inhabitants of the north of Europe. The Malays are governed by feudal laws, that capricious system conceived for the defence of the liberty of a few against the tyranny of one, whilst the multitude is subjected to slavery and oppression.

"A chief, who has the title of king or sultan, issues his commands to his great vassals, who obey when they think proper; these have inferior vassals, who often apt in the same manner with regard to them. A small part of the nation live independent, under the title of Oramcai or noble, and sell their services to those who pay them best; whilst the body of the nation is composed of slaves, and lives in perpetual servitude.

"With these laws the Malays are restless, fond of navigation, war, plunder, emigrations, colonies, desperate enterprises, adventures, and gallantry. They talk incessantly of their honour and their bravery, whilst they are universally considered by those with whom they have intercourse as the most treacherous ferocious people on the face of the globe; and yet, which appeared to me extremely singular, they speak the softest language of Asia. What the Count de Forbin has said in his memoirs of the ferocity of the Macassars, is exactly true, and is the reigning characteristic of the whole Malay nations. More attached to the absurd laws of their pretended honour than to those of justice or humanity, you always observe that amongst them the strong oppress and destroy the weak; their treaties of peace and friendship never subsisting beyond that self-interest which induced them to make them, they are almost always armed, and either at war amongst themselves, or employed in pillaging their neighbours.

"This ferocity which the Malays qualify under the name of courage, is so well known to the European companies who have settlements in the Indies, that they have universally agreed in prohibiting the captains of their ships, who may put into the Malay islands, from taking on board any seamen of that nation, except in the greatest distress, and then on no account to exceed two or three.

"It is nothing uncommon for a handful of these horrid savages suddenly to embark, attack a vessel by surprise, poignard in hand, massacre the people, and make themselves masters of her. Malay barks, with twenty-five or thirty men, have been known to board European ships of thirty or forty guns, in order to take possession of them, and murder, with their poignards, great part of the crew. The Malay history is full of such enterprises, which mark the desperate ferocity of those barbarians.

"The Malays who are not slaves go always armed; they would think themselves disgraced if they went abroad without their poignards, which they call Crit; the industry of this nation even surpasses itself in the fabric of this destructive weapon.

"As their lives are a perpetual round of agitation and tumult they could never endure the long flowing habits which prevail among the other Asiatics. The habits of the Malays are exactly adapted to their shapes, and loaded with a multitude of buttons, which fasten them close to their bodies in every part. I relate these seemingly trifling observations in Older to proye that in climates the most opposite the same laws

produce similar manners, customs, and prejudices: their effect is the same too with respect to agriculture.

"The lands possessed by the Malays arc in general of a superior quality; nature seems to have taken pleasure in there assembling most favourite productions. They have not only those to be found in the territories of Siam, but a variety of others. The country is covered with odoriferous woods, such as the eagle, or aloes wood, the sandal, and the Cassia odoreta, a species of cinnamon; you there breathe an air impregnated with the odours of innumerable flowers of the greatest fragrance, of which there is a perpetual succession the year round, the sweet flavour of which captivates the soul, and inspires the most voluptuous sensations. No traveller wandering over the plains of Malacca but feels himself strongly impelled to wish his residence fixed in a place so luxuriant in allurements, where nature triumphs without the assistance of art............In the midst of all this luxuriance of nature the Malay is miserable; the culture of the lands, abandoned to slaves, is fallen into contempt. These wretched labourers, dragged incessantly from their rustic employments by their restless masters, who delight in war and maritime enterprises, have rarely time, and never resolution, to give the necessary attention to the labouring of their grounds; their lands in general remain uncultivated, and produce no kind of grain for the subsistence of the inhabitants".

The reader who wishes for more ample information concerning this peninsula may be referred to the voyages of Nieuhof and Hamilton. As the latter asserts that the inland inhabitants, whom he calls the Monocaboes, are a different race from the Malays, and of much lighter complexion, it would seem probable that the Malays passed into this country from the north or south, and there is no small difficulty in accounting for their origin. The language should be skillfully collated with those of the neighbouring countries, and even with the ancient dialects of Hindostan, as perhaps they may be found to be the same with the Pallis, traditionally said to have been the most early inhabitants of that celebrated country.

Annaman. Opposite to the coast of Malacca, though at a considerable distance, are the islands of Andaman and of Nicobar. The great Andaman is about 140 British miles in length, but not more than twenty in the greatest breadth, indented by deep bays affording excellent harbours, and intersected by vast inlets and creeks, one of which, navigable for small vessels, passes quite through the isle*. The soil is chiefly black mould, the cliffs of a white arenacious stone. The extensive forests afford some precious trees, as ebony, and the mellori, or Nicobar bread fruit. The only quadrupeds seem to be wild hogs, monkies, and rats. The sea supplies numerous fish, among which are mullets, soles, and excellent oysters. The people of the Andamans are as little civilized as any in the world, and are probably cannibals, having at least a particular antipathy against strangers. They have wooly heads, and perfectly resemble negroes; being as some report descended from a crew of African slaves; but they are mentioned in the ninth century by the Mahometan travellers with al

*As. Res. iv. 385.

of slaves

their peculiarities, and it is difficult to conceive how a cargo could at an early period be steered in that direction. The south-west monsoon may have driven their canoes from the coasts of Africa; and, opposed in civilized parts, they may have seized this desert isle*. Their character is truly brutal, insidious, and ferocious, and their canoes of the rudest kind. On Barren Isle, about fifteen leagues to the east of the Andamans, is a violent volcano which emits showers of red hot stones; and the whole island has a singular and volcanic appearance. A British settlement has been recently formed on the greater Andaman, and some convicts sent thither from Bengal. The natives, about 2000, have already profited by the example of English industry.

