1840.] Mission to the Court of Siam. 239 



o'clock to get a message from him by an old Portuguese begging 

 me to give him to-day and to-morrow; that the preparation and 

 embarkation of the troops for the Malay expedition had fully 

 occupied all his time. I fear I shall still be disappointed, and 

 obliged to close my letters without any positive information on 

 certain points on which I depend for answers from this most 

 dilatory government; it will take a month to reach Zimmay 

 from this, and from thence it is twenty-three days more to 

 Maulmain, which will bring it to the middle of May, (supposing 

 I even start on the 10th of this month, which is the earliest I 

 can possibly expect, and have no detention in Laos,) before I 

 can possibly reach Maulmain. 



March 7th. — The force for the reinforcement of the Rajah 

 of Ligore having dropped up with the tide last night for his 

 Majesty's inspection, sailed down again to-day, after firing a 

 salute of a few guns, and is considered as having started, though 

 they will not finally leave for two or three days. The first part of 

 it which I saw passed down about 12 o'clock, it consisted of 

 twelve war boats, two large and three small junks. The largest, 

 a very fine vessel which the Rajah of Ligore was six years in 

 building, and which he presented sometime ago to the king, 

 was commanded by the commander-in-chief, Pra-si-pi-pat, the 

 Praklang's brother, it was very gaily decked with red flags and 

 streamers, and himself habited in a red dress, with a good deal 

 of embroidery, looking at the distance from which I saw it, 

 much like the war dress of the Burman chiefs ; on his head he 

 had a broad brimmed beaver hat, with a sort of gilt spire at- 

 tached to the top of it ; he had a splendid gilt cabin erected 

 above the taffrail, and a chatta bearer with a large red 

 chatta shading him from the sun. The smaller boats were 

 towing his junk, and pulled by the soldiers, all of whom were 

 dressed in red jackets, or shirts, and white trowsers. There 

 might be perhaps 1,500 or 2,000 men in this part of the fleet, 

 and one or two junks sailed down afterwards with perhaps 

 500 or 1,000 more, called by the government 5,000. 



There is a deficiency of transports, though the king has 

 borrowed every junk he could get hold of, many of which 

 will probably never be restored again, as the people put in 



