VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA. 129 



quite black. The nostrils are half-hidden by the feathers, they are 

 pretty large, The tongue is divided at the end. The wings have 

 fifteen flig^ht-f eathers. The tail is oval and consists of fifteen fea- 

 thers, which are white at the ends ; the whole bird being black and 

 only having' oblong' white spots across the wings. They are half 

 the size of those which one sees so often on the coast of Coro- 

 mandel. and have a bad smell when one takes them in one's hands. 

 The second kind seemed to me to be the Gracula calva, or a new 

 species. 



11-14 — During" these days we had almost continual rain. I 

 took much trouble to hire or buy a boat, but I was not able to 

 obtain anything from these people in a hurry, because they are 

 both lazy and suspicious, and I had to content myself to remain 

 in the house in as calm a mood as circumstances would permit. 



15. — I obtained a boat for hire, with which 1 went to the 

 Roman Church, which has been established here. There were 

 one bishop and two preachers of French nationality, all directly 

 ordained from Rome, but being paid by France. The Church 

 was like a large barn, built of wooden beams and bamboo, and 

 covered with leaves of the ordinary palm-tree. The altar was 

 only a kind of table, behind w^hich there were some steps, rising 

 pyramidally, some of them being painted with red foliage, and 

 upon one of them stood a small cross, but there were almost no 

 pictures and images besides, as is generally the use in this 

 religion. Before mass one of the preachers preached in Siamese. 

 The Church itself was dry, but round about there was a swamp, 

 which was overgrown with grass, growing higher than a man, 

 and as the water was low I waded through it. I first found a 

 wild shrub, with very far spreading panicles, the stalks standing- 

 apart from each other ; it was higher than a man. The natives 

 call it in their language the Bird- shrub. 



There was a second species growing among them ; their 

 panicles were compact, and it had no corolla, but the ordinary 

 scales as nectaries ; and a very beautiful paspalum the spikes 

 of which were alternate and patent, and the spikelets were 

 of a pink or purple colour. A high growing- kind of grass, which 

 resembles the Tripsaca and grew in a deep swamp, I found 

 moreover; and some of the Schoenus Surinainensisoi Mr. Rottboell 

 I did not see any other kind of grasses here besides Cf/no.wrus 



