33 INDIA BEYOND THE GANGES. 



pecially the Cbinefe, and fell the crews and paflengers for flaves. 

 It is not infrequent that they murder the whole crew. Their 

 vefTcls arc crowded with men, armed either with lances and 

 crefles, or fliort daggers. They fuddenly board the fliips they 

 think they can mafter ; and having their native ferocity 

 heightened by opium, initantly ftab all whom they find in their 

 way. Thefe mifcreants fwarm in the ftreights of Ma/acca, and 

 in all the iflands which go under the name of Malaye. 



Patani. Patanij in Lat. 6° 50', the next town of note, lies clofe on 



the fhore, and was once greatly frequented by fhips from Surat, 

 the Malabar coaft, and that of Coromandel, bellde what come 

 from China and other neighboring countries ; but the merchants 

 finding no proteftion from the murderous pirates, quite deferted 

 the place. This may have been the Balonga of Ptolemy. 



GuLPH OF Advancing ftill north, we enter the gulph oi Siam, the 



Magnus Sinus of the fame geographer ; the land after palling 

 Patani^ makes a confiderable curvature towards the weft, which 

 continues as far as Patanor, in about Lat. 10°, where it bends 

 towards the north-eaft, till it ends in the bottom of the gulph at 

 the river of Siam. Thus finifhes the outline of this celebrated 

 peninfula. 



PiPERi. In this curvature, near the bottom of the bay, flood the an- 



tient Sipiberis, the modern Piperi ; and to the fouth of it Sindu, 

 the prefent Sini. 



We fliall take a review of its whole extent, from the northern 

 end of its ifthmus, in Lat. 9* 12', to its fouthern extremity at 

 cape Ro77iajiOy which is about fix hundred and fixty miles. The 

 breadth in the wideft part, is about two hundred miles ; from 



that 



