The Mission to Siam, and Hué, the Capital of Cochin China, in the Years 1821-2

by George Finlayson

March 26th.—Early in the morning, a man, dressed somewhat in the style of an European sailor, came off, and stated that he had been sent from Bankok to act as interpreter, and to accompany us to the capital. This was one of that degraded, but self-important class of society, well known in India under the general title of Portuguese, a title to which a hat and one or two other articles of clothing in the European fashion would seem to give every black man, every native, and every half caste, an undisputed claim. Our visitor bore the characteristic national features of the Siamese, amongst whom he had been born; he spoke the Portuguese language with ease and fluency, but English very imperfectly. He said, that the chief of Packnam requested that the guns might be landed, as the ship could not otherwise be permitted to proceed upwards without an order from court to that effect. It was observed, that the Portuguese frigate did not land her guns; he replied, that such was a special indulgence from the court. Mr. Crawfurd was, at the same time, invited on shore to dinner, the chief representing that he had received orders to entertain all persons of the rank of ambassadors or envoys during their stay within his jurisdiction. Very little notice was taken of, and no direct communication was held with, the interpreter.

This sort of verbal communication, on matters of business, did not augur well towards the success of our mission. We could not fail to remark, that the different personages who had as yet visited us, were either of very low rank, or of none at all, neither did they exhibit any mark by which they might be recognised as acting from authority. The chief, or, as the gentlemen of our party styled him, governor of Packnam, himself, to all appearance, of small political importance, being merely the head man of several poor fishing villages, did not condescend to visit us, or to hold other communication with us than that described. It was hinted that a man of some rank had been sent hither to receive us, but neither did this personage make his appearance. After breakfast, Captain M’Donnell went on shore to wait upon the chief of Packnam; he induced the latter to send a young man, a relation of his, on board. This man was received with much attention; he appeared to take little notice of the ship, or, indeed, of any thing else; he was naked from the waist upwards, and rather meanly dressed even for a Siamese; he partook of sweetmeats and spirits, and after inviting Mr. Crawfurd to go on shore, and conversing with the latter for about half an hour, he rose and departed, Mr. Crawfurd having agreed to visit the chief in the evening.

We accordingly set out in three different boats, Mr. Crawfurd and Captain Dangerfield having their servants, harkaras, silver sticks, state umbrellas, and dressed in the uniform of the Governor-General. A crowd of people, consisting of old men and women, and many children, were collected on the beach, and appeared to view us with considerable curiosity. The young man who had visited us on board, alone received us at the landing-place, from whence we walked through a narrow noisome lane, paved with wood, the distance of about fifty yards, to the chief’s house, a place of sorry appearance; we ascended by a flight of wooden steps into a small enclosed court, which opened behind into the house. In an open room, tawdrily ornamented with Chinese paper lanterns, Dutch glass, and scraps of painted paper, we found the chief, a tall, slender, rather elderly man, seated on a chair; he got up to welcome Mr. Crawfurd, and conducted him to a chair on his left. A table was placed in the centre of the room, and soon after we had taken our seats (we were luckily accommodated with chairs), a dinner, consisting of roast pork, roast ducks and fowls, and a pilaw, were brought in. The dishes were cooked after the European fashion, two or three native Christians who attended, to judge by their busy manner, being very anxious to approve themselves on the present occasion. We had dined before going on shore, but at the request of the chief, who, indeed, appeared to be very desirous of pleasing us, we sat down to table, accompanied by the interpreter already alluded to, but neither the chief nor any of his family partook of the entertainment. A crowd of people were collected in the court, and viewed us as we sat, evidently with considerable interest. Opposite to the chief sat the personage who had been sent to receive us; he was a good-looking, middle-aged man, a Malay, who had been once or twice in Bengal: we spent nearly two hours thus conversing on various subjects. On our getting up to depart, the chief rose and shook hands with all of us.

March 27.—No communication had arrived respecting permission for us to proceed to the capital. One of the king’s boats, which had been sent down for the purpose of taking Mr. Crawfurd to Bankok, returned this morning. This was a long and narrow boat, turned up at the bow and stern, bearing resemblance to a canoe, and provided with a sort of chair in the middle, over which a shed of mats had been erected. The rowers were numerous, but the accommodation trifling, as it could carry but one or two persons. It appeared not a little absurd that they should think of offering only this boat for the accommodation of a numerous party. It was doubtless expected that Mr. Crawfurd would go up alone.

