do not easily alter the Usages unto which they are accustomed and yet they cease not to date sometimes with respect to that modern Epocha which they have taken as I have said from the Year of our Lord 638. But their first Month is always the Moon of November or December in which they depart not from the ancient Style even then when they date the Year according to
consists in Extorsions because that in this there is no Justice for the weak All the Officers do hold a correspondence in pillaging and the Corruption is greatest in those from whence the Remedy ought to come The Trade of Presents is publick the least Officers do give unto the greatest under a Title of Respect and a Judge is not there punished for having received Presents if otherwise he be not convicted of Injustice which is not very easie to do The Form of the Oath of Fidelity consists in swallowing the water The Oath of Fidelity over which the Talapoins do pronounce some Imprecations against him who is to drink it in case he fails in the Fidelity which he owes to his King This Prince dispenses not with this Oath to any persons that engage themselves in his Service of what Religion or Nation soever The Publick Law of Siam is written in three Volumes The Publick Law of Siam is written The first is called Pra Tam Ra and contains the Names Functions and Prerogatives of all the Offices The second is intituled Pra Tam Non and is a Collection of the Constitutions of the Ancient Kings and the third is the Pra Rayja Cammanot wherein are the Constitutions of the now Regent King's Father Nothing would have been more necessary than a faithful extract of these three Volumes The difficulty of procuring the Books thereof rightly to make known the Constitution of the Kingdom of Siam but so far was I from being able to get a Translation that I could not procure a Copy thereof in Siamese It would have been necessary upon this account to continue longer at Siam and with less business This is therefore what I could learn certainly about this matter without the assistance of those Books and in a Country where every one is afraid to speak The greatest token of Servitude of the Siameses is that they dare not to open their mouth about any thing that relates to their Country CHAP. IV. Concerning the Offices of Judicatory The Division of the Kingdom of Siam by Provinces THE Kingdom of Siam is divided into the upper and lower The upper lies towards the North seeing that the River descends from thence and contains seven Provinces which are named by their Chief Cities Porselouc Sanquelouc Lacontai Campeng-pet Coconrepina Pechebonne and Pitchai At Porselouc do immediately arise ten Jurisdictions at Sanquelouc eight at Lacontai seven at Campeng-pet ten at Coconrepina five at Pechebonne two and at Pitchai seven And besides this there are in the upper Siam one and twenty other Jurisdictions to which no other Jurisdiction resorts but which do resort to the Court and are as so many little Provinces In the lower Siam that is to say in the South part of the Kingdom they reckon the Provinces of Jor Patana Ligor Tenasserim Chantebonne Petelong or Bordelong and Tchiai On Jor do immediately depend seven Jurisdictions on Patana eight on Ligor twenty on Tenasserim twelve on Chantebonne seven on Petelong eight and on Tchiai two And besides this there are likewise in the lower Siam thirteen small Jurisdictions which are as so many particular Provinces which resort only to the Court and to which no other Jurisdiction resorts The City of Siam has its Province apart in the heart of the State between the upper and lower Siam The Governor is the Judge The whole Tribunal of Judicature consists properly only in a single Officer seeing that it is the Chief or President only that has the deliberate voice and that all the other Officers have only a consultative voice according to the Custom received also at China and in the other Neighbouring States But the most important prerogative of the President is to be the Governour of his whole Jurisdiction and to command even the Garrisons if there be any unless the Prince hath otherwise disposed thereof by an express order So that as in other places these Offices are hereditary it is no difficult matter for some of these Governors and especially the most powerful and for the most remote from Court to withdraw themselves wholly or in part from the Royal Authority Jor belongs no more to the Kingdom of of Siam Thus the Governor of Jor renders Obedience no longer and the Portugueses give him the Title of King And it may be he never intends to obey unless the Kingdom of Siam should extend it self as Relations declare to the whole Peninsula extra Gangem Jor is the most Southern City thereof seated on a River which has its Mouth at the Cape of Sincapura and which forms a very excellent Port. Nor Patana The People of Patana live like those of Achem in the Isle of Sumatra under the Domination of a Woman whom they always elect in the same Family and always old to the end that she may have no occasion to marry and in the name of whom the most trusty persons do rule The Portuguese have likewise given her the Title of Queen and for Tribute she sends to the King of Siam every three Years two small Trees the one of Gold the other of Silver and both loaded with Flowers and Fruits but she owes not any assistance to this Prince in his Wars Whether these Gold and Silver Trees are a real Homage or only a Respect to maintain the liberty of Commerce as the King of Siam sends Presents every three Years to the King of China in consideration of Trade only is what I cannot alledge but as the King of China honours himself with these sorts of Presents and takes them for a kind of Homage it may well be that the King of Siam does not less value himself on the Presents he receives from the Queen of Patana altho' she be not perhaps his Vassal The Siameses do call an Hereditary Governor Tchaou-Meuang The Governor is Lord. Tchaou signifies Lord and Meuang a City or Province and sometimes a Kingdom The Kings of Siam have ruin'd and destroy'd the most potent Tchaou-Meuang as much as they could and have substituted in their place some Triennial Governors by Commission These Commission-Governors are called Pouran and Pou signifies a Person Besides the Presents which the Tchaou-Meuang may receive as I have declar'd The Profits or Rights of the Tchaou-Meuang his other legal Rights are First Equally to share with the King the Rents that the arable Lands do yield which they call Naa that is to say Fields and according to the ancient Law these Rents are a Mayon or quarter part of a Tical for forty Fathom or two hundred Foot square 2dly The Tchaou-Meuang has the profit of all Confiscations of all the Penalties to the Exchequer and ten per Cent. of all the Fines to the Party The Confiscations are fixed by Law according to the Cases and are not always the whole Estate not even in case of sentence of Death but sometimes also they extend to the Body not only of the Person condemn'd but of
VIII Concerning the Art of War amongst the Siameses and of their Forces by Sea and Land The Siameses not proper for War THe Art of War is exceedingly ignor'd at Siam the Siameses are little inclined to this Trade The over-quick imagination of the excessive hot Countries is not more proper for Courage than the slow imagination of Countries extreamly cold The sight of a naked Sword is sufficient to put an hundred Siameses to flight there needs only the assured Tone of an European that wears a Sword at his side or a Cane in his hand to make them forget the most express Orders of their Superiors How contemptible the men in the Indies are as to their Courage I say moreover that every one born in the Indies is without Courage although he be born of European Parents And the Portugueses born in the Indies have been a real proof thereof A society of Dutch Merchants found in them only the Name and the Language and not the Bravery of the Portuguese and if other Europeans went to seek out the Dutch they would not be found more Valorous The best constituted men are those of the Temperate Zones and amongst these the difference of their common aliments and of the places which they inhabit more or less hot dry or moist exposed to the Winds or to the Seas Plains or Mountains Woods or Champains and much more the several Governments do cause very great differences For who doubts for example that the Antient Greeks brought up in liberty where incomparably more Valorous then the present Greeks depressed by so long a Servitude All these reasons do concur to effeminate the Courage of the Siameses I mean the heat of the Climate the flegmatick Aliments and the Despotick Government The Siameses abhor blood The Opinion of the Metempsychosis inspiring them with an horror of blood deprives them likewise of the Spirit of War They busie themselves only in making Slaves If the Peguins for example do on one side invade the lands of Siam the Siameses will at another place enter on the Lands of Pegu and both Parties will carry away whole Villages into Captivity How in fighting they disguise the design of killing their Enemies But if the Armies meet they will not shoot directly one against the other but higher and yet as they endeavour to make these random Shots to fall back upon the Enemies to the end that they may be overtaken therewith if they do not retreat one of the two Parties do's not long defer from taking flight upon perceiving it never so little to rain Darts or Bullets But if the design be to stop the Troops that come upon them they will shoot lower than it is necessary to the end that if the Enemies approach the fault may be their own in coming within the reach of being wounded or slain Kill not is the order which the King of Siam gives his Troops when he sends them into the Field which cannot signifie that they should not kill absolutely but that they shoot not directly upon the Enemy How the King of Singor was taken by a Frenchman Some have upon this account informed me a thing which in my opinion will appear most incredible 'T is of a provincial named Cyprian who is still at Surat in the French Company 's Service if he has not quitted it or if he is not lately dead the name of his Family I know not Before his entrance into the Companies service he had served some time in the King of Siam's Army in quality of Canoneer and because he was prohibited from shooting strait he doubted not that the Siamese General would betray the King his Master This Prince sending afterwards some Troops against the Tchaou-Meuang or if you will against the King of Singor on the western Coast of the Gulph of Siam Cyprian wearied with seeing the Armies in view which attempted no persons life determin'd one night to go alone to the Camp of the Rebels and to fetch the King of Singor into his Tent. He took him indeed and brought him to the Siamese General and so terminated a War of above twenty years The King of Siam intended to recompence this service of Cyprian with a quantity of Sapan-wood but by some intrigue of Court he got nothing and retir'd to Surat Now though the Siameses appear to us so little proper for War The Siameses have little to fear from their Neighbours The King of Siam has no other Troops maintain'd than his foreign Guard yet they cease not to make it frequently and advantageously by reason that their Neighbours are neither more potent nor more valiant than them The King of Siam has no other Troops maintained than his foreign Guard of which I will speak in the sequel 'T is true that the Chevalier de Fourbin had showed the Exercise of Arms to four hundred Siameses which we found at Bancock and that after he had quitted this Kingdom an Englishman who had been a Sergeant in the Garrison of Madraspatan on the Coast of Coromandel showed this same exercise which he had learnt under the Chevalier de Fourbin to about eight hundred other Siameses to show the King of Siam that the Chevalier de Fourbin was not necessary to him But all these Soldiers have no other pay than the Exemption from the six Months Service for some of their Family And as they cannot easily maintain themselves from their own Houses by reason they receive no money they remain at their own Habitations the four hundred about Bancock and the other eight hundred at Louvo or thereabouts Only for the security of Bancock some Detachments went thither by turns to keep a continual Guard and the rest being thereabouts might render themselves in case of an Alarm But according to the common practice of the Kingdom of Siam the Garrisons which it may have are composed of persons who serve in this by six Months as they should serve in another thing and who are relieved by others when they have served their full time The Kingdom of Siam being very strong by its impenetaable Woods The Country of Siam is very strong without Forts and by the great number of Channels wherewith it is interspersed and in fine by the annual Innundation of six Months the Siameses would not hitherto have places well fortified for fear of losing them and not being able to retake them and this is the reason they gave me thereof The Castles they have would hardly sustain the first shock of our Soldiers and though they be small and ugly because they would have them such yet is it necessary to employ the skill of the Europeans to delineate them 'T is some years since the King of Siam designing to make a wooden Fort on the Frontier of Pegu The Siameses know not how to make a wooden Fort. had no abler a person to whom he could entrust the care thereof than to one named Brother Rene Charbonneau who
