A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam by Monsieur De La Loubere ... ; done out of French, by A.P. Gen. R.S.S.

PART III. Of the Manners of the Siameses, according to their several Conditions.

CHAP. I. Of the several Conditions among the Siameses.

AT Siam all Persons are either Freemen or Slaves. The Master has all power over the Slave, except that of killing him: And tho' some may report, that Slaves are severely beaten there, (which is very pro∣bable in a Country where free persons are so rigidly bastinado'd) yet the Slavery there is so gentile, or, if you will, the Liberty is so abject, that it is become a Proverb, that the Siameses sell it to eat of a Fruit, which they call Durions. I have already said, that they chuse rather to enjoy it, than to enjoy none at all: 'Tis certain also, that they dread Beggary more than Slavery; and this makes me to think, that Beggary is there as painful as ignominious, and that the Siameses, who express a great deal of Charity for Beasts, even to the reliev∣ing them, if they find any sick in the Fields, have very little for the Men.

They employ their Slaves in cultivating their Lands and Gardens, and in some domestic Services; or rather, they permit them to work to gain their livelihood, under a Tribute which they receive, from four to eight Ticals a Year, that is to say, from seven Livres ten Sols, to fifteen Livres.

One may be born, or become a Slave. One becomes so either for Debt, as I have said, or for having been taken Captive in War, or for having been con∣fiscated by Justice. When one is made a Slave for Debt, his Liberty returns again by making satisfaction; but the Children born during this Slavery, tho' it be but for a time, continue Slaves.

One is born a Slave, when born of a Mother-slave; and in the Slavery, the Children are divided as in the Divorce. The first, third, fifth, and all the rest in the odd number belong to the Master of the Mother: the second, fourth, and all the others in the even rank belong to the Father, if he is free; or to his Master, if he is a Slave. 'Tis true, that it is necessary upon this account, that the Father and Mother should have had Commerce together, with the consent of the Master of the Mother: for otherwise all the Children would belong to the Master of the Mother.

The difference of the King of Siam's Slaves from his Subjects of free condi∣tion, is, that he continually employs his Slaves in personal labours, and main∣tains them; whereas his free Subjects only owe him six months service every Year, but at their own expence.

In a word, the Slaves of particular men owe not any service to that Prince; and tho' for this Reason he loses a Freeman, when this man falls into slavery, ei∣ther for Debt, or to avoid Beggary, yet this Prince opposes it not, neither pre∣tends any Indemnity upon this account.

Properly speaking, there is not two sorts of Conditions among free persons. Nobility is no other thing than the actual possession of Offices, the Families

which do long maintain themselves therein, do become doubtless more illustri∣ous and more powerful; but they are rare: and so soon as they have lost their Offices, they have nothing, which distinguishes them from the common People. There is frequently seen at the Pagaye, the Grandson of a Man who died a great Lord, and sometimes his own Son.

The distinction between the People and the Priests is only an uncertain di∣stinction, seeing that one may continually pass from one of these States to the other. The Priests are the Talapoins, of whom we shall speak in the sequel. Under the Name of People I comprehend whatever is not a Priest, viz. the King, Officers, and People, of whom we now proceed to speak.

CHAP. II. Of the Siamese People.

THE Siamese People is a Militia, where every particular person is registred: They are all Souldiers, in Siamese Taban, and do all owe six Months service annually to their Prince. It belongs to the Prince to arm them, and give them Elephants or Horses, if he would have them serve either on Elephants, or on Horseback: but it belongs to them to cloath, and to maintain themselves. And as the Prince never employs all his Subjects in his Armies, and that often∣times he sends no Army into the Field, though he be at War with some of his Neighbours, yet for six months in the year he employs in such a work, or in such a service as pleases him, those Subjects which he employs not in the War.

Wherefore, to the end that no person may escape the personal service of the Prince, there is kept an exact account of the People. 'Tis divided into men on the right hand, and men on the left, to the end that every one may know on what side he ought to range himself in his Functions.

And besides this it is divided into Bands, each of which has its Chief, which they call Nai: so that this word Nai is become a term of Civility, which the Siameses do reciprocally give one to the other, as the Chineses do interchange the Title of Master or Governor.

I have said that the Siamese People is divided by Bands, rather than by Com∣panies; because that the number of Soldiers of the same Band is not fix'd, and because that all those of the same Band, are not of the same Company in the Army: and I have said, that Nai signifies Chief, though some translate it by the word Captain; because that the Nai does not always lead his Band to the War, no more than to the six months Service: His care is to furnish as many men out of his Band, as are required, either for the War, or for the six months Service.

The Children are of the same Band with their Parents; and if the Parents are of different Bands, the Children in the odd rank are of the Mother's Band, and the Children in the even rank of the Father's; provided nevertheless that the Mother's Nai hath been acquainted with the Marriage, and that he hath gi∣ven his consent thereunto: otherwise the Children would be all of the Mother's Band.

Thus, though the Talapoins and Women do enjoy all exemption from Service, as not being esteemed Soldiers, yet they cease not to be set down in the Rolls of the People: the Talapoins, because they may return when they please to a secu∣lar condition, and that then they fall again under the power of their natural Nai: the Women because their Children are of their Band, or all, or the greatest part, as I have said.

'Tis one of the Nai's Priviledges to be able to lend to his Soldier sooner than any other, and to be able to satisfie his Soldiers Creditor; thereby to make his Soldier his Slave, when he is insolvable. As the King gives a Balon to each

Officer with a certain number of Pagayeurs, and as these are the Officers, which are also the Nai, every Officer has his Pagayeurs in his Band. They brand them on the outside of the Wrist with an hot Iron and an Anchor over it; and these sort of Domesticks are called Bao. But none of the Bao's or Pagayeurs owes to his Nai only this service, and that only six months in the year, wherefore they are released from six months to six months, or by month, as it pleases the Nai: the Nai has also some Offices in the Law as we shall see.

Now the more numerous his Band is, the more powerful he is esteemed: The Offices and Employments of Siam being important only in this. The Dignities of Pa-ya, Oc-ya, Oc-Pra, Oc-Louang, Oc-Counne, Oc-Meuing, and Oc-Pan, are seven degrees of these Nai. 'Tis true that the Title of Oc-Pan is now dis∣used. Pan signifies a Thousand, and it was thought that an Oc-Pan was Chief of a Thousand Men. Meuing signifies Ten Thousand, and it is thought that an Oc-Meuing is the Chief of Ten Thousand Men: not that in truth it was so, but that in the Indies they magnifie the Titles, No person could give me the true signification of these words, Pa-ga, Oc-ya, Oc-Pra, Oc-Louang, Oc-Counne, nor how many men are assigned to each of the five Dignities; but it is probable that as the words Pan and Meuing are Terms of Number, the rest are so too.

The word Oc seems to signifie Chief; for they have another Title without Function, viz. Oc-Meuang, which seems to signifie Chief of a City, in that Meuaug signifies a City, and in that it is necessary to have been made Oc-Meuang before he be effectually made Governor, whom they call Tchaou-Meuang, Lord of a City.

But this word Oc is not Siamese; Chief in Siamese is called Houa, and this word Houa properly signifies the Head. From hence comes Houa Sip, Chief of Ten, which is, as I have elsewhere said, the Title of him that mounts the Elephant at the Crupper. After the same manner they call him, that bears the Royal Standard in the Balon where the King is, Houapan, or Chief of a Thousand. To re∣turn to the word Oc, a Superior never useth it to an Inferior. Thus the King of Siam speaking to Oc-Pra Pipitcharatcha, will not, for example, say Oc-Pra Pi∣pitcharatcha, but only Pra-Pipitcharatcha; A man relating his own Titles himself, will also modestly suppress this term Oc; and in fine, the inferiour People in speaking of the highest Officers will omit the word Oc, and will say for exam∣ple, ya-yumrat, for Ocya yumrat; Meuing Vai, for Oc Meuing Vai.

The Portuguese have translated the word Pa-ya, by that of Prince; not in my opinion, from their right understanding it, but because they have seen this Ti∣tle given to Princes, and that the King of Siam gives it himself; but he some∣times gives it also to the Officers of his Court, which are not Princes▪ and he gives it not always to the Princes of the Blood. The Lords of the Great Mo∣guls Court are called, according to Bernier, Hazary, Dou-hazary, Penge, hecht, and Deh-hazary, that is to say, One Thousand, Two Thousand, Five, Eight, and Ten Thousand, as if one should say, Lords over so many Thousands of Horse: though in reality they could neither maintain, nor command so great a number. The great Moguls eldest Son, he says, is called Twelve Thousand, as if he had the effective command of Twelve Thousand Horse. 'Tis no strange thing there∣fore that the King of Siam's Subjects being esteemed Soldiers, as those of the Great Mogul are esteemed Horsemen, have equally assumed in both Courts the term of number, to express the highest Dignities, and to name the Princes them∣selves; yet I cannot affirm this is so at Siam, by reason that I know only that the words Pang and Meuing are Siamese and numeral Terms: but as to the other names of Dignity, which I have mentioned, some have informed me that they are Balie, and that they understood them not. I know that in the Country of Laos the Dignities of Pa-ya and Meuang, and the honourable Epithets of Pra are in use; it may be also that the other Terms of Dignity are common to both Nations, as well as the Laws.

In reference to the six Dignities (for that of Oc-pan is obsolete, as I have said) there are now at Siam six Orders of Cities, which have been anciently determi∣ned according to the Rolls of the Inhabitants. So that such a City, which was then found very populous had a Pa ya for Governor, and such which was less

populous had an Oc-ya, and the rest had also other Dignities in proportion to the Inhabitants which they contained. But it is not necessary to believe that these Cities have ever been so populous as the Titles of their Governors import; by reason, as I have often alledged, that these People are very proud in Titles. On∣ly the greatest Titles were given to the Governors of the biggest Cities, and the least Titles to the Governors of the Cities less inhabited. Thus the City of Me-Tac, of which I have spoken at the beginning, had a Governor called Pa-ya-Tac, and the word Me which signifies Mother, and which is joyned to Tac, seems to intimate that the City of Me-Tac was very great. The City of Porselouc had also a Pa-ya; Tenasserim, Ligor, Corazema and other, have still some Oc-ya. Lesser Cities, as Pipeli and Bancock, have the Oc-pra, others have the Oc-Louang, or the Oc-Counnes, and the least of all have the Oc-Meuing. The Portuguese have translated these Titles according to their fancy by those of King, Vice-Roy, Duke, Marquis, Earl, &c. They have given the Title of Kingdom to Metac, Tenassa∣rim, Porselouc, Ligor, and Pipeli; either by reason of their hereditary Gover∣nours, or for having been like Pipeli the residence of the Kings of Siam; and to the Kings of Siam they have given the Title of Emperor, because the Spani∣ards have ever thought the Title of Emperor ought to be given to Kings, that have other Kings for Feudataries: So that upon this single reason some Kings of Castille have born the Title of Emperor, giving to their Children the Title of Kings of the several Kingdoms which were united to their Crown.

To return to the Titles of the Siameses, they are given not only to the Go∣vernors, but to all the Officers of the Kingdom; because that they are all Nai: and the same Title is not always joyned to the same Office. The Barcalon, for example, has sometimes had that of Pa-ya, as some have informed me, and now he has only that of Oc-ya. But if a Man has two Offices, he may have two different Titles in respect to his two Offices: and it is not rare that one Man has two Offices, one in the City and the other in the Province, or rather one in Title and the other by Commission. Thus Oc-ya Pra-Sedet who is Governor of the City of Siam in Title, is now Oc-ya Barcalon by Commission: the King of Siam finding it his interest, because that upon this account he gives not to one Officer a double Sallery.

But this Multiplication of Offices on the same Head causes a great deal of Obscurity and Equivocation in the ancient Relations of Siam; because that when a man has two Offices, he has two Titles, and two Names, and when the Re∣lation imports that such an Oc-ya for example, is concerned in such a thing, one is inclined to believe that the Relation has stil'd this Oc-ya by the title of the function which it attributes to him, and frequently it has named him by the title of another Office. Thus if a Relation of the Kingdom of France made by a Siamese should intimate, that the Duke of Mayne is General of the Suisses, the Siameses might groundlesly perswade themselves, that every General of the Suisses bears the Title of Duke of Mayne. And this is what I had to say touching the People of Siam.

CHAP. III. Of the Officers of the Kingdom of Siam in general.

THE Portugueses have generally called all the Officers throughout the whole ex∣tent of the East Mandarins; and it is probable that they have formed this word from that of Mandar, which in their Language signifies to command. Navaret∣te, whom I have already cited, is of this opinion; and we may confirm it, because that the Arabian word Emir, which is used at the Court of the Great Mogul, and in several other Mahometan Courts of the Indies, to signifie the Officers, is derived from the Arabian Verb amara, which signifies to command. The word Manda∣rin

extends also to the Children of the Principal Officers, which are considered as Children of Quality, called Mon in Siamese. But I shall make use of the word Mandarin, only to signifie the Officers.

The King of Siam therefore makes no considerable Mandarin, but he gives him a new Name; a Custom established also at China, and in other States of the East. This Name is always an Elogium; sometimes it is purposely invented, like that which he gave to the Bishop of Metelpolis, and like those which he gives to the Forreigners that are at his Court; but oftentimes these Names are ancient, and known for having been formerly given to others; and those are the most honourable, which have been heretofore born by persons very highly advanced in Dignity, or by the Princes of the Royal Blood. And although such Names be not always accompanied with Offices and Authority, they cease not to be a great Mark of Favour. It likewise happens that the same Name is given to several persons of different Dignities; so that at the same time the one, for example, will call himself, Oc-Pra Pipitcharatcha, and the other Oc-Counne Pipitcharatcha. These Names, of which the first words are only spoken, and which do every one make a Period, are taken almost all entire out of the Baly Tongue, and are not always well understood: But this, and the Stile of the Laws, which participate very much of the Baly, and the Books of Religion, which are Baly, are the cause why the Kings of Siam ought not to ignore this Tongue. Forasmuch as, I have elsewhere said, it lends all its Ornaments to the Siamese, and that oftentimes they do elegantly intermix them, either in speak∣ing or in writing.

The Law of the State is, that all Offices should be hereditary; and the same Law is in the Kingdom of Laos, and was anciently at China. But the selling of Offices is not there permitted: and moreover the least fault of the Patent, or the capricious Humor of the Prince, or the Dotage of the Inheritor may take away the Offices from the Families, and when this happens it is always without Recompence. Very few Families do long maintain themselves therein, espe∣cially in the Offices of the Court, which are more than the rest under the Ma∣ster's power.

Moreover, no Officer at Siam has any Sallary. The Prince lodges them, which is no great matter; and gives them some moveables, as Boxes of Glod or Silver for Betel; some Arms, and a Balon; some Beasts, as Elephants, Horses, and Buffalo's; some Services, Slaves, and in fine some Arable Lands. All which return to the King with the Office, and which do principally make the King to be the Heir of his Officers. But the principal gain of the Offices consists in Extorsions, because that in this there is no Justice for the weak. All the Officers do hold a correspondence in pillaging; and the Corruption is greatest in those from whence the Remedy ought to come. The Trade of Pre∣sents is publick; the least Officers do give unto the greatest, under a Title of Respect; and a Judge is not there punished for having received Presents, if otherwise he be not convicted of Injustice, which is not very easie to do.

The Form of the Oath of Fidelity consists in swallowing the water, over which the Talapoins do pronounce some Imprecations against him, who is to drink it, in case he fails in the Fidelity which he owes to his King. This Prince dispenses not with this Oath to any persons that engage themselves in his Service, of what Religion or Nation soever.

The Publick Law of Siam is written in three Volumes. The first is called Pra Tam Ra, and contains the Names, Functions, and Prerogatives of all the Offices. The second is intituled, Pra Tam Non, and is a Collection of the Constitutions of the Ancient Kings; and the third is the Pra Rayja Cammanot, wherein are the Constitutions of the now Regent King's Father.

Nothing would have been more necessary than a faithful extract of these three Volumes, rightly to make known the Constitution of the Kingdom of Siam: but so far was I from being able to get a Translation, that I could not procure a Copy thereof in Siamese. It would have been necessary upon this ac∣count to continue longer at Siam, and with less business. This is therefore what I could learn certainly about this matter, without the assistance of those Books,

and in a Country where every one is afraid to speak. The greatest token of Servitude of the Siameses is, that they dare not to open their mouth about any thing that relates to their Country.

CHAP. IV. Concerning the Offices of Judicatory.

THE Kingdom of Siam is divided into the upper and lower. The upper lies towards the North, (seeing that the River descends from thence) and contains seven Provinces, which are named by their Chief Cities, Porselouc, San∣quelouc, Lacontai, Campeng-pet, Coconrepina, Pechebonne, and Pitchai. At Porselouc do immediately arise ten Jurisdictions, at Sanquelouc eight, at Lacontai seven, at Campeng-pet ten, at Coconrepina five, at Pechebonne two, and at Pitchai seven. And besides this there are in the upper Siam one and twenty other Jurisdictions, to which no other Jurisdiction resorts; but which do resort to the Court, and are as so many little Provinces.

In the lower Siam, that is to say in the South part of the Kingdom, they reckon the Provinces of Jor, Patana, Ligor, Tenasserim, Chantebonne, Petelong or Bordelong, and Tchiai. On Jor do immediately depend seven Jurisdictions, on Patana eight, on Ligor twenty, on Tenasserim twelve, on Chantebonne seven, on Petelong eight, and on Tchiai two. And besides this, there are likewise in the lower Siam thirteen small Jurisdictions, which are as so many particular Pro∣vinces, which resort only to the Court, and to which no other Jurisdiction re∣sorts. The City of Siam has its Province apart, in the heart of the State, be∣tween the upper and lower Siam.

The whole Tribunal of Judicature consists properly only in a single Officer, seeing that it is the Chief or President only that has the deliberate voice, and that all the other Officers have only a consultative voice, according to the Cu∣stom received also at China, and in the other Neighbouring States. But the most important prerogative of the President is to be the Governour of his whole Ju∣risdiction, and to command even the Garrisons, if there be any; unless the Prince hath otherwise disposed thereof by an express order. So that as in other places these Offices are hereditary, it is no difficult matter for some of these Governors, and especially the most powerful, and for the most remote from Court, to withdraw themselves wholly or in part from the Royal Autho∣rity.

Thus the Governor of Jor renders Obedience no longer, and the Portugueses give him the Title of King. And it may be he never intends to obey, unless the Kingdom of Siam should extend it self, as Relations declare, to the whole Peninsula extra Gangem. Jor is the most Southern City thereof, seated on a Ri∣ver, which has its Mouth at the Cape of Sincapura, and which forms a very excellent Port.

The People of Patana live, like those of Achem in the Isle of Sumatra, under the Domination of a Woman, whom they always elect in the same Family, and always old, to the end that she may have no occasion to marry, and in the name of whom the most trusty persons do rule. The Portuguese have likewise given her the Title of Queen, and for Tribute she sends to the King of Siam every three Years two small Trees, the one of Gold, the other of Silver, and both loaded with Flowers and Fruits; but she owes not any assistance to this Prince in his Wars. Whether these Gold and Silver Trees are a real Homage, or only a Respect to maintain the liberty of Commerce, as the King of Siam sends Presents every three Years to the King of China, in consideration of Trade on∣ly, is what I cannot alledge; but as the King of China honours himself with these sorts of Presents, and takes them for a kind of Homage, it may well be,

that the King of Siam does not less value himself on the Presents he receives from the Queen of Patana, altho' she be not perhaps his Vassal.

The Siameses do call an Hereditary Governor Tchaou-Meuang; Tchaou signi∣fies Lord, and Meuang a City or Province, and sometimes a Kingdom. The Kings of Siam have ruin'd and destroy'd the most potent Tchaou-Meuang, as much as they could, and have substituted in their place some Triennial Governors by Commission. These Commission-Governors are called Pouran, and Pou signi∣fies a Person.

Besides the Presents which the Tchaou-Meuang may receive, as I have declar'd, his other legal Rights are,

First, Equally to share with the King the Rents that the arable Lands do yield, which they call Naa, that is to say Fields; and according to the ancient Law, these Rents are a Mayon, or quarter part of a Tical for forty Fathom, or two hundred Foot square.

2^dly, The Tchaou-Meuang has the profit of all Confiscations, of all the Penal∣ties to the Exchequer, and ten per Cent. of all the Fines to the Party. The Confiscations are fixed by Law according to the Cases, and are not always the whole Estate, not even in case of sentence of Death; but sometimes also they extend to the Body, not only of the Person condemn'd, but of his Children too.

3^dly, The King of Siam gives the Tchaou-Meuang some men to execute his Orders; they accompany him everywhere, and they row in his Balon. The Siameses do call them Kenlai, or Painted Arms; by reason that they pink and mangle their Arms, and lay Gunpowder on the wounds, which paints their Arms with a faded Blue. The Portuguese do call them Painted Arms, and Officers; and these Painted Arms, are still used in the Country of Laos.

4^thly, In the Maritime Governments, the Tchaou-Meuang sometimes takes Cus∣toms of the Merchant Ships, but it is generally inconsiderable. At Tenasserim it is eight per Cent. in the kind, according to the Relation of the Foreign Missions.

Some have assur'd me, that the Siameses have the Humanity not to appropriate any thing to themselves of what the Tempest casts on their Coasts by Ship∣wrack; yet Ferdinand Mendez Pinto relates, that Lewis de Monteroyo, a Portuguese, having suffer'd Shipwrack on the Coast of Siam near Patana, the Chabaudar, or Custom-house Officer, which he names Chatir, confiscated not only the Ship and its Cargo, but Monteroyo himself, and some Children; alledging, that by the ancient Custom of the Kingdom, whatever the Sea cast upon the Coasts, was the profit of his Office. 'Tis true, that this Author adds, with great Praises on the King of Siam who then reigned, that this Prince, at the Request of the Portugueses which were at his Court, set Monteroyo at liberty, and restor'd him all the Prize, and the Children; but he subjoins also that it was out of Charity, and on the day that this Prince went through the City mounted on a white Ele∣phant, to distribute Alms to the People.

5^thly, The Tchaou-Meuang arrogating to themselves all the Rights of Sove∣raignty over the Frontiers, do levy, when they can, extraordinary Taxes on the People.

6^thly, The Tchaou-Meuang do exercise Commerce every where, but under the name of their Secretary, or some other of their Domestics. And this last Cir∣cumstance demonstrates that they have some shame, and that the Law perhaps prohibits them; but that in this they are not more scrupulous than their King.

7^thly, In some places where there are Fish-ponds, the Tchaou-Meuang take the best of the Fish when the Pond is emptied; but he takes for his own use only, and not to sell, and the rest he leaves to the People.

8^thly, Venison and Salt are free throughout the Kingdom, and the King him∣self has laid no Prohibition nor Impost thereon. Salt is there of little value. I have heard that they have Rock-salt, and they make it of Sea-water; some have told me with the Sun, others with Fire; and, perhaps, both is true. At the places where the Shoars are too high to receive the Sea, and in those, where Wood is not near at hand, the Salt may fail, or cost too much to make, as in

the Island of Jonsalam, the Inhabitants whereof do rather chuse to import their Salt from Tenasserim.

The Pou-ran, or Governor by Commission, has the same Honours, and the same Authority as the Tchaou-Meuang, but not the same Profits. The King of Siam names the Pou-ran upon two Accounts, either when he would have no Tchaou-Meuang, or when the Tchaou-Meuang is obliged to absent himself from his Government; for the Tchaou-Meuang has no ordinary Lieutenant who can sup∣ply his place in his absence, as in France the Chancellor has none. In the first Case the Pou-ran has only the Profits which the King assigns him at naming him; in the second Case he takes the Moyety of the Profits from the Tchaou-Meuang, and leaves him the other Moyety.

Now follows the ordinary Officers of a Tribunal of Judicature, not that there are so many in every one, but that in any one perhaps there is not more.

Oc-ya Tchaou-Meuang. The Tchaou-Meuang is not always Oc-ya, he has some∣times another Title, and the other Officers of his Tribunal have always some Titles proportion'd to his.

Oc-Pra Belat. His Name signifies Second, but he presides not in the absence of the Tchaou Meuang, because he has no determinative Voice.

Oc-Pra Jockebatest, a kind of Attorney-General, and his Office is to be a strict Spy upon the Governor. His Office is not Hereditary, the King nomi∣nates some person of Trust; but Experience evinces, that there is no Fidelity in these Men, and that all the Officers hold a private Correspondence to pillage the People.

Oc Pra Peun commands the Garrison, if there is any, but under the Orders of the Tchaou-Meuang; and he has no Authority over his Soldiers, but when they are in the Field.

Oc-Pra Maha-Tai, is, as it were, the Chief of the People. His Name seems to signifie the Great Siamese; for Maha signifies Great, and Tai signifies Siamese. 'Tis he that levies the Soldiers, or rather that demands them of the Nai: who sends Provisions to the Army, who watches that the Rolls of the People be well made; and who, in general, executes all the Governor's Orders which concern the People.

Oc-Pra Sassedi makes and keeps the Rolls of the People. 'Tis an Office very subject to Corruption, by reason that every particular person endeavors to get himself omitted out of the Rolls for money. The Nai do likewise seek to fa∣vor those of their Band, who make Presents to them, and to oppress those with labour who have nothing to give them. The Maha Tai, and the Sassedi, would prevent this disorder, if they were not the first corrupted. The Sassedi begins to enter down Children upon the Rolls, when they are three or four Years old.

Oc-Louang-Meuang is, as it were, the Mayor of the City; for, as I have al∣ready said, Meuang signifies City; but as for what concerns the Title of Oc-Louang, it does not signifie Mayor, and is no more applied to that Office than another Title. This Mayor takes care of the Polity and Watch. They kept a Watch every Night round the Ambassador's Lodgings, as round the King of Siam's Palace, and this was a very great Token of Honour.

Oc-Louang Vang is the Master of the Governor's Palace, for Vang signifies Pa∣lace. He causes it to be repair'd, he commands the Governor's Guards, and even their Captain; and, in a word, he orders in the Governor's Palace, whatever has relation to the Governor's charge.

Oc-Louang-Peng keeps the Book of the Law and the Custom, according to which they judge; and when Judgment is passed, he reads the Article thereof, which serves for the Judgment of the Process: and, in a word, it is he that pro∣nounces the Sentence.

Oc-Louang Clang has the Charge of the King's Magazine, Clang signifies Maga∣zine. He receives certain of the King's Revenues, and sells to the People the King's Commodities, that is to say those, the Trade of which the King appropriates to himself, as in Europe the Princes do generally appropriate the Trade of Salt to themselves.

Oc-Louang Couca has the Inspection over Foreigners; he protects them, or ac∣cuses them to the Governor.

Moreover there are some Officers in every superior Tribunal to send to the in∣ferior Justices, when the Tchaou-Meuang or Pouran are dead, whilst that the King fills the place: and the number of these Officers are as great as that of the inferior Justices.

Oc-Louang or Oc-Counne Coeng is the Provost: he is always armed with a Sa∣bre, and has Painted Arms like Archers.

Oc-Counne Pa-ya Bat is the Keeper of the Goal or Prisons: and the word Pa-ya; which the Portugueses have translated by that of Prince, seems exceedingly vili∣fied in the Title of this Office. Nai-Goug is the true Goaler, Couc signifies a Prison, and nothing is more cruel than the Prisons of Siam. They are Cages of Bambou exposed to all the injuries of the Air.

Oc-Counne Narin commands those that have the care of the Elephants, which the King has in the Province: for there are some in several places, because it would be difficult to lodge and feed a very great number of Elephants toge∣ther.

Oc-Counne Nai-rang is the Purveyor of the Elephants. In a word, there is an Officer in every Tribunal to read the Tara or Orders from the King to the Gover∣nor, and an House in an eminent place for to keep them: As within the inclo∣sure of the King of Siam's Palace there is a single House, on an eminent place, to keep all the Letters which the King of Siam receives from other Kings.

These are the Officers which are called from within. Besides these, there are others which are called from without, for the Service of the Province. All have an entire dependance upon the Governor; and altho those without have the like Titles, yet they are very inferior to the Officers within. Thus an Oc-Meuang within the Palace, is superior to an Oc-ya without; and in a word it is not necessary to believe that all those who bear great Titles, must always be great Lords: That infamous fellow who buys Women and Maids to prostitute them bears the Title of Oc-ya; he is called Oc-ya Meen, and is a very contempti∣ble person. There are none but debauch'd persons that have any Correspon∣dence with him. Every one of the Officers within has his Lieutenant, in Sia∣mese Balat, and his Register in Siamese Semien, and in his House, which the King gives him, he has generally an Hall to give his Audiences.

CHAP. V. Of the Judiciary Stile and Form of Pleading.

THey have only one Stile for all matters in Law, and they have not thought fit to divide them into Civil and Criminal: either because there is always some punishment due to him that is cast, even in a matter purely Civil, or because that suits in matters purely Civil are very rare there.

'Tis a general Rule amongst them, that all Process should be in writing, and that they plead not without giving Caution.

But as the whole People of the Jurisdiction is divided by Bands, and that their principal Nai are the Officers of the Tribunal, whom I shall call by the general name of Councellors; in case of process the Plaintiff goes first to the Councellor who is his Nai, or to his Country Nai, who goes to the Councellor Nai. He presents him his Petition, and the Councellor presents it to the Governor. The Duty of the Governour is nicely to examin it; and to admit or reject it, ac∣cording as to him it seems just or unjust; and in this last case to Chastise the Party, who presented it, to the end that no person might begin any process rash∣ly, and this is likewise the Stile or form of China, but it is little observed at Siam.

The Governor then admits the Petition, and refers it to one of the Councel∣lors; and ordinarily he returns it to him that presented it, if he is the common Nai of both parties: but then he puts his Seal thereunto, and he counts the lines and the cancelling thereof, to the end that no alteration may be made. The Councellor gives it to his Deputy and to his Clerk, who make their report to him at his House in his Hall of Audience: And this report, and all those which I shall treat of in the sequel, are only a Lecture. After this the Councellor's Clerk presented by his Master, reports or reads this very Petition, in the Go∣vernour's Hall, at an Assembly of all the Councellors; but in the absence of the Governor, who vouchsafes not to appear at whatever serves only to prepare the Cause. The Parties are there called in under pretence of endeavouring to reconcile them: and they are summon'd three times, more for fashions sake, than with a sincere intention of procuring the accommodation. This Reconci∣liation not succeeding, the Court orders, if there are witnesses, that they should be heard before the same Clerk, unless he be declared suspected. And in such another Session, that is to say, where the Governor is not present, the Clerk reads the Process and the depositions of the Witnesses, and they proceed to the Opinions, which are only consultative, and which are all writ down, begin∣ning with the Opinion of the last Officer.