Accompanied by Mr. Rutherford, I went on shore in the evening, and strolled through the village. We found it difficult to land, it being now low water, and the banks consisting of soft mud. We ascended into a house built, as a great proportion of the village is, over the river. We passed thus from house to house, on elevated boards, till we reached dry land. We found the people remarkably civil, and even obliging. They received us with smiles, and seemed anxious to entertain us. The women were not less forward than the men on these occasions. They collected round us, talked, laughed, and expressed not the least apprehension. We found the houses dirty, and lumbered with billets of wood, with little provision for ease. Yet the people appeared to live in tolerable comfort, though their means of subsistence, if we except that which they derive from the river and the sea, was not very evident. There appeared a great paucity even of fish. Rice they seemed to have in abundance. They were well fed, and stout, but rather below the middle stature. They cut the hair close to the head, leaving a short tuft on the forehead, which they comb backward. There is no difference in this respect between the men and women, both cutting the hair off short. Europeans are not more attentive to render their teeth white, than the Siamese are to make them black. Amongst them black teeth only are considered beautiful, and it must be allowed that they succeed perfectly well in this species of ornament. This, together with the coarse red painting of the mouth and lips, which they derive from the constant eating of betel, catechu, and lime together, gives to them a disgusting appearance. The face of the Siamese is remarkably large, the forehead very broad, prominent on each side, and covered with the hairy scalp in greater proportion than I have observed in any other people. In some, it descends to within an inch or even less of the eye-brows, covers the whole of the temples, and stretches forwards to within nearly the same distance of the outer angle of the eye. The cheek bones are large, wide, and prominent. A principal peculiarity in the configuration of their countenance is the great size of the back part of the lower jaw. The corona process here projects outwards, so as to give to this part of the face an uncommon breadth. One would imagine, on a careless inspection, that they were all affected with a slight degree of goitre, or swelling of the parotid gland. A similar appearance is often observable in Malays. The people generally go naked from the waist upwards, sometimes throwing a piece of cloth over the shoulders. Old women in general expose the breast; but the young, and the middle aged, wrap a short piece of cloth round the chest, of sufficient length to form a single knot in front, thus leaving the shoulders and arms bare. From the loins to the knee, they wrap a piece of blue or other coloured cloth, over which the better sort wear a piece of Chinese crape, or a shawl.

The bazar, if a few scattered huts along a path may deserve that name, was extremely meagre. A few plantains, pumpkins, betel, tobacco, and jagory, were almost the only articles it afforded, by the sale of which a few old women contrived to gain a subsistence.

We proceeded to a monastic institution, situated on the bank of the river. The houses here are well built, spacious, and convenient. The whole is included in an extensive and open space of ground, kept clean and neat. The accommodation for the priests is excellent; the houses are well raised, the floors and walls made of boards. A neat temple occupies one extremity of the enclosure. The fraternity received us with great cheerfulness, and, at our request, readily admitted us into the interior of the temple. Here, raised to about the middle height of the edifice, on a broad platform or altar, we discovered about fifty gilded images of Buddha, all in the sitting posture. The principal image, considerably above the human stature, was placed behind, and over him was raised a sort of arched canopy of carved and gilded wood. The others were ranged close before him. On each corner of the altar, with their faces turned towards the images, clothed in the usual costume of their order, and in the attitude of devotion, stood two priests. The general form of the figure of Buddha was not essentially different from that worshipped by the natives of Ceylon. The hair is short and curled, the head surmounted by a flame or glory, the countenance placid, benign, and contemplative. They have given somewhat of a Siamese, or rather Tartar expression to the features, by rather prolonging the eyebrows, and giving an obliquity to the eye; the nose is more sharp, and the lips very thick.

The Buddha of the natives of Ceylon, on the contrary, is a complete model of the ancient Egyptian or Ethiopian countenance, from which their images never deviate in the slightest degree. There can be no question, however, that both nations intend to represent one and the same personage.

Nearly in the centre of this enclosure, a temporary building, of a pyramidal form, and constituted of successive stages, was then building. We were informed that this was intended to contain the funeral pile on which the body of a chief, who had died about five months before, was to be burnt in the course of another month; it being customary, amongst Siamese of rank, to preserve the bodies of their relations in their houses for a greater or shorter period, according to the rank of the deceased. Great preparations were now making for the approaching ceremony, and, in a building close by, we found some priests at work, painting devices for the occasion. These were principally grotesque figures of old men, monsters, serpents, &c.