1840.] the Report of the Coal Committee. 593 



" The party, allowing for the detention of three clays at Bangnarom, and of the greater 

 portion of the fourth and eighth day's route, whilst engaged in ascertaining the direc- 

 tion of the road, and constructing bamboo floats, was about sixteen day's passing from 

 the bar of the Menan to Mergui, but their progress was necessarily slow, owing to 

 the number of women and children, and we understand, that the Kasoon hill might 

 have been crossed at a more easy pass. There are two instances on record of the jour- 

 ney between the old capital of Siam and Mergui, when the French occupied it, hav- 

 ing been made in ten days, and on one of these occasions, the party consisted of prison- 

 ers in chains, escorted by a detachment of Siamese soldiers. 



"The late king of Siam is said about thirty-three years ago, to have constructed the 

 military road from Bangnarom towards Mergui, for the purpose of invading the Bur- 

 mese territories : the road is described to admit elephants, and even wheel carriages. But 

 in former times there appears to have been a carriage road between the Gulf of Siam 

 and Tenasserim, as, in a letter from the Bishop of Tabraca, from Siam in 1761, we find 

 the following passage: " Jaienvoye M. Martin (a Merguy) II alia jusqu'a Piply, ou 

 Ton a coutume de quitter les batteaux, et y, attendit inutilement, les charretes, pen- 

 dant trois semaines." Piply is the Siamese Phriphri, a large town on the west coast 

 of the Gulf of Siam, in about latitude 13- 20, and once the capital of the Siamese Em- 

 pire. 



" From Mergui, Mr. Leal proceeded to Tavoi, by sea, and was thence sent back by 

 the Commissioner with instructions to proceed to the Siamese station, on the other side 

 of the peninsula, at Chhoomphon, to deliver a number of Siamese prisoners, and receive 

 charge of the Burmese still detained there ; he accordingly started from Mergui on the 

 23rd March, with twelve Burman boats, and four others, containing one hundred and 

 nine Siamese prisoners, and reached the mouth of the Pak-cham river on the 25th. He 

 rowed up the river on the following day, and arrived at Pak-cham on the afternoon of 

 the 26th. Mr. Leal describes the river as of considerable size. The Pak-cham river is 

 separated from the Chhoomphon river by a very small interval of level ground, and it 

 is said that during the spring tides the two rivers often unite. The former is, through- 

 out, broad and deep, and the latter flows in a sandy bed ; both are free from rocks. 

 From Pak-cham Mr. Leal proceeded across the country to Chhoomphon, in the vicinity 

 of which he arrived on the afternoon of the second day. Having concluded his busi- 

 ness, he returned by the same route to Pak-cham." 



From Captain Lloyd to the Officiating Secretary. 



" When I wrote to you before on the subject of Captain Macleod's map 

 of the Mergui province, which had been referred to me, I suggested that 

 " Champhon," situated on the Gulf of Siam side, should be brought 

 more to the southward, so as to preserve the same relative position 

 with respect to the Pakchan, corrected by my survey, as it had with 

 that of the old maps, which place them nearly east and west of each 

 other, and is in accordance with the best information we have ; but in 