after having been a Servant of the Mission of St. Lazarus at Paris had passed to the Service of the Foreign Missions and was gone to Siam Brother Rene who by his Industry knew how to let blood and give a Remedy to a sick Person for it is by such like charitable Employments and by some presents that the Missionaries are permitted and loved in this Country defended himself as much as he could from making this Fort protesting that he was not capable but in short he could not prevent rendering obedience when it was signified to him that the King of Siam absolutely requir'd it He was afterwards three or four years Governor of Jonsalam by Commission and with great approbation and because he desired to return to the City of Siam to his Wife's Relations which are Portugueses Mr. Billi the Master of Mr. de Chaumont's Palace succeeded him in the Employment of Jonsalam The Siameses have not much Artillery A Portuguese of Macao Of their Artillery who died in their service cast them some pieces of Cannon but as for them I question whether they know how to make any moderately good though some have informed me that they have hammered some out of cold Iron As they have no Horses for what is two thousand Horse at most In what their Armies consist which 't is reported that the King of Siam keeps their Armies consist only in Elephants and in Infantry naked and ill armed after the mode of the Country Their order of Battel and Encampment is thus They range themselves in three lines What is their order of battle and of their Encampments each of which is composed of three great square Battalions and the King or the General whom he names in his absence stands in the middle Battalion which he composes of the best Troops for the security of his Person Every particular Captain of a Battalion keeps himself also in the midst of the Battalion which he commands and if the nine Battalions are too big they are each divided into nine less with the same symmetry as the whole body of the Army Elephants of War The Army being thus ranged every one of the nine Battalions has sixteen male Elephants in the rear They call them Elephants of War and each of these Elephants carries his particular standard and is accompanied with two female Elephants but as well females as males are mounted each with three armed Men and besides this the Army has some Elephants with Baggage The Siameses report that the female Elephants are only for the dignity of the males but as I have already declared in the other part it would be very difficult always to govern the males without the Company of the females The Artillery begins the Fight The Artillery at the places where the River grows shallow is carried on Waggons drawn by Buffalo's or Oxen for it has no carriage It begins the Fight and if it ends it not then they place themselves within reach to make use of the small shot and Arrows after the manner as I have explained but they never fall on with vigour enough nor defend themselves with constancy enough to come to a close Fight The Siameses easie to break and to rally They break themselves and fly into Woods but ordinarily they rally with the same facility as they are broken and if on some occasion as in the last Conspiracy of the Macassars it is absolutely necessary to stand firm they can promise themselves to retain the Soldiers only by placing some Officers behind to kill those that shall fly I have elsewhere related how these Macassars made use of Opium to endow themselves with Courage 't is a custom practised principally by the Ragipouts and the Melays but not by the Siameses the Siameses would be afraid to become too Couragious Elephants not proper for War They very much rely upon the Elephants in Combats though this Animal for want of Bitt or Bridle cannot be securely governed and he frequently returns upon his own Masters when he is wounded Moreover he so exceedingly dreads the fire that he is never almost accustomed thereunto Yet they exercise them to carry and to see fired from their back little pieces about three foot long and about a pound of Ball and Bernier reports that this very practice is observed in the Mogul's Country The Siameses incapable of Sieges As for Sieges they are wholly incapable thereof for men that dare not set upon the Enemies when in view will not vigorously attack a place never so little Fortified but only by Treachery in which they are very cunning or by Famine if the Besieged cannot have provision Their weakness by Sea They are yet more seeble by Sea than by Land Not without much ado the King of Siam hath five or six very small Ships which he principally makes use of for Merchandize and sometimes he arms them as Privateers against those of his Neighbours with whom he is at War But the Officers and Seamen on whom he confides are Foreigners and till these latter times he had chosen English and Portuguese but within these few years he hath employed some French The King of Siam's Intention is that his Corsairs should kill no person no more than his Land Forces but that they use all the Tricks imaginable to take some Prizes In his War at Sea he proposes to himself only some Reprizals from some of his Neighbours from whom he believes himself to have received some injury in Trade And the contrivances succeed whilst his Enemies are not in any distrust Besides this he has fifty or sixty Galleys whose Anchors I have said are of Wood. They are only moderate Boats for a Bridge which do every one carry fifty or sixty men to Row and to Fight These men do fight by turns as in every thing else There is only one to each Oar and he is obliged to Row standing because the Oar is so short for lightness sake that it would not touch the water if not held almost perpendicular These Gallies only coast it along the Gulph of Siam CHAP. IX Of the Barcalon and of the Revenues THe Pra-Clang or by a corruption of the Portugueses the Barcalon Of the Barcalon is the Officer which has the appointment of the Commerce as well within as without the Kingdom He is the Superintendent of the King of Siam's Magazines or if you will his chief Factor His name is composed of the Balie word Pra which I have so often discoursed of and of the word Clang which signifies Magazine He is the Minister of the foreign affairs because they almost all relate to Commerce and 't is to him that the fugitive Nations at Siam address themselves in their affairs because 't is only the liberty of Trade that formerly invited them thither In a word it is the Barcalon that receives the Revenues of the Cities The King of Siam's Revenues are of two sorts Revenues of the Cities
The King of Siam's Revenues arise from two Sources and Revenues of the Country The Country Revenues are received by Oc ya Pollatep according to some or Vorethep according to Mr. Gervase They are all reduced to the Heads following 1. On Forty Fathom Square of cultivated Lands His Duties on cultivated Lands a Mayon or quarter of a Tical by year but this Rent is divided with the Tchaou-Meuang where there is one and it is never well paid to the King on the Frontiers Besides this the Law of the Kingdom is that whoever ploughs not his ground pays nothing though it be by his own negligence that he reaps nothing But the present King of Siam to force his Subjects to work has exacted this duty from those that have possessed Lands for a certain time although they omit to cultivate them Yet this is executed only in the places where his Authority is absolute He loved nothing so much as to see Strangers come to settle in his States there to manure those great uncultivated Spaces which without comparison do make the most considerable part thereof in this case he would be liberal of untilled grounds and of Beasts to cultivate them though they had been cleared and prepared for Tillage 2. On Boats or Balons On Boats the Natives of the Country pay a Tical for every Fathom in length Under this Reign they have added that every Balon or Boat above six Cubits broad should pay six Ticals and that Foreigners should be obliged to this duty as well as the Natives of the Country This duty is levied like a kind of Custom at certain places of the River and amongst others at Tchainat four Leagues above Siam where all the Streams unite 3. Customs on whatever is imported or exported by Sea Besides which Customes the body of the Ship pays something in proportion to its Capacities like the Balons 4. On Arak or Rice-Brandy or rather on every Furnace where it is made On Arak which they call Taou-laou the People of the Country do pay a Tical per Annum This Duty has been doubled under this Reign and is exacted on the Natives of the Country and on Strangers alike 'T is likewise added that every Seller of Arak by re-tail should pay a Tical a year and every Seller by whole-sale a Tical per Annum for every great Pot the size of which I find no otherwise described in the Note which was given me 5. On the Fruit called Durion for every Tree already bearing On Durions or not bearing Fruit two Mayons or half a Tical per annum 6. On every Tree of Betel a Tical per annum On Betel 7. On every Arekier they formerly paid three Nuts of Arek in kind On the Arek under this Reign they pay six 8. Revenues entirely new or established under this Reign New Imposts are in the first place a certain Duty on a School of Recreation permitted at Siam The Tribute which the Oc-ya Meen pays is almost of the same Nature but I know not whether it is not ancienter than the former In the second place on every Coco-Tree half a Tical per Annum and in the third place on Orange-Trees Mango-Trees Mangoustaniers and Pimentiers for each a Tical per Annum There is no duty on Pepper by reason that the King would have his Subjects addict themselves more to plant it A Demesn reserved to the King 9. This Prince has in several places of his States some Gardens and Lands which he causes to be cultivated as his particular demesn as well by his Slaves as by the six Months Service He causes the Fruits to be gathered and kept on the places for the maintenance of his House and for the nourishment of his Slaves his Elephants his Horses and other Cattle and the rest he sells 10. A Casual Revenue is the Presents which this Prince receives as well as all the Officers of his Kingdom the Legacies which the Officers bequeath him at their death or which he takes from their Succession and in fine the extraordinary Duties which he takes from his Subjects on several occasions as for the Maintenance of Foreign Ambassadors to which the Governors into whose Jurisdiction the Ambassadors do pass or sojourn are obliged to contribute and for the building of Forts and other publick works an expence which he levies on the People amongst whom these works are made Confiscations and Fines Six Months Service 11. The Revenues of Justice do donsist in Confiscations and Fines 12. Six Months service of every one of his Subjects per Annum a Service which he or his Officers frequently extend much further who alone discharges it from every thing and from which there remains to him a good Increase For in certain places this Service is converted into a payment made in Rice or in Sapan-wood or Lignum-aloes or Saltpetre or in Elephants or in Beasts Skins or in Ivory or in other Commodities and in fine this Service is sometimes esteemed and paid in ready Money and it is for the ready Money that the Rich are exempted Anciently this Service was esteemed at a Tical a Month because that one Tical is sufficient to maintain one Man and this computation serves likewise as an assessment on the days Labour of the Workmen which a particular Person employs They amount to two Ticals a Month at least by reason that it is reckon'd that a Workman must in 6 Months gain his Maintenance for the whole year seeing that he can get nothing the other six Months that he serves the Prince The Prince now extorts two Ticals a Month for the exemption from the six Months Service Commerce a Revenue extraordinary or casual 13. His other Revenues do arise from the Commerce which he exercises with his Subjects and Foreigners He has carried it to such a degree that Merchandize is now no more the Trade of particular persons at Siam He is not contented with selling by Whole-sale he has some Shops in the Bazars or Markets to sell by Re-tail Cotton-cloath The principal thing that he sells to his Subjects is Cotton-cloath he sends them into his Magazines of the Provinces Heretofore his Predecessors and he sent them thither only every Ten Years and a moderate quantity which being sold particular persons had liberty to make Commerce thereof now he continually furnishes them he has in his Magazines more than he can possibly sell and it sometimes happens that to vend more that he has forced his Subjects to cloath their Children before the accustomed Age. Before the Hollanders came into the Kingdom of Laos and into others adjacent the King of Siam did there make the whole Commerce of Linnen with a considerable profit The Calin or Tin All the Calin is his and he sells it as well to Strangers as to his own Subjects excepting that which is dug out of the Mines of Jonsalam on the Gulph of Bengal for this being a