The Process being thus prepar'd, and the Council standing in presence of the Governor, his Clerk reads unto him the Process and the Opinions; and the Governor, after having resumed them all, interrogates those whose Opinions seem to him not just, to know of them upon what reasons they grounded them. After this Examination he pronounces in general terms, that such of the Parties shall be condemned according to the Law.

Then it belongs to Oc-Louang-Peng to read with a loud voice the Article of the Law, which respects the suit: but in that Country, as in this, they dispute the sense of the Laws. They do there seek out some accommodations under the title of Equity; and under pretence that all the circumstances of the fact are never in the Law, they never follow the Law. The Governour alone decides these disputes, and the Sentence is pronounced upon the parties, and set down in Writing. But if it be contrary to all appearance of Justice, it belongs to the Jockebat, or the Kings Attorney General, to advertise the Court thereof, but not to oppose it.

Every suit ought to end in three days, and some there are which last three years.

The parties do speak before the Clerk, who writes down what they tell him; and they speak either by themselves, or by another: but it is necessary that this other, who herein performs the office of an Attorney or Advocate, should be at least Cousin German to him for whom he speaks; otherwise he would be punished, and not heard.

The Clerk receives likewise all the Titles and Deeds, but in presence of the Court, who counts all the lines thereof.

When ordinary proofs do not suffice, they have recourse to Torture in Ac∣cusations, which are very grievous upon this account; and they apply it rigo∣rously, and in several ways: or rather they use the proofs of Water and of Fire, or of some others as superstitious, but not of Duelling.

In the Proof of Fire they erect a Pile of Faggots in a Ditch, in such a manner that the surface of the Pile be level with the edge of the Ditch. This Pile is five fathomslong, and one broad. Both the parties do walk with their naked Feet from one end to the other, and he that has not the sole of his Feet hurt gains his Suit. But as they are accustomed to go with naked Feet, and that they have the sole of the Foot hard like Horn, they say that it is very common that the Fire spares them, provided they rest the Foot upon the Coals: for the way to burn themselves is to go quick and lightly. Two men do generally walk by the side of him that passes over the Fire, and they lean with force upon his Shoulders, to hinder him from getting too quick over this proof: and it is said that this weight is so far from exposing him more to be burnt, that on the contrary he stifles the Action of the Fire under his Feet.

Sometimes the proof of the Fire is performed with Oil, or other boiling matter, into which the parties do thrust their hand. A Frenchman, from whom a Siamese had stole some Tin, was perswaded, for want of proof, to put his hand into the melted Tin; and he drew it out almost consumed. The Siamese being more cunning extricated himself, I know not how, without burning; and was sent away absolved; and yet six Months after, in another Suit, wherein he was engaged, he was convicted of the Robbery, wherewith the Frenchman had ac∣cused him. But a Thousand such like events perswade not the Siameses to change their form.

The Proof of the Water is performed after this manner. The two parties do plunge themselves into the Water at the same time, each holding by a Pole, along which they descend; and he that remains longest under Water is thought to have a good Cause. Every one therefore practises from their Youth, in this Country, to familiarize himself with Fire, and to continue a long time under Water.

They have another sort of Proof, which is performed by certain Pills prepa∣red by the Talapoins, and accompanied with Imprecations: Both the parties do swallow them, and the token of the right Cause is to be able to keep them in the Stomach without casting them up, for they are vomitive.

All these Proofs are not only before the Judges, but before the People, and if the two parties do escape equally well, or equally ill with one, they have re∣course to another Tryal. The King of Siam uses them also in his Judgments, but besides this he sometimes delivers up the parties to Tygers, and he whom the Tygers spare for a certain time is adjudged innocent. But if the Tygers devour them both, they are both esteemed guilty. If on the contrary the Tygers do meddle neither with the one nor the other, they have recourse to some other Proof, or rather they wait till the Tygers determine to devour one or both of the Parties. The Constancy with which it is reported that the Siameses do un∣dergo this kind of death, is incredible in persons, who express so little Cou∣rage in War.

There are sometimes several Provinces which appeal one to the other; which multiplies the degrees of Appeal to three or four. An Appeal is permitted in all cases, but the charges thereof are always greater, as it is necessary to travel further to plead, and in a Tribunal superior,

But when there ought to pass the sentence of Death, the decision thereof is reserved to the King alone. No other Judge than himself can order a capital punishment, if this Prince does not expresly grant him the power thereof; and there is hardly any precedent, that he grants it otherwise than to some extra∣ordinary Judges, whom this Prince sends sometimes into the Provinces, either upon a particular case, or to execute Justice at the places of all the crimes wor∣thy of death. All the Criminals are kept in the Prisons till the arrival of the Commissioners: and they have sometimes, as at China, the power of deposing and punishing the ordinary Officers with death, if they deserve it. But if the King of Siam grants other Commissions for his Service, or for the Service of the State, it is rare that he exempts the Commissioner from taking the assistance of the Governor of the places where he sends him.

The usual Punishment of Robbery is the Condemnation to the double, and sometimes to the triple; by equal portions to the Judge and Party: But it is most singular in this, that the Siameses extend the Punishment of Robbery to every unjust Possessor in a Real Estate: So that whoever it evicted out of an Inheritance by Law, not only restores the Inheritance to the Party, but likewise pays the value thereof, half to the Party, and half to the Judge. But if by the King's special permission the Judge can put the Robber to death, then he can at his own discretion order either Death, or the pecuniary Mulct, but not Death and the pecuniary Mulct together.

But to show how dear Justice is in a Country, where Provisions are so cheap, I will add at the end of this work, a Note that was given me of the charges of Justice, where you will likewise see a particular of the form: but the charges are not the same in all the Tribunals, as I have already declared. He for whom

this Roll is, has four inferior Jurisdictions, and he appeals to another, which ap∣peals to the Court.

CHAP. VI. The Functions of the Governor and Judge in the Me∣tropolis.

IN the Metropolis, where there is no other Tchaou-Meuang than the King, the Functions of Governor and Judge are divided into two Offices: and the other Functions of the lesser Offices, which compose a Tribunal of Tchaou-Meu∣ang, are destributed to the principal Officers of the State; but with greater Extent and Authority, and with higher and more pompous Titles.

The President of the Tribunal of the City of Siam, to whom all the Appeals of the Kingdom do go, they call Yumrat. He generally bears the Title of Oc-ya, and his Tribunal is in the King's Palace; but he follows not the King, when that Prince removes from his Metropolis; and then he renders Justice in a Tow∣er, which is in the City of Siam, and without the inclosure of the Palace. To him alone belongs the determinative Voice; and from him there also lyes an Appeal to the King, if any one will bear the expence.

In this case the Process is referred and examined by the King's Council; but in his absence to a Sentence inclusively consultative, as is practised in the Council of the Tchaou-Meuang. The King is present only when it is necessary that he pronounce a definitive Judgment: and according to the general form of the Kingdom, this Prince, before passing the Sentence, resumes all the opinions and debates with his Councellors, those which to him seem unjust; and some have assured me, that the present King acquits himself herein with a great deal of Ingenuity and Judgment.

The Governor of the City of Siam is called Pra-sedet, and generally also bears the Title of Oc ya. His Name, which is Baly, is composed of the word Pra, which I have several times explained, and of the word Sedet which signifies, say some, the King is gone; and indeed they speak not otherwise, to say that the King is gone. But this does not sufficiently explain what the Office of Pra-sedet is: and in several things it appears, that they have very much lost the exact un∣derstanding of the Baly. M^r. Gervaise calls this Office Pesedet; I always heard it called Pra-sedet, and by able men, altho they write it Pra-sadet.

The course of the River from its Mouth to the Metropolis, is divided into several small Governments. The first is Pipeli, the second Prepadem, the third Bancock, the fourth Talaccan, and the fifth Siam. The Officers of every one of these Governments received the King's Ambassadors at the enterance into their Jurisdiction, and they left them not till the Officers of the next Jurisdiction had joyned and saluted them: and they were the particular Officers of each Govern∣ment that made the Head of the Train. Besides this there were some Officers more considerable, that came to offer the King their Master's Balons to the Am∣bassadors, at the Mouth of the River: and every day there joyned new Officers, that came to bring new Compliments to the Ambassadors: and who quitted not the Ambassadors after they had joined them.

The King's Ambassadors arrived thus within two Leagues of Siam, at a place which the French called the Tabanque; and they waited there eight or ten days for the time of their entrance into the Metropolis. Tabanque in Siamese signifies the Custom House: and because the Officer's House, which stands at the Mouth of the River, is of Bamhou like all the rest, the French gave the name of Tabanque to all the Bambou-houses where they lodged, from the name of the Officers House, which they had seen first of all.

The day therefore that the King's Ambassadors made their enterance, Oc-ya Prasedet as Governour of the Metrpolis came to visit, and compliment them at this pretended Tabanque.

CHAP. VII. Of the State Officers, and particularly of the Tchacry, Calla-hom, and of the General of the Elephants.

AMongst the Court Officers are principally those, to whom are annexed the Functions of our Secretaries of State: but before an enterance be made into this matter, I must declare that all the chief Officers in any kind of Affairs whatever, have under them as many of those Subaltern Officers which compose the Tribunal of the Tchaou-Meuang.

The Tchacry has the distribution of all the Interior polity of the Kingdom: to him revert all the Affairs of the Provinces: All the Governours do immedi∣ately render him an Account, and do immediately receive Orders from him: he is President of the Council of State.

The Calla-hom has the appointment of the War: he has the care of the Forti∣fications, Arms, and Ammunitions: He issues out all the Orders, that con∣cern the Armies; and he is naturally the General thereof, altho the King may name whom he pleases for General. By Van Vliet's Relation it appears that the Command of the Elephants belonged also to the Calla-hom, even without the Army. But now this is a separate Employment, as some have assured me: either for that the present King's Father, after having made use of the Office of the Calla-hom to gain the Throne; resolved to divide the Power thereof, or that naturally they are two distinct Offices, which may be given to a single Person.

However it be, 'tis Oc-Pra Pipitcharatcha corruptly called Petratcha, who com∣mands all the Elephants, and all the Horses: and it is one of the greatest Em∣ployments of the Kingdom, because that the Elephants are esteemed the King of Siam's Principal Forces. Some there are who report that this Prince main∣tains Ten Thousand, but is impossible to be known, by reason that Vanity al∣ways inclines these People to Lying: and they are more vain in the matter of Elephants, than in any thing else. The Metropolis of the Kingdom of Laos is called Lan-Tchang, and its name in the Language of the Country, which is almost the same as the Siameses, signifies Ten Millions of Elephants. The King of Siam keeps therefore a very great number: and it is said that three men at least are re∣quired for the service of every Elephant: and these men, with all the Offiers that command them, are under the orders of Oc-Pra Pipitcharatcha: who though he has only the Title of Oc-Pra, is yet a very great Lord. The people love him because he appears moderate; and think him invulnerable, because he expres∣sed a great deal of Courage in some Fight against the Peguins: his Courage has likewise procur'd him the Favour of the King his Master. His Family has con∣tinued a long time in the highest Offices: is frequently allied to the Crown; and it is publickly reported that he or his Son Oc-Louang Souracac may pretend to it, if either of them survive the King that now Reigns. The Mother of Oc-Pra Pip ••haratcha was the King's Nurse, and the Mother of the first Ambassador whom we saw here: and when the King commanded the great Barcalon, the Brother of this Ambassador, to be bastinado'd the last time, 'twas Oc-Louang Soura∣cac the Son of Oc-Pra Pipitcharatcha that bastinado'd him by the King's order, and in his presence; the Prince's Nurse, the Mother of the Barcalon, lying prostrate at his Feet, to obtain pardon for her Son.

CHAP. VIII. Concerning the Art of War amongst the Siameses, and of their Forces by Sea and Land.

THe Art of War is exceedingly ignor'd at Siam: the Siameses are little in∣clined to this Trade. The over-quick imagination of the excessive hot Countries, is not more proper for Courage, than the slow imagination of Countries extreamly cold. The sight of a naked Sword is sufficient to put an hundred Siameses to flight; there needs only the assured Tone of an European, that wears a Sword at his side, or a Cane in his hand, to make them forget the most express Orders of their Superiors.

I say moreover, that every one born in the Indies is without Courage; al∣though he be born of European Parents. And the Portugueses born in the Indies have been a real proof thereof. A society of Dutch Merchants found in them only the Name and the Language, and not the Bravery of the Portuguese: and if other Europeans went to seek out the Dutch, they would not be found more Valorous. The best constituted men are those of the Temperate Zones: and amongst these the difference of their common aliments, and of the places which they inhabit, more or less hot, dry or moist, exposed to the Winds or to the Seas, Plains or Mountains. Woods or Champains, and much more the several Governments do cause very great differences. For who doubts, for example, that the Antient Greeks, brought up in liberty, where incomparably more Va∣lorous then the present Greeks, depressed by so long a Servitude? All these rea∣sons do concur to effeminate the Courage of the Siameses, I mean the heat of the Climate, the flegmatick Aliments, and the Despotick Government.

The Opinion of the Metempsychosis inspiring them with an horror of blood, deprives them likewise of the Spirit of War. They busie themselves only in making Slaves. If the Peguins, for example, do on one side invade the lands of Siam, the Siameses will at another place enter on the Lands of Pegu, and both Parties will carry away whole Villages into Captivity.

But if the Armies meet, they will not shoot directly one against the other, but higher: and yet as they endeavour to make these random Shots to fall back upon the Enemies, to the end that they may be overtaken therewith, if they do not retreat, one of the two Parties do's not long defer from taking flight, upon perceiving it never so little to rain Darts or Bullets. But if the design be to stop the Troops that come upon them, they will shoot lower than it is neces∣sary; to the end that if the Enemies approach, the fault may be their own in coming within the reach of being wounded or slain. Kill not is the order, which the King of Siam gives his Troops, when he sends them into the Field: which cannot signifie that they should not kill absolutely, but that they shoot not directly upon the Enemy.

Some have upon this account informed me a thing, which in my opinion, will appear most incredible. 'Tis of a provincial named Cyprian, who is still at Surat in the French Company's Service, if he has not quitted it, or if he is not lately dead: the name of his Family I know not. Before his entrance into the Companies service, he had served some time in the King of Siam's Army in quality of Canoneer; and because he was prohibited from shooting strait, he doubted not that the Siamese General would betray the King his Master. This Prince sending afterwards some Troops against the Tchaou-Meuang, or if you will, against the King of Singor, on the western Coast of the Gulph of Siam, Cyprian wearied with seeing the Armies in view, which attempted no persons life, determin'd one night to go alone to the Camp of the Rebels, and to fetch the King of Singor into his Tent. He took him indeed, and brought him to the Siamese General, and so terminated a War of above twenty years. The King

of Siam intended to recompence this service of Cyprian with a quantity of Sapan-wood; but by some intrigue of Court he got nothing, and retir'd to Surat.

Now though the Siameses appear to us so little proper for War, yet they cease not to make it frequently and advantageously, by reason that their Neigh∣bours are neither more potent nor more valiant than them.

The King of Siam has no other Troops maintained than his foreign Guard, of which I will speak in the sequel. 'Tis true that the Chevalier de Fourbin had showed the Exercise of Arms to four hundred Siameses, which we found at Bancock: and that after he had quitted this Kingdom, an Englishman, who had been a Sergeant in the Garrison of Madraspatan, on the Coast of Coromandel, showed this same exercise, which he had learnt under the Chevalier de Fourbin, to about eight hundred other Siameses, to show the King of Siam that the Che∣valier de Fourbin was not necessary to him. But all these Soldiers have no other pay, than the Exemption from the six Months Service for some of their Family. And as they cannot easily maintain themselves from their own Houses, by rea∣son they receive no money, they remain at their own Habitations; the four hundred about Bancock, and the other eight hundred at Louvo, or thereabouts. Only for the security of Bancock some Detachments went thither by turns to keep a continual Guard, and the rest being thereabouts might render themselves in case of an Alarm. But according to the common practice of the Kingdom of Siam, the Garrisons which it may have, are composed of persons, who serve in this by six Months, as they should serve in another thing; and who are re∣lieved by others when they have served their full time.

The Kingdom of Siam being very strong by its impenetaable Woods, and by the great number of Channels, wherewith it is interspersed, and in fine by the annual Innundation of six Months, the Siameses would not hitherto have places well fortified for fear of losing them, and not being able to retake them; and this is the reason they gave me thereof. The Castles they have would hardly sustain the first shock of our Soldiers; and though they be small and ugly, because they would have them such, yet is it necessary to employ the skill of the Euro∣peans to delineate them.

'Tis some years since the King of Siam designing to make a wooden Fort on the Frontier of Pegu, had no abler a person to whom he could entrust the care thereof, than to one named Brother Rene Charbonneau, who after having been a Servant of the Mission of S^t. Lazarus at Paris, had passed to the Service of the Foreign Missions, and was gone to Siam. Brother Rene, who by his Industry knew how to let blood, and give a Remedy to a sick Person (for it is by such like charitable Employments, and by some presents, that the Missionaries are permitted and loved in this Country) defended himself as much as he could from making this Fort, protesting that he was not capable: but in short he could not prevent rendering obedience, when it was signified to him that the King of Siam absolutely requir'd it. He was afterwards three or four years Governor of Jonsalam by Commission, and with great approbation: and because he desired to return to the City of Siam to his Wife's Relations, which are Portugueses, Mr. Billi, the Master of Mr. de Chaumont's Palace, succeeded him in the Em∣ployment of Jonsalam.

The Siameses have not much Artillery. A Portuguese of Macao, who died in their service, cast them some pieces of Cannon; but as for them, I question whether they know how to make any moderately good: though some have in∣formed me that they have hammered some out of cold Iron.

As they have no Horses (for what is two thousand Horse at most, which 'tis reported that the King of Siam keeps?) their Armies consist only in Elephants, and in Infantry, naked and ill armed, after the mode of the Country. Their order of Battel and Encampment is thus.

They range themselves in three lines, each of which is composed of three great square Battalions; and the King, or the General whom he names in his absence, stands in the middle Battalion, which he composes of the best Troops, for the security of his Person. Every particular Captain of a Battalion keeps himself also in the midst of the Battalion which he commands: and if the nine

Battalions are too big, they are each divided into nine less, with the same sym∣metry as the whole body of the Army.

The Army being thus ranged, every one of the nine Battalions has six∣teen male Elephants in the rear. They call them Elephants of War: and each of these Elephants carries his particular standard, and is accompanied with two female Elephants; but as well females as males are mounted each with three armed Men; and besides this the Army has some Elephants with Baggage. The Siameses report that the female Elephants are only for the dignity of the males; but as I have already declared in the other part, it would be very difficult al∣ways to govern the males without the Company of the females.

The Artillery, at the places where the River grows shallow, is carried on Waggons drawn by Buffalo's, or Oxen, for it has no carriage. It begins the Fight, and if it ends it not, then they place themselves within reach to make use of the small shot, and Arrows, after the manner as I have explained, but they never fall on with vigour enough, nor defend themselves with constancy enough, to come to a close Fight.

They break themselves and fly into Woods, but ordinarily they rally with the same facility. as they are broken; and if on some occasion, as in the last Conspiracy of the Macassars, it is absolutely necessary to stand firm, they can promise themselves to retain the Soldiers, only by placing some Officers behind, to kill those that shall fly. I have elsewhere related how these Macassars made use of Opium to endow themselves with Courage: 'tis a custom practised prin∣cipally by the Ragipouts, and the Melays, but not by the Siameses: the Siameses would be afraid to become too Couragious.

They very much rely upon the Elephants in Combats, though this Animal for want of Bitt or Bridle, cannot be securely governed, and he frequently re∣turns upon his own Masters when he is wounded. Moreover he so exceeding∣ly dreads the fire, that he is never almost accustomed thereunto. Yet they ex∣ercise them to carry, and to see fired from their back little pieces about three foot long, and about a pound of Ball; and Bernier reports that this very practice is observed in the Mogul's Country.

As for Sieges they are wholly incapable thereof, for men that dare not set up∣on the Enemies when in view, will not vigorously attack a place never so little Fortified, but only by Treachery, in which they are very cunning, or by Fa∣mine, if the Besieged cannot have provision.

They are yet more seeble by Sea than by Land. Not without much ado the King of Siam hath five or six very small Ships, which he principally makes use of for Merchandize; and sometimes he arms them as Privateers against those of his Neighbours, with whom he is at War. But the Officers and Seamen, on whom he confides, are Foreigners; and till these latter times he had chosen En∣glish and Portuguese: but within these few years he hath employed some French. The King of Siam's Intention is, that his Corsairs should kill no person, no more than his Land Forces, but that they use all the Tricks imaginable to take some Prizes. In his War at Sea, he proposes to himself only some Reprizals from some of his Neighbours, from whom he believes himself to have re∣ceived some injury in Trade. And the contrivances succeed whilst his Enemies are not in any distrust. Besides this he has fifty or sixty Galleys, whose An∣chors, I have said are of Wood. They are only moderate Boats for a Bridge, which do every one carry fifty or sixty men to Row and to Fight. These men do fight by turns, as in every thing else: There is only one to each Oar; and he is obliged to Row standing, because the Oar is so short, for lightness sake, that it would not touch the water, if not held almost perpendicular. These Gallies only coast it along the Gulph of Siam.

CHAP. IX. Of the Barcalon, and of the Revenues.

THe Pra-Clang, or by a corruption of the Portugueses, the Barcalon, is the Offi∣cer which has the appointment of the Commerce, as well within as with∣out the Kingdom. He is the Superintendent of the King of Siam's Magazines, or if you will, his chief Factor. His name is composed of the Balie word Pra, which I have so often discoursed of, and of the word Clang, which signifies Magazine. He is the Minister of the foreign affairs, because they almost all relate to Commerce; and 'tis to him that the fugitive Nations at Siam address themselves in their affairs, because 'tis only the liberty of Trade that formerly invited them thither. In a word, it is the Barcalon that receives the Revenues of the Cities.

The King of Siam's Revenues are of two sorts, Revenues of the Cities, and Revenues of the Country. The Country Revenues are received by Oc ya Pol∣latep, according to some, or Vorethep, according to Mr. Gervase.

They are all reduced to the Heads following.

1. On Forty Fathom Square of cultivated Lands, a Mayon or quarter of a Ti∣cal by year: but this Rent is divided with the Tchaou-Meuang where there is one; and it is never well paid to the King on the Frontiers. Besides this, the Law of the Kingdom is, that whoever ploughs not his ground pays nothing, though it be by his own negligence that he reaps nothing. But the present King of Si∣am, to force his Subjects to work, has exacted this duty from those that have pos∣sessed Lands for a certain time, although they omit to cultivate them. Yet this is executed only in the places where his Authority is absolute. He loved no∣thing so much, as to see Strangers come to settle in his States, there to manure those great uncultivated Spaces, which without comparison do make the most considerable part thereof: in this case he would be liberal of untilled grounds, and of Beasts to cultivate them, though they had been cleared and prepared for Tillage.

2. On Boats or Balons, the Natives of the Country pay a Tical for every Fa∣thom in length. Under this Reign they have added that every Balon or Boat above six Cubits broad should pay six Ticals, and that Foreigners should be obliged to this duty, as well as the Natives of the Country. This duty is levied like a kind of Custom at certain places of the River, and amongst others at Tchainat, four Leagues above Siam, where all the Streams unite.

3. Customs on whatever is imported or exported by Sea. Besides which, the body of the Ship pays something in proportion to its Capacities, like the Balons.

4. On Arak or Rice-Brandy, or rather on every Furnace where it is made, which they call Taou-laou, the People of the Country do pay a Tical per Annum. This Duty has been doubled under this Reign, and is exacted on the Natives of the Country, and on Strangers alike. 'Tis likewise added, that every Seller of Arak by re-tail, should pay a Tical a year, and every Seller by whole-sale, a Ti∣cal per Annum for every great Pot, the size of which, I find no otherwise de∣scribed in the Note which was given me.

5. On the Fruit called Durion, for every Tree already bearing, or not bearing Fruit, two Mayons or half a Tical per annum.

6. On every Tree of Betel, a Tical per annum.

7. On every Arekier they formerly paid three Nuts of Arek in kind: under this Reign, they pay six.

8. Revenues entirely new, or established under this Reign, are in the first place, a certain Duty on a School of Recreation permitted at Siam. The Tri∣bute which the Oc-ya Meen pays, is almost of the same Nature, but I know not whether it is not ancienter than the former. In the second place, on every Coco-Tree,

half a Tical per Annum; and in the third place on Orange-Trees, Mango-Trees, Mangoustaniers and Pimentiers, for each, a Tical per Annum. There is no duty on Pepper, by reason that the King would have his Subjects addict them∣selves more to plant it.

9. This Prince has in several places of his States some Gardens and Lands, which he causes to be cultivated, as his particular demesn, as well by his Slaves, as by the six Months Service. He causes the Fruits to be gathered and kept on the places, for the maintenance of his House, and for the nourishment of his Slaves, his Elephants, his Horses, and other Cattle; and the rest he sells.

10. A Casual Revenue is the Presents which this Prince receives, as well as all the Officers of his Kingdom, the Legacies which the Officers bequeath him at their death, or which he takes from their Succession; and in fine, the extraor∣dinary Duties, which he takes from his Subjects on several occasions: as for the Maintenance of Foreign Ambassadors, to which the Governors, into whose Juris∣diction the Ambassadors do pass, or sojourn, are obliged to contribute; and for the building of Forts, and other publick works, an expence which he levies on the People, amongst whom these works are made.

11. The Revenues of Justice do donsist in Confiscations and Fines.

12. Six Months service of every one of his Subjects per Annum: a Service which he or his Officers frequently extend much further, who alone discharges it from every thing, and from which there remains to him a good Increase. For in certain places this Service is converted into a payment made in Rice, or in Sapan-wood, or Lignum-aloes, or Saltpetre, or in Elephants, or in Beasts Skins, or in Ivory, or in other Commodities: and in fine, this Service is some∣times esteemed and paid in ready Money; and it is for the ready Money that the Rich are exempted. Anciently this Service was esteemed at a Tical a Month, because that one Tical is sufficient to maintain one Man: and this computation serves likewise as an assessment on the days Labour of the Workmen, which a particular Person employs. They amount to two Ticals a Month at least, by reason that it is reckon'd that a Workman must in 6 Months gain his Maintenance for the whole year; seeing that he can get nothing the other six Months that he serves the Prince. The Prince now extorts two Ticals a Month for the exemp∣tion from the six Months Service.

13. His other Revenues do arise from the Commerce, which he exercises with his Subjects and Foreigners. He has carried it to such a degree, that Merchandize is now no more the Trade of particular persons at Siam. He is not contented with selling by Whole-sale, he has some Shops in the Bazars or Markets, to sell by Re-tail

The principal thing that he sells to his Subjects is Cotton-cloath: he sends them into his Magazines of the Provinces. Heretofore his Predecessors and he sent them thither only every Ten Years, and a moderate quantity, which be∣ing sold, particular persons had liberty to make Commerce thereof: now he conti∣nually furnishes them, he has in his Magazines more than he can possibly sell; and it sometimes happens that to vend more, that he has forced his Subjects to cloath their Children before the accustomed Age. Before the Hollanders came into the Kingdom of Laos, and into others adjacent, the King of Siam did there make the whole Commerce of Linnen with a considerable profit.

All the Calin is his, and he sells it as well to Strangers as to his own Subjects, excepting that which is dug out of the Mines of Jonsalam on the Gulph of Ben∣gal: for this being a remote Frontier, he leaves the Inhabitants in their ancient Rights, so that they enjoy the Mines which they dig, paying a small profit to this Prince.

All the Ivory comes to the King, his Subjects are obliged to vend him all that they sell, and Strangers can buy only at his Magazine. The Trade of Saltpetre, Lead and Sapan, belongs also to the King: they can buy and sell them only at his Magazine, whether one be a Siamese or Stranger.

Arek, a great deal of which is exported out of the Kingdom, can be sold to Foreigners only by the King: and for this end he buys some of his Subjects, besides that which he has from his particular Revenues.

Prohibited Goods, as Powder, Sulphur and Arms, can be bought or sold at Siam, only at the King's Magazine.

As to the Skins of Beasts, this Prince is obliged, by a Treaty made with the Hollanders, to sell them all to them; and for this purpose he buys them of his Subjects: but his Subjects do convey away a great many, which the Hollanders buy of them in secret.

The rest of the Commerce at Siam is permitted to all, as that of Rice, Fish, Salt, Brown Sugar, Sugar-Candy, Ambergreese, Wax, the Gum with which Varnish is made, Mother of Pearl, those edable Birds-Nests which come from Tonquin and Cochinchina, which Navaratte reports to be made of the Sea-froth in some Rocks, by a kind of small Sea-Birds, which resemble Swallows, Gumme Gutte, Incense, Oyl, Coco, Cotton, Cinnamon, Nenuphar, which is not exactly like ours; Cassia, Dates, and several other things, as well the growth of the Kingdom, as brought from abroad.

Every one may make and sell Salt; fish and hunt, as I have declared, and without paying any thing to the King. It is true, that the necessary Policy is used in Fishing; and Oc-Pra Tainam, who receives the particular Revenues of the River, hinders those ways of Fishing, which destroy too much Fish at once.

The King of Siam has never been well paid his Revenues in lands remote from his Court. 'Tis said that the ready Money that he formerly received, amounted to Twelve hundred thousand Livres, and that what he now gets a∣mounts to Six hundred thousand Crowns, or to Two Millions. 'Tis a difficult thing to know exactly: all that I can assert is, that in this Country it is report∣ed (as a thing very considerable, and which seems Hyperbolical) that the present King of Siam has augmented his Revenues a Million.

CHAP. X. Of the Royal Seal, and of the Maha Obarat.

