338 
i 
THE SOlt. 
tenth part only of the produce of the harvest—2d. Pareesctmedjianif* 
The regular payment of Government servants and dependants by 
half yearly instalments. 3d. The lending of money without interest 
to industrious subjects—4th. Wacha Peeyang, condescention, strict 
impartiality in decision, and delay in pronouncing judgement for 
three years, if witnesses cannot be obtained. 
When the Siamese conquer a country they frequently permit the 
inhabitants to enjoy their own laws, in so far as may seem compati¬ 
ble with the safety of the former. The plunder at the first occupa¬ 
tion belongs to the King, and as it is obtained by what they term 
keep mot , which may be rendered a perfect “ sweeping of the terri¬ 
tory f may be supposed to include public aud private property of 
every denomination, and they scruple not besides to insist on contri¬ 
butions of grain to meet real or feigned exigencies. Countries sub¬ 
dued by the Siamese are assessed ad libitum. But they often, for sea ¬ 
sons at least, permit them to pay the rates to which they have been 
used. 
The Siamese, as has been noticed already, partake more of an agri¬ 
cultural than of a pastoral nature, and as the [perhaps Tartar] race 
from which they sprung was, it may be assumed, strictly nomadic, the 
conjecture of M. De La Loubere may be correct,—that they were ori¬ 
ginally instructed in agriculture by the Chinese. This conjecture re¬ 
ceives some support from the fact of the annual ploughing festival be¬ 
ing common to both these people. Formerly, the Kings of Siam at¬ 
tended in person to perform the ceremony of holding the plough, but 
political reasons, joined perhaps to superstitious ones, seem, many 
years ago, to have induced them to delegate the task to the Pfott- 
latfep or keeper of the rice granaries. 
In the 6th month, the astrologers fix on a propitious day, and, when 
it arrives, the P,honlat,lifep proceeds in great pomp to a field beyond the 
Town, where he ploughs a space of ground sufficient to yield a crop 
of five measures of grain. 
The Chau P free a Pfonlatfhp or simply the P,lionlat,hfep has 
another duty to perform of a veiy strange nature, at the festival of 
the 2d month of the year. He there personates the King, and goes 