Ounces only are sufficient to take away thy life Then he complains that they with-held him not in his Anger either that he indeed repents sometimes of his precipitate Cruelties or that he would make believe that he is cruel only in the first Transport The Various Punishments of the Court of Siam Sometimes he exposes a Criminal to an enraged Bull and the Criminal is armed with a hollow stick consequently proper to cause fear but not to wound with which he defends himself some time At other times he will give the Criminal to Elephants sometimes to be trampled under foot and slain sometimes to be tossed without killing for they affirm that the Elephants are docible to that degree and that if a Man is only to be tossed they throw him one to the other and receive him on their Trunck and on their Teeth without letting him fall on the ground I have not seen it but I cannot doubt of the manner which they have assured me The Punishments have respect to the Crimes But the Ordinary Chastisements are those which have some relation to the Nature of the Crimes As for example Extortion excercised on the People and a Robbery committed on the Prince's Money will be punished by the swallowing of Gold or Silver melted Lying or a Secret revealed will be punished by Sowing up the Mouth They will slit it to punish Silence where it is not to be kept Any Fault in the execution of Orders will be Chastised by pricking the Head as to punish the Memory To prick the Head is to cut it with the edge of a Sabre but to manage it securely and not to make too great wounds they hold it with one hand by the Back and not by the Handle The punishment of the Sword and the Cudgel The punishment of the Glave or Sword is not executed only by cutting the Head off but by cutting a man through the middle of the Body And the Cudgel is sometimes also a punishment of death But when the Chastisement of the Cudgel ought not to extend to death it ceases not to be very rigorous and frequently to cause the loss of all knowledge The Punishment with which Princes are punished If the matter is to put a Prince to death in form as it may happen or when a King would rid himself of some of his Relations or when an Usurper would extinquish the race from which he has ravish'd the Crown they make it a piece of Religion not to shed the Royal blood but they will make him to die with hunger and sometimes with a lingering hunger by daily substracting from him something of his food or they will stifle him with Rich Stuffs or rather they will stretch him on Scarlet which they mightily esteem because the Wool is rare and dear and there they will thrust into his Stomach a billet of Saunders Wood. This Wood is odoriferous and highly esteem'd There are three sorts the white is better than the yellow and both do grow only in the Isles of Solor and Timor to the East of Java The red is esteemed the least of all and it grows in several places The Kings of Asia do place their whole security in rendering themselves formidable and from time out of mind they have had no other Policy The extreme distrust of the Kings of Siam whether that a long Experience has evinced that these People are uncapable of Love for their Soveraign or that these Kings would not be advised that the more they are fear'd the more they have to fear However it be the extream distrust in which the Kings of Siam do always live appears sufficiently in the cares which they take to prevent all secret Correspondence amongst the great Men to keep the Gates of their Palace shut and to permit no armed person to enter and to disarm their own Guards A Gun fired by accident or otherwise so near the Palace that the King hears it is a capital Crime and the noise of a Pistol being heard in the Palace a little after the Conspiracy of the Macassars 't was doubted whether the King had not with this shot killed one of his Brothers because that the King alone has power to shoot and that moreover one of his Brethren had been suspected of having medled in this Conspiracy and this doubt was not cleared when we left Siam Besides these Punishments which I have mentioned Infamous Punishments they have some less dolorous but more infamous as to expose a Man in a public place loaded with Irons or with his Neck put into a kind of Ladder or Pillory which is called Cangue in Siamese Ka. The two sides of this Ladder are about six foot long and are fastned to a Wall or to Posts each at one end with a Cord insomuch that the Ladder may be rais'd up and let down as if it was fasten'd to Pullies In the middle of the Ladder are two Steps or Rounds between which is the Neck of the Offender and there are no more Rounds than these two The Offender may sit on the ground or stand when the weight of the Ladder which bears upon his Shoulders is not too big as it is sometimes or when the Ladder is not fastned at the four ends for in this last Case it is planted in the Air bearing at the ends upon Props and then the Criminal is as it were hung by the Neck he hardly touches the ground with the Tips of his Toes Besides this they have the use of Stocks and Manacles The Criminal is sometimes in a Ditch to be lower than the ground and this Ditch is not always broad but oftentimes it is extremely narrow and the Criminal properly speaking is buried up to the Shoulders There for the greater Ignominy they give him Cuffs or Blows on the Head or they only stroke the hand over his Head Affronts esteemed very great especially if received from the hand of a Woman But what is herein very particular is The shame of the Punishments lasts no longer than the Punishments It is attended with Honour that the most infamous Punishment is reproachful only as long as it lasts He that suffers it to day will re-enter tomorrow if the Prince thinks fit into the most important Offices Moreover they boast of the Punishments which they receive by Order of their King as of his paternal care for him whom he has the goodness to chastise He receives Compliments and Presents after the Bastinado and it is principally in the East that Chastisements do pass for testimonies of Affection We saw a young Mandarin shut up to be punished and a Frenchman offering him to go and ask his Pardon of his Superior No replied the Mandarin in Portuguese I would see how far his Love would reach or as an European would have said I would see how far he will extend his Rigor To be reduced from an eminent place to a lower is no Reproach and this befel the
second Ambassador whom we saw here Yet it happens also that in this Country they hang themselves in despair when they see themselves reduced from an high Employment to an extreme Poverty and to the six Months Service due to the Prince tho' this Fall be not shameful I have said in another place Others are included in the Punishments with the Criminals that a Father shares sometimes in the punishment of the Son as being bound to answer for the Education which he has given him At China an Officer answers for the Faults of all the persons of his Family because they pretend that he who knows not how to govern his own Family is not capable of any public Function The Fear therefore which particular persons have of seeing their Families turned out of the Employments which do make the Splendor and Support thereof renders them all wise as if they were all Magistrates In like manner at Siam and at China an Officer is punished for the Offences of another Officer that is subject to his Orders by reason that he is to watch over him that depends on him and that having power to correct him he ought to answer for his conduct Thus about three years since we saw at Siam for three days Oc-Pra-Simo-ho-sot by Nation a Brame who is now in the King of Siam's Council of State exposed to the Cangue with the head of a Malefactor which they had put to Death hung about his Neck without being accused of having had any other hand in the crime of him whose head was hung to his Neck than too great Negligence in watching over a Man that was subject to him After this 't is no wonder in my opinion that the Bastinado should be so frequent at Siam Sometimes there may be seen several Officers at the Cangue disposed in a Circle and in the midst of them will be the head of a man which they have put to death and this head will hang by several strings from the Neck of every one of these Officers The least pretence for a Crime is punished The worst is that the least appearance of guilt renders an action criminal To be accused is almost sufficient to be culpable An action in it self innocent becomes bad so soon as any one thinks to make a Crime thereof And from thence proceed the so frequent disgraces of the principal Officers They know not how for instance to reckon up all the Barcalons that the King of Siam has had since he reigned The Policy of the Kings of Siam cruel against all and against their own Brethren The Greatness of the Kings whose Authority is despotical is to exercise Power over all and over their own Brethren The Kings of Siam do maim them in several ways when they can they take away or debilitate their sight by fire they render them impotent by dislocation of Members or sottish by Drinks securing themselves and their Children against the Enterprizes of their Brethren only by rendring them incapable of reigning he that now reigns has not treated his better This Prince will not therefore envy our King the sweetness of being beloved by his Subjects and the Glory of being dreaded by his Enemies The Idea of a great King is not at Siam that he should render himself terrible to his Neighbours provided he be so to his Subjects The Government of Siam more burdensome to the Nobles than to the Populace Yet there is this Reflection to be made on this sort of Government that the Yoke thereof is less heavy if I may so say on the Populace than on the Nobles Ambition in this Country leads to Slavery Liberty and the other Enjoyments of Life are for the vulgar Conditions The more one is unknown to the Prince and the further from him the greater Ease he enjoys and for this reason the Employments of the Provinces are there considered as a Recompence of the Services done in the Palace How tempestuous the Ministry is at Siam The Ministry there is tempestuous not only thro the natural Inconstancy which may appear in the Prince's Mind but because that the ways are open for all persons to carry complaints to the Prince against his Ministers And though the Ministers and all the other Officers do employ all their artifices to render these ways of complaints ineffectual whereby one may attack them all yet all complaints are dangerous and sometimes it is the slightest which hurts and which subverts the best established favour These examples which very frequently happen do edifie the People and if the present King had not too far extended his exactions without any real necessity his Government would as much please the Populace as it is terrible to the Nobles The King of Siam's regards for his people Nevertheless he has had that regard for his People as not to augment his Duties on cultivated Lands and to lay no imposition on Corn and Fish to the end that what is necessary to Life might not be dear A moderation so much the more admirable as it seems that they ought not to expect any from a Prince educated in this Maxim that his Glory consists in not setting limits to his power and always in augmenting his Treasure The Inconveniences of this Government It renders the Prince wavering on his Throne But these Kings which are so absolutely the Masters of the Fortune and Life of their Subjects are so much the more wavering in the Throne They find not in any person or at most in a small number of Domesticks that Fidelity or Love which we have for our Kings The People which possess nothing in property and which do reckon only upon what they have buried in the ground as they have no solid establishment in their Country so they have no obligation thereto Being resolved to bear the same Yoke under any Prince whatever and having the assurance of not being able to bear a heavier they concern not themselves in the Fortune of their Prince and experience evinces that upon the least trouble they let the Crown go to whom Force or Policy will give it A Siamese a Chinese an Indian will easily die to exert a particular Hatred or to avoid a miserable Life or a too cruel Death but to die for their Prince and their Country is not a Vertue in their practice Amongst them are not found the powerful motives by which our People animate themselves to a vigorous Defence They have no Inheritance to lose and Liberty is oftentimes more burdensom to them than Servitude The Siameses which the King of Pegu has taken in war will live peaceable in Pegu at Twenty miles distant from the Frontiers of Siam and they will there cultivate the Lands which the King of Pegu has given them no remembrance of their Country making them to hate their new Servitude And it is the same of the Peguins which are in the Kingdom of Siam The Eastern Kings are looked upon as the
Indians have added to these Errors The Indians do now believe like the ancient Chineses some Souls as well good as bad diffused every where to which they have distributed the Divine Omnipotence And there is yet found some remains of this very Opinion amongst the Indians which have embraced Mahumetanism But by a new Error the Pagans of the Indies have thought all these Souls of the same nature and they have made them all to rowl from one body to another The Spirit of the Heaven of the ancient Chineses had some Air of Divinity It was I think immortal and not subject to wax old and to die and to leave its place to a Successor but in the Indian Doctrine of the Metempsychosis the Souls are fixed no where and succeeding one another every where they are not one better than another by their nature they are only designed to higher or lower functions in Nature according to the merit of their work Why the Indians have consecrated no Temple to the Spirits not even to that of Heaven The Antient Chineses have divided the Justice of God The Justice of Heaven was principally busied in punishing the Faults of the Kings of China Thus the Indians have consecrated no Temples to the Spirits not so much as to that of Heaven because they believe them all Souls like all the rest which are still in the course of Transmigration that is to say in Sin and in the Torments of different sorts of life and consequently unworthy of having Altars But if the ancient Chineses have as I may say reduc'd the Providence and Omnipotence of God into piece-meals they have not less divided his Justice They assert that the Spirits like concealed Ministers were principally busied in punishing the hidden faults of men that the Spirit of Heaven punished the faults of the King the Ministring Spirits of Heaven the faults of the King's Ministers and so of other Spirits in regard of other men On this Foundation they said to their King that though he was the adoptive Son of Heaven yet the Heaven would not have any regard to him by any sort of Affliction but by the sole consideration of the good or evil that he should do in the Government of his Kingdom They called the Chinese Empire the Celestial Command because said they a King of China ought to govern his State as Heaven governed Nature and that it was to Heaven that he ought to seek