THere is no Chancellor at Siam. Every Officer that has the Power of giv∣ing the Sentences, or Orders in Writing, which they call Tara in general, has a Seal which the King gives him: and the King himself has his Royal Seal, which he commits to no person whatever, and of which he makes use for the Letters he writes, and for whatever proceeds immediately from him. The Fi∣gure which is in the Seals, is not hollow, but in Relievo. The Seal is rub'd over with a kind of Red Ink, and is printed on the Paper with the Hand. An infe∣rior Officer takes this Pains; but 'tis the duty of the Officer to whom the Seal belongs, to pluck it with his own Hand from the Print.

After several remarks, which I have made, it seems to me, that whatever is done in the King of Siam's Name has no Power, if it is not done at the place where this King actually resides. Certain reasons have hindered, why they have not certainly inform'd me thereof. However, it is certain, that for the reason which I have alledged, or for some other, there is at Siam as it were a Vice-Roy, who represents the King, and performs the Regal Functions in the King's Absence; as when this Prince is at War. This Officer is called Maha-Oharat, as it was given me in writing, or Ommarat, according to the Abbot de Choisy, and M^r. Gervaise. And the Abbot de Choisy adds, that the Maha Omarat has a right of sitting down in the King's Presence, a Circumstance which some have informed me to be peculiar to another Officer, of whom I shall speak in the se∣quel. At present they give him the Title of Pa-ya, and they do thereunto add the word Tchaou, which signifies Lord; Tchaou Pa-ya Maha Omrat: Sometimes he has only the Title of Oc-ya, as in Vliet's Relation, where he is called Oc-ya Ombrat. He is thereunto qualified as Chief of the Nobility, which signifies no∣thing, but the first Officer of the Kingdom.

CHAP. XI. Of the Palace, and of the King of Siam's Guards.

IT now remains for me to speak of the King, and of his House. This Prince's Palace has its Officers within, and its Officers without; but so different in dignity, that an Oc-Meuing within commands all the Oc-ya without. They call Officers within, not only those which lodge always in the Palace, but those whose functions are exercised in the Palace: And they call Officers without the Palace, not all the Officers of the Kingdom, which have no Function in the Palace, but those which having no Function in the Palace; yet have not any without which respects not the Service of the Palace. Thus the Spaniards have Servants, which they call de Escalera arriba, and others which they call de Esca∣lera abaxo, that is to say Servants at the top of the Stairs, or which may go up the Stairs to their Master, and to those to whom their Master sends them, and others who wait always at the bottom of the Stairs.

The King of Siam's Palaces have three Inclosures: and that of the City of Siam has them so distant one from the other, that the space thereof appears like vast Courts. All that the inward Close includes, viz. the King's Apartment, some Court, and some Garden, is called Vang in Siamese. The whole Palace with all its Inclosures is called Prassat, though Vliet in the Title of his Relation translates the word Prassat by that of Throne. The Siameses neither enter into the Vang, nor depart thence without prostrating themselves, and they pass not before the Prassat. And if sometimes the stream of the Water carries them, and forces them to pass thereby, they are pelted with showers of Pease, which the King's Servants shoot over them with Trunks. M^r. de Chaumont and the King's Ambassadors landed, and left their Umbrella's at the first entrance of the Prassat.

The Oc-ya Vang commands in the Vang; and in him reunites all the Functions which respect the Reparations of the Palace, the Order which must be observed in the Palace, and the Expence which is made for the Maintenance of the King, of his Wives and of his Eunuchs, and of all those whom this Prince maintains in the Vang. 'Twas the Oc-ya Vang, who, after the Example of all the other Go∣vernours, which had received the King's Ambassadors at the entrance of their Government, came to receive them at the Gate of the Vang; and who intro∣duced them to the Audience of the King his Master.

The Gates of the Palace are always shut; and behind each stands a Porter, who has some Arms, but who instead of bearing them, keeps them in his Lodge near the Gate. If any one knocks, the Porter advertises the Officer, who com∣mands in the first Inclosure, and without whose permission no person enters in, nor goes out: but no person enters armed, nor after having drunk Arak, to as∣sure himself that no drunken man enters therein. Wherefore the Officer views, and smells the breath of all those that must enter therein.

This Office is double, and those that are in it do serve alternately and by day. The days of Service they continue twenty four whole hours in the Palace, and the other days they may be at home. Their Title is Oc-Meuing Tchion, of rather Pra Meuing Tchion: for at the Palace before the word Meuing there are some who put the word Pra instead of Oc, though some have told me that it is Oc-Meuing, and not Pra-Meuing that he must be always called. 'Twas one of these Meuing Tchions who brought the first Compliment from the King of Siam to the Ambassadors, when they were in the Road; and who stayed constantly with them after they were landed, as Mr. Torpff, continued always with the Ambas∣sador of Siam.

Between the two first Inclosures, and under a Pent-house, is a small number of Soldiers unarmed and stooping. They are those Kenhai or Painted Arms, of whom I have spoken. The Officer who commands them immediately, and who is a Painted-Arm himself, is called Oncarac, and he and they are the Prince his

Executioners; as the Officers and Soldiers of the Pretorian Cohorts, were the Executioners of the Roman Emperors. But at the same time they omit not to watch the Prince's person; for in the Palace there is wherewith to arm them in case of need. They row the Balon of State, and the King of Siam has no other Foot-guard. Their Employment is hereditary, like all the rest of the Kingdom; and the ancient Law imports that they ought not to exceed six hundred: But this must doubtless be understood that there ought to be no more than six hun∣dred for the Palace: for there must needs be many more in the whole extent of the State; because that the King, as I have said elsewhere, gives thereof to a very great number of Officers.

But this Prince is not contented with this Guard on days of Ceremony, as was that of the first Audience of the King's Ambassadors. On such occasions he causes his Slaves to be armed; and if their number is not sufficient, the Slaves of the principal Officers are armed. He gives to them all some Muslin Shirts dyed red, Muskets, or Bows, or Lances, and Pots of gilded wood on their Heads, which for this purpose are taken out of the Magazine: and the quantity of which, in my opinion, determines the number of these Soldiers of show. They formed a double Rank at the reception of M^r. de Chaumont; and so soon as he was past, those which he had left behind, made haste to get be∣fore by the by-ways, to go to fill up the vacant places which were left for them. In our time they marched by the sides of the Ambassadors, till they stopt up the space through which they were to pass. We also found part of these Slaves prostrate before the little Stairs, which goes up to the Hall of Audience. Some held those little useless Trumpets, which I have spoken of; and others had be∣fore them those little Drums, which they never beat. The Meuing Tchion are the Nai of all these Slaves; and these Slaves row the Balons of the King's retinue, and are moreover employed on several works.

Anciently the Kings of Siam had a Japponese Guard, composed of six hundred men: but because these six hundred men alone, could make the whole King∣dom to tremble when they pleased, the present King's Father, after having made use of them to invade the Throne, found out a way to rid himself of them, more by policy than force.

The King of Siam's Horse-guard is composed of Men from Laos, and another neighbouring Country, the chief City whereof is called Meen: and as the Meens and Laos do serve him by six Months, he makes this Guard as numerous as he pleases, and as many Horse as he would employ therein.

Oc-Coune Ran Patchi commands this Guard on the right hand: His Son is in France, and has for some years learnt the Trade of a Fountain-maker at Triannon. Oc-Coune Pipitcharatcha, or as the People say, Oc-Coune Petratcha, commands the half of this Guard, which serves on the left hand: but over these two Officers Oc-ya Lao commands the Guard of the Laos, and Oc-ya Meen the Guard of the Meen: and this Oc-ya Meen is a different person from him that prostitutes lewd Women.

Besides this the King of Siam has a foreign standing Horse-guard, which con∣sists in an Hundred and Thirty Gentlemen: but neither they, nor the Meen, nor the Laos, do ever keep Guard in the Palace. Notice is given them to ac∣company the King when he goes out, and thus all this is esteemed the exterior Service, and not the interior Service of the Palace.

This foreign Guard consists, first in two Companies of thirty Moors each, Natives, or originally descended from the States of the Mogul, of an excellent Meen, but accounted Cowards. Secondly, in a Company of twenty Chinese Tartars armed with Bows and Arrows, and formidable for their Courage; and lastly in two Companies of Twenty five Men each, Pagans of the true India, habited like the Moors, which are called Rasbouts, or Raggibouts, who boast themselves to be of the Royal blood, and whose Courage is very famous, though it be only the effect of Opium, as I have before remarked.

The King of Siam supplies this whole Guard with Arms, and with Horses: and besides this every Moor costs him three Catis and twelve Teils a year, that is to say 540 Livres, or thereabouts, and a red Stuff Vest; and every of the

two Moorish Captains five Catis and twelve Teils, or 840 Livres, and a Scarlet Vest. The Raggibouts are maintained according to the same rate; but every Chi∣nese Tartar costs him only six Teils, or 45 Livres a year, and their Captain fifteen Teils, or 112 Livres, ten Sols.

In the first Inclosures are likewise the Stables of the Elephants and Horses, which the King of Siam esteems the best, and which are called Elephants and Horses by Name: because that this King gives them a Name, as he gives to all the Officers within his Palace, and to the important Officers of the State, which in this are very much distinguished from the Officers on whom he imposes none. He that hath the care of the Horses, either for their maintenance, or to train them up, and who is as it were the chief Querry, is called Oc Louang Tchoumpon; his Belat, or Lieutenant is Oc-Meuing Si Sing Toup Pa-tchat; but he alone has the Priviledge of speaking to the King: Neither his Belat nor his other inferior Officers do speak unto him.

The Elephants of Name are treated with more or less Dignity, according to the more or less honourable Name they bear; but every one of them has several Men at his Service. They stir not out, as I have elsewhere declared, without trappings; and because that all the Elephants of Name cannot be kept within the Compass of the Palace, there are some which have their Stables close by.

These People have naturally so great an esteem of Elephants, that they are perswaded that an Animal so noble, so strong, and so docile, can be animated only with an illustrious Soul, which has formerly been in the body of some Prince, or of some great Person: but they have yet a much higher Idea of the White Elephants. These Animals are rare, and are found, say they, only in the Woods of Siam. They are not altogether White, but of a flesh colour, and for this reason it is that Vliet in the Title of his Relation has said, the White and Red Elephant. The Siameses do call this colour Peuak, and I doubt not that it is this colour inclining to White and moreover so rare in this Animal, which has procur'd it the Veneration of those People to such a degree, as to perswade them what they report thereof, that a Soul of some Prince is always lodged in the body of a White Elephant, whether Male or Female it matters not.

By the same reason of the colour, White Horses are those which the Siameses most esteem. I proceed to give a proof thereof. The King of Siam having one of his Horses sick, intreated M^r. Vincent, that Physician which I have frequently mentioned, to prescribe him some Remedy. And to perswade him to it (for he well knew that the European Physicians debased not themselves to meddle with Beasts) he acquainted him that the Horse was Mogol (that is to say White) of four races by Sire and Dam, without any mixture of Indian blood; and that had it not been for this consideration he would not have made him this re∣quest. The Indians call the White, Mogols, which they distinguish into Mogols of Asia, and Mogols of Europe. Therefore whence soever this respect is for the White colour, as well in Men as in Beasts, I could discover no other reason at Siam, than that of the veneration which the Siameses have for the White Elephants. Next to the White they most esteem those which are quite Black, because they are likewise very rare; and they Dye some of this colour, when they are not naturally Black enough. The King of Siam always keeps a White Elephant in his Palace, which is treated like the King of all those Elephants, which this Prince maintains. That which Mr. de Chaumont saw in this Country, was dead, as I have said, when we arrived there. There was born another as they report∣ed on the 9^th of December 1687. a few days before our departure: but this Ele∣phant was still in the Woods, and received no Visit, and so we saw no White Elephant. Other Relations have informed us how this Animal is served with Vessels of Gold.

The Care of the King's Balons, and of his Gallies, belongs to the Calla-hom. Their Arsenal is over against the Palace, the River running between. There every one of these Barges is lock'd up in a Trench, whereinto runs the Water of the River; and each Trench is shut up in an Inclosure made of Wood, and covered. These Inclosures are locked up, and besides this a person watches there at Night. The Balons of ordinary Service are not so adorned as those for

Ceremony; and amongst those for Ceremony there are some which the King gives to his Officers for these occasions only: for those which he allows them for ordinary Ceremonies, are less curious and fine.

CHAP. XII. Of the Officers which nearest approach the King of Siam's Person.

IN the Vang are some of those single Halls which I have described; in which the Officers do meet, either for their Functions, or to make their Court, or to wait the Orders of the Prince.

The usual place were he shows himself unto them, is the Hall, where he gave Audience to the King's Ambassadors; and he shows himself only through a Window, as did antiently the King of China. This Window is from a higher Chamber, which has this prospect over the Hall, and which may be said to be of the first Story. It is nine Foot high or thereabouts; and it was necessary to place three steps underneath, to raise me high enough to present the King's Letter to the King of Siam. This Prince chose rather to cause these three steps to be put, than to see himself again obliged to stoop, to take the King's Letter from my hand, as he had been obliged to do, to take that which Mr. de Chau∣mont deliver'd him. 'Tis evident by the Relation of Mr. de Chaumont, that he had in his hands a kind of Gold Cup, which had a very long handle of the same matter; to the end that he might use it to give the King's Letter to the King of Siam. He did it, but he would not take this Cup by the handle to raise the Letter; so that it was necessary that the King of Siam should stoop out of the Window to receive it. 'Tis with the same Cup, that the Officers of this Prince deliver him every thing that he receives from their hands. At the two Corners of the Hall which are at the sides of this Window, are two doors about the heighth of the Windows, and two pair of very narrow Stairs to ascend. For the Furniture there is only three Ʋmbrella's, one before the Win∣dow with nine rounds, and two with seven rounds on both sides of the Win∣dow. The Ʋmbrella is in this Country as the Daiz or Canopy is in France.

'Tis in this Hall that the King of Siam's Officers, which if you please, may be named from his Chamber, or rather his Anti-chamber, do expect his Orders. He has Forty four young men, the oldest of which hardly exceeds twenty five years of Age: the Siameses do call them Mahatlek, the Europeans have called them Pages. These Forty four Pages therefore are divided into four Bands, each consisting of eleven: the two first are on the right hand, and do prostrare them∣selves in the Hall at the King's right hand; the two others are on the left hand, and do prostrate themselves on the left hand. This Prince gives them every one a Name and a Sabre; and they carry his Orders to the Pages without, which are numerous, and which have no Name, that is imposed on them by the King. The Siameses do call them Caloang, and 'tis these Caloangs that the King ordinarily sends into the Provinces upon Commissions, whether ordinary, or extraordinary.

Besides this the Forty four Pages within have their Functions regulated: Some, for example, do serve Betel to the King, others take care of his Arms, others do keep his Books, and when he pleases they read in his presence.

This Prince is curious to the highest degree. He caused Q. Curtius to be translated into Siamese, whilst we were there, and has since order'd several of our Histories to be translated. He understands the States of Europe; and I doubt not thereof, because that once, as he gave me occasion to inform him that the Empire of Germany is Elective, he asked me whether besides the Empire and

Poland, there was any other Elective State in Europe? And I heard him pro∣nounce the word Polonia, of which I had not spoken to him. Some have as∣sur'd me that he has frequently asserted, that the Art of Ruling is not inspired, and that with great Experience and Reading he perceived that he was not yet perfect in understanding it. But he design'd principally to study it from the History of the King: he is desirous of all the News from France; and so soon as his Ambassadors were arrived, he retain'd the third with him, until he had read their Relation to him from one end to the other.

To return to the Forty-four Pages, Four Officers command them; who, be∣cause they so nearly approach the Prince, are in great esteem, but yet not in an equal degree: for there is a great difference from the first to the second, from the second to the third, and from the third to the fourth. They bear only the Title of Oc-Meuing, or of Pra-Meuing: Meuing Vai, Meuing Sarapet, Meuing Semeungtchai, Meuingsii. The Sabres and Poniards which the King gives them are adorned with some precious Stones. All four are very considerable Nai, ha∣ving a great many subaltern Officers under them; and though they have only the Title of Meuing, they cease not to be Officers in chief. The Pa-ya, the Oc-ya, the Oc-pra, and the other Titles are not always subordinate to them, only the one must command more persons than the other. In a word, 'twas Meu∣ingsii which accompany'd Meuing Tchion on Board our Ships, to bring to the King's Ambassadors the first Compliment from the King of Siam, and it was to him that Meuing Tchion, tho' higher in dignity, gave the precedency and the word; because that Meuingsii was three or four years older, but the eldest of both was not thirty.

Whilst the Ambassadors were at Audience, there was in one place an Officer, whom we perceived not, who alone, as they informed me, has the Priviledge of not prostrating himself before the King his Master; and this renders his Office very honourable. I forgot to write down his Title in my Memoirs. He always has his Eyes fixed upon this Prince, to receive his Orders, which he understands by certain Signs, and which he signifies by Signs to the other Officers which are without the Hall. Thus when the Audience was ended, I wou'd say when the King had done speaking to us, this Prince, in that silence which is profound, gave some Signal, to which we gave no heed; and immediately at the bottom of the Hall, and in an high place, which is not visible, was heard a tinkling Noise, like that of a Timbrel. This Noise was accompany'd with a Blow, which was ever and anon struck on a Drum, which is hung up under a Pent∣house without the Hall, and which for being very great, renders its sound grave and Majestie; it is cover'd with an Elephant's Skin: yet no person made any motion, till that the King, whose Chair an invisible hand did by little and little draw back, removed himself from the window, and closed the Shutters thereof; and then the Noise of the tinkling and of the great Drum ceased.

CHAP. XIII. Of the Women of the Palace, and of the Officers of the Wardrobe.

AS to the King of Siam's Chamber, the true Officers thereof are Women, 'tis they only that have a Priviledge of entering therein. They make his Bed, and dress his Meat; they cloath him, and wait on him at Table: but none but himself touches his Head when he is attir'd, nor puts any thing over his Head. The Pourveyors carry the Provisions to the Eunuchs, and they give them to the Women; and she which plays the Cook, uses Salt and Spices only by weight, thereby never to put in more nor less: A practice, which, in my opinion, is only a Rule of the Physicians, by reason of the King's unhealthy dis∣position, and not an ancient custom of the Palace.

The Women do never stir out but with the King, nor the Eunuchs without express Order. 'Tis reported that he has eight or ten Eunuchs only, as well white as black. The late Queen, who was both his Wife and his Sister, was called Nang Achamahisii. It is not easie to know the King's Name, they care∣fully and superstitiously conceal it, for fear lest any Enchantment should be made on his Name. And others report, that their Kings have no Name till af∣ter their death, and that it is their Successor which names them, and this would be more certain against the pretended Sorceries.

Of Queen Achamahisii is born, as I have related in the other Part, the Princess, the King of Siam's only Daughter, who now has the Rank and House of a Queen. The King's other Wives (which in general are called Tchaou Vang, because that the word Tchaou, which signifies Lord, signifies likewise Lady and Mistress) do render Obedience to her, and respect her as their Soveraign. They are subject to her Justice, as well as the Women and Eunuchs which serve them; because that not being able to stir out, to go plead elsewhere, it necessarily fol∣lows that the Queen should judge them, and cause them to be chastised, to keep them in peace. This is thus practised in all the Courts of Asia; but it is not true neither at Siam, nor perhaps in any part of the East, that the Queen has any Province to govern. 'Tis easie also to comprehend, that if the King loves any of his Ladies more than the rest, he causes her to remove from the Jea∣lousie and harsh Usage of the Queen.

At Siam they continually take Ladies for the service of the Vang, or to be Concubines to the King, if this Prince makes use thereof. But the Siameses de∣liver up their Daughters only by force, because it is never to see them again; and they redeem them so long as they can for Money. So that this becomes a kind of Extortion, for they designedly take a great many Virgins meerly to restore them to their Parents, who redeem them.

The King of Siam has few Mistresses, that is to say eight or ten in all, not out of Continency, but Parsimony. I have already declared, that to have a great many Wives, is in this Country rather Magnificence, than Debauchery. Wherefore they are very much surprized to hear that so great a King as ours has no more than one Wife, that he had no Elephants, and that his Lands bear no Rice; as we might be, when it was told us that the King of Siam has no Horses, nor standing Forces, and that his Country bears no Corn nor Grapes, altho' all the Relations do so highly extol the Riches and Power of the Kingdom of Siam.

The Queen hath her Elephants and her Balons, and some Officers to take care of her, and accompany her when she goes abroad; but none but her Women and Eunuchs do see her. She is conceal'd from all the rest of the People; and when she goes out either on an Elephant, or in a Balon, it is in a Chair made up with Curtains, which permit her to see what she pleases, and do prevent her being seen: And Respect commands, that if they cannot avoid her, they should turn their back to her, by prostrating themselves when she passes along.

Besides this she has her Magazine, her Ships, and her Treasures. She exercises Commerce; and when we arrived in this Country, the Princess, whom I have reported to be treated like a Queen, was exceedingly embroiled with the King her Father, because that he reserved to himself alone almost all the Foreign Trade, and that thereby she found herself deprived thereof, contrary to the an∣cient Custom of the Kingdom.

Daughters succeed not to the Crown, they are hardly look'd upon as free. 'Tis the eldest Son of the Queen that ought always to succeed by the Law. Nevertheless because that the Siameses can hardly conceive that amongst Prin∣ces of near the same Rank, the most aged should prostrate himself before the younger; it frequently happens that amongst Brethren, tho' they be not all Sons of the Queen, and that amongst Uncles and Nephews, the most advanced in Age is preferred, or rather it is Force which always decides it. The Kings them∣selves contribute to render the Royal Succession uncertain, because that instead of chusing for their Successor the eldest Son of the Queen, they most frequently follow the Inclination which they have for the Son of some one of their Con∣cubines with whom they were enamour'd.

'Tis upon this account that the King of Bantam, for example, has lost his Crown and his Liberty. He endeavoured to get one of his Sons, whom he had by one of his Concubines, to be acknowledged for his Successor before his Death: and the eldest Son which he had by the Queen put himself into the hands of the Hollanders. They set him upon the Throne after having vanquished his Father, whom they still keep in Prison, if he is not dead: but for the reward of this Service they remain Masters of the Port, and of the whole Commerce of Ban∣tam.

The Succession is not better regulated at China, though there be an express and very ancient Law in favour of the eldest Son of the Queen. But what Rule can there be in a thing, how important soever it be, when the Passions of the Kings do always seek to imbroil it? All the Orientals, in the choice of a Go∣vernor, adhere most to the Royal Family, and not to a certain Prince of the Royal Family: uncertain in the sole thing wherein all the Europeans are not. In all the rest we vary every day, and they never do. Always the same Man∣ners amongst them, always the same Laws, the same Religion, the same Wor∣ship; as may be judged by comparing what the Ancients have writ concerning the Indians, with what we do now see.

I have said that 'tis the Women of the Palace which dress the King of Siam; but they have no charge of his Wardrobe; he has Officers on purpose. The most considerable of all is he that touches his Bonnet, altho he be not permit∣ted to put it upon the Head of the King his Master. 'Tis a Prince of the Royal blood of Camboya; by reason that the King of Siam boasts in being thence de∣scended, not being able to vaunt in being of the race of the Kings his Prede∣cessors. The Title of this Master of the Wardrobe is Oc-ya Out haya tanne, which sufficiently evinces that the Title of Pa-ya does not signifie Prince, seeing that this Prince wears it not. Under him Oc-Pra Rayja Vounsa has the charge of the cloaths. Rayja or Raja or Ragi or Ratcha, are only an Indian term variously pronounced, which signifies King, or Royal, and which enters into the compo∣sition of several Names amongst the Indians.

CHAP. XIV. Of the Customs of the Court of Siam, and of the Policy of its Kings.

THe common usage of the Court of Siam is to hold a Council twice a day; about Ten a clock in the Morning, and about Ten in the Evening, reckoning the hours after our fashion.

As for them, they divide the day into Twelve hours, from the Morning to the Night: The Hours they call Mong: they reckon them like us, and give them not a particular name to each, as the Chineses do. As for the Night, they di∣vide it into four Watches, which they call Tgiam, and it is always broad Day at the end of the Fourth. The Latins, Greeks, Jews, and other people have divi∣ded the Day and Night, after the same manner.

The People of Siam have no Clock; but as the Days are almost equal there all the Year, it is easie for them to know what Hour it is, by the sight of the Sun. In the King's Palace they use a kind of Water-Clock: 'Tis a thin Copper Cup, at the bottom of which they do make an almost imperceptible hole. They put it quite empty upon the water: which by little and little enters therein through the hole; and when the Cup is full enough to sink down, this is one of the hours, or a twelfth part of the day. They measure the Watches of the Night by such a like method, and they make a Noise on Copper Basons when the Watch is ended.

I have related how Causes are determined in the King of Siam's Council: Af∣fairs of State are there examined, and decided almost after the same manner. That Councellor to whom this Prince has committed a business, makes the re∣port thereof, which consists in reading it, and then proceeds to the consultative Opinions; and hitherto the King's Presence is not necessary. When he is come he hears the report, which is read to him concerning the former Consult, he resumes all the advices, confutes those which he approves not, and then decides. But if the Affair seems to him to merit a more mature deliberation, he makes no decision: but after having proposed his difficulties, he commits the examination thereof to some of his Council, whom he purposely appoints; and principally to those who were of a different Opinion from his. They, af∣ter having again consulted together, do cause the report of their new Consulta∣tion to be made by one of them, in a full Council, and before the King; and hereupon this Prince consummates his Determination. Yet sometimes, but very rarely, and in affairs of a cerrain Nature, he will consult the principal San∣cras, which are the Superiors of the Talapoins; whose credit in other matters he depresses as much as he can, though in appearance he honors them exceedingly. In a word, there is such a sort of affairs, wherein he will call the Officers of the Provinces: but on all occasions, and in all affairs, he decides when he pleases; and he is never constrained to either ask advice of any person, or to follow any other advice than his own.

He oftentimes punishes ill Advice, or recompences good. I say good or bad according to his sense, for he alone is the Judge thereof. Thus his Ministers do much more apply themselves to divine his sentiments, than to declare him theirs, and they misunderstand him, by reason he also endeavours to conceal his Opinion from them.

In a word, the affair on which he consults them, is not always a real con∣cern; 'tis sometimes a question, which he propounds to them by way of exercise.

He likewise has a custom of examining his Officers about the Pra-Tam-Ra, which is that Book, which I have said contains all their Duties; and causes such to be chastized with the Bastinado, who answer not very exactly; even as a Father chastizes his Children in instructing them.

'Tis an ancient Law of the State established for the security of the King, whose Authority is naturally almost unarmed, that the Courtiers should not render him any visit without his express leave, and only at Weddings and Fu∣nerals, and that when they meet, they should speak with a loud voice, and in the presence of a third person: but if the Kings of Siam be unactive, or negli∣gent, not any Law secures them. At present the Courtiers may appear again at the Academy of Sports, where the great number seems to take away all op∣portunity of Caballings.

The Trade of an Informer, so detested in all places where men are born free, is commanded to every person at Siam, under pain of death for the least things; and so whatever is known by two Witnesses, is almost infallibly related to the King: because that every one hastens to give information thereof, for fear of being herein prevented by his Companion, and remain guilty of Silence.

The present King of Siam relies not in an important affair upon the single re∣port of him to whom he has committed it; but neither does he rely also on the report of a single Informer. He has a number of secret Spies, whom he sepa∣rately interrogates; and he sometimes sends more than one to interrogate those who have acted in the affair, whereof he would be informed.

And yet it is easie for him to be deceived; for throughout the Country eve∣ry Informer is a dishonest man, and every dishonest man is an Infidel. More∣over Flattery is so great in India, that it has persuaded the Indian Kings, that if it is their interest to be informed, it is their dignity to hear nothing that may dis∣please them. As for example, they will not tell the King of Siam, that he wants Slaves or Vassals, for any enterprize he would go about. They will not tell him that they cannot perform his Commands: but they execute them ill, and when the mischief appears, they will excuse it by some defect. They will tell

him ill news quite otherwise than it is; to the end that the truth reaching his Ears only by degrees, may vex him less, and that it might be easier to paci∣fie him at several times. They will not counsel him a bad thing; but will so insinuate it, that he may think himself the Author, and only take to himself the bad success. And then they will not tell him that he must alter a thing that he has done amiss; but they will persuade him to do it better some other way, which will only be a pretence: and in the new project they will suppress, with∣out acquainting him, what they designed to reform, and will put in the place what they designed to establish. I my self have seen part of what I relate, and and they have assured me the rest.

Now such like Artifices are always very perilous; they offend the present King in nothing without being punish'd. Being severe to extream rigour, he puts to death whom he pleases without any formality of Justice, and by the hand of whom he pleases, and in his own Presence. And sometimes the Accuser with the Criminal, the Innocent with the Calumniator: for when the proofs remain doubtful, he, as I have said, exposes both parties to the Tygers.

After the Execution he insults over the dead body with some words, which are a lesson to the living; as for example, after having made him who had robb'd his Magazine, to swallow some melted Silver, he says to the dead body, Miserable wretch, thou hast robb'd me of Ten Pieces of Silver, and Three Ounces on∣ly are sufficient to take away thy life. Then he complains that they with-held him not in his Anger; either that he indeed repents sometimes of his precipi∣tate Cruelties, or that he would make believe that he is cruel only in the first Transport.

Sometimes he exposes a Criminal to an enraged Bull, and the Criminal is armed with a hollow stick, consequently proper to cause fear, but not to wound, with which he defends himself some time. At other times he will give the Criminal to Elephants, sometimes to be trampled under foot and slain, sometimes to be tossed without killing: for they affirm that the Elephants are docible to that degree, and that if a Man is only to be tossed, they throw him one to the other, and receive him on their Trunck, and on their Teeth, without letting him fall on the ground. I have not seen it, but I cannot doubt of the manner which they have assured me.

But the Ordinary Chastisements are those, which have some relation to the Nature of the Crimes. As for example, Extortion excercised on the People, and a Robbery committed on the Prince's Money, will be punished by the swal∣lowing of Gold or Silver melted: Lying, or a Secret revealed, will be punished by Sowing up the Mouth. They will slit it to punish Silence, where it is not to be kept. Any Fault in the execution of Orders, will be Chastised by prick∣ing the Head, as to punish the Memory. To prick the Head, is to cut it with the edge of a Sabre: but to manage it securely, and not to make too great wounds, they hold it with one hand by the Back, and not by the Handle.

