1SG2.] Correspondence. 191 



CoKRESPONDENCE. 



Extracts from a Letter from Sir Robert H. Schomburgk, British 

 Consul at Bangkok, to Mr. Bltth ; latest Date, Bangkok, May 

 20th, 1862. 



(Various extracts from this and previous letters from Sir R. H. 

 Schomburgk to Mr. Blyth, on Natural History topics, have been 

 incorporated by our Curator in Reports which are still awaiting pub- 

 lication ; and both from the present letter, and from one subsequent- 

 ly received from Mr. W. T. Blanford by Mr. Blyth, extracts relating 

 to the Rhinoceroses of the Indo-Chinese region are given in p. 168 

 antea?) 



Sir R. H. Schomburgk writes, from the capital of Siam : — 



" I made a short excursion in the commencement of last April. 

 Since my return from Moulmein in April, 1860, I had not been ab- 

 sent from Bangkok a single day. My old enemy, rheumatism f 

 plagued me sadly ; and the Doctor advised a trip. I resolved to 

 visit Prabat, from which place, according to the Siamese legend, 

 Buddha stepped over to Adam's Peak in Ceylon, leaving his foot- 

 mark in Prabat, and impressing the print of his other foot on step- 

 ping on the Peak. Prabat is, at certain times of the year, a much 

 frequented place of pilgrimage, which the king himself visits almost 

 annually in great state. A gorgeous temple has been erected over 

 the so-called foot-print, (which is in limestone — a eoarse blue mar- 

 ble,) according to which Gaudama or Buddha must have had as- 

 toundingly large organs for ambulation. According to a fac-simile, 

 hung against the walls of the temple (for the sacred foot-print is 

 covered with a grating and strewed with rings and other trinkets of 

 value), his foot measured 5| ft. and where broadest 1 ft. 10| in. 



" I proceeded from thence to Nookburi, an ancient residence of 

 the Siamese kings ; of the former splendour of which the Ambas- 

 sadors of Louis XIV, have told us so much ; but that is all gone. 

 (Bar parentliese, the present king is there erecting a residence; but 

 how inferior to what those old ruins indicate the palace must have 

 been when in its pristine beauty !) The ruins of the house of that 

 Greek adventurer, Faulcon, interested me much — at one time only 



2 c 