the Science of Governing They acknowledged that not only the Art of Ruling was a Present from Heaven but that Regality it self was given by Heaven and that it was a present difficult to keep because that they supposed that Kings could not maintain themselves on the Throne without the savour of Heaven nor please Heaven but by Vertue How they believe their Kings responsable to Heaven for the manners of their Subjects They carried this Doctrine so far that they pretended that the sole Vertue of Kings might render their Subjects Vertuous and that thereby the Kings were first responsible to Heaven for the wicked manners of their Kingdom The Vertue of Kings that is to say the Art of Ruling according to the Laws of China was in their Opinion a Donative from Heaven which they called Celestial Reason or Reason given by Heaven and like to that of Heaven The Vertue of Subjects according to them the regards of the Citizens as well from one to another as from all towards their Prince according to the Laws of China was the work of good Kings 'T is a small matter said they to punish Crimes it is necessary that a King prevents them by his Vertue They extoll one of their Kings for having reigned Twenty two years the People not perceiving that is to say not feeling the weight of the Royal Authority no more than the force which moves Nature and which they attribute to Heaven They report then that for these Twenty two years there was not one single Process in all China nor one single Execution of Justice a Wonder which they call to govern imperceptably like the Heaven and which alone may cause a doubt of the Fidelity of their History Another of their Kings meeting as they say a Criminal which was lead to Punishment took it upon himself for that under his Reign he committed Crimes worthy of Death And another seeing China afflicted with Sterility for seven years condemned himself if their History may be credited to bear the Crimes of his People as thinking himself only culpable and resolved to devote himself to death and to sacrifice himself to the Spirit of Heaven the Revenger of the Crimes of Kings But their History adds that Heaven satisfied with the Piety of that Prince exempted him from that Sacrifice and restored Fertility to the Lands by a sudden and plentiful Rain As the Heaven therefore executes Justice only upon the King and that it inflicts it only upon the King for what it sees punishable in the People the Ministers of Heaven do execute Justice on the secret Faults which the King's Ministers commit and all the Officers which depend upon them and after the same manner the other Spirits do watch over the Actions of the Men that in the Kingdom of China have a rank equal to that which these Spirits do possess in the invincible Monarchy of Nature whereof the Spirit of Heaven is King Besides this the natural Honor which most men have of the dead The Chineses fear their dead Parents whom they knew very well in their Life-time and the Opinion which several have of having seen them appear to them whether by an effect of this natural Honor which represents them to them or by Dreams so lively that they resemble the Truth do induce the ancient Chineses to believe that the Souls of their Ancestors which they judged to be of very subtile matter pleased themselves in continuing about their Posterity and that they might though after their death chastise the Faults of their Children The Chinese People still continue in these opinions of the temporal Punishments and Rewards which come from the Soul of Heaven and from all the other Souls though moreover for the greatest part they have embraced the Opinion of the Metempsychosis unknown to their Ancestors But by little and little the Men of Letters that is to say The Impiety of the present Chineses which are men of Learning those that have some degrees of Literature and who alone have a Hand in the Government being become altogether impious and yet having altered nothing in the Language of their Predecessors have made of the Soul of Heaven and of all the other Souls I know not what aerial substances uuprovided of Intelligence and for the Judge of our Works they have established a blind Fatality which in their opinion makes that which might exercise an Omnipotent and Illuminated Justice How ancient this Impiety is at China belongs not to me to determin Father de Rhodes in his
his Talapoins to the City of Kousampi the Inhabitants came daily to make them presents sometimes to Sommona-Codom sometimes to Mogla and to Saribout his two principal Favourites one of which sat on his Right hand and the other on his Left some to Kasop and Pattia others to Quimila and Packon or to Anourout but what is remarkable no body presented to Thevetat and they spake no more of him than if he had never been in the world whereat he was extreamly inraged Is it said he that I am not a Talapoin as well as the others Is it that I am not of the Royal Blood like them Why has no one made any Present to me He therefore resolved instantly to seek out some body that should present him and to allure some Disciples The King of the City Pimpisaan was arrived to the first degree of Perfection with One Hundred and Ten Thousand men all Disciples of Sommona-Codom and he had a Son as yet young and who knew not what Evil was Thevetat contriving to seduce this Son to make use of him in his wicked designs went from the City of Pinmesan to go to Rhacacreu and assumed by the power he had the shape of a little Infant with a Serpent round each Leg another round his Neck and another round his Head Besides this he had one who embracing him on the left Shoulder descended underneath the right Shoulder before and behind In this equipage he took wing and went through the Air to the City of Rachacreu He lights at the Feet of Achatasatrou who was that young Prince the Son of the King of the City of * Just before he said Pimpisaan Pimmepisan and who seeing Thevetat after this manner with his whole body twisted about with Serpents conceived a great Terror thereat Being affrighted at a thing so strange he asked Thevetat who he was and Thevetat having told him his Name and entirely confirmed him re-assumed his first shape that is to say his Talapoins Habit and his Serpents disappeared Achatasatrou hereupon conceived a great esteem of Thevetat and made him great Presents an Honor which effected the ruine of Thevetat by the Pride he conceived thereat for from that time he contrived the design of making himself Master and Chief of his Brethren He went therefore to Sommona-Codom he found him out who preached to the King saluted him approached him and after some discourse told him that being already in a very advanced Age it was not fit that for the future he should take so much Pains but that he ought to think of spending the rest of his days pleasantly and at his own Ease I am added he ready to assist you to the utmost of my power and as the care of so many Religious overwhelms you you may for the future discharge it upon me This is the Language which the extream desire of seeing himself above all did put into his Mouth Sommona-Codom who knew him refus'd and contemn'd his demand whereat Thevetat was so enraged that he only plotted ways to revenge himself He returned to the City of Rachacreu to find out Achatasatrou his Disciple and perswaded him to get rid of his Father the sooner to get upon the Throne and afterwards to afford him the means of putting Sommona-Codom to Death and of setting up himself in his stead Achatasatrou then caused his Father to be put into a Dungeon loaded with Irons and seized on the Throne Thevetat expressed unto him his Joy and desired him to remember the Promise he had made him The new King presently granted him 500 men armed with Arrows to go and kill Sommona-Codom They found him walking at the Foot of a Mountain and his sight alone impressed in them so much Fear and Respect that there was not any one who dared to let fly an Arrow they all remained immoveable every one with their Bow bent Sommona-Codom intreated them to tell him the Author of their Enterprize and when they had informed him he preached a Sermon unto them at the end of which they arrived at the first degree of Perfection and returned home So soon as Thevetat saw that they had missed their blow he went himself on the Mountain and applied himself to roul down Stones to the bottom designedly to kill Sommona-Codom and when he thought he had thrown down enough to kill him he descended thence and called him two or three times by his Name Sommona-Codom who had ascended the Mountain at one side when Thevetat descended at the other answered that he was at top Thevetat presently re-mounted and at the same time Sommona-Codom who knew him without seeing him descended without being seen Thevetat re-ascended again in vain and he died with rage Mean while Sommona-Codom seeing himself thus persecuted said unto himself what Crime what Sin have I committed Now that I am at the heighth of perfection that I have performed so great a Penitence that I have preached so much and taught so holy a doctrine yet they cease not to persecute me to kill me And by thus examining himself he remember'd that one day being drunk Sommona-Codom sins and is punished in Hell * he had hit a Talapoin with a little stone which he had flung and which had drawn out a little blood and he knew that he was to be punished in five hundred Generations successively that he had already been punished in 499 and that this was the five hundredth besides which he had been a long time in Hell Wherefore knowing moreover that if he permitted not Thevetat to do him some mischief he should kill him with rage and go into Hell after his death he rather chose that a small shiver of a Flint which Thevetat threw at him and which dash'd in pieces against another should wound him in the foot to draw out a little blood 'T was he that stretch'd out his foot to receive the blow and thereby he appeased the anger of Thevetat who for some time forgot the Resolution of killing him One day as Sommona-Codom went to beg Alms in the City of Rachacreu Thevetat being advertised thereof procur'd the King to send his most mischievous Elephants to do him a mischief if he did not retreat Sommona-Codom ceased not to continue his road with his Talapoins and as they came near the Elephants Aanon went before his Master to secure him from the fury of the Elephants by exposing himself but they hurt no body At his departure out of the City Sommona-Codom retir'd into a Pagod where the people brought him to eat He eat and preached afterwards to all this multitude which was come out to the number of Ten Millions of persons to hear him and he converted fourscore and four Thousand some of which went to the first degree others to the second others to the third others to the fourth degree of Perfection Several enlarged themselves on the Praises of Aanon who loved his master so dearly as to expose his life for him Whereupon Sommona-Codom informed
them that this was not the first time Aanon had done it Another time he said unto them when I was King of the Ong 't is a kind of Bird Aanon being also an Ong and my younger Brother he saved my life by exposing his in my place When the King Achatasatrou had heard Aanon thus commended for having exposed his life for his Master he recalled the 500 men which he had given to Thevetat and thus Thevetat saw himself abandon'd by every one He had leave to beg but no body gave him wherewith to live being reduced to the extremity of seeking a livelihood himself he returned to Sommona-Codom and offered him five Propositions which he intreated him to grant The first was that if there were some Talapoins who would oblige themselves to live in the Woods and sequester'd from the World he would permit them The second that those who would engage themselves to live only on Alms might submit themselves thereto The third that he would grant the liberty of cloathing themselves poorly to such who would desire always to do it and who would oblige themselves to be always contented with old Pagnes patched and nasty The fourth that he would permit those which should desire it to refuse all their life to have any other Convent or Lodging than under a Tree and in fine that they who would never eat Meat or Fish might deprive themselves thereof Sommona-Codom answer'd him that it was necessary to leave to every one his own will and to oblige no person to more than he would or even than he could Thevetat rose up after Sommona-Codom's Answer and cried aloud to all the Talapoins that were present let all those that would be happy follow me and immediately a Troop of ignorant persons to the number of five hundred deceived by the specious appearance of his false intentions resolved to follow him and exactly to keep the five things which he proposed They had some devoto's which nourish'd them and which supply'd all their wants although they knew that Thevetat had kindled the War amongst the Talopoins by separating himself from his Master When Sommona-Codom saw that he took so wicked a Conduct he endeavoured to reclaim him by divers Sermons which he made to him to convince him that there was not a greater Crime than this Thevetat heard him very patiently but without making any benefit thereby for he briskly quitted Sommona-Codom On the Road he met Aanon who demanded Charity from door to door in the City of Rachacreu and told him that he had just quitted his Master to live for the future after his own humor Aanon told it to Sommona-Codom who repli'd that he knew it very well that he saw that Thevetat was an unhappy wretch that he would go into Hell This adds he is exactly as Sinners do they commit great Crimes and this they call doing Good and what is Good they call Evil. Virtuous Men do good without trouble whereas it is a punishment to the wicked and on the contrary Evil displeaseth the Good and the wicked make a pleasure thereof Knowing therefore the place and quarter where Thevetat was retir'd with his 500 Disciples he sent Mogla