447 



Captain Hamilton in for ms m of a species of bhrt- 

 keltingf practiced in Siam, yet rougher than tliat 

 experienced by Sancho Paoza in the inn yard. 

 The Siamese method of frightening' offenders, 

 without inflicting mateiial bodily injury, is to 

 cause the unhappy criminal, to be tossed from 

 one elephant to another who dexterously either 

 receives the body on his tushes, (not the points;, 

 or catches it with his trunk, and passes it on to 

 another^ to the great diveri^ion of the court and 

 every individual except the Jtgunmt. 



Punislnnents in Sfam generally are symbolical 

 of the offences which have called down the visi- 

 tation. Thus, a defaulter in the public money 

 is put to death by having either molten gold or 

 silver poured down his throat ^ — Lying, or a breach 

 oi confidence, is punished and guarded against for 

 the future by sewing up the mouth, whilst the 

 with- holding information, on detection, leads to 

 the mouth being slit from ear to ear, as an inti* 

 mation to speak out. A misconception in the 

 execution of orders entails upon the ofifender a 

 sword-cut over the head, which practice is jo- 

 cosely called " pricking the memory/' 



On one occasion where the daughter of the 

 king of Siam died suddenly, and her father sus- 

 pected that she had been poisoned, the whole of 

 the ferocity of Siamese despotism was called in- 

 to play. Tliis occurred in A. D. 1650, and the 

 following fads are vouched for by an eye witness, * 

 who states that the cause, which gave rise to the * 

 suspicion, was that, on the burning of the corpse, 

 a portion of the flesh, about the size of a young 



* $tiii?i, TOy. Clmp. 8tb. p. 41 et wq. 



