Vlll INTRODUCTION. 



SIAM HILL. 



There is some magnificent scenery in the Southern Pro- 

 vinces. 



Tavoy stands in an alluvial bottom, and is hidden in the 

 distance by the tall palms, and glossy-green jacks, and yellow- 

 flowered cassias, and twenty other flowering trees unknown 

 to song, which overshadow its humble dwellings ; but Siam 

 Hill is a conspicuous knoll, a hundred feet high, six miles 

 long by half a mile wide, in the paddy fields half a mile east 

 of Tavoy. 



Here, after emerging from the shrubbery that obstructs the 

 view, there suddenly opens out before the spectator a pros- 

 pect of indescribable beauty, " like a sleeping child too 

 blessed to wake." At his feet lie spread out the level paddy 

 fields, divided into numerous one-acre lots by little mounds 

 raised around them to retain the water, so as to suggest a gi- 

 gantic chess board. On the south a silver stream, fringed with 

 the dark foliage of wild fig trees, and the thick straggling 

 bushes of a species of Hibiscus, covered with large yellow 

 and red flowers, is seen pursuing its tortuous course beneath 

 the shadows of Mount Burney, which rises twelve hundred 

 feet above its southern bank. On the east, " hills peep o'er 

 hills," like the seats of avast amphitheatre, bounded by Ox's 

 Hump, rising in a most picturesque outline four thousand 

 feet above the plains. Yonder, at the distance of fourteen 

 miles, is seen a foaming cascade making a fearful leap from a 

 gorge halfway up the highest mountains. Green forests are 

 diversified with white lichen-covered precipices, while here and 

 there a whitened pagoda lifts its conical head above the sum- 

 mit of an isolated hill, or the smoke of a solitary hamlet is 

 seen curling up in the midst of Wood-oil tree forests or Liquid 

 meber groves. 



" The Palm-tree vvaveth high. 



And fair the Betel springs ; 

 And, to the Indian maid. 



The Eulbul sweetly sings. 

 But I dinna see the broom 



Wi' its tassels on the lea, 

 Nor hear the Lintie's sang, 



O' my ain countrie !" 



