18 Mission to the Court of Siam. [No. 97- 



ministers at Bankok, and that I wished to make the greatest 

 possible dispatch to where I was ordered, and should have done 

 so from Camboorie had I not been prevented ; and when I had 

 seen the ministers, I should be happy to comply with their 

 desire in visiting any towns they might wish. The breakfast was 

 brought in and discussed, and we started ; the guides were fortu- 

 nately not ready. We were conducted along the west and south 

 faces of the fort, and whilst halting for the guides at a small 

 zayat, half a mile from the town, met a party of labourers 

 coming in from the paddy fields, and on inquiry found that 

 they were just about to lead us amongst muddy nullahs and 

 inlets from the sea, influenced by the tide, against which we 

 had several times been warned to be on our guard by Burman 

 and Taline refugees. The labourers had just pointed out the 

 proper road, when the guides came up, and declared that no 

 road existed in the direction I now proposed to go ; that, that 

 road, pointing along a road apparently leading to the salt grounds 

 at the head of the gulf, was the only one in existence ; I however 

 took the direction pointed out to us considerably more to the 

 northward, and inquiring of people on the road and at the 

 villages, all of whom assured me we were on the proper road, 

 reached this place at 3h. 35m. A few miles north of the town 

 runs a rather deep belt of palmyra trees with common jungle, 

 tending away a little to the northward of east, in which is the 

 high road to Bankok, with several villages along it ; also in the 

 jungle, between this belt and the head of the gulf, a distance of 

 about two days, is an alluvial plain, the lower edge intersected, 

 as already stated, and forming salt fields, the upper edge cul- 

 tivated to a considerable extent by the inhabitants of the villages 

 along the road, though this plain is said to be covered with 

 water in the rains, so that boats pass along it in all direc- 

 tions, but at this season is perfectly dry near the jungle, so 

 that we had no occasion to go on to the road, which ran a 

 mile or a mile and a half to the northward of our course. 

 Though there was no path, we took the direction pointed out 

 by the few people we met. We passed seven villages in the 

 day, the largest might contain thirty or forty houses, and at the 

 last a large herd of cattle and buffaloes, which sell here 