and Saribout thither to bring them away They found Thevetat preaching and when he saw them he thought that like him they had quitted their Master Wherefore after his Sermon he said unto them I know that when you were with Sommona-Codom you were his two Favourites and that he made you to sit one at his right hand and the other at his left I desire you to accept the same thing from me Not to know him and the better to cover their design they told him that they kindly accepted it and seated themselves indeed at his sides Then he intreated them to preach in his stead whilst he went to repose Saribout preached and after his Sermon all those 500 Talapoins arrived at the perfection of an Angel rose up into the Air and disappear'd Conkali the Disciple of Thevetat ran to wake him and tell him what had past I had well advised you not to trust them said he unto him than he began to be vexed and to such a degree that he beat Conkali so as to make his Mouth to bleed On the other hand when the Talapoins which were with Sommona-Codom saw Mogla and Saribout return with their Company they went immediately to acquaint their Master and to express unto him the astonishment wherein they were to see Mogla and Saribout return so well accompanied after having seen them depart alone Mogla and Saribout came also to salute their Master and the new come Talapoins told Sommona-Codom that Thevetat imitated him in all things You very much deceive your selves said he unto them to think that he does what I do formerly indeed he Counterfeited me but now he practises the same Then his Disciples said unto him we know our dear Master that Thevetat Counterfeits you at present but that he has Counterfeited you in times past we know nothing thereof wherefore we desire you to explain it to us He then open'd his mouth and said you know that heretofore being a Bird but a Bird which sought his living sometimes in the Water sometimes on the Land Thevetat at the same time was a Land-Fowl and had great Feet After my example he would catch Fish but he entangled his Neck in the Weeds not being able to pluck it out and died there I remember also that I once was one of these little red Birds which do eat the Worms of the Trees Thevetat was a Bird of another sort and he affected to nourish himself like me I sought the Worms in the Trees which have the heart included in the middle of the Trunck and I sought out these Trees in a great and spacious Forest he sought the Worms in Trees without heart but which have an appearance thereof and his head was bruised as a punishment Another time I was born a Rachasi and he was born a wild Dog Now the Rachasi do live only on the Elephants which they kill in the Woods and the Dog of the Woods would act like me but he reapt the evil thereof for the Elephants trampled him under their Feet and crushed him in pieces Another day Sommona-Codom preaching to his Disciples spake to them of Thevetat and said unto them Once I was one of the Land-fowl with great Feet and he was Rachasi In eating of meat he would swallow a bone which sticking in his Throat would strangle him I had compassion on him I drew the bone out of his Throat at the request he made me confessing that what force soever he had used yet he could not relieve himself I entered therefore into his great Throat which he open'd and pluck'd out this bone with my Beak and as he had promised me a recompence I only demanded of him something to eat but he answered me that having permitted me to enter into his Throat and to come out safe and
in the middle Equinox of the Spring Anno 1513 on the 14 of March. 'T will not be needless to have some particular Epocha's of the new Moons proper for the Julian Calendar to which most of the Chronologers do refer all the times past Julius Caesar chose an Epocha of Julian years in which the new Moon happened the first day of the year 'T was the 45th year before the birth of Jesus Christ which is in the rank of the Bissextiles according as this rank was afterwards established by Augustus and as it is still observed The first day of January of the same forty fifth year before Jesus Christ the middle conjunction of the Moon with the Sun happened at Six a clock in the Evening at the Meridian of Rome And the first of January in the 32d year of Jesus Christ the middle conjunction happened precisely at Noon at the Meridian of Rome The most commodious of the Epocha's near the middle conjunctions in the Julian years is that which happened the first of January Anno 1500 an hour and half before Noon at the Meridian of Paris XIX An Ancient Astronomical Epocha of the Indians IN the III. Chapter of these Reflexions we have remarked that the Siameses in their dates make use of an Epocha which precedes the year of Jesus Christ by 544 years and that after the twelfth or thirteenth month of the years from this Epocha which do now end in November or December the first month which follows and which must be attributed to the following year is yet attributed to the same year which has given us ground to conjecture that they attribute also to the same year the other months to the beginning of the Astronomical year which begins at the Vernal Equinox This conjecture has been confirmed by the report of Mr. de la Loubere who likewise judges that this Ancient Epocha must also be an Astronomical Epocha The extraordinary manner of computing the first and second month of the same year after the twelfth or thirteenth may cause a belief that the first month of these years which begins at present in November or December began anciently near the Vernal Equinox and that in process of time the Indians either thro negligence or to make use of a Cycle too short as would be that of 60 years which the Chineses do use have sometimes failed to add a thirteenth month to the year which ought to be Embolismick whence it has happen'd that the first month has run back into the winter which having been perceived the winter months now called first second and third have been attributed to the preceding year which according to the ancient institution ought not to end but at Spring Thus the Indian year which was called 2231 at the end of the year 1687 of Jesus Christ ought not to end according to the Ancient Institution till the Spring of the year 1688. Having substracted 1688 from 2231 there remains 543 which is the number of the compleat years from the ancient Epocha of the Indians to the year of Jesus Christ This Epocha appertains therefore to the current year 544 before Jesus Christ according to the most common way of computing In this year the middle conjunction of the Moon happened between the true Equinox and the middle Equinox of the Spring at 15 degrees distance from the North Node of the Moon the 27th of March according to the Julian form a Saturday which is an Astronomical Epocha almost like to that of the year 638 which has been chosen as more modern and more precise than the former Between these two Indian Epocha's there is a period of 1181 years which being joyned to a period of 19 years there are two periods of 600 years which reduce the new Moons near the Equinoxes XX. The Relation of the Synodical years of the Indians to those of the Cycle of the Chineses of 60 Years ACcording to the Chronology of China which Father Couplet published and according to Father Martinius in his History of China the Chineses do make use of lunisolar years and they destribute them into sexagenary Cycles the 74th of which began in the year of J. Christ 1683 so that the first Cycle should have begun 2697 years before the birth of Jesus Christ By the Indian Rules of the first Section in 60 synodical years there are 720 solar months and 742 lunar months and 24 228 It is necessary to reject this fraction because that the lunisolar years are composed of entire lunar months Yet this fraction in 19 sexagenary Cycles which do make 1140 years amounts to 456 22â— which do make two months therefore if the sexagenary Cycles of the Chineses are all uniform 1140 Chinese years are shorter by two months than 1140 synodical years of the Indians Wherefore if the Indians have regulated the Intercalations of their civil years by uniform sexagenary Cycles the beginning of the civil year 2232 ought to precede by a little less than four months the term of their synodical years which is at present on the 27 of March of the Gregorian year as it happened indeed which confirms what we have conjectured in the foregoing Chapter of the anticipation of the civil years To equal the years of the sexagenary Cycle to the synodical years regulated according to the Cycle of 19 years it would be necessary that among 19 sexagenary Cycles there were 17 of 742 lunar months and 2 of 743 or rather it would be necessary that after 9 Cycles of 742 months which do make 740 years the tenth Cycle following which would be accomplish'd in the year 600 was of 743 months But there is ground to doubt whether they use it thus seeing that the Chinese year has several times had occasion of being reformed to refer its beginning to the same term in which nevertheless the modern Relations accord only to 10 degrees Father Martinius denoting it at the 15th degree of Aquarius and Father Couplet at the 5th of the same Sign as if the Term had retreated 10 degrees since the time of Father Martinius It is unquestionable that a great part of the Eclipses and of the other Conjunctions which the Chineses do give as observed cannot have happened at the times that they pretend according to the Calendar regulated after the manner as it is at present as we have found by the Calculation of a great number of these Eclipses and even by the sole examination of the Intervals which are remarked between the one and the other for several of these Intervals are too long or too short to be possibly determined by the Eclipses which do happen only when the Sun is near one of the Nodes of the Moon where it could not possibly return at the times denoted if the Chinese years had been regulated in the past ages as they are at present Father Couplet himself doubts of some of these Eclipses by reason of the Compliment which the Chinese Astronomers made to one of their Kings whom
the other life with the faults which their Children commit in this and especially with the great want of respect which it would be in the Chineses towards their Ancestors to change the Laws which they have left them 'T is not therefore a vain Ceremony that they mourn for three years with an extream Austerity and separated from all public Employment which the Chinese Laws do order Children to observe at the death of their Father and Mother and from which they dispence not even their Kings They cannot too much imprint in their minds this respect which has always been their greatest support But what I most admire in the Laws of China is the care which they have taken to form the Morals seeing that it is only good manners which can maintain the Laws as it is only good Laws that can make good manners Plato methinks understood the whole importance of this Maxim and if my Memory fails me not he requires in some places of his Laws that they intermeddle with the privacy of the Oeconomy of his Citizens and because he feared that this might appear too new to the People so free as the Greeks were in his time he sought some excuse for the little which he delivered thereof The Chineses on the contrary have not scrupled to give Laws to almost all the Actions of men One of their most ancient Books regulates not only the Rites which concern Religion and the Sacrifices but all the Duties of Children to their Father and of the Father towards his Children of the Husband to the Wife and of the Wife to the Husband of Brethren and Friends to each other of the King to his Subjects and of the Subjects to their King of the Magistrates to the People and of the People to the Magistrates In this Book which has the Authority of a Law the old men are considered as the Fathers of all the People and of the King himself the Orphans are there considered as his Children and all the Citizens as Brethren amongst them Father Martinius reports Hist sin p. 352. that there is almost no humane action how small soever it be to which this Book prescribes not Laws even to cause trouble for an exceeding small particular I doubt not that all the Europeans would judge like him if this Book came to our knowledge but this is nevertheless a very ancient Testimony of the extream care which the Chineses have continually taken of good manners And because they knew the prevalency which the example of Kings has over People their greatest study has always been to inspire Vertue into their Kings The People they say is like the Ears of Corn wherewith a field is covered the Morals of the Prince are like the Wind which inclines them where it listeth Their Policy has therefore no particuluar manners for their Kings and other manners for the People Their Kings are obliged to respect old men they nourish them in every City and the Chinese History honourably mentions such of their Kings which have rendered them most respect and some others who have caused their illegitimate Brethren which precede them in Age to sit down at their Table and above them Their Kings are obliged to the three years mourning upon the death of their Father and their Mother and to abstain during this time from the cares of the Government altho perhaps this Law has lost it Vigour in the last times When China was as yet divided into little States which were as so many Fiefs of this great Empire Ven-cum King of Cin chased out of his little Kingdom by his Step-mother would not undertake a war to re-enter till he had mourn'd for his Father three years They believe amongst other things that their dead Parents can shorten or prolong the life of their Children they desire of them a long and happy life and upon this ridiculous ground they have in the same terms with us this precept which we have from God himself and of which his eternal verity is protecter unto us Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thou