The punishment of the Glave or Sword is not executed only by cutting the Head off, but by cutting a man through the middle of the Body: And the Cudgel is sometimes also a punishment of death. But when the Chastisement of the Cudgel ought not to extend to death, it ceases not to be very rigorous, and frequently to cause the loss of all knowledge.

If the matter is to put a Prince to death in form, as it may happen, or when a King would rid himself of some of his Relations, or when an Usurper would extinquish the race, from which he has ravish'd the Crown, they make it a piece of Religion not to shed the Royal blood: but they will make him to die with hunger, and sometimes with a lingering hunger, by daily substracting from him something of his food; or they will stifle him with Rich Stuffs; or rather they will stretch him on Scarlet, which they mightily esteem, because the Wool is rare, and dear; and there they will thrust into his Stomach a billet of Saunders Wood. This Wood is odoriferous, and highly esteem'd. There are three sorts; the white is better than the yellow, and both do grow only in the Isles of Solor and Timor, to the East of Java. The red is esteemed the least of all, and it grows in several places.

The Kings of Asia do place their whole security in rendering themselves formi∣dable, and from time out of mind they have had no other Policy: whether that a long Experience has evinced that these People are uncapable of Love for their Soveraign; or that these Kings would not be advised that the more they are fear'd, the more they have to fear. However it be, the extream distrust in which the Kings of Siam do always live, appears sufficiently in the cares which they take to prevent all secret Correspondence amongst the great Men, to keep the Gates of their Palace shut, and to permit no armed person to enter, and to disarm their own Guards. A Gun fired, by accident or otherwise, so near the Palace that the King hears it, is a capital Crime; and the noise of a Pistol be∣ing heard in the Palace, a little after the Conspiracy of the Macassars, 'twas doubted whether the King had not with this shot killed one of his Brothers; because that the King alone has power to shoot, and that moreover one of his Brethren had been suspected of having medled in this Conspiracy: and this doubt was not cleared when we left Siam.

Besides these Punishments which I have mentioned, they have some less do∣lorous, but more infamous, as to expose a Man in a public place loaded with Irons, or with his Neck put into a kind of Ladder or Pillory, which is called Cangue, in Siamese Ka. The two sides of this Ladder are about six foot long, and are fastned to a Wall, or to Posts, each at one end, with a Cord; insomuch that the Ladder may be rais'd up, and let down, as if it was fasten'd to Pullies. In the middle of the Ladder are two Steps or Rounds, between which is the Neck of the Offender, and there are no more Rounds than these two. The Offender may sit on the ground, or stand, when the weight of the Ladder, which bears upon his Shoulders, is not too big, as it is sometimes; or when the Lad∣der is not fastned at the four ends: for in this last Case it is planted in the Air, bearing at the ends upon Props, and then the Criminal is as it were hung by the Neck; he hardly touches the ground with the Tips of his Toes. Besides this, they have the use of Stocks and Manacles.

The Criminal is sometimes in a Ditch to be lower than the ground; and this Ditch is not always broad, but oftentimes it is extremely narrow, and the Criminal, properly speaking, is buried up to the Shoulders. There, for the greater Ignominy, they give him Cuffs or Blows on the Head; or they only stroke the hand over his Head, Affronts esteemed very great, especially if re∣ceived from the hand of a Woman.

But what is herein very particular, is, that the most infamous Punishment is reproachful only as long as it lasts. He that suffers it to day, will re-enter to¦morrow, if the Prince thinks fit, into the most important Offices.

Moreover, they boast of the Punishments which they receive by Order of their King, as of his paternal care for him whom he has the goodness to cha∣stise. He receives Compliments and Presents after the Bastinado, and it is prin∣cipally in the East that Chastisements do pass for testimonies of Affection. We saw a young Mandarin shut up to be punished, and a Frenchman offering him to go and ask his Pardon of his Superior: No, replied the Mandarin in Portuguese, I would see how far his Love would reach; or as an European would have said, I would see how far he will extend his Rigor. To be reduced from an eminent place to a lower is no Reproach, and this befel the second Ambassador whom we saw here. Yet it happens also, that in this Country they hang themselves in despair, when they see themselves reduced from an high Employment to an extreme Poverty, and to the six Months Service due to the Prince, tho' this Fall be not shameful.

I have said in another place, that a Father shares sometimes in the punishment of the Son, as being bound to answer for the Education which he has given him. At China an Officer answers for the Faults of all the persons of his Family, be∣cause they pretend, that he who knows not how to govern his own Family, is not capable of any public Function. The Fear therefore, which particular per∣sons have of seeing their Families turned out of the Employments, which do make the Splendor and Support thereof, renders them all wise, as if they were all Magistrates. In like manner at Siam, and at China, an Officer is punished for

the Offences of another Officer that is subject to his Orders, by reason that he is to watch over him that depends on him; and that having power to correct him, he ought to answer for his conduct. Thus about three years since we saw at Siam for three days, Oc-Pra-Simo-ho-sot, by Nation a Brame, who is now in the King of Siam's Council of State, exposed to the Cangue with the head of a Malefactor, which they had put to Death, hung about his Neck; without be∣ing accused of having had any other hand in the crime of him, whose head was hung to his Neck, than too great Negligence in watching over a Man that was subject to him. After this 'tis no wonder in my opinion, that the Bastinado should be so frequent at Siam. Sometimes there may be seen several Officers at the Cangue, disposed in a Circle; and in the midst of them will be the head of a man, which they have put to death; and this head will hang by several strings from the Neck of every one of these Officers.

The worst is, that the least appearance of guilt renders an action criminal: To be accused is almost sufficient to be culpable. An action in it self innocent becomes bad, so soon as any one thinks to make a Crime thereof. And from thence proceed the so frequent disgraces of the principal Officers. They know not how, for instance, to reckon up all the Barcalons that the King of Siam has had since he reigned.

The Greatness of the Kings, whose Authority is despotical, is to exercise Power over all, and over their own Brethren. The Kings of Siam do maim them, in several ways, when they can: they take away or debilitate their sight by fire; they render them impotent by dislocation of Members, or sottish by Drinks, securing themselves and their Children against the Enterprizes of their Brethren, only by rendring them incapable of reigning: he that now reigns has not treated his better. This Prince will not therefore envy our King, the sweetness of being beloved by his Subjects, and the Glory of being dreaded by his Enemies. The Idea of a great King is not at Siam, that he should render himself terrible to his Neighbours, provided he be so to his Subjects.

Yet there is this Reflection to be made on this sort of Government, that the Yoke thereof is less heavy, if I may so say, on the Populace than on the Nobles. Ambition in this Country leads to Slavery: Liberty, and the other Enjoy∣ments of Life are for the vulgar Conditions. The more one is unknown to the Prince, and the further from him, the greater Ease he enjoys; and for this reason the Employments of the Provinces are there considered, as a Recompence of the Services done in the Palace.

The Ministry there is tempestuous: not only thro the natural Inconstancy, which may appear in the Prince's Mind; but because that the ways are open for all persons to carry complaints to the Prince against his Ministers. And though the Ministers and all the other Officers, do employ all their artifices to render these ways of complaints ineffectual, whereby one may attack them all, yet all complaints are dangerous, and sometimes it is the slightest which hurts, and which subverts the best established favour. These examples, which very fre∣quently happen, do edifie the People; and if the present King had not too far extended his exactions without any real necessity, his Government would as much please the Populace, as it is terrible to the Nobles.

Nevertheless he has had that regard for his People, as not to augment his Duties on cultivated Lands, and to lay no imposition on Corn and Fish; to the end that what is necessary to Life might not be dear: A moderation so much the more admirable, as it seems that they ought not to expect any from a Prince educated in this Maxim, that his Glory consists in not setting limits to his power, and always in augmenting his Treasure.

But these Kings which are so absolutely the Masters of the Fortune and Life of their Subjects, are so much the more wavering in the Throne. They find not in any person, or at most in a small number of Domesticks, that Fidelity or Love which we have for our Kings. The People which possess nothing in property, and which do reckon only upon what they have buried in the ground, as they have no solid establishment in their Country, so they have no obligation thereto. Being resolved to bear the same Yoke under any Prince whatever, and

having the assurance of not being able to bear a heavier, they concern not them∣selves in the Fortune of their Prince: and experience evinces that upon the least trouble they let the Crown go, to whom Force or Policy will give it. A Sia∣mese, a Chinese, an Indian, will easily die to exert a particular Hatred, or to avoid a miserable Life, or a too cruel Death: but to die for their Prince and their Country, is not a Vertue in their practice. Amongst them are not found the pow∣erful motives, by which our People animate themselves to a vigorous Defence. They have no Inheritance to lose, and Liberty is oftentimes more burdensom to them than Servitude. The Siameses which the King of Pegu has taken in war, will live peaceable in Pegu, at Twenty miles distant from the Frontiers of Siam, and they will there cultivate the Lands which the King of Pegu has given them, no remembrance of their Country making them to hate their new Servitude. And it is the same of the Peguins, which are in the Kingdom of Siam.

The Eastern Kings are looked upon as the adoptive Sons of Heaven. 'Tis believed that they have Souls celestial, and as high above other Souls by their Merit; as the Royal Condition appears more happy than that of other men. Nevertheless, if any one of their Subjects revolts, the People doubt presently which of the two Soul•• is most valuable, whether that of the Lawful Prince, or that of the Rebellious Subject••; and whether the Adoption of Heaven has not passed from the King to the Subject. Their Histories are all full of these examples: and that of China, which Father Martinius has given us, is curious in the ratiociniations, by which the Chineses, I mean the Chinese Philosophers, are often perswaded that they followed the Inclination of Heaven in changing their Soveraign, and sometimes in preferring a High-way-man before their Lawful Prince.

But besides that the despotick Authority is almost destitute of defence, it is moreover rather usurped by him that possesses it, in that the exercise thereof is less communicated. Whoever takes upon him the Spirit or Person of a Prince, has almost nothing more to do to dispossess the Prince; because that the exercise of the Authority being too much reunited in the Prince, there is none besides him that prohibits it in case of need. Thus is it not lawful for a King to be a Minor, or too easie to let himself be governed. The Scepter of this Country soon falls from hands that need a support to sustain it. On the contrary, in Kingdoms where several permanent bodies of Magistracy divide the Splendor and the Exercise of the Royal Authority, these same bodies do preserve it entire for the King, who imparts it to them; because they deliver not to the Usurper that part which is in their hands, and which alone suffices to save that which the King himself knows not how to keep.

In the ancient Rebellions of China it appears, that he who seized on the Royal Seal, presently rendered himself Master of all; because that the people obeyed the Orders where the Seal appear'd, without informing themselves in whose hands the Seal was. And the Jealousie which the King of Siam has of his, that I have said he intrusts with no person, persuades me that it is the same in his Country. The danger therefore to these Princes is in that wherein they place their security. Their Policy requires that their whole Authority should be in their Seal, to exercise it more entire themselves alone: And this Policy as much exposes their Authority, as their Seal is easie to lose.

The same danger is found in a great Treasure, the only spring of all the De∣spotick Governments, where the ruin'd people cannot supply extraordinary Subsidies in publick necessities. In a great Treasure all the Forces of the State reunite themselves, and he that seizes on the Treasure, seizes on the State. So that besides a Treasures ruining the People, on whom it is levied, it frequently serves against those that accumulate it; and this likewise draws the dissipation thereof.

The Indian Government has therefore all the defects of the Despotick Go∣vernment. It renders the Prince and his Subjects equally uncertain: It betrays the Royal Authority, and delivers it up entire, under pretence of putting the more entire Management thereof into the hands of a single person; and more∣over it deprives it of its natural defence, by separating the whole Interest of the

Subjects from that of the Prince and State. Having therefore related how the Kings of Siam do treat their Subjects, it remains to show how they treat, as well with foreign Princes by Embassies, as with the foreign Nations which are fled to Siam.

CHAP. XV. Concerning the Form of Embassies at Siam.

AN Ambassador throughout the East is no other than a Kings Messenger: he represents not his Master. They honour him little, in comparison of the respects which are render'd to the Letters of Credence whereof he is Bearer. Mr. de Chaumont, tho an Ambassador extraordinary, never had a Balon of the Body, not on the very day of his entrance; and it was in a Balon of the Body that the Kings Letter was put, which he had to deliver to the King of Siam. This Balon had four Ʋmbrella's, one at each corner of the Seat; and it was attended with four other Balons of the Body, adorn'd with their Ʋmbrella's, but empty; as the King of Spain, when he goes abroad in his Coach, and that he would be seen and known, has always one which follows him empty, which is called de respeto, a word and custom come from Italy. The Kings Presents were like∣wise carry'd in Balons of the Body; and the same things were observed at the en∣trance of the King's Envoys. Thus the Orientals make no difference between an Ambassador and an Envoy: And they understand not Ambassadors, nor or∣dinary Envoys, nor Residents; because they send no person to reside at a foreign Court, but there to dispatch a business, and return.

The Siameses do never send more nor less than three Ambassadors together. The first is called Rayja Tout, that is to say, Royal Messenger, the second Oubba Tout, and the third Tri Tout (terms which I understand not) but the two last Ambassadors are obliged in every thing to follow the Advice of the first.

Every one therefore who is the carrier of a Letter from the King, is reputed an Ambassador throughout the East. Wherefore, after the Ambassador of Persia, which Mr. de Chaumont left in the Country of Siam, was dead at Tenas∣serim, his Domesticks having elected one amongst them, to deliver the King of Persia's Letter to the King of Siam, he that was elected was received without any other Character, as the real Ambassador would have been, and with the same honors which the King of Persia had formerly granted to the Ambassador of Siam.

But that wherein they treat an Ambassador like a meer Messenger, is, that the King of Siam, in the Audience of Leave, gives him a Recepisse of the Letter he has received from him; and if this Prince returns an Answer, he gives it not to him, but he sends his own Ambassadors with him to carry it.

A foreign Ambassador which arrives at Siam, is stopped at the Entrance of the Kingdom, until the King of Siam has received intelligence thereof; and if he is accompanied with Siamese Ambassadors, as we were, it belongs to the Si∣amese Ambassadors to go before, to carry unto the King their Master, the news of their Arrival, and of the Arrival of the foreign Ambassador, whom they brought with them.

Every foreign Ambassador is lodged and maintained by the King of Siam, and during the time of his Embassy he may exercise Merchandize; but he cannot treat of any affair till he has delivered his Letter of Credence, and communicated his Original Instructions. They dispenced with this last Ar∣ticle to Mr. de Chaumont, and the King's Envoys; but the Ambassadors of Siam dispenc'd not therewith in France: They communicated their Instru∣ctions.

The Ambassador cannot enter into the Metropolis, till he goes directly to Audience, nor continue therein till after the Audience of Leave: in going from the Audience of Leave he departs out of the City, and negotiates nothing more. Wherefore on the Evening before the Audience of Leave, the King of Siam demands of him, Whether he has any thing to propose? And in the Audience of Leave, he asks him, If he is contented?

The Majesty of the Prince resides principally in the Metropolis, 'tis there that the Solemn Audiences are given; out of this City every Audience is accounted private, and without Ceremony. The whole Guard, as well the Ordinary, as that of Ostentation, was put in Arms for the Audience at Siam: the Elephants and the Horses appear'd with their best Harness, and in great number, on the Entry of the King's Envoys, and there was almost nothing of all this for the Audiences at Louvo. At Siam the Ʋmbrella, which was before the King's win∣dow, had nine Rounds, and the two which were at the side had seven each. At Louvo the King had no Ʋmbrella before him, but two on each side, which had each four Rounds apiece, and which mounted up much lower than those of Siam. The King was not at Louvo at a single window, as at Siam; he was in a wooden Tower joined to the Floor of the Hall, into which he enter'd behind, and immediately, by a Step higher than the Hall. So that tho' this Prince was as high at Louvo as at Siam, yet he was at Louvo in the Hall of Audience; whereas at Siam he was in another Room, which had a Prospect into the Hall. Moreover, the Gate of the Hall at Louvo was large, and in the middle of the Tower, that is to say opposite to the King; whereas at Siam the door was low and strait, and almost at the corner of the Hall: differences, which have all their reasons in this Country, where the least things are measured and performed with diligence. At the Audience at Siam there were 50 Mandarins prostrate in the Hall, 25 on each side, in five Ranks, each consisting of five. At the Audiences at Louvo there were no more than 32, 16 on each side, in four Ranks, of four in a Rank. The Audience of Reception, where the Letter of Credence is delivered, is al∣ways given in the chief City, and with all the magnificence imaginable, in respect to the Letter of Credence: the other Audiences are given with∣out the City, and with less Pomp, because there appears no Letter from the King.

The Custom in all Audiences is, that the King speaks first, and not the Am∣bassador. What he speaks in Audiences of Ceremony, is reduced to some Questions almost always the same; after which, he orders the Ambassador to address himself to the Barcalon upon all the Propositions which he has to make. Harrangues please him not at all; tho' he had the goodness to acquaint me, upon the Compliments I had the Honour to make to him, that I was a great Contri∣ver of Words. We were fain to embellish them with Figures, and therein to use the Sun, Moon and Stars; Ornaments of Discourse, which may please them in other things: This Prince thinks that the longer an Ambassador speaks the first time, the less he honours him. And indeed when the Ambassador is only a Messenger, which delivers a Letter, it is natural that he has nothing to say which is not asked him. After the King has spoken to the Ambassador, he gives him Arek and Betel, and a Vest, with which the Ambassador cloaths himself im∣mediately, and sometimes a Sabre, and a Chain of Gold.

This Prince gave Sabres, Chains of Gold and Vests, or sometimes only Vests to the principal French Officers, but gave them Audience only as it were by ac∣cident in his Gardens, or out of his Palace at some Show.

In all sorts of Business, the Indians are slow in concluding, by reason of the length of their Councils, for they never depart from their Customs. They are very phlegmatic and hypocritical. They are insinuating in their Speeches, captious in their Writings, deceitful, to such a degree as to Cheat. The praise which the King of Siam's Wives and Concubines give him, when they would flatter him to the highest degree, was to tell him, not that he was an Hero, or the greatest General in the World, but that he had always been more politic and witty, than all the Princes with whom he had to do. They engage them∣selves in writing as little as they can. They will rather receive you into a Port,

or into a Castle, than they will agree with you to surrender them up to you by a Treaty in ample Form, and sealed by their Barcalon.

The Portugueses being naturally bold and distrustful, have always treated the Indians with a great deal of Loftiness, and with very little Confidence: And the Dutch have thought they could not do better, than herein to imitate the Portugueses; because that indeed the Indians being educated in a Spirit of Ser∣vitude, are crafty, and, as I have said in another place, subservient to those who treat them haughtily, and insolent to those that use them gently. The King of Siam says of his Subjects, that they are of the temper of Apes, who tremble so long as one holds the end of their Band, and who disown their Master, when the Band is loosed. Examples are not rare in India of simple European Factors, who have bastinado'd the Officers of the Indian Kings without being punished. And it is evident, that the certain vigorous Repartees which are sometimes made in our Countries, appear to us more daring, than the Bastinado is in theirs; pro∣vided it be given them in cold Blood, and not in Anger: A Man that suffers himself to be transported with Passion, is what the Indians most contemn.

But as Trade is their most sensible Interest, Presents are essential for them in Embassies. 'Tis a trafficking under an honourable Title, and from King to King. Their Politeness excites them to testify by several Demonstrations, how they esteem the Presents which they have received. If it is any thing of use, tho' it be not for their use, they publickly prepare whatever shall be necessary to use it, as if they had a real desire thereof. If it is any thing to wear, they will adorn themselves therewith in your presence. If they are Horses, they will build a Stable on purpose to lodge them. Was it only a Telescope, they would build a Tower to see with this Glass. And so they will seem to make an high ac∣count of all sorts of Presents, to honour the Prince which sends them, unless he has received Presents from their part with less demonstrations of Esteem. Nevertheless they are really concern'd only for the Profit. Before that the King's Presents went out of our hands, some of the King of Siam's Officers came to take an exact description thereof in writing, even to the counting all the Stones of every sort which were interspers'd in the Embroideries; and to the end that it might not seem that the King their Master took this care to prevent being robbed by his Officers, through whose hands the Presents were to pass, they pretended that this Prince was curious and impatient, and that it was necessary to go render him an account of what this was, and to be ready to an∣swer him exactly upon the least things.

All the Oriental Princes do esteem it a great Honour to receive Embassies, and to send the fewest they can: Because that, in their Opinion, it is a Badge which cannot be alien'd from them and their Riches, and that they can content themselves without the Riches of Foreigners. They look upon Embassies as a kind of Homage; and in their Courts they retain the Foreign Ministers as long as it is possible, to prolong, as much as in them lies, the Honour which they receive. Thus the great Mogul, and the Kings of China and Japan, do never send Ambassadors. The King of Persia likewise sends only to Siam, because that the King of Siam's Ambassador had demanded it, as I proceed to relate.

The Siamese Ambassadors are accountable, because that they are loaded with Goods; and it rarely happens, that they render an Account good enough en∣tirely to avoid the Bastinado. Thus Agi Selim ('tis the name of a Moor, whom the King of Siam sent eight or nine years since into Persia, as his Ambassador) was severely chastised at his return, tho' in appearance he had served very faith∣fully. He had established Commerce with Persia, and had brought with him that Persian Ambassador, who, as I have several times related, dyed at Tenasserim. He was a Moula, or Doctor of the Law of Mahomet, whom Agi Selim had de∣manded of the King of Persia, to instruct, as he pretended, the King of Siam in Mahumetanism. Bernier Tome II. pag. 54. reports that during his abode in the Indies, some Ambassadors from Prester John, who, as every one knows, pro∣fesses to be a Christian, demanded of the great Mogul an Alcoran, and eight of the most renowned Books that were in the Mahumetan Religion; a base Flat∣tery, which exceedingly scandalized Bernier. But generally speaking, these tra∣ding Kings do exceedingly make use of the pretence of Religion, for the increase of their Commerce.

Explication of the Platform of the Hall of Audience of Siam.

• A Three Steps which are placed under the Window, where the King of Siam was, to raise me high enough to deliver him the King's Letter from hand to hand.
• B Three Parasols or Ʋmbrella's.
• C Two pair of Stairs to go up into the place where the King of Siam was.
• D Two Tables covered with Tapestry, on which were laid the King's Present, which could be held there.
• E The Son of Mr. Ceberet standing, holding the King's Letter in a Gold Bason of Fi∣ligreen with a triple Story, the Figure of which is seen at Page
• F Two little square and low Stools, each covered with a little Carpet, for the King's En∣voys to sit on. Monsieur de Chaumont had such another.
• G The Bishop of Metellopolis, Apostolick Vicar, sitting cross-legg'd.
• H Monsieur Constance prostrate at my right hand, and behind me to serve as my Inter∣preter.
• I Father Tachart sitting cross-legg'd.
• K Fifty Mandarins prostrate.
• L The French Gentlemen sitting with their Legs across.
• M A little pair of Brick Stairs to go up to the Hall of Audience.
• N The Wall whereunto this pair of Stairs is fixed.

The Explication of the Platform of the Temple, which should have been inserted in Chap. 2. Part 2.

• A The Steps before the Gates of the Temple.
• B The principal Gate.
• C The two Gates behind.
• D The Piles of Wood which bear the Roof.
• E The Piles of Wood which bear before and behind the Temple.
• FF The Altar.
• G The Figure of Sommona-Codam taking up the all the forepart of the Altar.
• HH The Statues of Pra Mogla, and of Pra Sarabout, less and lower than the first.
• III Other Stautes lesser than the former.
• K. Steps to ascend on the Altar, which is a Mass built with Bricks about 4 Foot high.

CHAP. XVI. Of the Foreigners of different Nations fled to, and setled at Siam.

'TWas, as I have said, the Liberty of Commerce, which had formerly invi∣ted to Siam a great multitude of Strangers of different Nations; who set∣tled there with the Liberty of living according to their Customs, and of pub∣lickly exercising their several ways of Worship. Every Nation possesses a diffe∣rent Quarter. The Quarters which are without the City, and which do com∣pose the Suburbs thereof, the Portugueses do call Camp, and the Siameses Ban. Moreover every Nation chooses its Chief, or its Nai, as the Siameses do speak, and this Chief manages the Affairs of his Nation with the Mandarin, whom the King of Siam nominates for this purpose, and whom they call the Mandarin of this Nation. But Affairs of the least importance are not determined by this Man∣darin, they are carried to the Barcalon.

Amongst the several Nations, that of the Moors has been the best established under this Reign. It once hapned that the Barcalon was a Moor, probably be∣cause the King of Siam thought by this means better to establish his Commerce, amongst the most powerful of his Neighbouring Princes, who do all make pro∣fession of Mahumetanism: The principal Offices of the Court, and of the Pro∣vinces were then in the hands of the Moors: The King of Siam caused several Mosques to be erected for them at his expence, and he still bears the charges of their principal Festival, which they celebrate for several days together, in me∣mory of the Death of Haly, or of his Children. The Siameses, which embraced the Religion of the Moors, had the Priviledge of being exempted from the per∣sonal Service: But the Barcalon Moor soon experienced the Inconstancy of the Fortunes of Siam, he fell into Disgrace, and the Credit of those of his Nation fell afterwards into Decay. The considerable Offices and Employments were taken away from them, and the Siameses which were turned Mahumetans, were forc'd to pay in ready Money for the six Months Service, from which they had been exempted. Nevertheless their Mosques are remaining to them, as well as the publick Protection which the King of Siam gives to their Religion, as to all foreign Religions. There are therefore three or four Thousand Moors at Siam, as many Portugueses born in India, and as many Chineses, and perhaps as many Malays, besides what there is of other Nations.

But the richest Foreigners, and especially the Moors, are retired elsewhere, since the King of Siam has reserved to himself alone almost all the foreign Commerce. The King his Father had heretofore done the same thing, and perhaps it is the Policy of Siam to do it thus from time to time; otherwise it is certain that they have almost always left the Trade free, and that it has fre∣quently flourished at Siam. Ferdinand Mendez Pinto reports, that in his time there were annually above a thousand foreign Ships; whereas at present there goes no more than two or three Dutch Barks.

Commerce requires a certain liberty: no person can resolve to go to Siam, necessarily to sell unto the King what is carry'd thither, and to buy of him alone what one would carry thence, when this was not the product of the Kingdom. For though there were several foreign Ships together at Siam, the Trade was not permitted from one Ship to the other, nor with the Inhabitants of the Country, Natives or Foreigners, till that the King, under the pretence of a preference due to his Royal dignity, had purchased what was best in the Ships, and at his own rate, to sell it afterwards as he pleased: because that when the season for the departure of the Ships presses on, the Merchants choose rather to sell to great loss, and dearly to buy a new Cargo, than to wait at Siam a new season to depart, without hopes of making a better Trade.

A Siamese Song.

〈♫〉〈♫〉 Say Samon eüy leûpacam Son Seüa conêp neüa Tchâon

〈♫〉〈♫〉 Keun diaou nayey pleng nij co tchaoüa pleng day, pleng labam le tchaoüey tchautay

〈♫〉〈♫〉 pleng nij cochaoüa pleng So nayey, peüy Vongle chaóüey Tchiong

〈♫〉〈♫〉 quouang nang Tchang Tchayleu Tcha deun ey.

[illustration]

Mu∣sical Instruments

[illustration]

Statues of Somona Co∣dom

A Brasse Statue

A Brick statue in Demi relief gild••••

A Brasse statue gilded.

[illustration]

A Platforme of the Hall of Audience of Siam

[illustration]

A CONVENT of Talapoins

[illustration]

A Talapat leafe or y^e Umbrelle of y^e Talapoins

In a word, 'tis neither the natural Riches, nor the Manufactures of the King∣dom of Siam, that should tempt one to go thither. The natural Siameses, ruin'd as they are by impositions and services, cannot carry on a great Trade, though they should have all the liberty imaginable▪ The Trade is manag'd only with the superfluous Money, and in the places where the Impositions are very great, there is scarcely found Money necessary for life. The vast summ levied on the people returns slowly to the people, and especially in the remote Provinces; and the whole does not return, because that a great part thereof remains in the hands of those, that tend upon the receipts and expences of the Prince. And as to that part which returns to the people, it remains not in their hands for their uses; it soon goes thence to return to the Princes Coffers: so that it must needs be, that all the small Trades do cease for want of Money; which cannot be, but the general Commerce of a State does greatly suffer. But this is yet much truer at Siam, where the Prince annually accumulates his Revenues, in∣stead of expending them. Having thus explained what respects the King, the Officers, and the People of Siam, it remains to speak of their Talapoins, or Priests.

CHAP. XVII. Of the Talapoins, and their Convents.

THey live in Convents, which the Siameses do call Vat; and they make use of the Temples, which the Siameses do call Pihan, and the Portugueses Pagode, from the Persian word Poutgheda, which signifies a Temple of Idols; but the Portugueses do use the word Pagode, to signify equally the Idol and the Temple.

The Temple and the Convent do take up a very great square piece of ground, encompast with an Inclosure of Bambou. In the middle of the ground stands the Temple, as in the place esteemed the most honourable in their Encampments; and at the corners of this ground, and along the Bambou Inclosure, are ranged the Cells of the Talapoins, like the Tents of an Army; and sometimes the Rows thereof are double, or triple: These Cells are little single Houses, erected on Piles, and that of the Superior is after the same manner, but a little larger and higher than the rest. The Pyramids stand near and quite round the Temple: and the ground which the Temple and the Pyramids take up, besides its being higher, is inclosed between four Walls: but from these Walls to the Cells there likewise remains a great void piece of Ground, which is as it were the Court of the Convent. Sometimes these Walls are all bare, and serve only as an Inclosure to the ground, which the Temple and the Pyramids take up: Sometimes along these Walls there are covered Galleries of the Figure of those, which in our Religious Houses we call the Cloyster; and on a counterwall breast high, which runs along these Galleries, they place in a Train, and close together, a great number of Idols sometimes gilded.

