1838.] Return to Trang. 605 



presents after the transactions have closed. But it will be to the trader's 

 advantage to make a handsome present in the first instance. 



In all Siamese ports the foreign trader must lay his account with ex- 

 periencing vexatious delays, and trouble arising perhaps more out of 

 the complicated nature of the forms and charges than from their being 

 actually burdensome. 



Rice is sold here at the rate of twelve gantangs per Spanish dollar, 

 but both at Salang and at this port it is of an inferior quality to that at 

 Keddah. Their mode of preparing it for the market is also calculated 

 to diminish its value. The grains are seldom whole and for the most 

 part broken into crumbs. They cultivate all along the coast large 

 quantities of the Khau Neeau of the Siamese, or Malayen braspooloot 

 or Oryza glutinosa of Roxb. which is well adapted for the culinary 

 purposes of the natives, particularly for confections. 



We returned to Trang on the 7th June, and having fired a gun, the 

 signal agreed on betwixt the Siamese chiefs and me, three envoys who 

 had just arrived from Ligor came on board. The head envoy Khoon 

 Akson, I had known at Penang. These men after a conversation 

 which lasted for four hours set off for Ligor. They said they had 

 travelled in coming day and night, on their elephants, and had accom- 

 plished the journey from Ligor in three days and one night. The 

 Siamese compute journeys by nights. Runners can perform it in four 

 days easily. 



18th June. The mission debarked on a high neck of land lying on 

 the west bank of the river. The tents were pitched close to the tem- 

 porary house which had been erected for myself by the raja's people. 

 The schooner was now despatched with letters to Penang. Exercise 

 was enjoined to the escort and people not only to keep them in health, 

 but on the alert, as the temper of the Siamese had not been perfectly 

 ascertained. Indeed the secretary to the government at Penang ac- 

 quainted me by a secret despatch that people from Ligor had informed 

 him that it had been debated at Ligor whether the mission should be 

 cut off either by force or by poison. But I put little faith in this re- 

 port as I discovered that the principal reason why the Ligorian had 

 neither allowed the mission to proceed to Ligor ', or had come down in 

 person to receive it, was his having just before been placed in commu- 

 nication with two colleagues who had arrived from Bankok to watch 

 his acts. The reported danger appeared to me a fabrication of the 

 Keddah people ; and small as our escort was, the party of one hun- 

 dred armed men who had been sent to keep a look out on us, would 

 have been easily disposed of in case of treachery appearing. These 



