166 VOYAGE FROM IXDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA 



than thirty steps, at which distance everybody mnst prostrate 

 himself before the king-. All people near him must fall down as 

 soon as he stops in his walk, or at whatever place he may choose 

 to be ; they may only approach him creeping on their knees, with 

 their hands folded and uplifted, speaking in humble tones. 



AVhenever he is in his swimming houses nobody may row 

 close past them, nor cross the river ; such a crime, according to 

 the laws of the country would be avenged by capital punishment. 

 However two of his pag'es were guilty of this crime during my 

 stay and they escaped with eighty strokes with the rotan. 



Ten christians are on guard in the little fort where he lives dur- 

 ing the night ; they are intended to represent soldiers. He trusts 

 more to the christians than to anybody else, and they are con- 

 sidered as soldiers of artillery, but they have no weapons, except 

 their chief, who at night has a sword in his hand. They wear 

 a white coarse short shirt, and long blue trousers, some of them 

 wear hats. Most of them are direct bastards of Europeans, or 

 their ancestors were Europeans, but they are as dark as the 

 Indians. They have neither implements for the cannons, nor 

 powder at hand ; the only existing powder being either in the 

 quarter of the Christians or in the house of a black Mandarin. 

 They have no granulated powder, neither do they know how to 

 prepare it. The coal for their powder is made from the wood of 

 the Cerheva Mangas. 



Each of the cannons of this small fortress, stands between 

 four thick beams, which stand perpendicularly and are firmly 

 rammed into the wall ; to these beams the gun-carriage is tied 

 with strong cords, so that the cannon cannot kick. This of 

 course is a new impediment for these unpractised people when 

 they want to load the cannon and no side-ways movements are 

 possible. 



I busied myself with packing- to-day, and directly after dinner 

 the anchors were lifted. I followed the ship in my small boat, 

 and amused myself by going on shore from time to time. I 

 found a kind of Smilax with oval-shaped leaves, which I had not 

 seen before, and also the Waringa rubra, a kind of fig tree, on 

 the banks of the stream. The water began already to be salt ; 

 towards evening' we came to the custom station, where the 

 anchors had to be let down. 



6. — 1 rowed again in m}^ boat along the shore, my chief 



