12 THE RELATION OF CHIN'ESE AND SIAMESE 



ends here, when Europe was in the darkest of the Dark 

 Ages. It remains for us to note only a few of the more 

 epochal dates in Tai History in the 685 years since the fall 

 of Talifu. 



By 1257, a scant quarter of a century after that fall, the 

 Siamese had completely shaken off the Cambodian yoke and 

 had founded their Suk'ot'ai Kingdom. By the end of the 13th 

 century, when Edward I. was on the throne of England, the 

 Mong Mao Kingdom embraced all of Burma and Assam and 

 "the Malay Peninsula as far south as Tavoy," and the Mao 

 Tai had even "made their power felt in Java, Malacca and 

 ■Cambodia:" so says Hallett. The Tai were in autonomous 

 rule over nearly all of the whole Indo-Chinese Peninsula. 



The Siamese capital was transferred to Ayuthia in 

 A.D. 1350, while Wickliffe was busily engaged in translating 

 the Bible into the English language. By the fortunes of war 

 the capital was again changed in 1768, this time to its present 

 site at Bangkok. 



The present dynasty has been in power since the trans- 

 fer of the capital to Ayuthia, about 570 years ago, with only 

 a break of 14 years, from 1768 to 1782. Although this is said 

 to be a "Yun" dynasty, it is also said that all the members 

 •of the royal household have Chinese blood in their royal veins. 

 Armed feuds between the Chinese and the Tai ceased 

 centuries ago. Chinese merchants and coolies are welcomed 

 in Siam. Of the 800,000 population of Bangkok, 100,000 are 

 returned as Chinese. These are round numbers, of course. 

 The proportion outside the capital is small. But a sprinkling 

 of "the ubiquitous Chinaman" is found in remote corners 

 of the Kingdom. The Siamo-Chinese element is the best in 

 Siam's population. As the Chinese and the Tai have thus 

 been mingling their blood for many centuries past in these 

 peaceful days and peaceful ways, they have also mingled 

 their life-blood recently in France, "doing their bit" with the 

 Allies in ushering in that better day for all nations and 

 kindreds and tongues and peoples upon the face of the whole 

 earth. 