Though at Siam there are some Talapoinesses, or Women, who in most things do observe the Rule of the Talapoins, yet they have no other Convents than those of the Talapoins themselves: The Siameses do think that the advanced Age of all these Women, for there are none young, is a sufficient caution of their Chasti∣ty. There are not Talapoinesses in all the Convents: but in those where any are, their Cells run along one of the sides of the Bambou Inclosure, which I have mentioned, without being otherwise separated from those of the Talapoins.

The Neus, or Talapoin Children, are dispersed one, two, or three into every Talapoins Cell, and they serve the Talapoin with whom they lodge, that is to say with whom they have been placed by their Parents: So that when a Talapoin has two or three Nens, he receives no more. In a word, these Nens are not all young; some there are which do grow old in this Condition, which is not thought entirely religious, and the eldest of all they call Taten. It belongs to

him to pluck up the Weeds which grow in the ground of the Convent, which the Talapoins themselves cannot do, in their opinion, without sin.

The School of the Nens is a Hall of Bambou standing alone; and besides this Hall, there is always such another, where the People carry their Alms on the days when the Temple is shut, and where the Talapoins assemble for their ordinary Conferences.

The Steeple is a Wooden Tower standing also alone, they call it Horacang, or the Belfry; but the Bell has no Clapper. They strike it with a Mallet or Wooden Hammer to sound it: and it is only in War, or for things of War, that they strike their Basons, and other Instruments of Brass or Copper, with Iron Hammers.

Every Convent is under the Conduct of a Superior called Tchaou-Vat, that is to say, Lord or Master of the Convent; but all the Superiors are not of equal dignity: The most honorable are those which they call Sancrat, and the Sancrat of the Convent of the Palace is the most reverend of all. Yet no Superior, nor no Sancrat, has Authority or Jurisdiction over another. This body would be too formidable if it had but one head, and if it acted always unanimously, and according to the same Maxims.

The Missionaries have compared the Sancrats to our Bishops, and the simple Superiors to our Curates; and they have some inclination to believe that this Country has formerly had some Christian Bishops, to whom the Sancrats have succeeded. None but the Sancrats indeed can make Talapoins, as none but Bi∣shops can make Priests. But otherwise the Sancrats have not any Jurisdiction nor any Authority, neither over the People, nor over the Talapoins, which are not of their Convent; and they could not inform me whether they have any particular Character which makes them Sancrats, save that they are Superiors of certain Convents designed for Sancrats. Every Convent therefore design'd for a Sancrat is distinguished from the other Convents, wherein there are only simple Superiors, by some Stones planted round the Temple, and near its Walls, each of which is double, and bears some resemblance, but at a very great di∣stance, with a Mitre set upon a Pedestal. I have inserted the Figure thereof in the Print of a Temple. Their Name in Siamese is Sema. Now 'tis this re∣semblance of these Stones with the Mitres, that is the principal Foundation of the Suspicion, which the Missionaries have, that the Sancrats have succeeded some Bishops. The more of these Stones there is round a Temple, the more the Sancrat is thought advanced in Dignity; but there never is fewer than two, nor more than eight. The Ignorance under which the Siameses are, as to what these Stones do signifie, has put the Missionaries upon seeking the Origine there∣of in Christianity.

The King of Siam gives to the principal Sancrats a Name, an Umbrella, a Se∣dan, and some men to carry it; but the Sancrats do make use of this Equipage only to wait upon the King, and they never are Talapoins that carry the Sedan. The Sancrat of the Palace is now called Pra Viriat.

The Spirit of the Institution of the Talapoins, is, to keep themselves from the Sins of the People, to lead a penitent Life for the Sins of those that bestow Alms upon them, and to live on Alms. They eat not in common, and tho they be very hospitable to the Seculars, which have recourse to them, and even to Christians, yet it is prohibited them to share the Alms which they receive, or at least to do it presently; because that every one of them being thought to repent sufficiently, has no need to redeem his Sins by bestowing Alms on his Companion, and perhaps they would also oblige them all to the fatigue of begging: Nevertheless a Talapoin is not prohibited from ever giving any thing to his Brother, or from assisting him in a real Necessity. They have two Lodg∣ings, one on each side of their door to receive the Passengers, who desire a bed amongst them.

There are two sorts of Talapoins at Siam, as in all the rest of the Indies. Some do live in the Woods, and others in the Cities. And those of the Woods do lead, as they say, a Life which would appear intolerable, and which would doubtless be so in Countries less hot than Siam, or than the Thebais of Aegypt.

All, that is to say those of the Cities, and those of the Woods, are obliged under pain of Fire strictly to keep Celibacy, so long as they continue in their Profession; and the King of Siam, from whose Jurisdiction they cannot with∣draw themselves, pardons them not in this point: for as they have great Privi∣ledges, and amongst other things are exempted from the six Months Service, it imports him that the Profession of Talapoin become not altogether convenient, for fear lest all his Subjects embrace it.

To diminish the number of these priviledged Persons, he causes them to be from time to time examined as to their Knowledge, which respects the Balie Language and its Books: and when we arrived in this Country, he had just re∣duc'd several Thousands to the Secular condition, because they had not been found learned enough. Their Examiner was Oc-Louang Souracac, a young man of about Twenty eight or Thirty years old, the Son of that Oc-Pra Pipitcharat∣cha, who, as I have said, commands the Elephants; but the Talapoins of the Woods had refused to submit to the Examination of a Secular, and consented to be examined only by one of their Superiors.

They educate the Youth, as I have related; and they explain their Doctrine to the People, according as it is written in their Balie Books. They preach the next day after every new and every full Moon, and the People are ever very con∣stant in the Temples. When the Channel of the River is full of Rain-water, until the Inundation begins to sink, they preach every day, from six in the Morning till Dinner-time, and from one in the Afternoon till five in the Even∣ing. The Preacher is seated cross-leg'd in a high Chair of State, and several Ta∣lapoins release one another in this Office.

The People approves the Doctrine which is preach'd to them in these Balie words, sa tou sa, which signifies, it is so Sir, or in other Siamese words which amount to the same sense; and then they give Alms to the Preacher: and those that do preach frequently, not only at this time, but during the whole course of the year, do easily become rich.

Now it is this time which the Europeans have called the Lent of the Talapoins. Their Fasting is to eat nothing from Noon, unless they may chew Betel: but when they do not fast, they only eat Fruit in the Afternoon. The Indians are naturally so sober, that a Fast of Forty, nay of an Hundred days, appears not in∣credible to them. Twist, a Dutch Author, in his Description of the Indies reports, that Experience has certainly evinced that there are some Indians that can fast Twenty, Thirty, and Forty days, without taking any thing but a little Liquor mixed with some bitter Wood reduced to Powder. The Siameses have cited the example of a Talapoin, whom they pretend to have fasted an hundred and seven days, without eating any thing But when I sounded their opinion thereon, I found that they attributed this Fast to Magick; and to prove it to me, they added, that it was easie to live on the Grass of the Fields; provided they breathed thereon, and utter'd certain words, which they understood not, or which they would not in∣form me, or which they said that others understood.

After the Rice-Harvest the Talapoins do go for three Weeks to watch in the Nights in the middle of the Fields, under small Huts of branches of Leaves ranged square; and in the day they return to visit the Temple, and to sleep in their Cells. The Hut of the Superior stands in the middle of the others, and higher. They make no Fire in the Night to scare away the wild Beasts, as all those that travel in the Woods of this Country us'd to do, and as was done round the Tabanques wherein we lodged: So that the People look upon it as a Miracle, that the Talapoins are not devoured; and I know not what precaution they use, except that of enclosing themselves in a Park of Bambou. But doubt∣less they chose places little exposed, remote from the Woods, and where the sa∣vage Beasts cannot come with Hunger, but after having found a great deal of Food, for it is the season wherein there is plenty of Forage on the ground. The People admire also the security, in which the Talapoins of the Woods do live: For they have neither Convent nor Temple to retire into. They think that the Tygers, Elephants, and Rhinoceros do respect them, and lick their hands and feet, when they find any one asleep: but these may make a Fire of Bambou,

to defend themselves from these Animals, they may lie in the closest Thickets; and moreover, though the people should find the remains of some man devoured, it would never be presumed he was a Talapoin; and when they could not doubt thereof, they would presume that this Talapoin had been wicked, and would not cease to believe that the Beasts respect the good. And it must needs be that the Woods are not so dangerous as they report, seeing that so many Families do seek Sanctuary there against the Government.

I know not what the Talapoins do pretend, either by this Watch, or by their Lent; I ignore also what the Chaplets of one Hundred and eight Grains, on which they recite certain Balie words, do mean.

They go with naked feet and bare-headed, like the rest of the People: round their Reins and Thighs they wear the Pagne of the Seculars, but of yellow Lin∣nen, which is the colour of their Kings, and of the Kings of China: and they have no Muslin Shirt, nor any Vest. Their Habit consists of four pieces. The first which they call Angsa, is a kind of Shoulder Belt of yellow Linnen, five or six Inches broad; they wear it on their left Shoulder, and button it with a single button on the right Hip; and it descends not lower than the Hip. Over this Belt they put another great yellow cloath, which is called the Pagne of the Talapoin, and which they call Pa Schivon, or the Cloth of several pieces, because it ought to be patched in several places. 'Tis a kind of Scapulary, which rea∣ches down to the ground behind and before; and which covering only the left Shoulder returns to the right Hip, and leaves the two Arms and all the right Shoulder free. Over the Pa Schivon is the Pa Pat. 'Tis another cloth four or five Inches broad which they do likewise put over the left Shoulder, but like a Hood; it descends to the Navel before, and as much behind as before. Its co∣lour is sometimes red: the Sancrats and the most ancient Talapoins do wear it thus, but the Angsa and the Pa Schivon can never be other than yellow. To keep the Pa Pat and the Pa Schivon in a posture, they girt the middle of their bo∣dy with a Scarf of yellow Cloth which they call Rappacod, and which is the fourth and last piece of their Habit.

When they go a begging they carry an Iron Bason, to receive what is given them; and they carry it in a Linnen Bag, which hangs on the left side, by two ends of a Rope hung like a Belt over the right Shoulder.

They shave all their Beard, Head, and Eyebrows; and to defend themselves from the Sun they have the Talapat, which is their little Ʋmbrella, in form of a Screen, as I have already said in the other part. The Superior is forced to shave himself, because no person can touch his head, without showing him disrespect. By the same reason a young Talapoin dares not to shave an old one: but it is law∣ful for the old to shave the young, I mean those Children whose Education is committed to them, and who know not how to shave themselves. Neverthe∣less when the Superior is very old, it is necessary that he permit another to shave him; and this other does it after having desired an express Permission. In a word, the Razors of Siam are of Copper.

The days on which they shave themselves, are those of the new and full Moon; and on these days the Talapoins and the People do fast, that is to say, they eat nothing from Noon. The People abstain also on these days from going a Fishing, not that Fishing is a work, for they abstain not from any other Labor, but because that, in my opinion, they esteem not Fishing wholly innocent, as we shall see in the sequel. And in fine, the People on these days do carry unto the Convents some Alms, which consist in Money, Fruits, Pagnes, or Cattle. If the Cattle are dead, the Talapoins do eat them: if they are alive, they let them live and die about the Temple; and they eat them only when they die of themselves. Near certain Temples there is also a Pond for the living Fish, which is offer'd to the Temple: and besides these Festival days, common to all the Temples, every Temple has a particular one appointed to receive the Alms, as if it was the Feast of its Dedication: for I could not learn what it is.

The People voluntarily assist at these Festivals, and make a show with their new Cloaths. One of their greatest Charities is to give Liberty to some Ani∣mals, which they buy of those that have taken them in the Fields. What they

give to the Idol, they offer not immediately to the Idol, but to the Talapoins; and they present it to the Idol, either by holding it in their hand before the Idol, or by laying it upon the Altar; and in a little time after they take it away, and convert it to their own uses. Sometimes the People offer up lighted Tapers, which the Talapoins do fasten to the knees of the Statue, and this is the reason why one of the knees of a great many Idols is ungilt. As for bloody Sacri∣fices, they never offer up any, on the contrary they are prohibited from killing any thing.

At the Full Moon of the fifth Month, the Talapoins do wash the Idol with perfumed waters, but respect permits them not to wash its head. They after∣wards wash the Sancrat. And the People go also to wash the Sancrats, and the other Talapoins: And then in particular Families the Children do wash their Parents, without having regard to the Sex; for the Son and the Daughter do equally wash the Father and the Mother, the Grandfather and the Grandmo∣ther. This Custom is observed also in the Country of Laos, with this Singu∣larity, that the King himself is washed in the River.

The Talapoins have no Clock; and they wash themselves only when it is light enough to be able to discern the veins of their hands, for fear lest if they should wash themselves earlier in the morning, they should in walking kill any Insect without perceiving it. This is the reason why they wash later in the shortest days, tho' their Bell fails not to wake them before day.

Being raised, they go with their Superior to the Temple for two hours. There they sing or repeat out of the Balie, and what they sing is written on the Leass of a Tree somewhat longish, and fasten'd at one of the ends, as I have said in discoursing of the Tree which bears them. The People have not any Prayer-Book. The posture of the Talapoins, whilst they sing, is to sit cross-leg'd, and continually to toss their Talipat or Fan, as if they would continually fan them∣selves: so that their Fan goes or comes at each Syllable which they pronounce, and they pronounce them all at equal times, and after the same tone. In en∣tering in and going out of the Temple, they prostrate themselves three times be∣fore the Statue, and the Seculars do observe the same; but the one and the other do remain in the Temple sitting cross-leg'd, and not always pro∣strate.

In going from Prayer, the Talapoins go into the City to beg Alms for an hour; but they never go out of the Convent, and never re-enter, without going to salute their Superior, before whom they prostrated themselves to touch the ground with their Forehead; and because that the Superior sits generally cross-leg'd, they take one of his Feet with both their hands, and put it on their head. To crave Alms they stand at the Gates, without saying any thing; and they pass on after a little time, if nothing is given them. It is rare that the People sends them away without giving them, and besides this their Parents never fail them. The Convents have likewise some Gardens, and cultivated Lands, and Slaves to plough them. All their Lands are free from Taxes, and the Prince touches them not; altho' he has the real property thereof, if he divests not him∣self by writing, which he almost never does.

At their return from begging, the Talapoins do breakfast if they will, and are not always regular in presenting to the Idol what they eat, tho' they do it some∣times after the manner that I have related. Till Dinner-time they study, or employ themselves as to them seems meet, and at Noon they dine. After Din∣ner they read a Lecture to the little Talapoins, and sleep; and at the declining of the day they sweep the Temple, and do there sing as in the morning for two hours, after which they lie down. If they eat in the evening, it is only Fruit; and tho' their day's work seems full by what I have said, they cease not to walk in the City after Dinner for their pleasure.

Besides the Slaves which the Convents may have, they have each one or two Servants which they call Tapacaou, and which are really Seculars, tho' they be habited like the Talapoins, excepting that their Habit is white, and not yellow. They receive the money which is given to the Talapoins, because the Talapoins

cannot touch it without sinning: they have the care of the Gardens and Lands, which the Convent may have, and in a word they act in the Convents for the Talapoins, whatever the Talapoins conceive cannot be done by themselves, as we shall see in the Sequel.

CHAP. XVIII. Of the Election of the Superior, and of the Reception of the Talapoins and Talapoinesses.

WHen the Superior is dead, be he Sancrat or not, the Convent elects ano∣ther, and ordinarily it chuses the oldest Talapoin of the House, or at least the most learned.

If a particular person builds a Temple, he agrees with some old Talapoin at his own choice to be the Superior of the Convent, which is built round this Temple, as other Talapoins come thither to inhabit; for he builds no Talapoins Lodging before-hand.

If any one would make himself a Talapoin, he begins with agreeing with some Superior that would receive him into his Convent; and because there is none but a Sancrat, as I have said, can give him the Habit, he goes to demand it of some Sancrat, if the Superior with whom he would remain, is not him∣self a Sancrat; and the Sancrat appoints him an hour some few days after, and for the Afternoon. Whoever should oppose him would sin; and as this Pro∣fession is gainful, and it lasts not necessarily the whole life, the Parents are al∣ways very glad to see their Children embrace it. I have not heard what Mr. Gervaise reports, that it is needful to have a permission in writing from Oc-ya Pra Sedet, to be receiv'd a Talapoin. I see not likewise how this could be practicable in the whole extent of the Kingdom; and they have always assu∣red me, that it is free for every one to make himself a Talapoin, and that if any one did oppose the reception of another into this Profession, he would sin. When any one therefore is to be admitted, his Parents and his Friends accom∣pany him to this Ceremony with Instruments and Dancers, and they stop fre∣quently by the way to see dancing. During the Ceremony, the Demandant, and the Men that are of his Retinue, do enter into the Temple where the Sancrat is; but the Women, the Instruments, and the Dancers enter not there∣in. I know not who shaves the Head, the Eye-brows and the Beard of the Demandant, or whether he shaves it not himself. The Sancrat gives the Habit with his own hand, and he cloaths himself therewith, letting the secular Habit fall underneath when he has put on the other. Mean while the Sancrat pro∣nounces several Balie words; and when the Ceremony is ended, the new Ta∣lapoin goes to the Convent, where he must remain, and his Parents and Friends accompany him thither: But from this time he must no more hear any Instru∣ment, nor behold any Dance. Some days after the Parents do give an Enter∣tainment to the Convent, and they exhibit a great many Shows before the Temple, which the Talapoins are prohibited to see.

Mr. Gervaise distinguishes the Talapoins into Balouang, Tchaou-cou and Pecou. As for me, I have always heard say that Balouang, which the Siameses do write Pat-louang, is only a Title of Respect. The Siameses gave it to the Jesuits, as we do give them the Title of Reverence. In this Country I never heard speak of the word Picou, but only of Tchaou-cou, which I shall explain in the Sequel, and which some have informed me to be the Siamese word which signifies Ta∣lapoin. So that they say, He is a Tchaou-cou, and I would be Tchaou-cou, to signifie he is a Talapoin, and I would be a Talapoin. Nevertheless as there may be some dif∣ference between the Sancrats and Talapoins, which the persons whom I con∣sulted, knew not, tho' otherwise expert, it may well be that there is some like∣wise

between the Talapoins themselves, some of which might be Pat-louang, and others Picou, and that the general name of all might be Tchaou-cou; I refer my self to Mr. Gervaise.

The Talapoinesses do call themselves Nang Tchii: They are clad in white, like the Tapacaou, and are not esteemed altogether Religious. A simple Superior suf∣ficeth to give them the Habit, as well as to the Nens: And altho' they cannot have any carnal Commerce with Men, yet are they not burnt upon this account, as the Talapoins are, which are surprized in a Fault with the Women. They deliver them up to their Parents to bastinado them, because that neither the Talapoins nor the Talapoinesses can strike any person.

CHAP. XIX. Concerning the Doctrine of the Talapoins.

ALL the Indies are full of Talapoins, tho' they have not everywhere this Name, and live not everywhere after the same manner. Some marry, and others strictly observe Celibacy. Some eat Meat, provided it is given them slain, others never eat any. Some do kill Animals, others kill none at all; and others do kill very rarely, and for some Sacrifice. Their Doctrine appears not more exactly the same in all places, tho' the Foundation thereof be always the opinion of the Metempsychosis; and their Worship is also various, tho' it always refers to the dead.

It seems that they believe all Nature animated, not only Men, Beasts and Plants, but the Heaven, the Planets, the Earth, and the other Elements, the Rivers, the Mountains, the Cities, the Houses themselves. And moreover, as all Souls appear to them of the same Nature, and indifferent to enter into all Bodies, of what kind soever they be, it seems that they have not the Idea of the Animation as we have. They believe that the Soul is in the Body, and that it rules the Body, but it appears not that they believe like us, that the Soul is physically united to the Body, to make one with it. So far are they from think∣ing that the natural Inclinations of Souls is to be in Bodies, that they believe it is a Penance for them, to extirpate their Sins by their Sufferings, because that indeed there is no kind of Life which has not its Troubles. The supreme Feli∣city of the Soul, in their opinion, is not to be obliged to animate any Body, but to remain eternally in repose. And the true Hell of the Soul is on the contra∣ry, according to them, the perpetual necessity of animating Bodies, and of pas∣sing from one to another by continual Transmigrations. 'Tis said, that amongst the Talapoins, there are some which boldly assert, that they remember their past Transmigrations; and these Testimonies do doubtless suffice to confirm the People in the Opinion of the Metempsychosis. The Europeans have sometimes translated by the word Tutelar Genius, the Souls which the Indians give to the Bodies, which we esteem inanimate: But these Genii are certainly in the Opi∣nion of the Indians only real Souls, which they suppose equally to animate all the Bodies wherein they are present, but after a manner which corresponds not to the Physical Ʋnion of our Schools.

The Figure of the World, according to their Doctrine, is eternal; but the World which we see is not, for whatever we see therein, lives in their Opinion, and must die; and at the same time there will spring up other Beings of the same kind, another Heaven, another Earth, and other Stars; and this is the ground of what they say, that they have seen Nature decay and revive again several times.

No Opinion has been so generally receiv'd amongst Men, as that of the Im∣mortality of the Soul; but that the Soul is immaterial, is a Truth the knowledg of which is not so much propagated; Thus is it a very great difficulty to give

unto a Siamese the Idea of a pure Spirit; and this is the Testimony which the Missionaries give thereof, that have been longest amongst them. All the Pagans of the East do believe indeed that there remains something of Man after his death, which subsists separately and independantly from its body; but they give extent and figure to what ramains, and in a word they attribute unto it all the same Members, and all the same solid and liquid Substances whereof our Bodies are composed. They suppose only that the Souls are of a matter subtile enough, to be free from touch and sight; tho' they believe that if any one be wounded, the blood which flows from its wound, may appear. Such were the Manes and Shades of the Greeks and Romans, and it is by this figure of the Souls like unto that of the Bodies, that Virgil supposes that Aeneas knew Palinurus, Dido, and Anchises in Hell.

Now what is altogether impertinent in this Opinion, is, that the Orientals cannot tell why they attribute the humane Figure, rather than any other, to the Soul, which they suppose able to animate all sorts of Bodies, besides the humane Body. When the Tartar which now reigns at China, would force the Chineses to shave their hair after the Tartarian fashion, several of them chose rather to suffer death, than to go, they said, into the other World, to appear before their Ancestors without hair; imagining, that they shaved the head of the Soul, by shaving that of the Body.

The Souls therefore, tho' material, are yet imperishable in their Opinion; and at their departure out of this life, they are punished or recompenced, with Pu∣nishments or Pleasures proportioned in greatness and duration to their good or evil works, until they re-enter into the humane Body, wherein they must enjoy a Life more or less happy, according to the Good or Evil they have committed in a former Life.

If a Man is unfortunate before he has done amiss, as if he is dead-born, the Indians believe that he has merited it in a former Life, and that then perhaps he caused some Great-belly'd Woman to miscarry. If, on the contrary, they ob∣serve a wicked Man to prosper, they believe that he enjoys the Recompence which he has merited in another Life by good Actions. If the Life of the Man is mixt with Prosperity and Adversity, 'tis because every Man, they say, has done Good and Evil when he formerly lived. In a word, no Person suffers any Mis∣fortune, according to their Opinion, if he has always been innocent; nor is he always happy, if he has at any time been culpable; nor does he enjoy any Pro∣sperity, which he has not merited by some good Action.

Besides the divers manners of being of this World, as of Plant, or of Ani∣mal, to which the Souls are successively linked after death, they reckon several places out of this World, where the Souls are punished or rewarded. Some are more happy, and others more miserable than the World wherein we are. They make all these places as Stages in the whole extent of Nature, and their Books do vary in the number; tho' the most common Opinion is, that there are nine happy, and as many unhappy. The nine happy places are over our heads, the nine unhappy are under our feet; and the higher a place is, the happier it is; as also the lower it is, the more unhappy it is: so that the happy extend far above the Stars, as the unhappy do sink a great way beneath the earth. The Siameses do call the Inhabitants of the superior Worlds Theuada, those of the inferior Worlds Pii, and those of this World Manout. The Portugueses have translated the word Theuada by that of Angels, and the word Pii by that of Devils; and they have given the Name of Paradice to the superior Worlds, and that of Hell to the inferior.

But the Siameses do not believe that the Souls in departing out of the Body do pass into these places, as the Greeks and Romans thought that they went into Hell: they are born, according to them, at the places where they go; and there they do live a life, which from us is conceal'd, but which is subject to the infir∣mities of this, and unto death. Death and a new Birth are always the road from one of these places to another, and it is not till after having lived in a cer∣tain number of places, and during a certain time, which ordinarily extends to some thousands of years, that the Souls there punished or recompenced, do hap∣pen to spring up again in the World wherein we are.

Now as they suppose that the Souls have a new habitation in the places where they revive, they think they stand in need of the things of this Life; and all the ancient Paganism believed the same. With the body of a dead man, the Gauls burnt the things which he had most esteemed, during his Life, Move∣ables, Animals, Slaves, and even free Persons, if he had any singularly devoted to his Service.

They still practice worse than this, if it is possible, among the Pagans of the true India, where the Wife glories in burning herself alive with the body of her Husband, to meet his Soul in the other world. I well know that some presume that this Custom was formerly introduced in the Indies, to secure the Husbands from the Treason of their Wives, by forcing them to die with them. Mandesh reports this opinion, and Strabo had reported it before him, and had disapproved it, thinking it improbable either that such a Law was established, or that such a reason for establishing it was true: Indeed, besides that this Cu∣stom is extended to the Moveables and Animals, things all innocent, it is free in regard of the Women, none of which dies after this manner, if she desires it not; and it has been received in too great a part of the Country, to imagine that the Crimes of the Women have given occasion thereunto. Wives to be Slaves, or as Slaves to their Husbands, are not either more dissatisfied with their Condition, nor greater Enemies to their Husbands, and they change no part of the Condition as to this regard, by a second Marriage. Thus it is observed that the Indian Women have always look'd upon the Liberty they have of dying with their Husbands, not as a Punishment, but as a Felicity which is offered them. The Wo∣men Slaves do sometimes follow their Mistress to the Funeral Pile, but volun∣tarily and without compulsion. And moreover it is not a thing without pre∣cedent in the Indies, that an Husband enamour'd with his Wife, will burn himself with her, in hopes of going to enjoy another Life with her.

Navarette reports it is a Custom of the Tartars, that when there dies one amongst them, one of his Wives hangs herself, to follow him into the other World; but that the Tartar which reigned at China in 1668. abolished this Custom: and he adds, that though it be not common to the Chineses, nor ap∣proved by Confucius, yet it is not without example. He relates one in his time, of the Vice-Roy of Canton, who being poysoned himself, and feeling the ap∣proach of Death, called her whom he loved the best of his Wives, and desired her to follow him: which she did by hanging herself so soon as he was dead.

But certainly neither the Chineses, nor the Tonquineses, nor the Siameses, nor the other Indians beyond the Ganges, have ever, as it is known, received the Custom of permitting the Women to burn: and moreover they have by a wise Oeconomy established, that instead of real Furniture and Money, it should suf∣fice to burn with the dead bodies, those very things delineated in paper cut, and oftentimes painted or gilded: under pretence, in my opinion, that in matter of Types, those of the things in Paper were as good as those of the things them∣selves, which the Paper represents. Wherefore the People report, that this Paper which is burnt, is converted in the other Life to the things which it re∣presents. The richest Chineses cease not to burn at least some real Stuffs, and they burn moreover so much Paper, that this expence alone is considerable.

But all these Oriental People do not only believe that they may be helpful to the dead, as I have already explained: they think also that the dead have the power of tormenting and succouring the living: and from hence comes their Care and Magnificence in Funerals; for it is only in this that they are magni∣ficent. Hence it comes also that they pray to the dead, and especially the Ma∣nes of their Ancestors to the Great-Grand-Father, or to the Great-Great-Grand-Father; presuming that the rest are so dispersed by divers Transmigrations, that they can hear them no more. The Romans likewise prayed to their dead An∣cestors, tho they believed them not to be Gods. Thus Germanicus in Tacitus, at the beginning of a military expedition besought the Manes of his Father Drusus to render it happy, because that Drusus himself had made war in that Country.

But by a prevention, which I see diffused likewise among the Christians, that are afraid of Spirits, the Orientals neither expect nor fear any thing from the dead of foreign Countries, but from the dead of their City, or of their Quar∣ter, or of their Profession, or of their Family.

CHAP. XX. Of the Burials of the Chineses and Siameses.

THE Burials of the Chineses are described in several Relations, but I shall not forbear speaking a word thereof, to render those of the Siameses more intelligible; because that the Customs of a Country do always better illustrate themselves, by the comparison of the Customs of the neighbouring Countries.

The first care of the Chineses in Burials is to have a Coffin of precious Wood; in which they do sometimes make an expence above their Fortune: and though they bury their bodies without burning them, they forbear not, at their Inter∣ment, to burn Goods, Houses, Animals, Money, and whatever is necessary to the Conveniences of Life; but all in Paper, except some real Stuffs which are burnt at the Funerals of the rich. Father Semedo reports, that at the Burial of a Queen of China her goods were really burnt. The second care of the Chineses in Burials is, to chuse out a place proper for the Tomb. They chuse it accord∣ing to the advice of the Soothsayers, imagining that the repose of the deceased depends on this choice, and that of the felicity and repose of the living depends on the repose of the dead. If therefore they are not the Proprietors of the place declared by the Soothsayers, they fail not to buy it, and sometimes dearly. And in the third place, besides the Funeral Train, which is great, they give magnificent entertainments to the dead person, not only when they bury him, but annually on the same day, and several times in the year.

In their House they have a Chamber designed for the Manes of their An∣cestors, where from time to time they go to render the same Devotions to their Figure, as they render'd to their Body in interring it. They do again burn Perfumes, Stuffs, and cut Papers; and they do make them new repasts. The Tonquineses, according to Father de Rhodes, do intermix these sorts of repasts with Paper-meats, which they burn. The same Author very largely relates the Prayers which the Tonquineses make to the dead, how they demand of them a long and happy Life; with what zeal they redouble their Worship and Prayers in their Misfortunes, when the Soothsayers assure them that they ought to attribute the cause thereof to the Anger of their Parents.

