VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM A.ND MALACCA. 173 



and further I often met a plant without stem, with long- oval 

 pointed fibrous leaves, the sing-le stalk of which was angular 

 thin, smooth, and almost longer than the leaves themselves; from 

 the root g-rew, between two sheathy leaves, a raceme of about 

 one fing'er long", bearing- very fine beautiful blue oval fruits; they 

 had only a thin skin and little flesh over a ball-shaped white kernel 



1 saw a special kind of fern with a sing-le stipitate ternate 

 pinnate frond, with the pinnoe tripartite striped; also a Bauhinia, 

 the leaves of which were perfectly divided, smooth and beauti- 

 ful; it had no blossom, but I obtained much seed. I also found 

 frequently the Convolvohis maximus, seininihus, lu'rsufis, marginibiis 

 jjetw/atis, Hermanni minor, and seed of some other plants. My 

 stay here was only of short duration, two hours at the longest ; 

 we had to catch up our ship which was g'oing- with full sails. 

 We had to overcome much danger, and succeeded in reaching- 

 it after five o'clock in the evening'. 



25. — To-day we came at last to the mouth of the river 

 which flows past Chantibuhn. We cast anchor in the harbour of 

 this town, between two islands; it was late in the evening-. 

 We prepared everything- to go on the following morning to the 

 town with our boat. A very big tortoise, which had been caught 

 near one of the is lands was given us to take away with us. 



'IQ. — Between three and four o'clock in the morning we went 

 on shore with our boat; none of us had ever seen this country 

 before, and so we went about as chance would lead us. On the 

 right hand the mouth of the river had forme 1 a low back-water; 

 it was stagnant, and the countrj^ was overgrown with trees. 

 On the left there was a high stony mountain range, also covered 

 with high trees. We looked about for houses in the dark, but 

 in vain. At the break of day we saw some houses near a bay, 

 which cut deep into the land and on approaching these houses we 

 found them to be the custom houses. The water was not very 

 deep, although at was high tide, and we had to be carried for a 

 considerable distance. 



Soon after I went into the forest, which consisted of high 

 trees and only little undergrowth, the soil being a yellow dusty 

 sand. The first plant I found was a climbing kind of cucunber, 

 which I had already found before in Inthea. I frequently 

 found a thorny Mimosa, which resembled the cassia but had 

 different pods ; it had ripe seed but no blossoms, I also saw 