mayest enjoy a long life Xin the first King of the Race Cina having banished his Mother for her incontinence and because that his Adulterer made use of the favour of this Princess to revolt and to assemble a great Army was constrained by all his Ministers to recall her from exile altho he had made himself King by force and that thereby he seemed to be stronger than the Laws Hoei the second King of the Race Hana having also an unchast Mother dared not to punish her but not being willing to reign and suffer her debaucheries he abandon'd the Government to her out of an extream Piety and plunged himself into debauchery so that Hiaovu the sixth King of the same Race put the Queen his wife to death for fear of leaving behind him a debauched Widdow and a Mother incommodious to his Successor I should not end if I would relate all the examples of the extream respect which the Chineses have for their Father and for their Mother I will add only that they change not their Officers as they innovate nothing in their Laws They are instructed also not to have less respect for their Governors than particular persons have for their masters Their Governor they call Colao whom they generally make their chief Minister as the Grand Segnior calls his Grand Vizier Lala that is to say Governor This respect is so entire amongst them that they chastise as I have said in some place of my Relation the Governor of the Prince the presumptive Heir of the Crown for the faults which that Prince commits and that there are found some Princes who being become Kings have revenged their Governors Besides the Colao who is the King 's principal Council he has other Officers whose sole Function is to reprehend him publicly for his Faults Yvus the first King of the race Hiaa who according to their History began to reign 2207 years before Jesus Christ gave full liberty to all good persons to give him counsel and yet because that he found himself once reproved with too much sharpness in the presence of his principal Councellors he was so vexed thereat that he had resolved to put him to death who had given him this affront but his Wife appeased him Being adorned more than ordinary she presented her self before him and as he was smitten with this dress which in the perplexity wherein he was seemed to him improper she told him that she came to congratulate him for having in his Court such couragious and faithful Servants as dare to tell him the truth This liberty of admonishing the Prince passed afterwards into a Law There were as I have said some Offices purposely created for the exercising it yet without taking it away from any other Officer of State and the Chineses have always been so jealous of this Prerogative that several have died to maintain it and that there have been some examples
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
not so considerable anciently when these Stars were near the Colure of the Solstices VI. A Determination of the time of the meeting of the five Planets in the Constellation Xe. HAving reduced these Stars to the Equinoxial in the twenty fourth and twenty fifth Age before the Birth of Jesus Christ we have not found that between the Circles of the declinations which pass through these Stars five Planets could be found joyned together neither in these Ages nor in two others before and after whilst that the Sun was in the sign of Aquarius as the Chinese History imports But we have found that Saturn Jupiter Venus Mercury and the Moon met in that Chinese constellation determined by this method the Sun being in the 20th of Aquarius in the 2012 year before the Epocha of Jesus Christ the 26th of February according to the Julian the 9th according to the Gregorian form which runs at present and that the day following 10 27 of February at 6 a Clock in the morning at China happen'd the conjunction of the Moon with the Sun which may be that which was taken as the Epocha of the Chinese years Then according to the Catalogue of Tycho and the motion which he gives to the fixed Stars the first of the wing of Pegasus from which began the constellation Xe was at 26 degrees 50 minutes of Capricorn and the Circle of its declination cut the Ecliptick at 24 degrees of the same sign The last of the wing of Pagasus was at 12 degrees and a half of Aquarius and its Circle of Declination cut the Ecliptick and carry'd it back to the eleventh degree of the same sign The Morning of February 8 2◠in the Crepusculum at China The beginning of the Constellation Xe was ♑ 24 Saturn ♑ 24 Jupiter ♑ 26 Mercury ♑ 27 Venus ♒ 4 The Moon ♒ 8 The end of the Constellation Xe. ♒ 11 And in 24 hours or thereabouts happened the Conjunction of the Moon with the Sun The Chinese Chronology places the Conjunction of the Planets between the 2513 and 2435 years before the Birth of Jesus Christ There will be therefore a difference of 5 Ages between the time denoted by this Chronology and the true time Thus the Chinese Epocha will be five Ages later then the Chinese Historians suppose it VII An Ancient Observation of a Winter Solstice made at China THis difference of five Age whereby it appears according to this calculation that the Chineses do make their Epocha too antient is confirmed by another place of Father Martinius his History where this Author reports that under Jao the seventh Emperor of the Chineses the Winter Solstice was observed about the first degree of the constellation Hiu which at present begins about the 18th of Aquarius so that since this time the Solstice is removed above 48 degrees from its first place he refers this Observation to the 20th year of Jao which he reports to have been the 2341 before the Birth of Jesus Christ It appears by the Table that this constellation Hiu began with the Star which is in the left shoulder of Aquarius which in the year 1628 was at 18 degrees 16 Minutes of Aquarius but the 20th year of Jao it was in 29 degrees of Sagitarius and some minutes seeing that the Winter Solstice which is always at the beginning of Capricorn was at the first of the constellation Hiu The distance between these two places of the Zodiac is 49 degrees 16 minutes which the fixed Stars according to Tycho's Table do make in 3478 years by reason of 51 seconds per annum from whence having deducted 1625 years at most which are elapsed from the Epocha of Jesus Christ the 20th of Jao would be the 1852 year before the Birth of Jesus Christ which Father Martinius according to the Chinese History placeth in the 2347th year before Jesus Christ making it more antient by about 497 years Thus there are about 5 Ages difference between this Epocha taken from the Chinese History and the same drawn from the motion of the fixed Stars made in this interval of time as we have found by the Examination of the Observation of the 5 Planets in the Constellation Xe. According to Father Martinius in the beginning of his History of China it seems that the Chineses do reckon but five Planets Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus and Mercury and that they suppose at the time of their fifth Emperor the concourse of those five Planets in the Constellation Xe on the same day that there was a Conjunction of the Moon with the Sun But if this Chinese observation must be thus understood 't would be a meer groundless mistake such a concourse having not happened at the time denoted by the Chineses nor long before it so that it cannot be known perhaps how to take it The Historians supported with Astronomical Observations do merit therefore to be examined beforc that credit be given thereunto Thus an account of Eclipses which is at the beginning of Diogenes Laertius and which he relates after Sotion is condemned as false by Monsieur Cassini Sotion reckoned 48863 years between Vulcan and Alexander the Great and in this interval he placed 373 solar Eclipses and 832 lunar A too ready belief must not likewise be given to an History because it gives us a well ranged succession of Kings The Persians do give us one of this Nature which we know to be full of falsities and we have the Genealogies of our Kings from Adam which are yet more spurious 'T is not only from a well adjusted succession that the Histories to which we give credit do take their certainty but from that they are confirmed one by the other All the Nations that can have a knowledge of the same things relating them after the same manner at least as to the most important circumstances so that where there is a diversity of advice we fall into doubt The History of the Chineses has neither been contradicted nor confirmed by their Neighbours no Authority can be drawn from their silence and thus all that we have to do is to believe it true in the gross especially from about 200 years before Jesus Christ but not in what oppugns our Histories which are better attested than theirs Concerning the Isle Taprobane by Monsieur Cassini THE situation of the Isle Taprobane according to Ptolomy in the seventh Book of his Geography was over against the Promontary Cari. This Promontary is placed by Ptolomy between the Rivers Indus and Ganges nearer Indus than the Ganges This Isle Taprobane was divided by the Equinoxial Line into two unequal parts the greatest of which was in the Northern Hemisphere extending to 12 or 13 degrees of Northern Latitude The least part was in the Southern Hemisphere extending to two degrees and a half of Southern Latitude Round about this Island there were 1378 little Isles among which there were 19 more considerable the name of which was known in the West The Promontory Cory could be
no other than that which is at present called Comori or Comorin which is also between the Indus and Ganges nearer the Indus than the Ganges Over against this Cape there is not at present so great an Isle as Taprobane which could be divided by the Equinoxial and environed with 1378 Isles but there is a multitude of little Isles called Maldivae which the Inhabitants report to be to the number of 12 Thousand According to the Relation of Pirard who lived there five years these Isles have a King who assumes to himself the Title of King of 13 Provinces and 12 Thousand Isles Every one of these thirteen Provinces is an heap of little Isles each of which is environed with a great bank of Stone which incloses it all round like a great wall they are called Attolons They have each Thirty miles in circumference a little more or less and are of a figure almost round or oval They are end to end one from the other from the North to the South and they are separated by Channels of the Sea some broad others very narrow These Stone-banks which environ every Attollon are so high and the Sea breaks there with such an impetuosity that they which are in the middle of an Attollon do see these banks all round with the Waves of the Sea which seem as high as the Houses The Inclosure of an Attollon has but 4 Avenues two on the North-side two others on the South-side one of which is at the East the other at the West and the largest of which is 200 paces the narrowest somewhat less than 30. At the two sides of each of these Avenues there are some Isles but the Currents and great Tides do daily diminish the number thereof Pirard adds that to see the inside of one of these Attollons one would say that all these little Isles and the Channels of the Sea which it incloses are only a continued plain and that it was antiently only a single Island cut and divided afterwards into several Every where almost is seen the bottom of the Channels which divide them so shallow they are except in some places and when the Sea is low the water reaches not up to the girdle but to the middle of the leg almost every where There is a violent and perpetual Current which from the month of April to the month of October comes impetuously from the West and causes the continual rains which do there make the Winter and at the other six months the Winds are fixed from the East and do bring a great heat without any rain which causes their Summer At the bottom of these Channels there are great Stones which the Inhabitants do use to build with and they are also stored with a kind of Bushes which resemble Coral which renders the passage of the Boats through these Channels extreamly difficult Linscoten testifies that according to the Mallabars these little Isles have formerly been joyned to the firm Land and that by the succession of time they have been loosed thence by the Violence of the Sea by reason of the lowness of the Land 'T is therefore probable that the Maldivae are a remainder of the great Island Taprobane and of the 1378 Islands which did encompass it which have been carryed away or diminished by the Currents there remaining nothing else but these Rocks which must formerly be the bases of the Mountains and what remains in the inclosure of these Rocks where the Sea dashes so that it is capable only of dividing but not of carrying away the Lands which are included within their Circuit It is certain that these Isles have the same situation in regard of the Equinoxial and Promontory and of the Rivers Indus and Ganges that Ptolomy assigns to several places of the Isle Taprobane The Lords Prayer and the Ave Mary in Siamese with the Interlineary Translation to be inserted in Page 180. Father our Po raou who art in Heaven you savang The Name of God Scheu Pra be glorified hai pra kot in all places touk heng by People all kon tang tai offer to God praise touai Pra pon The Kingdom of God Meuang Pra I pray to find co hai dai with us ke raou to finish hai leou conformable ning to the heart of God tchai pra in the Kingdom of Meuang the Earth Pen-din even as semo of Heaven savang The Nourishment of us Ahan raou of all days touk van I pray co to find hai dai with us ke raou in day van this ni I pray co to pardon prot the offences bap of us raou even semo as we raou pardon prot persons pou who do tam offences bap to us ke raou do not let Ya hai us raou fall tok into nai the cause kovan of Sin bap deliver hai poun out of kiac evil anerai all tang-poang Amen Ave Maria full of Grace Ten anisong God be Pra you in the heng place of you nang You just-good Nang soum-bou more than yingkoua all nang tang tai With Toui Sons louk Womb cutong in the place heng of you nang God pra the person Ongkiao of Jesus Yesu just charitable soum-boui more than ying koua all tang tai Sancta Maria Mother Me of God Pra assist thoui by prayer ving to God von Pra for pro us raou people kon of Sin bap now teit-bat-ni and te in the time moua of our dying raou tcha tai Amen ERRATA PAge 20. line 25. read particular p. 24. l. 34. r. a Tree p. 33. l. 8. which are p. 36. l. 36. r. obliged to honor p. 39. l. 11. r. Eresypeli l. 16. r. are l. 43. r. not bow to p. 68. l. 38 39 43 46. add Bells p. 73. l. 23. r. Tical p. 81. l. 33. r. gold p. 87. l. 50. r. is evicted p. 103. l. 15. 