Several Relations of China assert, that the learned men, which in this Coun∣try are the most important Citizens, do consider the Ceremonies of Funerals, only as civil Duties, to which they add no Prayers: That at present they have not any sense of Religion, and do not believe the existence of any God, nor the Immortality of the Soul; and that tho they render unto Confucius an exterior Worship in the Temples which are consecrated to him, yet they demand not of him the Knowledge, which the learned Men of Tonquin demand of him.

But, whether the Funerals which the learned Chineses do make for their Pa∣rents be without Prayers, or not; it is certain that the ancient Spirit of the Doctrine of the Chineses, was to believe the Immortality of the Soul, to expect good and evil from the dead, and to address some Prayers unto them, if not in Burials, at least in the disgraces of Life to attract their protection. Moreover, what opinion soever they have had of the Power of the dead to succor the liv∣ing, it is very probable that they thought, that the dead were in need at the moment of the Burial, that is to say in the Entrance and Establishment of another Life, and that it then belonged to the living to succor the dead, and not to de∣mand succor of them.

But it is time to relate what the Funerals of the Siameses are. So soon as a man is dead his body is shut up in a wooden Coffin, which is varnished and gild∣ed on the outside: and as the Varnish of Siam is not so good as that of China, and hinders not the stench of the dead body from passing through the cracks of the Coffin, they endeavour at least to consume the Intestines of the dead with Mercury, which they pour into his Mouth, and which, they say, comes out at the Fundament. They sometimes make use also of Leaden Coffins, and some∣times also they gild them: but the Wood of their Coffins is not so precious as at China, because they are not so rich as the Chineses. Out of a respect they place the Coffin on some high thing, and generally on a Bedsted which hath feet, and so long as the body is kept at the house, whether to expect the Head of the Family, if he is absent, or to prepare the Funeral Solemnities, they burn Per∣fumes and Tapers by the Coffin; and every night the Talapoins come to sing in the Balie Language, in the Chamber where it is exposed: they do range them∣selves along the Walls. They entertain them, and give them some Money: and what they sing are some moral Subjects upon Death, with the Road to Heaven, which they pretend to show to the Soul of the deceased.

Mean while the Family chuses a place in the Field, there to carry and burn the body. This place is generally a Spot near the Temple, which the Deceased, or some of his Ancestors had built; or near some other Temple, if there is none peculiar to the Family of the deceased, This space is inclosed with a square inclosure made of Bambou, with some kind of Architecture, almost of the same work as the Arbours and Bowers of our Gardens, and adorned with those Papers Painted or Gilded, which they cut to represent the Houses, Move∣ables, and Domestic and Savage Animals. In the middle of this Inclosure the Pile composed entirely or partly of Odoriferous wood, as are the white or yellow Saunders, and Lignum Aloes, and this according to the Wealth and Dignity of the deceased. But the greatest honor of the Funeral consists in erect∣ing the Pile, not in eagerly heaping up Wood, but in great Scaffolds, on which they do put Earth, and then Wood. At the Burial of the late Queen, who died seven or eight years ago, the Scaffold was higher than ever was yet seen in this Country, and a Machine was desired of the Europeans, to raise the Coffin decently to that heighth.

When it is resolved to carry the Corps to the Pile (which is always done in the Morning) the Parents and Friends do carry it with the sound of a great ma∣ny Instruments. The Body marches first, then the Family of the deceased, Men and Women all cloathed in White, their Head covered with a White Vail, and lamenting exceedingly; and in fine, the rest of the Friends and Re∣lations. If the Train can go all the way by water, it is so done. In very magnificent Funerals they carry great Machines of Bambou covered with paint∣ed and gilded Paper, which represents not only Palaces, Moveables, Elephants, and other common Animals, but some hideous Monsters, some of which re∣semble the humane Figure, and which the Christians take for the Figures of Devils. They burn not the Coffin, but they take out the body which they leave on the Pile: and the Talapoins of the Convent, near which the body is burnt, do sing for a quarter of an hour, and then retire to appear no more. Then begin the shows of the Cone and of the Rabam, which are at the same time, and all the day long, but on different Theaters. The Talapoins think not that they can be present thereat without Sin; and these Shows are not exhibited at Fune∣rals upon any religious Account, but only to render them more magnificent. To the Ceremony they add a festival Air, and yet the Relations of the deceased forbear not to make great Lamentations, and to shed many Tears, but they hire no Mourners, as some have assured me.

About Noon the Tapacaou, or Servant of the Talapoins, sets fire to the Pile, which generally burns for two hours. The Fire never consumes the body, it only roasts it, and oftentimes very ill: but it is always reputed for the Honor of the deceased, that he has been wholly consumed in an eminent place, and that there remains only his Ashes. If it is the Body of a Prince of the Blood, or of a Lord whom the King has loved, the King himself sets fire to the Pile,

without stirring out of his Palace. He lets go a lighted Torch along a Rope, which is extended from one of the Windows of the Palace to the Pile. As to the cut Papers, which are naturally designed for the Flames, the Talapoins do frequently secure them, and seize them to lend them to other Funerals; and the Family of the deceased permits them to do it. In which it appears that they have forgot the reason, why the neighbouring Nations dispence not from burn∣ing such Papers effectually: and in general it may be asserted, that there are no Persons in the world, which do ignore their own Religion so much as the Tala∣poins. It is very difficult, say some, to find any one amongst them that knows any thing. It is necessary to seek their Opinions in the Balie Books, which they keep, and which they study very little.

The Family of the deceased entertains the Train, and for three days it be∣stows Alms: viz. On the day that the body is burnt, to the Talapoins which have sung over the body, the next day to their whole Convent, and the third day to their Temple.

This is what is practised at the Funerals of the Siameses: to which it is requi∣site only to add, that they imbellish the Show with a great many Fire-works, and that if the Funerals are for a man of great consequence, they last with the same Shows for three days.

It sometimes also happens that a Person of great Quality causes the body of his Father to be digged up again, though a long time dead, to make him a pompous Funeral; if when he died, they made him not such a one, as was worthy of the present Elevation of the Son. This participates of the Customs of the Chineses, who communicate as much as they can to their dead Relations, the Honors to which they arrive. Thus when a man not born a Kings Son arrives at the Crown of China, he will with certain Ceremonies cause the Ti∣tle of King to be given to his deceased Father.

After the body of a Siamese has been burnt, as I have said, the whole Show is ended; they shut up the remains of his Body in the Coffin, without any Or∣der; and this depositum is laid under one of those Pyramids, wherewith they encompass their Temples. Sometimes also they bury precious Stones, and other Riches with the body, because that it is to put them in a place which Re∣ligion renders inviolable. Some there are who say, that they cast the Ashes of their Kings into the River, and I have read of the Peguins, that they make a Paste of the Ashes of their Kings with Milk, and that they bury it at the mouth of their River when the Sea is retired: but as the Fire never consumes all, and as it principally spares the Bones, the Siameses and Peguins do put these remains of their Kings under Pyramids. These Pyramids are called Pra Tchiai di. Pra is that Baly Term, which I have frequently mentioned. Tchiai-di signifies Good Heart, that is to say Contentment, as I have explained it in the other part: So that Pra Tchiai-di amounts to these words sacred repose, as much as those of Repose and Contentment do resemble.

A Tomb quite flat like ours would not in their opinion be honourable enough, they must have something of Eminence: and this is the fancy of the Pyramids of Aegypt, and the Mausolea. Some People yet more vain have joyned Epitaphs thereto: and because that time effaces the Inscriptions, which are exposed to view, others have secretly put their names on the principal Stones of certain stately edifices: So that when they are discovered, their work is already demo∣lished to the Foundation. The Siameses still keep to the first degree of Vanity, which is single Pyramids without any Epitaph, and so slightly erected, that those which last longest, do never last an Age.

Those that have neither Temple nor Pyramid, do sometimes keep at their house the ill burnt remains of their Parents: But there hardly is a Siamese rich enough to build a Temple, who does it not, and who buries not the Riches he has remaining. The Temples are inviolable Sanctuaries, as I have said, and the Kings of Siam, as well as particular persons, commit their Treasures to them. I know that the Siameses have demanded some smooth Files of the Europeans, to cut the great Iron Bars which linked the Stones in the Temples, under which there was Gold concealed. The Siameses which have not wherewith to build a

Temple, cease not at least to make some Idol, which they give to some of the Temples already built: Which in these People is a sentiment of Vanity or Religion, whereas the building of Temples may be as much the Interest of pre∣serving their Riches to their Family, as any other thing.

The Poor interr their Parents without burning them; but if it is possible for them, they invite the Talapoins, who stir not without a Gratuity. Those that have not wherewithal to pay the Talapoins, do think they do honor enough to their dead Parents, to expose them in the Field on an eminent place; that is to say on a Scaffold, where the Vulturs and the Crows devour them.

I have already said, that in Epidemical Distempers they bury the Bodies without burning them; and that they dig them up and burn them some years after, when they think all the danger of the Infection is past.

But they never burn those that Justice cuts off, nor Infants dead-born, nor Women that die in Child-bed, nor those which drown themselves, or which perish by any other extraordinary disaster, as by a Thunderbolt. They rank these unfortunate persons amongst the guilty, because they believe that such Misfortunes never happen to innocent Persons.

Mourning at China is prescirbed by the Law, and that for the Father and Mo∣ther lasts three years, and deprives or bereaves the Son during this time, of all sorts of publick Employment, if it is not Military: though to me it seems that this exception as to Millitary Employments, is a late establishment. On the contrary, the Siameses have no forced Mourning: they give marks of Sor∣row only as much as they are Afflicted; so that it is more common at Siam, that the Father and the Mother put on Mourning for their Children, than that the Children wear it for their Father and Mother. Sometimes the Father turns Talapoin and the Mother Talapoinesse, or at least they shave the head one of the other: but there is only the true Talapoins, that can likewise shave the Eye-brows.

To me it appeared not that the Siameses invoke their dead Parents, what en∣quiry soever I have made upon it; but they cease not to believe themselves frequently tormented with their Apparitions: and then they carry Viands to their Tombs, which the Beasts do eat; and they give Alms for them to the Ta∣lapoins, because they think that Charity is a Ransom for the Sins of the dead, as well as of the living. Besides this the Siameses almost on all occasions, do offer up Prayers to the good Genij, and imprecations against the bad, of which I have already given some examples; And these Genij are certainly in their opi∣nion only Souls, all as I have said, of the same Nature.

The wicked Genij are the Souls of those, which dye, either by the hand of Justice, or by some of those extraordinary misfortunes, which make them to be judged unworthy of Funeral Honors. The good Genij are all the other Souls, esteemed more or less good, according as they have been more or less Virtuous in this life. And this wholly resembles the Opinion of Plato, who requires that one should adhere to Vertue during life, to the end that the custom thereof may continue after death. This amounts likewise to that Antient O∣pinion, which was spread also amongst some of the Antient Christians, that the Souls of the good are changed into Angels, and the Souls of the wicked in∣to Devils. But amongst the Indians, this doctrine is no other, than that the Souls of the good, spring up again after Death, in one of those places, which the Portugueses have called Paradice, and the Souls of the wicked, in one of those other places, which they do call Hell. Some continuing to be good after Death, do good to men, others continuing to be wicked, do hurt to men, and every thing else, as much as they can. And who knows whether these seve∣ral Paradices which they believe, are not a confused remembrance of the seve∣ral Orders of the Celestial Spirits.

Now through an incredible blindness, the Indians admit not any Intelligent Being, which judges of the goodness or badness of Humane actions, and which orders the Punishment or Recompence thereof. Upon this account they ad∣mit only a blind fatalility, which, say they, is the reason that Prosperity accom∣panies Vertue, and Misfortune Vice; as it determines heavy things to descend,

and light things to ascend. And because that nothing more repugns reason, than to suppose an exact Justice in chance, or in the Necessity of Fate, the Indi∣an People incline themselves to believe something Corporeal in good or bad works, which, they say, has the power of doing unto men, the Good or Evil which they deserve. But since we have often said, that the Indians do own the distinction of good or bad Works, it is necessary to set down the Principles of of their Morality.

CHAP. XXI. Of the Principles of the Indian Morals.

THey are reduced to five Negative Precepts, very near the same in all the Cantons of the Indies. Those of the Siameses are such as follow.

• 1. Kill nothing.
• 2. Steal nothing.
• 3. Commit not any impurity.
• 4. Lye not.
• 5. Drink no intoxicating Liquor, which in general they call Laou.

The first Precept is not limited to the Killing either Men or Animals: but it extends to Plants, and to Seeds; because that by a very probable Opinion, they believe that the Seed is only the Plant it self in a Cover. The Man therefore observing this Precept, as they understand it, can live only on Fruit; foras∣much as they consider the Fruit not as a thing which has Life, but as a part of a thing which has Life, and which suffers not, though its Fruit be pluck'd. In eating the Fruit it is necessary only not to eat the Kernel nor Stone, because they are Seeds: and it is necessary not to eat Fruit out of season, that is to say, in my opinion, before the Season; because that it is to make the Seed, which the Fruit contains, abortive, by hindering it from ripening.

Besides this, the Precept of not killing, extends to the not destroying any thing in Nature: by reason they think that every thing is animated, or if you will, that there are Souls every where, and that to destroy any thing what∣ever, is forceably to dispossess a Soul. They will not, for instance, break a Branch of a Tree, as they will not break the Arm of an innocent Person. They believe that it is to offend the Soul of the Tree. But when once the Soul has been expelled out of a body, they look upon this as a Destruction already wrought, and think nothing to be destroyed in nourishing themselves with this Body. The Talapoins make not any scruple of eating what is dead, but of kil∣ling what they think alive.

In several things they testify a greater Abhorrence of Blood, than of Murder: It is prohibited them to make any Incision, from whence there gushes out Blood; as if the Soul was principally in the Blood, or that it was only the Blood. And this perhaps is a confused remembrance of the ancient Command of God, who permitting unto man the use of Meats, prohibited him from eating the Blood of the Animals, because that the Blood supplys in them the place of the Soul. There are some Indians which dare not to cut a certain Plant, because there comes out a red Juice, which they take for the Blood of this Plant. The Sia∣meses do scruple to go a fishing, only on the days when the Talapoins shave their Head. This done, it seems to them that when they fish, they commit no Crime; by reason they think not themselves guilty of the Death of the Fishes. They say they only pull them out of the Water, and shed not their Blood. The least evasion sufficeth them to elude the Precepts. Thus they think not to sin by killing in War, because they shoot not direct at the Enemy: though at the bottom they endeavour to kill, as I have already explained it, discoursing of their manner of fighting.

But if any one tells them, that according to the opinion of the Metempsychosis, Murder oftentimes appears laudable, seeing that it may deliver a Soul from a miserable Life: They answer that forceably to dispossess Souls is always to offend them; and that moreover they are not relieved, because they re enter into the like Bodies, there to fill up the rest of the time, during which they are designed for this sort of Life. But they consider not that this reason would also prove that they did no real Injury in killing: and the Chineses who in this do think otherwise than the Siameses, do kill their Children when they have too many, and they alledge that it is to make them spring up more happy.

Moreover all the Indians do think, that to kill themselves is not only a thing permitted, because they believe themselves Masters of their selves; but that it is a Sacrifice advantageous to the Soul, and which acquires it a great degree of Vertue and Felicity. Thus the Siameses do sometimes hang themselves out of Devotion, on a Tree which in Balie they call Pra sa maha Pout, and in Siamese Ton po. These Balie words do seem to signifie the excellent, or the holy Tree of the great Mercury; for Pout signifies Mercury, in the Balie Name of Wednesday. The Europeans do call this Tree, the Tree of the Pagodes, because the Siameses do plant it before the Pagods. It grows in the Woods like the other Trees of the Country, but no particular Person can have thereof in his Garden; and it is of this Wood, that they make all the Statues of Sommona-Codom, which they would make of Wood. But in that Zeal which sometimes determines the Sia∣meses to hang themselves, there is always some evident subject of a great di∣staste of Life, or of a great Fear, as is that of the Anger of the Prince.

'Tis about six or seven years since a Peguin burnt himself, in one of the Tem∣ples, which the Peguins at Siam have called Sam-Pihan. He seated himself cross-leg'd, and besmear'd his whole body, with a very thick Oil, or rather with a sort of Gum, and set fire thereunto. 'Twas reported that he was very much discon∣tented with his Family, which nevertheless lamented exceedingly about him. After the Fire had smother'd and roasted him well, his body was covered with a kind of Plaister; and thereof they made a Statue which was gilded and put up∣on the Altar, behind that of the Sommona-Codom. They call these sorts of Saints Pra tian tee; tian signifies true, tee signifies certainly. Behold then how the Sia∣meses understand the first Precept of their Moral Law.

I have nothing particular to say upon the second: but as to the third which prohibits all manner of Uncleanness, it extends not only to Adultery, but to all carnal Commerce of a Man with a Woman, and to Marriage itself. Not on∣ly Celibacy is amongst them a state of Perfection, but Marriage is a state of Sin: either through that Spirit of Modesty, which amongst all Nations is an∣next to the use of Marriage, and which seems therein to suppose an evil where∣at they blush: or through a general Aversion to all natural indecencies, some of which were legal Impurities among the Jews. They wash themselves amongst certain People after having seen their Wives, as after some other sort of Pollution. Mahomet thought Women unworthy of Paradice, and without declaring what they shall become, he promises some fairer and more beautiful to his Elect.

The Chinese Philosophers do say, that a Wife is a thing evil in itself, and that one must neither keep his own, nor take another, when he has Children, that may render unto their Parents from whom they are born, and to their Ancestors, the Duties which the Christian Religion thinks necessary to the repose of the dead. Without this pretended necessity they would believe Marriage unlawful, and so soon as they have Children, they think it a Vertue to make a Divorce. They cite the example of Confucius, who quitted his Wife when he had a Son: they alledge the example of this Son, who likewise quitted his; and the exam∣ple and opinion of several other Chinese Philosophers, who have made a Divorce with their Wives, and who have esteemed the Divorce amongst the virtuous Actions. They condemn as a Corruption of the ancient manners of China, the Opi∣nion of the modern Chinese People, who as well as the Siameses, guided by the sen∣timents of Nature, look upon Divorce, if not as an Evil, at least as a Misfortune. I know nothing concerning the fourth Precept, which deserves to be explained.

The fifth not only prohibits intoxicating, but the drinking of any Liquor, which may intoxicate, though one makes not himself drunk therewith. They esteem a thing evil in itself, which may hurt by the quantity.

'Tis thus that they understand their Precepts, neither do they believe that real Vertue is made for every one, but only for the Talapoins. They think that what is Sin in itself, is Sin for all; and the Talapoins make neither Vow, nor any thing whatever, which is a Sin in them, which is not a Sin to all the World; but according to them, the Trade of Seculars is to sin, and that of the Talapoins not to sin, and to exercise Repentance for those that sin. They comprehend like us, that those who are designed to expiate the Sins of others by Repentance, ought to be more pure than others; and that the Punishment due and necessa∣rily annext to Sin, may yet pass from the guilty to the innocent, if the innocent will willingly submit himself to deliver the guilty. Moreover they conceive the Nature of Sin very grosly, and very materially; for the Talapoins content them∣selves with abstaining from Actions which they think wicked, but they scruple not to make the Seculars commit them, to get Advantage thereby. Thus when they would eat Rice, Rice being a Seed they cannot boil it without Sin, because it is to kill it: But they make their Tapacaou, which are their Domestic Seculars, or rather they cause the Talapoin-Children, which they educate, to commit this pretended Sin; and when the Rice is boiled, then they eat it. They are also prohibited to piss on the Fire, or in the Water, or on the Earth, because that this would be to extinguish the Fire, or to corrupt those two other Elements: they piss in some Vessel, and a Secular Servant pours it where he pleases, and it matters not whether he sins. The Seculars do therefore observe, or elude the Precepts only through the fear of the publick Chastisements, or through the natural strangeness which they might have to what they shall think Sin; but they ransom their Sins by their good Works, which principally consist in bestowing Alms on the Temples and Talapoins, according to the ancient Tradi∣tion known perhaps throughout the Earth, and so frequently repeated in the Holy Scripture, that Alms deeds ransom Sins. It is easie also to observe in them a very natural and very just sentiment, which is that they much more condemn the Sins which may be easily avoided, than those which are inevitable, though they think that all are Sins. But to the end that the Morality of the Talapoins may be better understood, I will insert at the end of this Work, most of their Maxims verbatim, as they were given me. I will add only some Remarks to make them better understood.

There will be seen the respect which they have for the Elements, and for all Nature. They are prohibited to speak injuriously of any thing natural; to dig any hole in the Earth, and not to fill it up again after they have done it; to boil the Earth, as to boil Rice; to kindle the Fire, because it is to destroy that with which it is kindled; and to extinguish it when it is once kindled. There we shall see that they take care of Purity and Decency, as much as of real Virtue: that they have some Idea's of almost all the Virtues, and that they have hardly any that is exact; because they carry some to superstitious scruples, and that they live short of others.

Moreover these Maxims are only for the Talapoins; not that they think that any person can violate them without Sin: but it is that they see it is impossible for any one not to infringe them: as for example, it is very necessary that some person make the Fire. They are surprized at the Beauty of our Morality, when it is told them that it equally invites all men to Vertue, because they compre∣hend not that this can be a thing practicable: but when they are made to un∣derstand it, and are informed that Vertue consists not in those impossible things, wherein they place it, they contemn what is told them, and do believe them∣selves more pure and virtuous than the Christians: or rather they return again to believe that they alone are Creeng, that is to say pure, and that the Christians are Cahat, or designed to sin, like the rest of Mankind: A prevention which must quite confound us, and which proves the extream necessity which humane reason has of a superior Light, not to err in the knowledge of good and evil, the Idea's of which do nevertheless appear unto us so easie, and so natural.

If therefore the Talapoins do think themselves only vertuous, it is no wonder if they likewise allow themselves all the Pride imaginable in regard of the Se∣culars. This Pride appears in all things; as in that they affect to seat themselves higher than the Seculars, never to salute any Secular, and never to bewail the death of any person, not even that of their Parents. They have a Practice which resembles Confession, for from time to time they seem secretly to render an account of their Deportments to their Superior; but are so far from confes∣sing themselves Sinners, that they only run over the Precepts, to say they have not violated them. I have not stolen, say they, I have not lied, and so of the rest. And in a word they are not humble, and they have rather the Idea's of Humiliations and Mortifications than of Humility.

They seem to understand Entertaining and Retirement. A Talapoin sins, if in walking along the Streets, he has not his Senses composed. A Talapoin sins, if he meddles with State Affairs. They concern not themselves therein, without a great deal of Distraction, and without attracting the Envy and Hatred of seve∣ral; which suits not to a Talapoin, who ought only to mind his Convent, and to edifie every one by his Modesty. But moreover I believe that a wise Policy has greatly contributed to interdict State-Affairs to persons, who have so great a Power upon the Minds of the People. They understand Religious Obedience. Obedience is the Vertue of every one in this Country, and it is no wonder that it is found in their Cloisters. They likewise understand Chastity. A Talapoin sins, if he coughs to attract on him the Eyes of the Women, if he beholds a Woman with Complacency, or if he desires one; if he uses Perfumes about his Person, if he puts Flowers to his Ears: and in a word, if he adorns himself with too much Care. And some would likewise say, they understand Po∣verty, because it is prohibited them to have more than one Vestment, and to have it precious: To keep any thing to eat from the Evening, till the next day; to touch either Gold or Silver, or to desire it. But at the bottom, as they may abandon their Profession, they act so well, that if they live poorly whilst they are Talapoins, they fail not to heap wherewith to live at their Ease, when they cease to be so. And these are the Idea's which the Siameses have of Vertue.

CHAP. XXII. Of the Supream Felicity, and Extream Infelicity amongst the Siameses.

IT remains for me to explain wherein they place perfect Felicity, that is to say, the supream Recompence of good Works, and the utmost Degree of Unhappiness, that is to say the greatest Punishment of the Guilty. They be∣lieve therefore that if by several Transmigrations, and by a great number of good Works in all the Lives, a Soul acquires so much Merit, that there is not in any World any mortal Condition, that is worthy of it; they believe, I say, that this Soul is then exempt from every Transmigration, and every Animation, that it has nothing more to do; that it neither revives, nor dies any more; but that it enjoys an eternal Unactivity, and a real Impassibility. Nireupan, say they, that is to say this Soul has disappeared: it will return no more in any World: and 'tis this word which the Portugueses have translated it is annihila∣ted; and likewise thus, It is become a God, though in the Opinion of the Siame∣ses, this is not a real Annihilation, nor an Acquisition of any divine Nature.

Such is therefore the true Paradice of the Indians: for tho' they suppose a great Felicity in the highest of the nine Paradices, of which we have already discoursed; yet they say that this Felicity is not eternal, nor exempt from all Inquietude; seeing that it is a kind of life, where one is born, and where one

dies. By the like reason, their true Hell is not any of those nine places which we have called Hell, and in some of which they suppose Torments and eternal Flames: for tho' there may eternally be some Souls in these Hells, these will not always be the same: No Soul will be eternally punished; they will revive again to live there a certain time, and to depart thence by death.

But the true Hell of the Indians is only, as I have already said, the eternal Transmigrations of these Souls, which will never arrive at the Nireupan, that is to say, will never disappear in the whole duration of the World, which they do think must be eternal. They believe, that it is for the Sins of these Souls, and for their want of ever acquiring a sufficient merit, that they shall continually pass from one Body to another. The Body, whatever it be, is always according to them, a Prison for the Soul, wherein it is punished for its Faults.

But before that a Man enters into the supreme Felicity, before that he disap∣pears, to speak like them, they believe that after the Action, by which he con∣cludes to merit the Nireupan, he enjoys great Priviledges from this life. They believe that it is then that such a Man preaches up Vertue to others with much more efficacy; that he acquires a prodigious Science, an invincible strength of Body, the power of doing Miracles, and the knowledge of whatever has be∣fallen him in all the Transmigrations of his Soul, and of whatever should hap∣pen to him till his death. His death must likewise be of a singular sort, which they think more noble than the common way of dying. He disappears, they say, like a Spark, which is lost in the Air. And it is to the memory of these sorts of Men, that the Siameses do consecrate their Temples.

Now tho' they say that several have attain'd to this Felicity, (to the end, in my opinion, that several may hope to arrive thereat) yet they honour only one alone, whom they esteem to have surpassed all the rest in Vertue. They call him Sommona-Codom; and they say that Codom was his Name, and that Sommona signifies in the Balie Tongue, a Talapoin of the Woods. According to them, there is no true Vertue out of the Talapoin-Profession, and they believe the Talapoins of the Woods much more vertuous than those of the Cities.

And this is certainly the whole Doctrine of the Siameses, in which I find no Idea of a Divinity. The Gods of the ancient Paganism which we know, go∣vern'd Nature, punished the wicked, and recompenc'd the good; and tho' they were born like Men, they came of an immortal Race, and knew not death. The Gods of Epicurus took care of nothing, no more than Sommona-Codom; but it appears not that they were Men arrived thro' their Vertue at that state of an happy Inactivity, they were not born, neither did they dye. Aristotle has ac∣knowledged a first Mover, that is to say a powerful Being, who had ranged Na∣ture, and who had given it, as I may say, the swing, which preserv'd the harmo∣ny therein. But the Siameses have not any such Idea, being far from acknow∣ledging a God Creator; and so I believe it may be asserted, that the Siameses have no Idea of any God, and that their Religion is reduced all intire to the worship of the dead. And it is necessary that the Chineses understand it thus, and that they think not that Pagode signifies God: for Father Magaillans informs us, that they are offended when Confucius is treated as a Pagode; because this is to treat him not as God, which would not be an injury to Confucius: but as a Man arrived at the supreme Vertue of the Indians, which the Chineses do think very much inferior to the Vertue of Confucius.

CHAP. XXIII. Concerning the Origine of the Talapoins, and of their Opinions.

WHen I would seek by what degrees Humane Reason could precipitate itself into such strange Digressions, I think to find the Footsteps there∣of in the Chinese Antiquity.

The Chineses are so ancient, that it must be presumed that at the beginning they knew the true God, and by him good and bad Works, and the Recompen∣ces or Punishments which the one and the other were to expect from that Om∣nipotent Judge, but that by little and little they have obscur'd and corrupted these Idea's. God, that Being so pure and so perfect, is at most become the ma∣terial Soul of the entire World, or of its most beautiful part, which is the Heaven. His Providence and his Power have been no more than a limited Providence and Power, tho' nevertheless a great deal more extensive than the strength and prudence of Men. It seems, says Father Trigaut, in the first Book of his Christian Expedition to China, chap. 10. That the ancient Chineses have believed the Heaven and the Earth animated, and that they have ador'd the Soul as a Supreme God, calling him the King of Heaven, or simply the Heaven and the Earth. Father Trigaut might raise the same doubt upon all things; for the Doctrine of the Chineses has continually attributed Spirits to the four parts of the World, to the Planets, to the Mountains, to the Rivers, to the Plants, to the Cities and their Ditches, to Houses and their Chimnies, and, in a word, to all things. And all the Spirits appear not good to them; they acknowledge some wicked ones, to be the immediate cause of the mischiefs and disasters to which the humane life is subject. Moreover, as they thought the Earth and the Sea fixt to the Heaven by the Horizon, they have attributed but one Spirit or one Soul to the Heaven and the Earth; tho' nevertheless, and perhaps by some thought contrary to their first opinion, they have built two different Temples, the one consecrated to the Heaven, and the other to the Earth.

As therefore the Soul of Man was, in their opinion, the source of all the vi∣tal Actions of Man; so they gave a Soul unto the Sun, to be the source of its qualities and of its motions: and on this Principle the Soul's diffused every where, causing in all Bodies the Actions which appear natural to these Bodies, there needs no more to explain in this opinion the whole oeconomie of Nature, and to supply the Omnipotence, and infinite Providence, which they admit not in any Spirit, not even in that of the Heaven.

In truth, as it seems that Man, using things natural for his nourishment, or for his conveniency, has some power over things Natural, the ancient opinion of the Chineses, allowing such a like power proportionably to all the Souls, supposed that that of the Heaven might act over Nature, with a prudence and strength incomparably greater than Humane Prudence and Power. But at the same time it acknowledg'd in the Soul of every thing, an interior force, independent by its nature from the Power of Heaven, and which acted sometimes against the Designs of Heaven. The Heaven governed Nature as a powerful King: the other Souls paid Obedience to him: He almost continually forced them, but some there were which sometimes dispenced with obeying him.