Nicobar. The Nicobars are three; the largest being about five leagues in circumferencef. They produce cocoa and areca trees, with yams and sweet potatos; and the eatable bird's nests, so highly esteemed in China, abound here as well as in the Andamans. The people are of a copper colour, with small oblique eyes and other Tatar features. In their dress a small stripe of cloth hangs down behind; and hence the ignorant tales of seamen which led even Linnxus to infer that some kinds of men had tails. The only quadrupeds are swine and dogs. The traffic is in cocoa nuts, of which one hundred are given for a yard of blue cloth. The tree called by the natives larum, by the Portuguese mellori, produces an excellent bread fruit, different from the kind found in the interior parts of Africa, and also from that of Otaheite. The fruit is said to weigh twenty or thirty pounds; and some plants have been brought to the botanical garden of the East-India company near Calcutta.

They are, after all, probably of the same race with the other negroes of the Asiatic Isles, which see.

As. Res. iii. 149.

SIAM.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.

SAME. EXTENT. BOUNDARIES. ORIGINAL POPULATION. PRO

GRESSIVE GEOGRAPHY.—HISTORICAL EPOCHS.

TILL the recent extension of the Birman empire, the rich and flourishing monarchy of Siam was to be regarded as the chief state of exterior India. The brief connection established with France, towards the end of the seventeenth century, excited many writers to give accounts of this kingdom, while only an imperfect knowledge was diffused concerning the surrounding states. Those of the Jesuits are deservedly disesteemed, when compared with that of La Loubere, himself envoy extraordinary from Louis XIV to the Siamese court, which remains the chief guide concerning this state, though capable of occasional improvements from more recent information on particular topics.

Name. The name of this celebrated country is of uncertain origin, and, in appearance, first delivered by the Portuguese, in whose orthography Siom and Siao are the same, so that Sian, or Siang, might be preferable to Siam*; and the Portuguese writers in Latin call the natives Sicmes. The Siamese style themselves Tai, or freemen, and their country Meuang Tai, or the kingdom of freemen. It is probable that the Portuguese derived the name Sian from intercourse with the Peguesef.

Extent Ann Bounnaries. The extent of the Siamese dominions has been recently restricted by the encroachments of the Birmans, nor can some of the limits be accurately defined. On the west of the Malaian peninsula a few possessions may remain, to the south of Tanaserim; and on the eastern side of that Chersonese Ligor

Loubere, i. 16. edit. Amst. 1714.

↑ Shan is the oriental term, as appears from sevtral papers ia the Asiatic Researches.

may mark the boundary. On the west a chain of mountains seems to divide Siam, as formerly from Pegu,—but the northern province of Yunshan, would appear to be in the hands of the Birmans, who here seem to extend to the river Maykang; and perhaps the limits may be a small ridge running east and west, above the river Anan. To the south and east the ancient boundaries are fixed; the ocean, and a chain of mountains, dividing Siam from Laos and Cambodia. Thus the ancient idea may be retained, that this kingdom is a large vale between two ridges of mountains.

The northern boundaries, as defined by Loubere, evince that Siam has lost little in that quarter. His city Chiami is probably Zamee; and was fifteen days journey beyond the Siamese frontier. But when he marks the northern limit at twenty-two degrees, there is an error in latitude. It is about the nineteenth degree; so that the length of the kingdom may be about ten degrees, or near 700 British miles; but of this about one half is not a!wve seventy miles in medial breadth. A more adequate admeasurement may be estimated from about eleven degrees of north latitude, to nineteen degrees: a length of about 550 British miles, by the breadth of 240.

Original Population. The original population of Siam, and other regions of exterior India, can only be traced by affinity of languages; and the topic has been little illustrated. For this purpose the vulgar speech must be chosen, and not the Bali, or language of the learned, which is perhaps the same with the Palli of Hindostan. If the former be monosyllabic, as Loubere says, it bears some affinity with the Chinese; and, he adds, with those of the eastern regions of exterior India. That of the Malays is very different; and perhaps they proceeded, as before-mentioned, from Hindostan, while the other tribes of further India advanced by land from China and Tibet; though there may perhaps be found great difference in the dialect, from early separation in a savage state, followed by different wants and customs.

Progressive Geography. The progressive geography of Siam ascends to classical antiquity, if the people be, as is reasonably inferred, the Sinx of Ptolemy. The early navigators imagined that the Chinese were the Sinx, and that the isle of Taprobana was Sumatra ! In the reign of the emperor Justinian, Cosmas, called Indicopleustes, mentions the silk of Sinx, as imported into Taprobana: which he also calls Sielediv, coinciding with Helendika, the oriental name of Ceylon: and when he adds that this isle was at an equal distance from the Persian gulf, and the region of the Sinx, he affords an additional proof that the latter was Siam. This country is not indeed at present remarkable for the production of silk, the staple article of the ancient Sinx; but it appears that the silk of the early classics was the growth of a tree, a kind of silky cotton, still abundant in Siam; and perhaps, as Malacca afterwards becarae famous for products not its own, so Siam, in a similar centrical position between China and Hindostan might, in ancient times, be the mart of this and other more oriental articles. When real silk became known to the Romans, about the time of Aurelian, a pound was soid for twelve ounces of gold, a price which shews that it must have passed through repeated mercantile profits. The Persian monks, who, in the sixth century, introduced the silk-worm