212 SCHOMBURGK'S REPORT ON THE TRADE OF SUM. [June 11, 1860. 



of Nineveh.* The bulls are harnessed to the end of the pole, thej^ 

 are guided by reins drawn through the nostril, and the drivers stand 

 upright with remarkable steadiness. The enthusiasm of the people 

 at these races was immense. There are numerous cave temples at 

 Pecha-buri well worth visiting, though not of an equal scale to 

 that of EUora. 



2nd. It must be observed that, with the exception of the Gulf of Siam, 

 of which the greater portion has been recently surveyed under the 

 able direction of Mr. J. Richards, of Her Majesty's surveying-ship 

 Saracen, the position of places in the interior rests upon no fixed 

 data, and the existing maps of Siam are very erroneous, in many 

 respects having been projected merely upon conjecture. 



The geographical position of this country is of great importance 

 in a political respect, as it occupies the centre of India beyond the 

 Brahmaputra, bordered on its immediate eastern frontier by Cochin 

 China, and beyond that country by the Celestial Empire or China. 



Taking into consideration its western limits, Siam Proper is 

 bounded by the territories of a number of petty princes, who aim 

 at independence, but cannot maintain it without paying some kind 

 of tribute to the Kings of Siam, thereby acknowledging their 

 sovereignty. 



This refers principally to the Malayan peninsula, under which 

 name I understand that strip of land extending from the British 

 Tenasserim provinces to the point of Eomania, bordered on the west 

 by the Bay of Bengal, and on the east by the Gulf of Siam. This 

 isthmus has near its base — namely, between Banlam in the Siamese 

 Gulf and Tavoy Point at the Bay of Bengal — a breadth of 117 

 miles, and at its narrowest point scarcely 50 miles. 



One of these narrow necks, between the river Xumphon or 

 Champon and the Pak Chan at the Bay of Bengal, has been proposed 

 for piercing a canal from that Bay to the Gulf of Siam, thus avoid- 

 ing the great circuit of vessels bound from the principal ports of 

 our Eastern empire to China ; moreover thereby steering clear of 

 the great dangers which the passage through the Straits of Malacca 

 offers to vessels coming either from Calcutta and Bombay, or from 

 Europe, bound for China. 



The construction of a canal, deep enough for ships, through the 

 Isthmus of Kra, as this neck of land is called, seems to offer no 

 great difficulties, according to the information which I have received 

 from His Excellency the Kalahome or Prince-Minister of Siam, who 

 recently has visited the locality. His Excellency has, I fear, given 

 to me rather too favourable a description of the labour required to 