Confucius discoursing of boundless Vertue, which is the true Idea that we have of the Divinity, thinks it impossible. How vertuous soever, saith he, a man is, there will yet be a degree of Vertue, to which he cannot attain. The Heaven and the Earth, adds he, tho' so great, so perfect, and so curiously wrought, cannot yet satisfy the Desires of all; by reason of the Inconstancy of the Seasons, and of the Elements: so that Man finds in them wherewith to reprehend, and even just Subjects of Indignation. Wherefore if we throughly comprehend the greatness of extreme Virtue, we shall neces∣sarily confess that the whole Ʋniverse can neither contain nor sustain the weight thereof. If, on the contrary, we think upon that subtil and conceal'd point of Perfection in which it consists, we shall confess that the whole World can neither divide nor penetrate it. These are the words of Confucius, as Father Couplet has given them us, by which this Philosopher seems to have had no other intention, than to describe the real Divinity, which he believes impossible, seeing that he finds it no where, not even in the Spirit of the Heaven and the Earth, which is what he conceived most perfect.

The Divine Power and Providence being thus distributed as by Piece-meals, to an infinite number of Souls, the ancient Chineses thought themselves obliged to address to this infinite multitude of Souls and Spirits, the Vows and Wor∣ship which they ow'd only to one alone.

Of Nature they make an invisible Monarchy, which they mould theirs upon, and of which they believe that the invisible members had a continual corre∣spondence with the members of the Chinese Monarchy, which they thought to possess near the whole Earth. To the Spirit of Heaven they allot six principal Ministers, as the King of China has six, which are the Presidents of the six chief Tribunals, wherein they only have a determinative Voice. They believe that the King of Heaven (for they give this Title to the Spirit of Heaven) inter∣meddled only with the person and manners of the King of China: That all men ought to honour this supream Spirit, but that the King of China only was wor∣thy to offer Sacrifices unto him; and for these Sacrifices they had no other Priest. The Ministers of China offer'd Sacrifices to the Ministers of Heaven: and every Chinese Officer thus honoured an Officer like to him near Heaven. The People sacrificed to a multitude of Spirits diffused every where, and every one was Priest in this sort of worship: there being not any Order, or Religious body, for the service of the Temples, and for the Sacrifices.

The Indians do now believe, like the ancient Chineses, some Souls, as well good as bad, diffused every where, to which they have distributed the Divine Omnipotence. And there is yet found some remains of this very Opinion amongst the Indians, which have embraced Mahumetanism. But by a new Er∣ror the Pagans of the Indies have thought all these Souls of the same nature, and they have made them all to rowl from one body to another: The Spirit of the Heaven of the ancient Chineses had some Air of Divinity: It was, I think, immortal, and not subject to wax old, and to die, and to leave its place to a Successor: but in the Indian Doctrine of the Metempsychosis, the Souls are fixed no where, and succeeding one another every where, they are not one better than another by their nature: they are only designed to higher or lower functi∣ons in Nature, according to the merit of their work.

Thus the Indians have consecrated no Temples to the Spirits, not so much as to that of Heaven: because they believe them all Souls, like all the rest, which are still in the course of Transmigration, that is to say in Sin, and in the Tor∣ments of different sorts of life, and consequently unworthy of having Altars.

But if the ancient Chineses have, as I may say, reduc'd the Providence and Omnipotence of God into piece-meals, they have not less divided his Justice. They assert that the Spirits, like concealed Ministers, were principally busied in punishing the hidden faults of men; that the Spirit of Heaven punished the faults of the King, the Ministring Spirits of Heaven the faults of the King's Mi∣nisters, and so of other Spirits in regard of other men.

On this Foundation they said to their King, that though he was the adoptive Son of Heaven, yet the Heaven would not have any regard to him by any sort of Affliction, but by the sole consideration of the good or evil, that he should do in the Government of his Kingdom. They called the Chinese Empire, the Celestial Command; because, said they, a King of China ought to govern his State, as Heaven governed Nature, and that it was to Heaven, that he ought to seek the Science of Governing. They acknowledged that not only the Art of Ruling was a Present from Heaven; but that Regality it self was given by Heaven, and that it was a present difficult to keep; because that they supposed that Kings could not maintain themselves on the Throne without the savour of Hea∣ven, nor please Heaven but by Vertue.

They carried this Doctrine so far, that they pretended that the sole Vertue of Kings, might render their Subjects Vertuous; and that thereby the Kings were first responsible to Heaven for the wicked manners of their Kingdom. The Vertue of Kings, that is to say, the Art of Ruling according to the Laws of China, was, in their Opinion a Donative from Heaven, which they called Celestial Reason, or Reason given by Heaven, and like to that of Heaven: The Vertue of Subjects, according to them, the regards of the Citizens, as well from one to another, as from all towards their Prince, according to the Laws of China, was the work of good Kings. 'Tis a small matter, said they, to punish Crimes, it is necessary, that a King prevents them by his Vertue. They extoll one of their Kings for having reigned Twenty two years, the People not perceiving,

that is to say, not feeling the weight of the Royal Authority, no more than the force which moves Nature, and which they attribute to Heaven. They report then that for these Twenty two years there was not one single Process in all China, nor one single Execution of Justice; a Wonder which they call to govern imperceptably like the Heaven, and which alone may cause a doubt of the Fidelity of their History. Another of their Kings meeting, as they say, a Criminal, which was lead to Punishment, took it upon himself, for that under his Reign he committed Crimes worthy of Death. And another seeing China afflicted with Sterility for seven years, condemned himself, if their History may be credited, to bear the Crimes of his People, as thinking himself only culpable; and resolved to devote himself to death, and to sacrifice himself to the Spirit of Heaven, the Revenger of the Crimes of Kings. But their History adds, that Heaven, satisfied with the Piety of that Prince, exempted him from that Sacrifice, and restored Fertility to the Lands by a sudden and plentiful Rain. As the Heaven therefore executes Justice only upon the King, and that it in∣flicts it only upon the King for what it sees punishable in the People, the Mi∣nisters of Heaven do execute Justice on the secret Faults which the King's Ministers commit, and all the Officers which depend upon them: and after the same manner the other Spirits do watch over the Actions of the Men, that in the Kingdom of China have a rank equal to that, which these Spirits do pos∣sess in the invincible Monarchy of Nature, whereof the Spirit of Heaven is King.

Besides this the natural Honor which most men have of the dead, whom they knew very well in their Life-time; and the Opinion which several have of having seen them appear to them, whether by an effect of this natural Honor, which represents them to them, or by Dreams so lively, that they resemble the Truth; do induce the ancient Chineses to believe that the Souls of their Ance∣stors, which they judged to be of very subtile matter, pleased themselves in continuing about their Posterity; and that they might, though after their death, chastise the Faults of their Children. The Chinese People still continue in these opinions of the temporal Punishments, and Rewards which come from the Soul of Heaven, and from all the other Souls; though moreover for the great∣est part they have embraced the Opinion of the Metempsychosis, unknown to their Ancestors.

But by little and little the Men of Letters, that is to say, those that have some degrees of Literature, and who alone have a Hand in the Government, being become altogether impious, and yet having altered nothing in the Lan∣guage of their Predecessors; have made of the Soul of Heaven, and of all the other Souls, I know not what aerial substances, uuprovided of Intelligence; and for the Judge of our Works, they have established a blind Fatality; which, in their opinion, makes that which might exercise an Omnipotent and Illuminated Justice. How ancient this Impiety is at China, belongs not to me to determin. Father de Rhodes in his History of Tonquin, accuses Confucius himself therewith: Father Couplet, to whom we owe the Translation of several of this Philoso∣phers Works, pretends to justifie him; and he at the same time recites several Arguments of the modern Chineses, by which they endeavour to demonstrate, that it is a thing wholly conformable to the Principles of Nature, that by the secret, but certain sympathies, between Vertue and Felicity, and between Vice and Infelicity, Vertue must always be prosperous, and Vice always un∣happy: but in truth their Arguments are so elevated, and so forced, and corre∣spond so ill to the Language of their Ancestors, that it is very apparent that they are only the effect of a great extravagancy of Imagination, which was not in their Ancestors.

The Siameses do not less dread Spirits, than the Chineses; though they imagine not perhaps the Conformity between the Kingdom of the dead and theirs; and moreover they have not lost the Idea of the Divinity less than the Chineses, and that they have yet preserved this ancient Maxim, which promises Rewards to Vertue, and which threatens Sin with Punishments; they have found out no other way, than to attribute this distributive Justice to a blind Fatality. So

that according to them, 'tis the Fatality which makes the Soul to pass from one state to a better or a worse, and which retains them more or less proportionably to their good or bad works. And it is by these degrees that men are wholly fallen from the Truth, when they would guide themselves by that weak reason, in which they so mightily glory.

As to the Origin of the Talapoins and their Compeers, which are spread throughout the East, under several Names, as Bramins, Jogues, and Bonzees; it is so obscure in Antiquity, that it is difficult, in my opinion, ever to discover it. It appears that the Indians do believe this kind of men, and their Doctrine, as ancient as the World. They name not their Founder; and they think that it is of this Profession, that all the men have been, whose Statues are honoured in their Temples, and all those others which they suppose to have been adored before those, which they now adore.

The Chineses report, that the Bonzees and their Doctrine came to them from the Indies, in the eighth year of the Reign of Mim-ti, which answers to the 65^th of our Salvation: and as they love to give the Origin of all things, they say that it was a Siamese named Che Kia, who was the Author thereof, about One Thousand years before the Nativity of Jesus Christ, though the Siameses themselves do pretend no such thing, and who boasting Antiquity in all things, like all the other Indians, they imagine that the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis, is as ancient as the Souls themselves. The Japponneses do call the Che-Kia of the Chineses, Chaka, and the Tonquineses have corrupted this same word after another manner: for according to Father de Rhodes, they call it Thika.

Now these words Che-Kia, and Chaka, do nearly enough approach these Siamese words Tchaou-ca, and Tchaou-cou, to make suspect that they are only a light corruption thereof. Tchaou-ca and Tchaou-cou signifies Lord, or literally Lord of me, with this difference, that the word ca which signifies me, is us'd only by Slaves in speaking to their Masters, or by those who would render such a respect to him, to whom they speak: whereas the word cou which likewise signifies me, is not so respectful, and is joyned to the word Tchaou, to speak in the third Person to him that discourses of his Lord. In speaking therefore to a Talapoin, they will say unto him Tchaou-ca, and in speaking of him to another they will call him Tchaou-cou. But what is remarkable is, that the Talapoins have no other name in Siamese: so that they say literally, crai pen Tchaou-cou, I would be Lord, to signifie I would be Talapoin. Their Sommona-Codom they call Pra-poute Tchaou, which verbatim signifies the Great and Excellent Lord, and it is in this sense that they speak it of their King: but these words may also signifie, the Great and Ex∣cellent Talapoin. After the same manner amongst the Arabians, the word Mou∣la, which signifies a Doctor of Law, properly signifies Lord, and the word Master is equivocal in our Language: it is spoken of a Doctor, and likewise of the King. I find therefore some reason to believe, that the Chineses having re∣ceived the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis from some Siamese Talapoin, they have taken the general Name of the Profession, for the proper Name of the Author of the Doctrine: and this is so much the more plausible, as it is certain that the Chineses do also call their Bonzees by the Name of Che-Kia, as the Siameses do call their Talapoins Tchaou-cou. 'Tis therefore impossible to assert, from the Testi∣mony of the Chineses, that there was an Indian named Che-Kia, Author of the Opinion of the Metempsychosis, a Thousand years before Jesus Christ: seeing that the Chineses, who have received this Opinion since the Death of Christ, and perhaps much later than they alledge, are forced to confess, that they have nothing related concerning this Che-Kia, but upon the Faith of the Indians; who speak not one word thereof, not thinking that there ever was any first Author of their Opinions.

Before the Bonzees came from the Indies to China, the Chineses had not any Priests nor Religious; and they have none as yet for their Antient Religion, which is that of the State. Amongst them, as amongst the Greeks, the most Antient way of instructing the People, was by Poetry and Musick. They had three hundred Odes, whereof Confusius made great Esteem, like to the Works of So∣lomon: for they contained not only the knowledge of the Plants, but all the

Duties of a good Chinese Citizen, and doubtless all their Philosophy: and it may be that these Odes are still preserved. The Magistrates took care to have them sung Publickly, and Confusius complains for that in his time he saw this Practice almost extinguished, and all the Antient Musick lost. According to him, the most sure mark of the loss of a State was the loss of the Musick; and Plato, like him, thinks Musick essential to good Policy. These two great Philo∣sophers had learnt that Manners cannot be preserved, without the continual in∣struction of the People, and that the Laws, that is to say, the only Foundati∣on of the Publick Authoriry and Repose, cannot long continue, where the Manners are corrupted: for where the Manners are corrupted, they only Study to Violate or Elude the Laws. The Learned remark in the Pentateuch, the Tracts of such a like Poetry, which contain'd the History of Illustrious Men, even of those that were more Antient than the Deluge: Moses cites certain places thereof, wherein is remarked the Poetick Stile.

I conceive therefore that Men being wearied with singing always the same things, and losing by little and little the sense of the old Songs, have ceased to sing them, and have sought some commentaries on the Verses, which they they sung no more, for lack of understanding them: That then the Magistrates left the care of these Commentaries to other Men, and that they by little and little imposing on the belief of the People, have inserted in their Lectures, many things to their particular advantage, which are the Source of the Super∣stitious Veneration, which the Indians do still retain for the Talapoins and their Fellow-Brethren.

However it be, their Habit, their Convents, and their Temples are invio∣lable, though the Revolutions of this Country, may have showed some exam∣ples of the contrary. V••iet whom I have often quoted, relates that when the present King's Father seized on the Crown, he thought it impossible securely to make an attempt upon the Person of one of the Princes of the Royal Family, till he had cunningly made him first to quit the Talapoins Pagne which he wore. After the same manner when this Usurper was dead, his Son who now Reigns, seeing his Uncle by the Father's side seize on the Throne, turned Talapoin to se∣cure his Life, as I have reported at the biginning of this Relation.

CHAP. XXIV. Of the Fabulous Stories which the Talapoins and their Bre∣thren have framed on their Doctrine.

THE Talapoins are therefore obliged to supply the ancient Musick, and to explain their Balie Books unto the People with an audible Voice. These Books are filled with extravagant stories, grafted on the Doctrine which I have explained: and these Fables are almost the same throughout India, as the ground of the Doctrine is every where the same, or very near. They every where be∣lieve the Metempsychosis, and that it is only a way to punish the Souls for their faults, and to carry them gradually unto Perfection. They believe Spirits every where diffused, good and bad, capable of aiding and of hurting, but which are no other than the Souls of the dead; and they admit the Worship of these Spi∣rits, though they raise no Altars to them; but only to the Manes of the men, whom they conceive to be arrived at the highest degree of Vertue, as far as they think Vertue possible. They all have some Quadruped, which they pre∣fer before all others; some favourite Bird, and some Tree, which they princi∣pally adore. They all believe the same thing of the pretended Dragon which causes the Eclipses, and of the pretended Mountain, round which the whole Heaven turns, to make the Days and the Nights. They have almost the same five Precepts of Morality, they reckon near the same number of Hells and Para∣dice.

They all expect other men, who ought to merit Altars, like those to whom they have already consecrated some; to the end that every one may have the Field free to pretend to the supream Vertue. They all suppose that the Planets, the Mountains, the Rivers, and particularly the Ganges, may think, speak, marry and have Children. They all relate the ridiculous Metempsychoses of the men whom they adore, in Pigs, Apes and other Beasts. Abraham Roger in his Book of the Religion of the Bramins relates, that the Pagans of Paliacata, on the Coast of Coromandel, do believe that their Brama whom they adore, was born almost, as some Balie Books do say Sommona-Codom was born, viz. of a Flower, which was sprung from the Navel of an Infant, which, they say, was a leaf a Tree in the form of an Infant biting its Toe, and swimming on the Water, which alone subsisted with God. They take no notice that the Leaf-Infant, subsisted too: and according to Abraham Roger, they in this Country be∣lieve in God, but in a God which is not adored: and without doubt he has with as little ground advanced, that others have writ that the Siameses believe a God.

'Tis no fault of mine that they gave me not the life of Sommona-Codom transla∣ted from their Books, but not being able to obtain it, I will here relate what was told me thereof. How marvellous soever they pretend his Birth has been, they cease not to give him a Father and a Mother. His Mother, whose Name is found in some of their Balie Books, was called, as they say, Maha Maria, which seems to signifie the great Mary, for Maha signifies great. But it is found writ∣ten Mania, as often as Maria: which proves almost that these are two words Man-ya, because that the Siameses do confound the n with the r only at the end of the words, or at the end of the Syllables, which are followed with a Con∣sonant. However it be, this ceases not to give attention to the Missionaries, and has perhaps given occasion to the Siameses to believe, that Jesus being the Son of Mary, was Brother to Sommona-Codom, and that having been crucified, he was that wicked Brother whom they give to Sommona-Codom, under the Name of Thevetat, and whom they report to be punished in Hell, with a Punishment which participates something of the Cross. The Father of Sommona Codom was, according to this same Balie Book, a King of Teve Lanca, that is to say, a King of the famous Ceylon. But the Balie Books being without Date, and without the Author's Name, have no more Authority than all the Traditions, whose Origin is unkown. This now is what they relate of Sommona-Codom.

'Tis said, that he bestowed all his Estate in Alms, and that his Charity not being yet satisfied, he pluck'd out his Eyes, and slew his Wife and Children, to give them to the Talapoins of his Age to eat. A strange contrariety of Idea's in this People, who prohibit nothing so much as to kill, and who relate the most execrable Parricides, as the most meritorious works of Sommona-Codom. Per∣haps they think that under the Title of Property a Man has as much Power over the Lives of his Wife and Children, as to them it seems he has over his own: For it matters not if otherwise the Royal Authority prohibits particular Siameses from making use of this pretended Right of Life and Death over their Wives, Children and Slaves; whereas it alone exerts it equally over all its Subjects, it may upon this Maxim of the despotic Government, that the Life of the Sub∣jects properly belong to the King.

The Siameses expect another Sommona Codom, I mean another miraculous man like him, whom they already name Pra Narotte, and whom they suppose to have been foretold by Sommona-Codom. And they before-hand report of him, that he shall kill two Children which he shall have, that he will give them to the Talapoins to eat, and that it will be by this pious Charity that he will con∣summate his Vertue. This expectation of a new God, to make use of this Term, renders them careful and credulous, as often as any one is proposed to them, as an extraordinary Person; especially if he that is proposed to them, is entirely stupid, because that the entire Stupidity resembles what they represent by the Inactivity and Impassibility of the Nireupan. As for example, there ap∣peared some years since at Siam, a young Boy born dumb, and so stupid, that he seemed to have nothing humane but the Shape: yet the Report spread it self

through the whole Kingdom, that he was of the first men, which inhabited this Country, and that he would one day become a God, that is to say arrive at the Nireupan. The People flocked to him from all parts, to adore him and make him Presents, till that the King fearing the consequences of this Folly, caused it to cease by the Chastisement of some of those, that suffered themselves to be seduced. I have read some such thing in Tosi's India Orientale, Tom. I. pag. 203. He re∣ports that the Bonzees of Cochinchina, having taken away from them a stupid Infant, show'd him to the People as a God, and that after having inrich'd them∣selves with the Presents which the People made him, they published that this pretended God would burn himself; and he adds that they indeed burnt him publickly, after having stupified his Senses by some Drink, and calling the in∣sensible state, wherein they had put him, Extasie. This last History is given as a crafty Trick of the Bonzees, but it demonstrates, as well as the first, the Belief which these People have, that there may daily spring up some new God, and the Inclination which they have to take extream Stupidity, for a beginning of the Nireupan.

Sommona-Codom being disingaged, by the Alms-deeds which I have mentioned, from all the Bands of Life, devoted himself to Fasting, to Prayer, and to the other Exercises of the perfect Life: But as these Practises are possible only to the Talapoins, he embraced the Profession of a Talapoin; and when he had heap∣ed up his good works, he immediately acquired all the Priviledges thereof.

He found himself endowed with so great a Strength, that in a Duel he van∣quished another man of a consummated Vertue, whom they call Pra Souane, and who doubting of the Perfection whereunto Sommona-Codom was arrived, chal∣lenged him to try his Strength, and was vanquisht. This Pra Souane is not the sole God, or rather the sole perfect Man, which they pretend to have been contemporary with Sommona-Codom. They name several others, as Pra Ariaseria, of whom they report that he was Forty Fadoms high, that his Eyes were three and a half broad, and two and a half round, that is to say, less in Circumference than Diameter, if there is no fault in the Writing from whence I have taken this Remark. The Siameses have a time of Wonders, as had the Aegyptians and the Greeks, and as the Chineses have. For Instance, their principal Book, which they believe to be the work of Sommona-Codom, relates, that a certain Ele∣phant had Three and thirty Heads, that each of its Heads had seven Teeth, every Tooth seven Pools, every Pool seven Flowers, every Flower seven Leafs, every Leaf seven Towers, and every Tower seven other things, which had each seven others, and these likewise others, and always by seven; for the num∣bers have always been a great Subject of Superstition. Thus in the Alcoran, if my Memory deceives me not, there is an Angel with a very great number of Heads, each of which hath as many Mouths, and every Mouth as many Tongues, which do praise God as many times every day.

Besides corporal strength, Sommona-Codom had the power of doing all sorts of Miracles. For example, he could make himself as big and as great as he pleas'd: and on the contrary, he could render himself so little, that he could steal out of sight, and stand on the head of another man, without being felt either by his weight, or perceived by the Eyes of another. Then he could an∣nihilate himself, and place some other man in his stead: that is to say, that then he could enjoy the repose of the Nireupan. He suddenly and perfectly under∣stood all the things of the World: He equally penetrated things past and to come, and having given to his body an entire Agility, he easily transported himself from one place to another, to preach Vertue to all Nations.

He had two principal Disciples, the one on the right Hand, and the other on the left: they were both plac'd behind him, and by each other's side on the Altars, but their Statues are less than his. He that is plac'd on his right Hand is called Pra Mogla, and he that is on his left Hand is called Pra Scaribout. Be∣hind these three Statues, and on the same Altar, they only represent the Officers within the Palace of Sommona-Codom. I know not whether they have Names. Along the Galleries or Cloysters, which are sometimes round the Temples, are the Statues of the other Officers without the Palace of Sommona-Codom. Of

Pra Mogla they report, that at the request of the damned he overturned the Earth, and took the whole Fire of Hell into the hollow of his Hand: but that designing to extinguish it, he could not effect it, because that this Fire dried up the Rivers, instead of extinguishing, and that it consumed all that whereon Pra Mogla placed it: Pra Mogla therefore went to beseech Pra Pouti Tchaou, or Som∣mona-Codom, to extinguish Hell Fire: but though Pra Pouti Tchaou could do it, he thought it not convenient, because, he said, that men would grow too wicked, if he should destroy the Fear of this Punishment.

But after that Pra Pouti Tchaou was arrived at this high Vertue, he ceased not to kill a Mar, or a Man (for they write Mar and Man, though they pronounce always Man) and as a Punishment for this great fault, his Life exceeded not Eighty years, after which he died, by disappearing on a sudden, like a Spark which is lost in the Air.

The Man were a People Enemies to Sommona-Codom, whom they called Paya Man; and because they suppose that this People was an Enemy to so holy a Man, they do represent them as a monstrous People, with a very large Visage, with Teeth horrible for their Size, and with Serpents on their Head instead of Hair.

One day then as Pra Pouti Tchaou eat Pig's flesh, he had a Chollick fit which killed him: An admirable end for a man so abstemious: but it was necessary that he died by a Pig, because they suppose that the Soul of the Man whom he slew, was not then in the Body of a Man, but in the Body of a Pig: as if a Soul could be esteemed, even according to their Opinion, the Soul of a Man, when it is in the Body of a Pig. But all these inventers of Stories are not so attentive to the Principles of their Doctrine.

Sommona-Codom before his Death, ordered that some Statues and Temples should be Consecrated to him, and since his Death he is in that State of repose, which they express by they word Nireupan. This is not a place but a kind of Being: for to speak truly, they say Sommona-Codom is no where, and he enjoys not any Felicity: he is without power, and out of a condition to do either Good or Evil unto Men: expressions which the Portugueses have rendered by the word Annihilation. Nevertheless on the other hand the Siameses do esteem Sommo∣na-Codom happy, they offer up Prayers unto him, and demand of him what∣ever they want: whether that their Doctrine agrees not with it self; or that they extend their worship beyond their Doctrine: but in what Sense soever they attribute Power to Sommona-Codom, they agree that he has it only over the Siameses, and that he concerns not himself with other People, who adore other Men besides him.

As therefore they report nothing but Fables of their Sommona-Codom, that they respect him not as the Author of their Laws and their Doctrine, but at most as him who has re-established them amongst Men, and that in fine they have no reasonable Memory of him, it may be doubted, in my Opinion, that there ever was such a man. He seems to have been invented to be the Idea of a Man, whom Vertue, as they apprehend it, has rendered happy, in the times of their Fables, that is to say beyond what their Histories contain certain. And because that they have thought necessary to give at the same time an oppo∣site Idea of a Man, whom his wickedness has subjected to great Torments, they have certainly invented that Thevetat, whom they suppose to have been Brother to Sommona-Codom, and his Enemy. They make them both to be Tala∣poins, and when they alledge that Sommona-Codom has been King, they report it, as they declare he has been an Ape and a Pig. They suppose that in the several Transmigrations of his Soul he has been all things, and allways excellent in eve∣ry kind, that is to say he has been the most commendable of all Pigs, as the most commendable of all Kings. I know not from whence Mr. Gervaise judges that the Chineses pretend that Sommona-Codom was of their Country: I have seen nothing thereof in the Relations of China, but only what I have spoken con∣cerning Chekia or Chaka.

The Life of Thevetat was given me translated from the Baly, but not to in∣terrupt my discourse, I will put it at the end of this Relation. 'Tis also a Tex∣ture

of Fables, and a curious specimen of the thoughts of these men, touching the Vertues and Vices, the Punishments and Rewards, the Nature and the Transmigrations of Souls.

I must not omit what I borrow from Mr. Harbelot. I have thought it neces∣sary to consult him about what I know of the Siamese; to the end that he might observe what the words which I know thereof, have in common with the Arabian, Turkish and Persian: and he informed that Suman, which must be pro∣nounced Souman, signifies Heaven in Persian, and that Codum, or Codom, signifies Ancient in the same Tongue; so that Sommona-Codom seems to signifie the eternal, or uncreated Heaven, because that in Persian and in Hebrew, the word which sig∣nifies Ancient implys likewise uncreated or eternal. And as touching the Baly Tongue, he informed me, that the ancient Persian is called Pahalevi, or Pahali, and that between Pahali and Bahali the Persians make no Difference. Add that the word Pout, which in Persian signifies an Idol, or false God, and which doubt∣less signified Mercury, when the Persians were Idolaters, signifies Mercury amongst the Siameses, as I have already remark'd. Mercury, who was the God of the Sciences, seems to have been adored through the whole Earth; by rea∣son doubtless that Knowledge is one of the most essential Attributes of the true God. Remarks which may hereafter excite the curiosity of the learned men, that shall be designed to travel into the East.

But I know not whether to this hour it is not lawful to believe that this is a proof of what I have said, that the Ancestors of the Siameses must have adored the Heaven, like the ancient Chineses, and as perhaps the ancient Persians did, and that having afterwards embraced the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis, and forgot the true meaning of the name of Sommona-Codom, they have made a man of the Spirit of Heaven, and have attributed unto him all the fables that I have related. 'Tis a great Art to change the belief of the People, to leave unto them their ancient words, by cloathing them with new Idea's. Thus, it may be, that the Ancestors of the Siameses have thought that the Spirit of Heaven ruled the whole Nature, though the modern Siameses do not believe it of Som∣mona-Codom: they believe on the contrary, as I have said, that such a care is op∣posite to the supream felicity. They believe also that Sommona-Codom has sin∣ned, and that he has been punished, at the time that he was worthy of the Nireupan, because they believe the extream virtue impossible. They believe that the worship of Sommona-Codom is only for them, and that amongst the other Nations there are other men, who have render'd themselves worthy of Altars, and which those other Nations must adore.

All the Indians in general are therefore perswaded, that different people must have different Worships, but by approving that other People have each their worship, they comprehend not that some would exterminate theirs. They think not like us that Faith is a Virtue: they believe because they know not how to doubt; but they perswade not themselves that there is a Faith and Worship which ought to be the Faith and the Worship of all Nati∣ons. Their Priests preach not that a Soul shall be punished in the other world, for not having believed the Traditions of his Country in this, because they un∣derstand not that any of them denies the Fables of their Books. They are rea∣dy to believe whatever is told rhem of a foreign Religion, how incomprehen∣sible soever it be: but they cannot believe that their own is false: and much less can they resolve to change their Laws, their Manners, and their Worship. One had better to show them the contrarieties and gross Ignorance in their Books: they do sometimes agree herein, but for all this they reject not their Books; as for some falsity we reject not every Historian, nor every Physical Book. They believe not that their Doctrine has been dictated by an eternal and infallible Truth, of which they have not only the Idea; they believe their Doctrine born with the man, and written by some men, which to them ap∣pear to have had an extraordinary knowledge, and to have led a very innocent life: but they believe not that these men have ever sinned: nor that they could be ever deceived. As they acknowledge no Author of the Universe, so they acknowledge no first Legislator. They erect Temples to the Memory of cer∣tain

men, of whom they believe a thousand Fables, which the superstition of their Ancestors have invented in the course of several Ages: and this is what the Portugueses have called the Gods of the Indies. The Portugueses have thought that what was honoured with a Publick Worship, could be only a God: and when the Indians accepted this word God for those men, to the Memory of whom they consecrate their Temples, tis that they understand not the force thereof.