1. certain p. 104. l. 50. r. extinguish p. 108. l. 37. r. returns p. 109. l. 2. dele till p. 120. l. 5. r. remains l. 8. r. wounded p. 125. l. 18. r. prescribed l. 58. r. fatality p. 135. l. 17. dele they p. 136. l. 11. r. leaf of p. 159. l. 1. r. Missionaries p. 160. l. 9. r. takes p. 165. l. 46. r. Ti-non p 166. l. 42. r. Taouac l. 45. r. Touai p. 169. l. 50. r. Sapsoc p. 172. l. 23. r. which p. 174. l. 23. r. at the sides p. 175. l. 35. dele not p. 175. l. 1. dele ' t is p. 194. l. 32. r. the number l. 20. which is substracted from the Onglaa in the third p. 198. l. 7. r. difference is only in l. 8. r. in the 12th p. 201. l. 33. dele the p. 202. l. 43. r. unless these p. 210. l. 28. r. Agreement l. 36. r. Hipparcus p. 212. l. 43. dele the p. 213. l. 19. r. Anno p. 214. l. 15. r. for a lunar month to reduce the Epact p. 217. l. 18. r. how much p. 221. l. 47. r. which form p. 225. in marg r. 424. p. 230. l. 10. r. the former l. 12. r. upright to p. 231. l. 49. r. every p. 236. l. 12. r. determining l. 18. r. method p. 238. l. 21. r. 9 Cases p. 244. l 42. dele not p. 151. l. 12. r. Cu-cum p. 252. l. 45. r. the years begin p. 253. l. 27. r. 10 degrees p. 254. l. 7. r. Ricci p. 255. l. 36. after deductae add p. 256. l. 16. r. these Chinese l. 22. r. and l. 51. r. otherwise in one Constellation FINIS
the King of his Wives and of his Eunuchs and of all those whom this Prince maintains in the Vang 'T was the Oc-ya Vang who after the Example of all the other Governours which had received the King's Ambassadors at the entrance of their Government came to receive them at the Gate of the Vang and who introduced them to the Audience of the King his Master The Gates of the Palace and of the precautions with which persons are admitted The Gates of the Palace are always shut and behind each stands a Porter who has some Arms but who instead of bearing them keeps them in his Lodge near the Gate If any one knocks the Porter advertises the Officer who commands in the first Inclosure and without whose permission no person enters in nor goes out but no person enters armed nor after having drunk Arak to assure himself that no drunken man enters therein Wherefore the Officer views and smells the breath of all those that must enter therein The Meuing Tchion This Office is double and those that are in it do serve alternately and by day The days of Service they continue twenty four whole hours in the Palace and the other days they may be at home Their Title is Oc-Meuing Tchion of rather Pra Meuing Tchion for at the Palace before the word Meuing there are some who put the word Pra instead of Oc though some have told me that it is Oc-Meuing and not Pra-Meuing that he must be always called 'T was one of these Meuing Tchions who brought the first Compliment from the King of Siam to the Ambassadors when they were in the Road and who stayed constantly with them after they were landed as Mr. Torpff continued always with the Ambassador of Siam Painted Arms. Between the two first Inclosures and under a Pent-house is a small number of Soldiers unarmed and stooping They are those Kenhai or Painted Arms of whom I have spoken The Officer who commands them immediately and who is a Painted-Arm himself is called Oncarac and he and they are the Prince his Executioners as the Officers and Soldiers of the Pretorian Cohorts were the Executioners of the Roman Emperors But at the same time they omit not to watch the Prince's person for in the Palace there is wherewith to arm them in case of need They row the Balon of State and the King of Siam has no other Foot-guard Their Employment is hereditary like all the rest of the Kingdom and the ancient Law imports that they ought not to exceed six hundred But this must doubtless be understood that there ought to be no more than six hundred for the Palace for there must needs be many more in the whole extent of the State because that the King as I have said elsewhere gives thereof to a very great number of Officers A Guard of Slaves for a Show But this Prince is not contented with this Guard on days of Ceremony as was that of the first Audience of the King's Ambassadors On such occasions he causes his Slaves to be armed and if their number is not sufficient the Slaves of the principal Officers are armed He gives to them all some Muslin Shirts dyed red Muskets or Bows or Lances and Pots of gilded wood on their Heads which for this purpose are taken out of the Magazine and the quantity of which in my opinion determines the number of these Soldiers of show They formed a double Rank at the reception of Mr. de Chaumont and so soon as he was past those which he had left behind made haste to get before by the by-ways to go to fill up the vacant places which were left for them In our time they marched by the sides of the Ambassadors till they stopt up the space through which they were to pass We also found part of these Slaves prostrate before the little Stairs which goes up to the Hall of Audience Some held those little useless Trumpets which I have spoken of and others had before them those little Drums which they never beat The Meuing Tchion are the Nai of all these Slaves and these Slaves row the Balons of the King's retinue and are moreover employed on several works Anciently the Kings of Siam had a Japponese Guard The King of Siam has no standing Japponese Guard composed of six hundred men but because these six hundred men alone could make the whole Kingdom to tremble when they pleased the present King's Father after having made use of them to invade the Throne found out a way to rid himself of them more by policy than force The King of Siam's Horse-guard is composed of Men from Laos The Horse-Guard from Meen and Laos and another neighbouring Country the chief City whereof is called Meen and as the Meens and Laos do serve him by six Months he makes this Guard as numerous as he pleases and as many Horse as he would employ therein Oc-Coune Ran Patchi commands this Guard on the right hand His Son is in France and has for some years learnt the Trade of a Fountain-maker at Triannon Oc-Coune Pipitcharatcha or as the People say Oc-Coune Petratcha commands the half of this Guard which serves on the left hand but over these two Officers Oc-ya Lao commands the Guard of the Laos and Oc-ya Meen the Guard of the Meen and this Oc-ya Meen is a different person from him that prostitutes lewd Women Besides this the King of Siam has a foreign standing Horse-guard A Foreign Horse-Guard which consists in an Hundred and Thirty Gentlemen but neither they nor the Meen nor the Laos do ever keep Guard in the Palace Notice is given them to accompany the King when he goes out and thus all this is esteemed the exterior Service and not the interior Service of the Palace This foreign Guard consists first in two Companies of thirty Moors each Of what it is composed Natives or originally descended from the States of the Mogul of an excellent Meen but accounted Cowards Secondly in a Company of twenty Chinese Tartars armed with Bows and Arrows and formidable for their Courage and lastly in two Companies of Twenty five Men each Pagans of the true India habited like the Moors which are called Rasbouts or Raggibouts who boast themselves to be of the Royal blood and whose Courage is very famous though it be only the effect of Opium as I have before remarked The King of Siam supplies this whole Guard with Arms and with Horses What it costs and besides this every Moor costs him three Catis and twelve Teils a year that is to say 540 Livres or thereabouts and a red Stuff Vest and every of the two Moorish Captains five Catis and twelve Teils or 840 Livres and a Scarlet Vest The Raggibouts are maintained according to the same rate but every Chinese Tartar costs him only six Teils or 45 Livres a year and their Captain fifteen Teils or 112 Livres ten Sols
The Elephants and Horses of the Palace In the first Inclosures are likewise the Stables of the Elephants and Horses which the King of Siam esteems the best and which are called Elephants and Horses by Name because that this King gives them a Name as he gives to all the Officers within his Palace and to the important Officers of the State which in this are very much distinguished from the Officers on whom he imposes none He that hath the care of the Horses either for their maintenance or to train them up and who is as it were the chief Querry is called Oc Louang Tchoumpon his Belat or Lieutenant is Oc-Meuing Si Sing Toup Pa-tchat but he alone has the Priviledge of speaking to the King Neither his Belat nor his other inferior Officers do speak unto him The Elephants of Name The Elephants of Name are treated with more or less Dignity according to the more or less honourable Name they bear but every one of them has several Men at his Service They stir not out as I have elsewhere declared without trappings and because that all the Elephants of Name cannot be kept within the Compass of the Palace there are some which have their Stables close by Of the White Elephant These People have naturally so great an esteem of Elephants that they are perswaded that an Animal so noble so strong and so docile can be animated only with an illustrious Soul which has formerly been in the body of some Prince or of some great Person but they have yet a much higher Idea of the White Elephants These Animals are rare and are found say they only in the Woods of Siam They are not altogether White but of a flesh colour and for this reason it is that Vliet in the Title of his Relation has said the White and Red Elephant The Siameses do call this colour Peuak and I doubt not that it is this colour inclining to White and moreover so rare in this Animal which has procur'd it the Veneration of those People to such a degree as to perswade them what they report thereof that a Soul of some Prince is always lodged in the body of a White Elephant whether Male or Female it matters not The Esteem which the Siameses do make of the White colour in Animals By the same reason of the colour White Horses are those which the Siameses most esteem I proceed to give a proof thereof The King of Siam having one of his Horses sick intreated Mr. Vincent that Physician which I have frequently mentioned to prescribe him some Remedy And to perswade him to it for he well knew that the European Physicians debased not themselves to meddle with Beasts he acquainted him that the Horse was Mogol that is to say White of four races by Sire and Dam without any mixture of Indian blood and that had it not been for this consideration he would not have made him this request The Indians call the White Mogols which they distinguish into Mogols of Asia and Mogols of Europe Therefore whence soever this respect is for the White colour as well in Men as in Beasts I could discover no other reason at Siam than that of the veneration which the Siameses have for the White Elephants Next to the White they most esteem those which are quite Black because they are likewise very rare and they Dye some of this colour when they are not naturally Black enough The King of Siam always keeps a White Elephant in his Palace which is treated like the King of all those Elephants which this Prince maintains That which Mr. de Chaumont saw in this Country was dead as I have said when we arrived there There was born another as they reported on the 9th of December 1687. a few days before our departure but this Elephant was still in the Woods and received no Visit and so we saw no White Elephant Other Relations have informed us how this Animal is served with Vessels of Gold The King of Siam's Balons The Care of the King's Balons and of his Gallies belongs to the Calla-hom Their Arsenal is over against the Palace the River running between There every one of these Barges is lock'd up in a Trench whereinto runs the Water of the River and each Trench is shut up in an Inclosure made of Wood and covered These Inclosures are locked up and besides this a person watches there at Night The Balons of ordinary Service are not so adorned as those for Ceremony and amongst those for Ceremony there are some which the King gives to his Officers for these occasions only for those which he allows them for ordinary Ceremonies are less curious and fine CHAP. XII Of the Officers which nearest approach the King of Siam's Person IN the Vang are some of those single Halls which I have described In what place of the Palace the Courtiers wait How the King of Siam shows himself to them in which the Officers do meet either for their Functions or to make their Court or to wait the Orders of the Prince The usual place were he shows himself unto them is the Hall where he gave Audience to the King's Ambassadors and he shows himself only through a Window as did antiently the King of China This Window is from a higher Chamber which has this prospect over the Hall and which may be said to be of the first Story It is nine Foot high or thereabouts and it was necessary to place three steps underneath to raise me high enough to present the King's Letter to the King of Siam This Prince chose rather to cause these three steps to be put than to see himself again obliged to stoop to take the King's Letter from my hand as he had been obliged to do to take that which Mr. de Chaumont deliver'd him 'T is evident by the Relation of Mr. de Chaumont that he had in his hands a kind of Gold Cup which had a very long handle of the same matter to the end that he might use it to give the King's Letter to the King of Siam He did it but he would not take this Cup by the handle to raise the Letter so that it was necessary that the King of Siam should stoop out of the Window to receive it 'T is with the same Cup that the Officers of this Prince deliver him every thing that he receives from their hands At the two Corners of the Hall which are at the sides of this Window are two doors about the heighth of the Windows and two pair of very narrow Stairs to ascend For the Furniture there is only three Vmbrella's one before the Window with nine rounds and two with seven rounds on both sides of the Window The Vmbrella is in this Country as the Daiz or Canopy is in France 'T is in this Hall that the King of Siam's Officers which if you please The King of Siam's Pages may be named from his Chamber
