whom he consults on the success of war, the results of a battle, and other questions, which often cause much trouble to the poor man ; for when what he predicts turns out true, he is amply rewarded; but when his prophecies fail, he is flogged and exposed to the burning sun, to make him more circumspect in future. Sometimes he himself fulfills his own predictions, as when on one occasion he announced that a Christian village would be burnt on such a day, and sent a person to set fire to the place, who was apprehended and revealed the whole collusion, and the diviner was severely flogged. Yet he did not the less enjoy the confidence of the king. According to an ancient custom the king has treasure which he must not touch but in emergencies; the successor adds to what his predecessor has amassed. It is said that the present king is very rich.

In this country, the rights of man are not the same as in Europe. War is made as it was among the ancient Assyrians, destroying cities, devasting the country, and leading the inhabitants into captivity. In the suburbs of Bangkok, are villages of Burmans, Peguans, Laos, Malays, &c. These devastations are as fatal to the conquerors as to the vanquished. In the course of a single campaign last year, of only six months, the number who died from famine, fatigue and disease was immense.

The military profession is hereditary, and a man is a soldier as long as he lives; the different regiments are distinguished by the color of their uniform.* The chiefs have a short silken robe worked with gold; the Christians wear European dresses, and are engineers, medical officers, or artillery-men. The Siamese cannot be said to be wanting in courage, but they are ignorant of the art of war.

When the time for departure arrives, the army embark in small boats and place themselves in the middle of the river; the talapoins consult the omens, praying to the devil, first raising one foot and then another, and making a thousand antics. One of them mounts an elevated seat, and performs a lustration, but the Christian soldiers hold a card before their faces to keep off the infernal water, to which the king says nothing. They now make a mannikin of the rebellious prince they are going to fight, instead of as formerly taking a criminal condemned to death. The head is cut off as an augury; if it fall at the first blow, the presage is favorable, but contrarywise if more strokes be needed. This ceremony being finished,

* The only uniform we have even seen worn by the Siamese soldiers, is a red band about the head, having as their only dress a waist cloth in common with the rest of the people.

the general fiercely brandishes his sword, and the army marches off at the sound of music.

Although the Siamese often observe omens, they do so still more in time of war. The flight of a bird, or the cry of an animal causes them to quake; and the gambols of a monkey running into their ranks terrifies them more than the hosts of the enemy. These superstitions often result disastrously. If a boat cross the river before that containing the general, it forbodes some terrible evil, and they put to death all in the boat to avert the calamity. To prevent such accidents, the army is always preceded by criers who give notice to all boats to range themselves along the banks; but in spite of these precautions it is seldom that some bad luck does not happen.

When the army leaves the river, they put the munitions of war upon elephants. The different battalions march under their banners with little order. These flags are red, interspersed with devices in other colors. The national flag is a white elephant, and it is by raising or depressing it in a different manner that the general makes known his orders. It is said they fight by platoons, concealing themselves behind trees and branches that they may attack the enemy to more advantage. When the elephants are well disciplined, they cause more carnage than several soldiers, fighting with their trunk and feet; it is difficult to wound them with fire-arms.

The Siamese have some good laws, but others are far from being perfect; the bad ones would nevertheless be tolerable, were they well administered. When two parties appear before a judge to plead their case, he thrusts them both into prison, in order that if the accused have not the means, the accuser may pay the expense; an affair is often protracted a long time to extort money from both parties. It is in vain to appeal to the king, for the magistrate is always right, and the sufferer knows it too well to incur new trials.

Money is an infallible means of evading the laws. By means of it criminals can get their punishment reduced almost to nothing Custom, which has the force of law, permits lenders to exact 30 per cent. interest, but they often get 60 and even 80 per cent. If at the expiration of the term the debtor cannot pay the debt, he becomes the creditor's slave, or in default his wife and children are seized. It should be said to the praise of the present king, that he lends money to his subjects without interest, but the great lords are not so generous. If a master strike his slave with the instrument with which they stir rice, or with a chopstick, he is free, and the master loses his property; but if he strike him with a stick of wood the slave must

not complain; this is a curious prejudice. The law permits parents who have sold a daughter in marriage to keep her as a domestic during the whole time which a tree planted before the cabin on the wedding-day, remains upright; the newly married pair take care to choose a tree that easily rots; custom has fixed the term at three years. In virtue of this singular contract, the wife becomes at once the slave of her husband and the servant of her parents; this abuse does not exist among the Christians.*

The right of asylum exists in Siam. Our churches and their inclosures also enjoy this right; the king under no pretext can attack this privilege. A criminal who reaches a pagoda cannot be drawn away by force; the king can only desire the talapoins to remove him, but if he takes the priestly robe, it is rare that he is given up; this will suffice to give you an idea of the holiness of the priests. Since I have been here, I have often heard of the crimes of these pretended gods; it is only fifteen days since one of them assassinated a man who reproved him for his bad conduct; though convicted he has not yet been punished; and at this moment there are sixty indicted for various crimes.

The penal code is not severe; the king hesitates in passing sentence of death, lest he commits a sin; but torture is sometimes used. There are some frightful punishments unknown to Europeans, which are reserved for great criminals, but I doubt whether they are employed once in a century. A private individual is decapitated; a great lord is beaten, and then sewed up in a bag and thrown into the river. Next to capital punishment, in the disgrace attached to it, is to be made to feed elephants. The wretches are obliged to go every day and gather a certain quantity of herbs, and when notwithstanding their search and fatigue they cannot fulfill their task, they are cruelly beaten. They cannot make up the deficiency, nor can any one aid them, nor can they buy the herbs with their own money. They are branded in the forehead, and their punishment is for life; branding is a common punishment for all suspected criminals. Slaves brought from a distance cannot be redeemed, and must have their master's names marked on their arms. Every Chinese in Siam must wear a certain cord around the arm to prove that he has paid the king a kind of poll-tax required of them all.†

* The Catholics give a wife to such of the Chinese as will profess the Catholic faith. By this inducement many are added to their number.

