1862.] 
Correspondence. 
191 
Correspondence. 
Extracts from a Letter from Sir Robert H. Schomburgk, British 
Consul at Bangkok, to Mr. Blyth ; latest Bate, Bangkok, Mag 
20th , 1862. 
(Various extracts from this and previous letters from Sir R. H. 
Schomburgk to Mr. Blyth, on Natural History topics, have been 
incorporated by our Curator in Reports which are still awaiting pub¬ 
lication ; and both from the present letter, and from one subsequent¬ 
ly received from Mr. W. T. Blanford by Mr. Blyth, extracts relating 
to the Rhinoceroses of the Indo-Chinese region are given in p, 168 
antea.) 
Sir R. H. Schomburgk writes, from the capital of Siam :— 
“ I made a short excursion in the commencement of last April. 
Since my return from Moulmein in April, i860, I had not been ab¬ 
sent from Bangkok a single day. My old enemy, rheumatism, 
plagued me sadly; and the Doctor advised a trip. I resolved to 
visit Prabat, from which place, according to the Siamese legend, 
Buddha stepped over to Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, leaving his foot¬ 
mark in Prabat, and impressing the print of his other foot on step¬ 
ping on the Peak. Prabat is, at certain times of the year, a much 
frequented place of pilgrimage, which the king himself visits almost 
annually in great state. A gorgeous temple has been erected over 
the so-called foot-print, (which is in limestone—a coarse blue mar¬ 
ble,) according to which Gaudama or Buddha must have had as- 
toundingly large organs for ambulation. According to a fac-simile, 
hung against the walls of the temple (for the sacred foot-print is 
covered with a grating and strewed with rings and other trinkets of 
value), his foot measured 5| ft. and where broadest 1 ft. 10£ in. 
“ I proceeded from thence to Nookburi, an ancient residence of 
the Siamese kings ; of the former splendour of which the Ambas¬ 
sadors of Louis XXV, have told us so much ; but that is all gone. 
(Barparenthese, the present king is there erecting a residence; but 
how inferior to what those old ruins indicate the palace must have 
been when in its pristine beauty!) The ruins of the house of that 
Greek adventurer, Faulcon, interested me much—at one time only 
2 c 