This is thus practised in all the Courts of Asia but it is not true neither at Siam nor perhaps in any part of the East that the Queen has any Province to govern 'T is easie also to comprehend that if the King loves any of his Ladies more than the rest he causes her to remove from the Jealousie and harsh Usage of the Queen At Siam they continually take Ladies for the service of the Vang The King of Siam takes the Daughters of his Subjects for his Palace when he pleases or to be Concubines to the King if this Prince makes use thereof But the Siameses deliver up their Daughters only by force because it is never to see them again and they redeem them so long as they can for Money So that this becomes a kind of Extortion for they designedly take a great many Virgins meerly to restore them to their Parents who redeem them The King of Siam has few Mistresses that is to say eight or ten in all He has few Ministresses not out of Continency but Parsimony I have already declared that to have a great many Wives is in this Country rather Magnificence than Debauchery Wherefore they are very much surprized to hear that so great a King as ours has no more than one Wife that he had no Elephants and that his Lands bear no Rice as we might be when it was told us that the King of Siam has no Horses nor standing Forces and that his Country bears no Corn nor Grapes altho' all the Relations do so highly extol the Riches and Power of the Kingdom of Siam The Queen hath her Elephants and her Balons The Queen's House and some Officers to take care of her and accompany her when she goes abroad but none but her Women and Eunuchs do see her She is conceal'd from all the rest of the People and when she goes out either on an Elephant or in a Balon it is in a Chair made up with Curtains which permit her to see what she pleases and do prevent her being seen And Respect commands that if they cannot avoid her they should turn their back to her by prostrating themselves when she passes along Besides this she has her Magazine her Ships and her Treasures Her Magazine and her Ships She exercises Commerce and when we arrived in this Country the Princess whom I have reported to be treated like a Queen was exceedingly embroiled with the King her Father because that he reserved to himself alone almost all the Foreign Trade and that thereby she found herself deprived thereof contrary to the ancient Custom of the Kingdom Daughters succeed not to the Crown they are hardly look'd upon as free Of the Succession to the Crown and the Causes which render it uncertain 'T is the eldest Son of the Queen that ought always to succeed by the Law Nevertheless because that the Siameses can hardly conceive that amongst Princes of near the same Rank the most aged should prostrate himself before the younger it frequently happens that amongst Brethren tho' they be not all Sons of the Queen and that amongst Uncles and Nephews the most advanced in Age is preferred or rather it is Force which always decides it The Kings themselves contribute to render the Royal Succession uncertain because that instead of chusing for their Successor the eldest Son of the Queen they most frequently follow the Inclination which they have for the Son of some one of their Concubines with whom they were enamour'd The occasion which tendred the Hollanders Masters of Bantam 'T is upon this account that the King of Bantam for example has lost his Crown and his Liberty He endeavoured to get one of his Sons whom he had by one of his Concubines to be acknowledged for his Successor before his Death and the eldest Son which he had by the Queen put himself into the hands of the Hollanders They set him upon the Throne after having vanquished his Father whom they still keep in Prison if he is not dead but for the reward of this Service they remain Masters of the Port and of the whole Commerce of Bantam Of the Succession to the Kingdom of China The Succession is not better regulated at China though there be an express and very ancient Law in favour of the eldest Son of the Queen But what Rule can there be in a thing how important soever it be when the Passions of the Kings do always seek to imbroil it All the Orientals in the choice of a Governor adhere most to the Royal Family and not to a certain Prince of the Royal Family uncertain in the sole thing wherein all the Europeans are not In all the rest we vary every day and they never do Always the same Manners amongst them always the same Laws the same Religion the same Worship as may be judged by comparing what the Ancients have writ concerning the Indians with what we do now see Of the King of Siams Wardrobe I have said that 't is the Women of the Palace which dress the King of Siam but they have no charge of his Wardrobe he has Officers on purpose The most considerable of all is he that touches his Bonnet altho he be not permitted to put it upon the Head of the King his Master 'T is a Prince of the Royal blood of Camboya by reason that the King of Siam boasts in being thence descended not being able to vaunt in being of the race of the Kings his Predecessors The Title of this Master of the Wardrobe is Oc-ya Out haya tanne which sufficiently evinces that the Title of Pa-ya does not signifie Prince seeing that this Prince wears it not Under him Oc-Pra Rayja Vounsa has the charge of the cloaths Rayja or Raja or Ragi or Ratcha are only an Indian term variously pronounced which signifies King or Royal and which enters into the composition of several Names amongst the Indians CHAP. XIV Of the Customs of the Court of Siam and of the Policy of its Kings The Hours of Council THe common usage of the Court of Siam is to hold a Council twice a day about Ten a clock in the Morning and about Ten in the Evening reckoning the hours after our fashion The division of the day and night according to the Siameses As for them they divide the day into Twelve hours from the Morning to the Night The Hours they call Mong they reckon them like us and give them not a particular name to each as the Chineses do As for the Night they divide it into four Watches which they call Tgiam and it is always broad Day at the end of the Fourth The Latins Greeks Jews and other people have divided the Day and Night after the same manner Their Clock The People of Siam have no Clock but as the Days are almost equal there all the Year it is easie for them to know what Hour it is by
the sight of the Sun In the King's Palace they use a kind of Water-Clock 'T is a thin Copper Cup at the bottom of which they do make an almost imperceptible hole They put it quite empty upon the water which by little and little enters therein through the hole and when the Cup is full enough to sink down this is one of the hours or a twelfth part of the day They measure the Watches of the Night by such a like method and they make a Noise on Copper Basons when the Watch is ended I have related how Causes are determined in the King of Siam's Council How the King of Siam examines Affairs in his Council and how he terminates them Affairs of State are there examined and decided almost after the same manner That Councellor to whom this Prince has committed a business makes the report thereof which consists in reading it and then proceeds to the consultative Opinions and hitherto the King's Presence is not necessary When he is come he hears the report which is read to him concerning the former Consult he resumes all the advices confutes those which he approves not and then decides But if the Affair seems to him to merit a more mature deliberation he makes no decision but after having proposed his difficulties he commits the examination thereof to some of his Council whom he purposely appoints and principally to those who were of a different Opinion from his They after having again consulted together do cause the report of their new Consultation to be made by one of them in a full Council and before the King and hereupon this Prince consummates his Determination Yet sometimes but very rarely and in affairs of a cerrain Nature he will consult the principal Sancras which are the Superiors of the Talapoins whose credit in other matters he depresses as much as he can though in appearance he honors them exceedingly In a word there is such a sort of affairs wherein he will call the Officers of the Provinces but on all occasions and in all affairs he decides when he pleases and he is never constrained to either ask advice of any person or to follow any other advice than his own He oftentimes punishes ill Advice or recompences good He punishes bad Counsels and recompences good I say good or bad according to his sense for he alone is the Judge thereof Thus his Ministers do much more apply themselves to divine his sentiments than to declare him theirs and they misunderstand him by reason he also endeavours to conceal his Opinion from them In a word the affair on which he consults them Sometimes he consults about Affairs invented by way of Exercise He examines his Officers about their Obligations A Law against the Ambition of the Great Men. is not always a real concern 't is sometimes a question which he propounds to them by way of exercise He likewise has a custom of examining his Officers about the Pra-Tam-Ra which is that Book which I have said contains all their Duties and causes such to be chastized with the Bastinado who answer not very exactly even as a Father chastizes his Children in instructing them 'T is an ancient Law of the State established for the security of the King whose Authority is naturally almost unarmed that the Courtiers should not render him any visit without his express leave and only at Weddings and Funerals and that when they meet they should speak with a loud voice and in the presence of a third person but if the Kings of Siam be unactive or negligent not any Law secures them At present the Courtiers may appear again at the Academy of Sports where the great number seems to take away all opportunity of Caballings The Trade of an Informer so detested in all places where men are born free The Trade of an Informer commanded at Siam by the Law is commanded to every person at Siam under pain of death for the least things and so whatever is known by two Witnesses is almost infallibly related to the King because that every one hastens to give information thereof for fear of being herein prevented by his Companion and remain guilty of Silence The King of Siams Precautions to prevent being deceived The present King of Siam relies not in an important affair upon the single report of him to whom he has committed it but neither does he rely also on the report of a single Informer He has a number of secret Spies whom he separately interrogates and he sometimes sends more than one to interrogate those who have acted in the affair whereof he would be informed And yet it is easie for him to be deceived Why they are frequently ineffectual for throughout the Country every Informer is a dishonest man and every dishonest man is an Infidel Moreover Flattery is so great in India that it has persuaded the Indian Kings that if it is their interest to be informed it is their dignity to hear nothing that may displease them As for example they will not tell the King of Siam that he wants Slaves or Vassals for any enterprize he would go about They will not tell him that they cannot perform his Commands but they execute them ill and when the mischief appears they will excuse it by some defect They will tell him ill news quite otherwise than it is to the end that the truth reaching his Ears only by degrees may vex him less and that it might be easier to pacifie him at several times They will not counsel him a bad thing but will so insinuate it that he may think himself the Author and only take to himself the bad success And then they will not tell him that he must alter a thing that he has done amiss but they will persuade him to do it better some other way which will only be a pretence and in the new project they will suppress without acquainting him what they designed to reform and will put in the place what they designed to establish I my self have seen part of what I relate and and they have assured me the rest The King of Siams rigorous Justice Now such like Artifices are always very perilous they offend the present King in nothing without being punish'd Being severe to extream rigour he puts to death whom he pleases without any formality of Justice and by the hand of whom he pleases and in his own Presence And sometimes the Accuser with the Criminal the Innocent with the Calumniator for when the proofs remain doubtful he as I have said exposes both parties to the Tygers How he insults over the dead body After the Execution he insults over the dead body with some words which are a lesson to the living as for example after having made him who had robb'd his Magazine to swallow some melted Silver he says to the dead body Miserable wretch thou hast robb'd me of Ten Pieces of Silver and Three