si: 



EAST Ell N GEOGRAPHY. 



tin"* T.ivoy estmivy. H.irlj have steam iinvi^aLinii with Muulmain, 

 Kan^un, and Calcutta. 



Administration. — Front the time of iU occupation by the 

 British in 1828 till 1862 Tenossorim was governed by a separate 

 Commissioner under the Supreme Government. Hut in 1802 the 

 three divisions of British Burundi were united under a Chief Com- 

 missioner, dependent on the Government of India, but with full 

 control over nil local departments. Since then Tena&seriru, iiko 

 Pe^ii and Arakan, has been administered by a Commissioner and 

 Deputy Commissioners, subordinate to the central authority at 

 Bangun. For administrative purposes it forms six districts, with, 

 forty-one nub-divisions. 



2.— NATIVE DIVISION. SIAM. 



Encircled west, north, and east by the British and French 

 divisions, tho native territory of Statu occupies the very heart of 

 Indo-Cbina, with a Southern seaboard sweeping round the Gulf of 

 Si&m from Malay-land to C&mboja, The south-western portion, com* 

 prising the Isthmus of Km, and the Siamese Feetion *>i Malay laud, 

 and usually spoken of as Loweh Siaw, has been described in Part I. 

 Malay Fenhmtttii of which region it forms a natural geographical 

 division. 



Urrm Siatf, or Si ah fjiofbr, comprise* the whole of the Menam 

 basin, and the section of the Mekhong valley lying between UppoT 

 liurmah and Cnmbtija, besides the valleys of the smaller streams 

 flowing to the left bank of the Lower Sal win . It forms a compact, 

 irregular square mass stretching from Kiang-tsen on the Mekhong, 

 across over eight deuces of latitude (20° IV — 12" N.), for 560 miles 

 southwards to the Gulf of Siatn, and for about the same distance 

 west and cast between the Sal win and Cochin-China, with a total 

 area of somewhat less than 300,000 snua.ru miles. The estimates of 

 population vary enormously front 7,000,000 to four or five times that 

 number. Carl Bock, who recently travelled through the most densely 

 populated part of the country, from Bangkok up the Menam valley to 

 the Mekhungand Kiang-tsen, is inclined to believe that the 7,000,000 

 of Pftllegoix and others represents only the male adult population, 

 women and children underage not being counted. 1 ' Mr. Colquhoun 

 also, a still more recent explorer, clearly shows that the country is far 

 more densely peopled than ie generally supposed, *° that the estimate 

 of £^000,030 made by the Siamese Ambassador in London may he 



