Thus passed seven years. Vincent was nearly thirty, and Emily sixand-twenty—he a very different being, both morally and intellectually, from the Vincent of my first chapter. Mrs Mure was dead, Nancy married, and Bessy keeping house for Uncle Philpots, who was now a widower. Jacob was as austere, and Rachel as meek as ever; when Mr Halkelt, fancying he felt symptoms of declining health, told his daughter one day that he often felt uneasy at the idea of leaving her alone in the world. 'You have no relations you would like to live with,' he said; 'and I cannot tell what you could do if I should die!'

'I hope you will live many a day and year too, dear father!' she replied. 'Well, my love, I hope I may, for your sake; but you know I must die at last, and I want to learn what your plans would be?'

'What do you think of my taking a husband?' she asked.

'I wish to goodness you would!' he answered; 'but you wont marry Vincent, and you put it out of the power of anybody else to ask you. I assure you the thought of leaving you unmarried often gives me great uneasiness.'

6

'Well, father, as I wouldn't cause you uneasiness for the world,' answered Emily, suppose you ask Vincent if he will forgive me my caprices, and marry me after all?'

This was the way it came about, and nobody will question what Vincent's answer was. Emily continued to be his good angel after marriage as she had been before; and he was blest in knowing that she was so.

SIAM AND THE SIAMESE

I.

Geography-Population-Botany, Mineralogy, and Zoology.

THE large tract of country lying between Bengal and China is inhabited by several races of men, resembling each other in all important points of comparison, but presenting a striking dissimilarity to the other nations of Asia. With respect to their civilisation and political importance they may be divided into four classes:-The first comprises the Burmese, the Peguans, and the Siamese; the second includes the inhabitants of Kamboja, Lao, and Aracan; the third those of Kassay, Champa, Cachar, and Assam; while in the fourth rank there is a number of savage or half-savage tribes whose names are scarcely known in Europe. Of the more important of these nations, it may be affirmed that their physical conformation is essentially the same; their languages, though distinct, and variously enriched with accessions from the Sanscrit and Chinese, have a common structure and idiom; the same form of religion, with scarcely a shade of difference, prevails in all; and the resemblance extends to their laws, literature, manners, customs, and institutions: so that in presenting, as we now propose, a picture of Siam, we give the reader a tolerably correct view of the whole region of Chin-India. It should be remarked also, that, with the exception of Assam and Aracan, the social condition of this group of nations has been subject to very little foreign influence; their natural barriers seem to have arrested the tide both of conquest and civilisation; and while from age to age they have lived in a scene of almost perpetual warfare with each other, they have neither suffered the immediate evils nor reaped the subsequent benefits that would have accrued from a collision, even though unsuccessful, with some distant and more enlightened people. The extreme jealousy of their governments has contributed to keep them still more isolated, and they have shewn so little disposition to cultivate either political or commercial relations beyond their own territories, that they are still very little known to Europeans. The Portuguese, the French, the Americans, and the English in Bengal, have successively endeavoured to gain a friendly footing among them, but hitherto with little result of importance; for they have ever treated Europeans with distrust, and even with insolence, when this could be done with impunity.

No. 79.

1

Some of the ambassadors engaged in these negotiations have taken considerable pains to understand the character, manners, and social condition of the people, as well as to learn the natural resources of the country; and to their researches chiefly we owe whatever particulars have reached our shores.

The present Siamese empire is composed of Siam Proper, a large part of Lao, part of Kamboja, and certain tributary Malay states. In this wide acceptation it may be said to extend from the 5th to about the 21st degree of north latitude, and from the 98th to about the 105th east longitude. Its area has been estimated at 190,000 geographical miles.

This territory abounds in small rivers, but possesses only three great navigable streams—the Menam, the river of Kamboja, and that of Martaban. Menam is a generic word for a river, but is applied par excellence to the great river of the Siamese. It flows through the whole length of their territory, and they are in possession of its navigation nearly throughout. With the exception of Siam Proper the country is mountainous; and one great primitive chain which stretches from the northern to the southern boundary is in some places not less than 5000 feet high.

Besides the native races of these regions, the empire includes nume rous settlers from Pegu, driven hither by the oppression of the Burman government; a considerable number from Hindostan, chiefly Mohammedans; a still greater number from China and Cochin-China, who resort to Siam to better their fortunes by commerce and mechanical arts, and who, being unaccompanied by their families, usually intermarry with the natives, and conform to their religious worship. There are also a few of European descent, who are almost exclusively descendants of the Portuguese settlers of former times. Each of these classes of foreigners has a chief officer of its own, to whom all differences are referred. The Portuguese have both a consul and a bishop; but in their civil condition they are below the Siamese, and their religious observances differ little from those of the heathen around them.

The Siamese call themselves Thai, which in their language signifies 'the free.' Seam is said to be the same word in the Peguan language, and from it is taken the name given to them by the Chinese, Malays, and Europeans, who probably became first acquainted with them through the Peguans. There are said to be two races of the Siamese-the Thai Noe, or Lesser, who inhabit the low country; and the Thai Yai, or Greater, a more hardy and independent race, who seem to have retired at some distant period to the mountains to escape from the servitude attaching to the more favoured parts of the country, as the ancient Britons retreated into Wales before their Saxon invaders.

Siam Proper, the country of the Lesser Thai, is a vast plain, intersected by the Menam River, which annually inundates the land, and on the banks of which all the principal towns are situated. The people, in consequence, are so aquatic in their habits that the houses seldom extend more than one or two hundred yards from the water. Yuthia, or Siam, the early capital, was abandoned after the Burman conquest, and Bankok was chosen as being farther down the river, and more favourably situated for trade. It may be regarded almost as a city floating in the water; and it has for some years commanded a more extensive and valuable com

merce than any other port on the continent of India beyond the Ganges. Under good management, there is no reason that it should not rival or even surpass Calcutta.

