1840.] Mission to the Court of Siam. 13 



or four tickels a year ; all who have reached the height of two 

 cubits and a span, are branded, and they are numerous, as there 

 has been no impress for three years. 



January 30th. — Rajapore, 6h. Eighteen miles. Started this 

 morning at 7h. 45m. and in twenty minutes passed through the 

 clearing in which we pitched our little camp last night ; from this, 

 till 9h. 35m. our route lay through a jungle, of the same scanty 

 stunted trees as we have had for the last few days, the soil 

 poor and sandy ; at 9h. 35m. pass a village of 15 or 20 houses, 

 and enter a plain covered with long reedy grass, near which we 

 saw the first black cattle we have met with in the route ; at 9h. 

 55m. came on the banks of the Song-roy river, here about 

 sixty feet wide, and apparently not more than ancle-deep, with 

 the tide coming in; and immediately after coming on the 

 river pass a large village, with a number of Chinamen about it. 

 Here the plain is about three and a half or four miles across, from 

 east to west, with the range of hills to westward, (along which 

 our route has been throughout at no great distance,) running 

 round to a few points east of south, broken and irregular, and the 

 highest probably not more than 6 or 700 feet ; we march along 

 the Song-roy till a little after eleven, when it tends away east, to 

 join the Camboorie river ; the plain increases a little in breadth, 

 and contains three or four small shallow lagoons, all along the 

 borders of which the people, principally prisoners from Wiang- 

 tchong, were employed in planting out paddy. They have a 

 mode of irrigation here, I have not seen used except in 

 China, by means of a long spoon-shaped light trough, with 

 a long bamboo handle, slung in a high triangle of bamboos, 

 the person using which stands on a slight frame raised in the 

 water, and with a spoon in each hand, by means of the slings, 

 throws the water into the channel for conducting it over 

 the fields to a height of about three or four feet. At llh. 25m. 

 we passed the village of Song-roy of 20 houses, generally of 

 very miserable description; from this, our route lay S. 31 E. 

 to the town ; the swampy nature of the ground in one 

 place, and a detour round one or two of the small lakes, kept 

 us till two o'clock before we reached it. The boats must have 

 been manned and waiting for us on the town side of the 



