70 Journal of the F.M.S. Museums [Vol. X, 



vessels attempted to proceed above the Chapsi (or customs 

 house) they sliould do so with great care and local pilotage. 

 At the landing place is a small wharf and a stockyard : at 

 the customs house is also a small wharf and a dozen houses. 

 Plenty of water was to be had nearby from wells. 



We left at sunrise, the early rays tinging with beautiful 

 colours the limestone hills to westwards some of which 

 come sheer down into the river. Coming out of the river 

 mouth Pulau Fungi, seen end on, looked like a huge thumb 

 sticking out of the water. Behind it is a fiord-like channel 

 between limestone chff s which leads to Kasom but the usual 

 way is more to the westward along the mangroves as runs 

 the route to Pangnga to the east. As we turned west into 

 Pakra or Pak Phra Strait between Junk Seylon and the 

 mainland we got our last view of the weird shapes of Koh 

 Chanuk and the adjacent islets. Some of them have been 

 embraced by low expansions of land and are now part of 

 the Peninsula. The softer hilly scenery of the Strait is 

 pretty — forest, green and yeUow grass and brown burnt 

 patches. Most of tlie bays along the shores are shallow 

 and in some of them are stretches of large trees growing 

 in the sea {? Sonneratea sp.). There are many fish traps 

 with their attendant wings of stakes. 



At the point where the road and telegraph line from 

 Puket reach the shore there are some houses and a large 

 sala (rest house) : also here and there along the shores of 

 the strait are solitary, or little collections of, houses : there 

 are a few coco-palms. A mile or two from the western 

 mouth of the straits we stopped to get a pilot off a pretty 

 little peninsula with a police station and some shops beneath 

 tall Casuarinas and Barringtonia trees and a fleet of boats 

 anchored behind it. 



We might have done without the pilot as the shoals at 

 the mouth could be distinguished though the tide was high : 

 the northern bar was indicated by the breakers and the 

 southern, which is outside and overlaps, it, was to be located 

 by its colour. The shores of the exit are low and sandy 

 and lined with Casuarinas and thereafter, until the hills 

 forming the entrance to Klong Bagatae or Tung Pran in 

 Takuatung were reached, we steamed in beautiful calm blue 

 water along a practically unbroken sand beach fringed with 

 Casuarinas and backed with forest ; at intervals passing 

 houses or hamlets with boats drawn up before them on the 

 shore. 



Lem^ Thom Tjob (Lat. 8° 33' N.) the western extremity 

 of the long point sheltering Klong Bagatae, is 500 ft. high 

 and covered with wind-swept forest : a reef extends outwards 

 from the lower northern point. On the opposite side of the 

 Klong (river), Lem Lajan to the eastward is hilly with 

 many rocks at its foot but thence sand and Casuarinas run 

 southward to Ban'' Tapmo. We steamed in beyond the 

 last to look for a good collecting shore but everj^vhere 



5 Cape. 6 Village. 