The total value of exports is not less than £1,000,000. The chief articles are sugar, sapan-wood, tin, timber, rice, stick-lac, gum, gamboge, ivory, pepper, and cotton. The export price of sugar is about twopence a pound. The principal imports are arms, ammunition, anchors, piece-goods, cutlery, crockery, and mirrors.

The climate of Siam and its soil within the tract of the inundation are in the highest degree favourable to vegetation, and it is capable of raising all the richest productions for which Bengal is celebrated. The rice is of excellent quality, and cheaper than in any other country in the world, very seldom rising above two shillings a hundredweight. The cocoa is extensively cultivated, and remarkable for its fecundity, affording a large supply of oil for exportation at very low prices. The whole neighbourhood of Bankok is one forest of fruit-trees, and the products are both various and excellent, surpassing those of Bengal, Bombay, Ceylon, and Java. The most exquisite are the mango, the mangustin, the orange, the durion, the lichi, and the pine-apple. Several of these seem to be exotics; and Siam appears to be indebted to European intercourse for the guava (Psidium pomiferum) and the Papia fig (Carica papaja), which is here called the banana of the Franks.

The culture of the sugar-cane originated about forty years ago in the industry and enterprise of the Chinese settlers, and the export now exceeds 10,000,000 pounds. The cultivators are Siamese, but the manufacturers of the sugar are invariably Chinese. Black pepper, which seems to be indigenous, yields an annual produce of about 8,000,000 pounds, of which two-thirds are delivered to the king of Siam, who pays the cultivator about £1 sterling for each picul, or about 1331⁄2 pounds avoirdupois. Cardamums, another product of the Malabar coast, occur in the same parts of the country with pepper; the capsules are three times the size of the finest produced in Malabar, and the seeds highly aromatic. They are also found in the adjacent districts of Kamboja, and the forests which produce them are royal preserves, and strictly guarded. They are in great request in China, and his Siamese majesty sometimes obtains for them £36 per picul.

Other valuable products are-tobacco, several kinds of cotton, a gum resembling benzoin, and gamboge. The last is obtained from a species of Garcinia by making incisions in the bark, whence it exudes freely, and is collected in vessels suspended from the branches. In these it soon assumes a concrete form, and no further preparation is necessary.

Another singular and very valuable production is agila, eagle, or aloeswood, which is found on a large forest-tree of the hilly countries near the equator. The late Dr Roxburgh introduced it into the botanical garden of Calcutta, and described it under the name of Aquillaria agalocha. It is of the class Decandria and the order Monogynia; has an umbel for its inflorescence; a lanceolate leaf; and a drupe for its fruit. The porous scented wood is said to result from disease in the tree, and is more or less frequent according to soil and climate. From the same causes it differs materially in quality; but the best is found on the east coast of the Gulf of Siam, in lat. 13° 30′ and downwards.

The sapan-tree (Casalpinia sapan), valuable for its red dye, is a very abundant production of the forests, and in point of bulk, if not of value, it is the most considerable of all the Siamese exports.

There is also a large tree affording a fine-grained red wood, largely exported for cabinet-work; and considerable forests of teak, most of which is used at home.

The geology and mineralogy of Siam are almost as yet unexplored, and the little that is known concerning them has been derived from the report of the natives rather than from the personal investigation of scientific visitors.

It is well ascertained, however, that the tin-formation pervades the whole of the Malay peninsula-the ore, so far as has been ascertained, being always common tinstone, or oxide of tin, and occurring in alluvial formations, technically called 'streams.'

Gold appears to have a similar geognostic situation, and at Bang-ta-pan the ore is said to be above nineteen carats fine. The whole quantity produced, however, does not suffice for the home consumption, owing to the immense quantity lavished on the temples and images. Of all the metals, iron occurs in the greatest relative abundance; and though the mines are far up the country, yet they are so fertile and so near the river, that castiron at Bankok does not exceed a dollar and a half the picul. Copper, zinc, lead, and antimony are also found in this country, which, on the whole, seems as distinguished for its mineral as it confessedly is for its vegetable resources.

The ordinary and familiar features of Siamese zoology are all that are satisfactorily known. The bear found here seems to be the same as that of Borneo and the Malay peninsula; a species of otter, probably the Leutra septonyx of Dr Horsefield, is found about the rivers; the domestic dog, an ugly pricked-eared cur, is frequent even to a nuisance, and here, as in other parts of the East, it goes about unowned and unappropriated—& very proverb of worthlessness. No other species of the canine family is known; and of the feline tribe, those only which have been ascertained are the common cat, the royal tiger, and the leopard. Not only the skins, but what is remarkable, the bones of the tiger are exported to China, where they are considered to be possessed of medicinal virtues.

Siam is considered the most genial land of the elephant, and that in which it attains its highest perfection. Though the use of these animals about the capital is by law reserved to a few persons of high rank, they are freely employed in all other parts of the kingdom, both for riding and carrying burdens. In Lao they are said to be so common as to be used 'even for carrying women and firewood.' The white elephant, so highly venerated, is an occasional variety, in every respect analogous to what occurs in other orders of animals, and even in the human species. They are, correctly speaking, albinos, and possessed of all the usual peculiarities of that abnormal production; but it has been remarked in these elephants that the organs of sight are apparently sound, natural, and in no way intolerant of light, the only peculiarity being in the iris, which is white. In 1822 the sovereign of Siam possessed three of these animals, a circumstance considered indicative of singular prosperity to the nation. It is supposed that this animal is the temporary habitation of a soul in a high state of progress towards perfection; and accordingly every white elephant has a rank and