There is nothing that may be taken in more various Senses, nor which may receive more different Interpretations than exterior Worship. Statues have not always been the Marks of a Divine Honor. The Greeks and the Romans have erect∣ed them, like us, to Persons yet living, without any design to make them Gods. The Chineses do proceed further, and they not only consecrate Statues to some Magistrates yet living, but they erect unto them some sorts of Temples, and sacred Edifices: They establish to them a Worship accompanied with Pro∣testations, Perfumes and Lights; and they preserve certain things of their Ap∣parel as Relicks: though it cannot be thought that they respect these Magistrates, yet living as Gods, but as men very much inferior to the King of China their Master, of whom they make no Divinity. There are several Christian Princes which are served upon the Knee, and the Deputies of the third State speak to the King only in this Posture. We give Incense to particular Persons in our Churches; and the Christians do honor their Princes with many and great Marks of exterior Worship. Thus the exterior Worship of the Indians is not a proof that they acknowledge, at least at present, any Divinity; and hitherto we ought rather to call them Atheists than Idolaters. But when they offer Sa∣crifices to others than to God, and they joyn Vows to render themselves pro∣pitious, we cannot excuse them of Idolatry: for in having entirely forgotten the Divinity, they only are greater Idolaters, when they terminate their Worship to what is not God, and that they make it the sole Object of their Religion.

CHAP. XXV. Diverse Observations to be made in preaching the Gospel to the Orientals.

FRom what I have said concerning the Opinions of the Orientals, it is easie to comprehend how difficult an enterprize it is to bring them over to the Christian Religion; and of what consequence it is, that the Missionaries, which preach the Gospel in the East, do perfectly understand the Manners and Belief of these People. For as the Apostles and first Christians, when God supported their Preaching by so many wonders, did not on a sudden discover to the Hea∣thens all the Mysteries which we adore, but a long time conceal'd from them, and the Catechumens themselves, the knowledge of those which might scanda∣lize them; it seems very rational to me, that the Missionaries, who have not the gift of Miracles, ought not presently to discover to the Orientals, all the Mysteries nor all the Practices of Christianity. 'Twould be convenient, for example, if I am not mistaken, not to preach unto them, without gteat cauti∣on, the worshipping of Saints: and as to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, I think it would be necessary to manage it with them, if I may so say, and not to speak to them of the Mysterie of the Incarnation, till after having convinced them of the Existence of a God Creator. For what probability is there to begin with perswading the Siameses to remove Sommona-Codom, Pra Mogla, and Pra Saribout from the Altars, to set up Jesus Christ, S^t. Peter and S^t. Paul, in their stead? 'Twould not perhaps be more proper to preach unto them Jesus Christ crucified, till they have first comprehended that one may be unfortunate and innocent; and that by the rule received, even amongst them, which is, that

the Innocent might load himself with the Crimes of the Guilty, it was necessary that a God should become Man, to the end that this Man-God should by a laborious life, and a shameful, but voluntary Death satisfie for all the Sins of men: but before all things it would be necessary to give them the true Idea of a God Creator, and justly provoked against men. The Eucharist after this will not scandalize the Siameses, as it formerly scandalized the Pagans of Europe: foras∣much as the Siameses do believe that Sommona-Codom could give his Wife and Children to the Talapoins to eat.

On the contrary, as the Chineses are respectful towards their Parents even to a scruple, I doubt not that if the Gospel should be presently put into their Hands, they would be scandalized at that place, where when some told J. Christ that his Mother and his Brethren asked after him, he answered in such a manner, that he seems so little to regard them, that he affected not to know them. They would not be less offended at those other mysterious words, which our divine Saviour spake to the young Man, who desired time to go and bury his Parents. Let the dead, saith he, bury the dead. Every one knows the trouble which the Japponneses expressed to St. Francis Xavier upon the Eternity of Damnation, not being able to believe that their dead Parents should fall into so horrible a Misfortune, for want of having embraced Christianity, which they had never heard of. It seems necessary therefore to prevent and mollifie this thought, by the means which that great Apostle of the Indies used, in first establishing the Idea of an omnipotent, all-wise, and most just God, the Author of all good, to whom only every thing is due, and by whose will we owe unto Kings, Bi∣shops, Magistrates, and to our Parents, the Respects which we owe them. These Examples are sufficient to show with what precautions it is necessary to prepare the minds of the Orientals, to think like us, and not to be offended with most of the Articles of the Christian Faith.

The Chineses do not less respect their Teachers than their Parents; and this sentiment is so well established amongst them, that they chastise the Tutor to the Prince, the presumptive Heir of the Crown, for the Faults which that Prince commits; and that there are some Princes, who being made Kings, have revenged their Tutors. The Indians do likewise greatly honour the Memory of those, whom they believe to have preach'd up Virtue efficaciously: they are those, whom they have judged worthy of their whole Worship; and they take Offence that we are scandalized thereat. Could we, say they, do less for those, who have preached unto us so holy a Doctrine? Father Hierom Xavier, a Portu∣guese Jesuit, having published at Agra a kind of Catechism, under the Title of the Mirrour of Truth: A Persian of Ispahan named Zinel Abedin wrote an answer thereunto, under the Title of the Mirrour repuls'd, which the Congregation de Propaganda fide thought necessary to have confuted: and it committed the care thereof to Father Philip Guadagnol, of the Order of the Regular Minimes. But he spake so unworthily of Mahomet, that his confutation proved ineffectu∣al; because that the Mission of Ispahan dar'd never to publish it: and this Mis∣sion desiring Father Guadagnol somewhat to moderate his Satyr, this good Father running into the other extream, made a Panegyrick upon Mahomet, which drew upon him a Reprimand from the Congregation de propaganda. 'Tis therefore ne∣cessary in these sorts of matters to observe a wise Moderation, and to speak respectfully, at least to the Indians, of Brama, Sommona-Codom, and all the rest, whose Statues are seen on their Altars. 'Tis necessary to agree with them that these men have had great natural lights, and intentions worthy of Praise; and at the same time to insinuate to them, that being men, they are deceived in se∣veral things important to the eternal Salvation of Mankind, and principally in that they have not known the Creator.

But next to this Blindness, which it is necessary to demonstrate inexcusable, why should we not praise the Legislators of the East, as well as the Greek Legi∣slators, for that they have applied themselves to inspire into the People, what to them has appeared most virtuous, and most proper to keep them in Peace and Innocence? Why should we blame them for the Fables, which a long suc∣cession of Ages full of Ignorance has invented upon their account, and of which

probably they have not been the Authors: considering that when they had spoken magnificently of their persons, they had only done what is pardonable in almost all other Legislators? They have the merit of haveing known before the Greeks some intelligent Beings superior to man, and the Immortality of the Soul.

But if they have believed the Metempsychosis, they have been thereto induced by apparent Reasons. Ignoring all Creation, and establishing moreover that a Soul cannot proceed from a Soul, and that there could not be an infinite number of Souls; they were forced to conclude that the infinite number of the living, which had succeeded one another in the World, during all this past Eternity, which they supposed that the World had already lasted; could not be anima∣ted by this finite number of Spirits, unless they had passed an infinite number of times from one body to another. The Opinion of the Metempsychosis is there∣fore founded on several Principles which we receive; and certainly contains on∣ly one Falsity, which is the pretended Impossibility of the Creation.

As to the natural consequences of this Doctrine, the Prohibition of Meats is very wholsom in the Indies, and the Horror of Blood would be every where useful. The great Barcalon, elder Brother to the first Ambassador of Siam, cea∣sed not to reproach the Christians for the bloody Madness of our Wars. On the other hand, the Opinion of the Metempsychosis comforts men in the Misfor∣tunes of Life, and fortifies them against the Horrors of Death, by the Hopes which it gives of reviving another time more happily: and because that men are credulous in proportion to their desires, 'tis observed that those, who esteem themselves the most unhappy People in this Life, as Eunuchs, do strongly ad∣here to this hope of another better Life, which the Doctrine of the Metempsy∣chosis has given to good men.

But if Error can be advantageous, what other can be so much as that Fear of Children for their dead Parents. Confucius makes it the only Foundation of all good Policy. And indeed it establishes the Peace of Families, and of King∣doms: it bends men to Obedience, and renders them more submissive to their Parents and to their Magistrates; it preserves good Manners and the Laws. These People comprehend not that they can ever abandon the Opinions and Customs, which they have received from their Fathers, nor avoid, if they did, the Resentment which, in their Opinion, their Ancestors would express thereat. The Chinese Doctrine has no other Paradice, nor Hell, than this Republic of the dead, where they believe that the Soul is received at the departure out of this Life, and where it is well or ill entertained with the Souls of its Ancestors, according to its Vertues or its Vices.

'Tis upon this consideration, that the Lawful Kings of China have abstained from making any Innovations on the Government. None but Usurpers dare to do this, not only by the Right which force gives them, but because that not being descended from the Kings their Predecessors, they have not thought any respect due to their Establishments.

Nevertheless as all errors have bad sides, Confucius being ask'd by one of his Disciples, whether the dead had any sense of the Respects which their Children paid them, answer'd, That it was not fitting to make these over-curious sorts of Questions; that by answering negatively, he fear'd to abolish the respect of Children for their dead Parents; and by answering affirmatively, he dreaded the exciting the best Persons to kill themselves, to go and joyn their Ancestors.

'Twould also be, I know not what Injustice to treat the Talapoins as Impostors, and interessed Persons. They deceive only because they are first deceived: they are not more cunning, nor more intetested than the Seculars. When they preach to the Seculars to bestow Alms upon them, they think their Preaching their Duty; and in every Country the Ministers of the Altar do live on the Altar.

I am therefore convinced, that the true secret of insinuating into the mind of these People, supposing one has not the Gift of Miracles, is not directly to con∣tradict them in any thing, but to show them, as at unawares, their Errors in the Sciences, and especially in the Mathematicks and Anatomy, wherein they are

most palpable: 'Tis to change the Terms of their Worship the least Imaginable, by giving to the true God, either the Name of Soveraign Lord, or that of King of Heaven and Earth, or some other Name which signifies in the Lan∣guage of the Country, what is most worthy of Veneration, as the word Pra in Siamese: But at the same time it be necessary to instruct them to annex unto these Names the intire Idea of the Deity, an Idea so much the more easie to receive, as it only heightens and embellishes the mean Idea's of the false Gods. Gott which now signifies God in German, was anciently, according to Vossius, the Name of Mercury, who seems to have been every where adored. Certainly the words Theos and Deus have not always signified in Greece and Italy the God, which we adore. What then have the Christians done? They have accepted these Names in the stead of the ineffable Name of God, and they have explain∣ed them after their manner. From the Knowledge of an eternal, spiritual God and Creator, it would be easie to descend to the Faith of Jesus Christ: and these People would make no Opposition, if first they saw themselves cured of some sensible Ignorance. The Spirit of man is such, that he almost implicitly receives the Opinions of him, who has visibly convinc'd him of his first Errors. Thoroughly convince a sick person that the Remedy which he uses is not good, and he will immediately take yours.

But in my opinion it is one of the most important Articles of the conduct of the Missionaries, to accommodate themselves entirely to the simplicity of the Manners of the Orientals, in their Food, Furniture, Lodging, and whatever the Rules of the Talapoins prescribe, wherein they have nothing contrary to Christianity. The example of Father de Nobilibus the Jesuit is famous. Being in Mission to the Kingdom of Madura in the Indies, he resolved to live like a Jogue, that is to say, like a Bramin of the Woods; to go with his Feet naked, and his Headbare, and his Body almost naked, in the scorching Sands of this Country, and to nourish himself with that excess of frugality, which appear'd intollerable: and it is reported that by this means he converted near forty thousand persons. Now as this exact imitation of the Indian severity is the true way to make some Conversions, so the further one should remove therefrom, the more one should attract the hatred and contempt of the Indians. It is necessary to learn in these Countries, to make a shift with whatever they do, and not to sustain the ne∣cessities, or rather the superfluities of these Countries, if one would not cause Jealousie and Envy to some Nations, the particular persons of which conceal their fortune, because they can preserve it only by hiding. The less the Missi∣onaries appear settled, the more the Mission is established, and the better it pro∣motes Religion. As the East is not a Country of settlement for private per∣sons, it would be an injury to think to accomplish it: the Natives of the Coun∣try do not themselves enjoy any solid fortune; and they would not fail to pick quarrels with those that should appear richer than them, to deprive them of their Riches. Moreover, the Orientals seem to have no prejudice for any Reli∣gion; and it must be confessed, that if the beauty of Christianity has not con∣vinc'd them, it is principally by reason of the bad opinion, which the Avarice, Treachery, Invasions, and Tyranny of the Portugueses, and some Christians in the Indies, have implanted and rivetted in them. But it is time to conclude this Relation with the Life of Thevetat, the Brother of Sommona-Codom, and with all the other things that I have promised.

Notes

• Of the Slave∣ry according to the Man∣ners of Siam.
• In what the Slaves are employed.
• A Siamese may be born, or become a Slave.
• How he is born a Slave, and to whom he belongs.
• The difference between the King of Siam's Slaves, and his other Subjects. The Slaves of private men owe not any service to the King.

  Of the Sia∣mese Nobility.
• Of the Priests or Talapoins.
• The Siamese people is a Militia.
• Is counted and divided into men on the right hand, and on the left.
• And by Bands.
• What diffe∣rence there is between a Band and a Company.
• The Children are of the same Band with their Parents.
• The Talapoins and Women are exempt from service, and yet are re∣gister'd, and why.
• The Advanta∣ges of the Nai.
• What at Siam are the digni∣ties of Pa-ya, Oc-ya and the rest.
• Of the word Oc.
• This word is not Siamese, and how they use it.
• Of the word Pa-ya.
• Six orders of Cities of Siam.
• The dignities of the Siameses are not annext to the single Governments of City or Pro∣vince.
• The Equivo∣cations which this causes in Relations.
• The proper signification of the word Man∣darin.
• The King of Siam gives Names to the considerable Mandarins.
• All Offices are hereditary.
• The Profits of the Offices.
• The Oath of Fidelity.
• The Publick Law of Siam is written.
• The difficulty of procuring the Books thereof.
• The Division of the King∣dom of Siam by Provinces.
• The Gover∣nor is the Judge.
• Jor belongs no more to the Kingdom of of Siam.
• Nor Patana.
• The Gover∣nor is Lord.
• The Profits or Rights of the Tchaou-Meuang.
• The Humani∣ty of the Sia∣meses to∣wards those that have suf∣fered Ship∣wrack.
• A continuance of the Rights or Profits of the Tchaou-Meuang.
• The Rights or Profits of the Pou-ran.
• The Names and Functions of the Officers which com∣pose a Tribu∣nal.
• An important distinction in∣to Officers within and Officers with∣out.
• They have not a double Stile.
• They plead only in wri∣ting and by giving Bail. The Function of the Nai in Law Suits.
• How a Pro∣cess is prepa∣red at Siam.
• The Form of the Judgments.
• The Law or Custom is read.
• Suits are a long time de∣pending. They have no Advocate nor Attorney.
• Before whom they produce.
• Proofs subsidi∣ary to the Torture.
• The Proof of the Fire.
• Another sort of Proof by Fire.
• The Proof of the Water.
• A Proof by Vomits.
• The various successes of these Proofs.
• The Degrees of Appeal.
• Judgments of Death reser∣ved to the Prince, or to some extraor∣dinary Com∣missioners.
• The Punish∣ment of Rob∣bery extended to Estates.
• The King is the Tchaou-Meuang of the Metropolis.
• The Office of Yummarat, which they pronounce Yumrat.
• The Judiciary form before the King.
• The Office of Pra-sadet, which is pro∣nounced Pra-sedet.
• The Recepti∣on which the Governors gave to the King's Am∣bassadors, eve∣ry one in his Government.
• The place where the King's Am∣bassadors ex∣pected the day of their en∣trance.
• The Governor of Siam came to fetch them.
• Of the chief Officers in ge∣neral.
• Of the Tchacry.
• Of the Calla-hom.
• Of the Gene∣ral of the Ele∣phants.
• The Siameses not proper for War.
• How con∣temptible the men in the In∣dies are as to their Courage.
• The Siameses abhor blood.
• How in fight∣ing they dis∣guise the de∣sign of killing their Enemies.
• How the King of Singor was taken by a Frenchman.
• The Siameses have little to fear from their Neighbours. The King of Siam has no o∣ther Troops maintain'd than his fo∣reign Guard.
• The Country of Siam is very strong without Forts.
• The Siameses know not how to make a wooden Fort.
• Of their Artil∣lery.
• In what their Armies consist.
• What is their order of battle and of their Encampments.
• Elephants of War.
• The Artillery begins the Fight.
• The Siameses easie to break, and to rally.
• Elephants not proper for War.
• The Siameses incapable of Sieges.
• Their weak∣ness by Sea.
• Of the Barca∣lon.
• The King of Siam's Reve∣nues arise from two Sources.
• His Duties on cultivated Lands.
• On Boats.
• Customes.
• On Arak.
• On Durions.
• On Betel.
• On the Arek.
• New Imposts.
• A Demesn re∣served to the King.
• Confiscations and Fines. Six Months Service.
• Commerce, a Revenue ex∣traordinary or casual.
• Cotton-cloath.
• The Calin or Tin.
• Ivory, Salt∣petre, Lead, Sapan.
• Arek.
• Prohibited Goods. Skins of Beasts.
• The Com∣merce free to all persons.
• Salt, Fishing, Hunting.
• To what Sum the King of Si∣am's Revenues amount.
• There is no Chancellor at Siam. The King gives not his Seal to any person.
• Of the Maha-Oharat.
• Officers with∣in and with∣out.
• Three Inclo∣sures in the King of Siam's Palace.
• Of the Oc-ya Vang.
• The Gates of the Palace, and of the precau∣tions with which persons are admitted.
• The Meuing Tchion.
• Painted Arms.
• A Guard of Slaves for a Show.
• The King of Siam has no standing Jap∣ponese Guard.
• The Horse-Guard from Meen, and La∣os.
• A Foreign Horse-Guard.
• Of what it is composed.
• What it costs.
• The Elephants and Horses of the Palace.
• The Elephants of Name.
• Of the White Elephant.
• The Esteem which the Si∣ameses do make of the White colour in Ani∣mals.
• The King of Siam's Balons.
• In what place of the Palace the Courtiers wait.

  How the King of Siam shows himself to them.
• The King of Siam's Pages.
• Their Functi∣ons.
• How the King of Siam loves Reading.
• The Officers which com∣mand the Pa∣ges within.
• Of the single Officer which prostrates not himself before the King of Siam.
• The King of Siam's Cham∣ber.
• Of the late Queen his Wife and his Sister.
• Of the Prin∣cess his only Daughter.
• The King of Siam takes the Daughters of his Sub∣jects for his Palace, when he pleases.
• He has few Ministresses.
• The Queen's House.
• Her Magazine and her Ships.
• Of the Suc∣cession to the Crown, and the Causes which render it uncertain.
• The occasion which tendred the Hollanders Masters of Bantam.
• Of the Succes∣sion to the Kingdom of China.
• Of the King of Siams Ward∣robe.
• The Hours of Council.
• The division of the day and night accord∣ing to the Sia∣meses.
• Their Clock.
• How the King of Siam exa∣mines Affairs in his Council, and how he terminates them.
• He punishes bad Counsels, and recompen∣ces good.
• Sometimes he consults about Affairs invent∣ed by way of Exercise.

  He examines his Officers a∣bout their Ob∣ligations.

  A Law against the Ambition of the Great Men.
• The Trade of an Informer commanded at Siam by the Law.
• The King of Siams Precau∣tions to pre∣vent being de∣ceived.
• Why they are frequently in∣effectual.
• The King of Siams rigorous Justice.
• How he in∣sults over the dead body.
• The Various Punishments of the Court of Siam.
• The Punish∣ments have respect to the Crimes.
• The punish∣ment of the Sword and the Cudgel.
• The Punish∣ment with which Prin∣ces are punish∣ed.
• The extreme distrust of the Kings of Siam.
• Infamous Pu∣nishments.
• The shame of the Punish∣ments lasts no longer than the Punish∣ments.

  It is attended with Honour
• Others are in∣cluded in the Punishments with the Cri∣minals.
• The least pre∣tence for a Crime is punished.
• The Policy of the Kings of Siam, cruel a∣gainst all, and against their own Bre∣thren.
• The Govern∣ment of Siam more burden∣some to the Nobles than to the Popu∣lace.
• How tempe∣stuous the Mi∣nistry is at Si∣am.
• The King of Siam's regards for his peo∣ple.
• The Inconve∣niences of this Government. It renders the Prince wave∣ring on his Throne.
• How uncer∣tain the ex∣tream Respect of the Orien∣tals is for their Kings.
• These Princes do oftentimes lose their Au∣thority by be∣ing too jea∣lous.
• The peril in re-uniting all the Royal Au∣thority in the Seal.
• A publick Treasure ne∣cessary to de∣spotick Go∣vernments, and what are the Inconve∣niences there∣of.

  The Conclu∣sion of this Chapter.
• The Eastern Ambassadors represent not their Masters, and are less honored than in Europe.
• The Siamese Embassies con∣sists in three persons.
• They are looked upon as Messengers which carry a Letter.
• He returns them no An∣swer, but a Recepisse.
• How the King of Siam is ad∣vertised of the Arrival of an Ambassador.
• An Ambassa∣dor has his Charges born at Siam. He must Commu∣n••cate his In∣structions.
• He enters not into his Me∣tropolis till he goes to Au∣dience, and de∣parts thence in going from the Audience of Leave. The Solemn Audiences.
• What is ob∣served in Au∣diences.
• To Foreign∣ers which are not Ambassa∣dors, he gives Audience only by accident. The Indians are cunning and deceitful in their Ne∣gotiations.
• That the Eu∣ropeans have ever found it necessary to treat the In∣dians with arrogance.
• Presents are essential to Embassies in the East.
• The Orientals do esteem it a great Honour to receive Em∣bassies.
• The Siamese Ambassadors are accoun∣table.
• The Policy observed in respect of the Strangers fled to Siam.
• The Fortune of the Moors very different at Siam, at se∣veral times.
• The Foreign Commerce ceased at Siam has caused the Richest Stran∣gers, and espe∣cially the Moors to de∣part thence.
• Why the Fo∣reign Trade ceased at Siam.
• The Natural Siameses cannot afford a great Trade.
• The origine of the word Pa∣god.
• A Description of the Con∣vents of the Talapoins.
• They have Cells for the Talapoinesses.
• How the Tala∣poin Children are lodg'd.
• The Halls of the Convent.
• The Steeple.
• Of the Supe∣riors.
• Of the San∣crats.
• The honors of the Sancrats.
• The Spirit of this Institution.
• There are two sorts of Tala∣poins.
• They are ob∣liged to Celi∣bacy under the penalty of the Fire.
• And to a cer∣tain degree of Literature un∣der pain of be∣ing expelled out of the Con∣vent.
• They Educate the Youth and instruct the People.
• This Trade is gainful.
• Of the Lent of the Talapoins and of their facility in fast∣ing.
• The Watch of the Siameses in the Fields; and the E∣steem which the People makes thereof.
• The Talapoins have a Chap∣let.
• Their Habit.
• They have a little Iron-Ba∣son for beg∣ging.

  They shave all the Head, and have a Screen in their hand.
• The days on which they shave them∣selves, are days of Devotion to the People.
• The People love to adorn themselves to go to the Temples: and their Charity to Animals.
• The Siameses do wash their Idols, their Talapoins, and their Parents.
• The hour on which the Ta∣lapoins do wash them∣selves.
• They go to the Temples in the morn∣ing.
• Then to beg∣ging, on which alone they do not always live.
• How they fill up the day.
• The secular Servants of the Talapoins.
• The Election of the Supe∣rior.
• How a Secu∣lar does, who builds a Tem∣ple, and begins a Convent. How a Tala∣poin is admit∣ted.
• Whether there are seve∣ral degrees of Talapoins.
• Of the Tala∣poinesses.
• Divers kinds of Talapoins in the Indies.
• How they believe the whole anima∣ted Nature, and what Idea they have of the Anima∣tion
• What they think of the Eternity of the World.
• Of the nature of the Soul ac∣cording to them.
• The Absurdi∣ty of their Opinion.
• Of the Pu∣nishments and Recompences of the Soul after death.
• How they ex∣plain the Pro∣sperity of the Wicked, and the Misfor∣tunes of the Good.
• Of the several places where the Soul passes after death.
• It there re∣vives again.
• To live a life full of Cares like this.
• Why the Indi∣an women burn them∣selvs with the body of their Husband.
• This Custom is received a∣mong the Tar∣tars, and is not without exam∣ple among the Chineses.
• The Oecono∣my of the Chi∣neses and of their Neigh∣bors in Buri∣als.
• The power of the Dead over the Living, the Source of the worship of the Dead.
• They fear on∣ly their dead Acquaintance.
• The Reason of speaking of the Burials of the Chineses.
• What are the Principal Cir∣cumstances thereof.
• The worship of the Dead.
• The Chineses at present are en∣tirely impious.
• The Doctrine of the Ancient Chineses on the worship of the Dead, and that it is very probable that they never prayed to the dead in Fune∣rals.
• The Burials of the Siameses.
• How they burn the bo∣dies.
• The Train.
• The Servant of the Tala∣poins lights the Funeral Pile.
• Alms at Fune∣rals.
• Funerals re∣doubled.
• Bodies dug up to receive greater Fune∣ral Honors.
• What the fire consumes not, is buried under Pyramids: and how the Sia∣meses do call these Pyra∣mids.
• From whence came the fan∣cy of Pyra∣mids for Tombs.
• Why the Sia∣meses love to build Tem∣ples.
• The Funerals of the Poor.
• Funeral ho∣nors retarded.
• Those that are deprived of Funeral Ho∣nors.
• Mourning.
• Whether the Siameses pray to the Dead.
• How it must be understood that the Souls of the Good are changed into Angels, and the Souls of the wicked into Devils.
• The Indians have no God which is the Judge of Hu∣mane Actions.
• Five Negative Precepts.
• The first Pre∣cept extends to Plants and Seeds.
• And to the not destroying any thing in Na∣ture.
• In several things they do more abhor Blood than Murder.
• The Opinion of the Metemp∣sychosis favour∣able to the Murder of the unhappy, if it renders not all Murder indif∣ferent.
• To kill them∣selves appears to them a ve∣ry laudable thing.
• The Story of a Peguin which burnt himself.
• The Prohibi∣tion of Impu∣rity extends to the Prohibiti∣on of Marri∣age.
• The Chinese Philosophers esteem Di∣vorce a Virtu∣ous Action.
• Every Liquor which intoxi∣cates, is prohi∣bited.
• The Spirit of the Maxims of the Talapoins.
• Vertue accor∣ding to them is impossible.
• The Vanity of the Talapoins.
• Some Appear∣ances of cer∣tain Mona∣stick Vertues in the Tala∣poins.
• Perfect Feli∣city.
• What the Por∣tugueses have called Para∣dice and Hell, are neither the Perfect Felici∣ty, nor the ex∣tream Infelici∣ty, according to the Siameses.
• The utmost degree of In∣felicity.
• The Wonders which they relate of a Man that de∣serves the Ni∣reupan, and how they con∣secrate their Temples to him.
• Tho' they be∣lieve in seve∣ral, they ho∣nour only one named Sommo∣na-Codom.
• No Idea of a Divinity a∣mongst the Siameses.
• It seems that it may be found in the Chinese Anti∣quity.
• If the an∣cient Chineses acknowledge the Deity, they soon cor∣rupted the Idea thereof.
• They have ta∣ken from God the infinite Providence and Omnipo∣tence.
• They have made God as a King of all Nature, but not a King al∣ways obeyed.
• Confucius be∣lieves extream Vertue impos∣sible, and con∣sequently he thinks the Idea we have of God impossi∣ble.
• The Worship due to the Cre∣ator divided a∣mongst the Creatures by the Ancient Chineses.
• Of Nature they make a State like to theirs.
• What the In∣dians have ad∣ded to these Errors.
• Why the Indi∣ans have con∣secrated no Temple to the Spirits, not even to that of Heaven.

  The Antient Chineses have divided the Justice of God.

  The Justice of Heaven was principally busied in pu∣nishing the Faults of the Kings of China.
• How they be∣lieve their Kings respon∣sable to Hea∣ven for the manners of their Subjects.
• The Chineses fear their dead Parents.
• The Impiety of the present Chineses which are men of Learning.
• The Siameses have no other Judge of Hu∣mane Actions than Fatality
• The Indians believe the Ta∣lapoins and their Doctrine as Ancient as Mankind.
• The Chineses do name Che-Kia for the Au∣thor of this Doctrine.
• That this Che-Kia is certain∣ly the Siamese name of the Talapoins.
• The Antient way of In∣structing the People, was by Poetry and by Musick.
• How the Tala∣poins and their Brethren might have succeeded the Antient Poe∣try and Musick.
• Fables com∣mon to all the Indians.
• The Fables which the Sia∣meses relate of their Sommona-Codom.
• That it is pro∣bable that Sommona-Co∣dom never has been.
• A conjecture upon the Ety∣mology of Sommona-Co∣dom, and what Language the Baly may be.
• It seems to prove that the worship of the Chineses is more antient at Siam than the Opinion of the Metempsychosis.
• What is the Spirit of the Faith of the Indians, or the Submission which they have to their Traditions.
• That the wor∣ship of the Sia∣meses proves not that they believe a Di∣vinity.
• That our Be∣lief scandalizes the Orientals in several things; that one must not preach to them without cauti∣on, if one has not the gift of Miracles.
• That the read∣ing of the Ho∣ly Scripture ought to be permitted to them only with Caution.
• 'Tis necessary to speak to the Orientals with an esteem of their Legi∣slators.
• That these Law-givers may be praised in some things.
• That the Doctrine of Metempsychosis may be ex∣cused by Phy∣sical Reasons.
• And by Poli∣tick Reasons.
• The fear of the dead Parents excused by Po∣litick Reasons.
• This fear cau∣ses the stabili∣ty of the Laws of China.
• Yet it has its Inconvenien∣ces.
• The Talapoins must not be thought know∣ing and Inte∣rested Impost∣ors.

  That it is ne∣cessary with the Orientals to use all the insinuations which our Re∣ligion and the example of the first Christians can permit us.
• How the Mis∣sionaries ought to accommo∣date them∣selves to the simple customs of the Orien∣tals, in what concerns not Religion.