+ The Chinese instead of laboring upon the public works pay triennially a poll-tax of $3, and for a few weeks, during the time of collecting this tax, each man as he pays his money takes a receipt and has a cord tied around his wrist, and sealed by the government officers to secure him against paying the tax again

A criminal condemned to death is obliged to go three times around the city walls, and informing the people that he (calling himself by name), convicted of such a crime, is condemned to capital punishment.*

Supplementary to the preceding notices of the Siamese, we here give a few paragraphs concerning the use of tobacco, opium, guncha or bang, and spirits among the people, extracted from a missionary circular recently received from Bangkok.

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Nearly or quite every male subject of the kingdom is addicted to the use of tobacco, in some one or all its forms, beginning to smoke before they have been weaned from the breast; one may see the little ones puffing a cigar or chewing a cud of hetel, siri-leaf, lime, and tobacco. If females do not often smoke, they generally chew it in the form of this compound; and they begin the practice about as early as the males do smoking. Thus this narcotic begins its baneful influence at the dawn of their rational being; and like sin, grows with the growth and strengthens with the strength; their thoughts are in fact, narcotized more or less by it; formed wholly under its enfeebling influence, their minds are held fast to it as by a spell, and a man would almost as soon think of living without air, as without cigars. If they are deprived of them but for an hour, they become restless.

"The eating and smoking of opium, which was greatly checked a few years since, by the edict of his majesty against it, appears now to be fast reviving. Although the law still makes it contraband, and threatens all consumers of it with the confiscation of their goods and ignominious death, yet the law is not enforced as it once was. There appears to be a secret willingness on the part of officers, to allow opium to be smuggled into the country, at least, to an extent sufficient to satisfy the cravings of the many that are already addicted to its use.

the same year. Sometimes this seal is broken off by accident, or on purpose by evil designing persons, who then take the unfortunate man before a magistrate by whom he compelled to repay his tax and take a new certificate.

In the bishop's account of Siam we are pleasingly reminded of many things of which we have been an eye-witness, as well as informed of some things which were altogether new to us. On the whole these pages, though at times giving a wrong impression to the reader, are calculated to convey much information of a country and people little known, but who contain much to interest the commercial and religious world. The commerce is becoming a monopoly with the officers of government. The port charges, amounting to about one thousand dollars on an ordinary vessel of four hundred tons, present a serious obstacle to the trade of European and American shipping, while the Siamese without this expense can take their produce with their own vessels to the free ports of Singapore and Hongkong. It is believed that a visit to Bangkok by an English or American man-of-war might very easily place the commerce of that country on a better footing, better for foreigners, better for the Siamese government, and surely better for the native inhabitants. It is to be hoped that among the representatives of foreign powers now in China, there may be those who will interest themselves in removing the existing evil in Siam, while by so doing the interests of their own country may be promoted.

"Guncha, (Cannabis Indica) a plant possessing many of the properties of opium, is grown abundantly in Siam, and may be purchased very cheaply; so that those who are too poor to purchase opium, resort to this weed for their stimulant and opiate. Its effects upon the human constitution appear to be as bad as those of opium; its first effect is to produce great exhiliration, so as often to lead the ignorant to think the person is supernaturally aided; the inebriation is of the most cheerful kind in those who are naturally mild, but those who are naturally quarrelsome become furious. Its aphrodisiac powers are said to be very remarkable. The intoxication it produces lasts from three to four hours, and is followed by deep sleep. A prolonged use of it produces a wretched nervousness, lung complaints, dropsy, melancholy, and madness. Since the check that was given to the use of opium about five years since, the people have taken to using this poison in great numbers, and are no doubt being ruined by it.

"The practice of using intoxicating drink is increasing at a fearful rate. When Protestant missions were first established in Bangkok, about ten years since, it was a rare occurrence to see a man drunk, excepting among the Indo-Portuguese. The Siamese sacred books strongly condemn the use of all intoxicating drinks, and the people appeared to be then, remarkably abstemious in the use of them. But now the enemy has come in like a flood. There is not an hour of an afternoon, when one may not see many of the victims of intemperance in the highways and lanes, reeling, railing, swearing, quarreling, fighting, and insulting all they meet, with a shamelessness and recklessness that cannot be named. Consequently crime, poverty, and wretchedness of all kinds, have greatly increased among the people; the public appetite for spirit is strong, and the demand for something that will intoxicate very great, so that the distilleries are increased, thirty or more being now in vigorous operation. The material from which their spirit is manufactured is chiefly molasses, which owing to the increase of the foreign sugar trade, has become very abundant, and for which the people have no other use than to mix with mortar, or convert into 'liquid death.' But with all the facilities for manufacturing it, the distilleries do not supply the demand, and it is imported from China, Batavia, Singapore, and Europe. Besides this rum, the poorer classes make spirit from the palmyra juice and from rice. An officer of government informed us not long since, that he could not prevent his slaves from getting drunk, that he had flogged them almost to death for it, but their appetite for the poison was so strong that they would convert their rice into spirit to intoxicate themselves. The manufacture and traffic in it is farmed out by government, the whole kingdom being divided into districts, which are leased annually to the highest bidders; the one including Bangkok and its suburbs is taken by one man, who pays annually about 160,000 ticals (96,000 dollars), and it is this man's interest, of course, to do all he can to increase the consumption of spirit in his district.

"The alarming evil of spirit drinking is attended by gambling, which is