territory, Malayan States excluded, was given to
us at one hundred thousand. Were the Chinese
population of Siam, which they are not, constituted
as .under ordinary circumstances, this would
make their whole number amount to about four
hundred and twenty thousand. I t was stated to
me, indeed, at a much greater rate, even as high
as seven hundred and fifty thousand. The Chinese
settlers, within the tributary Malay States,
engaged in traffic, or in working gold and tin,
have been estimated at twenty thousand.
This statement shows an extraordinary increase
since the close of the seventeenth century, for I
find that the French writers no where estimate
their numbers at more than four or five thousand.
There are at Bangkok also a good many Cochin
Chinese, but of their number I can render no account.
A Siamese chief pointed out their existence
to me as a proof of the superiority of the
Siamese over the Cochin Chinese Government,
explaining, as was true enough, that there were
no Siamese, under similar circumstances, in any
part of Cochin China.
There are in Siam a considerable number of
settlers from the southern Peninsula of India. A
Very few of these are Hindoos, but by far the
greater part Mohammedans, of whom the most
influential, although not the most numerous, are
Shias, or sectaries of Ali. The professors of the
Mohammedan worship in Siam are compelled,
from their situation, to make a thousand sacrifices
and compliances, very incompatible with their
tenets. Such of them as accompanied us to the
temples bowed very respectfully to the images of
Buddha ; and I was told, that when they had any
point to carry, it was not unusual to see them
giving alms to the priests, and making offerings
at the temples. They even go farther than
this, occasionally giving their daughters in marriage
to the infidels. The grandfather of the present
King, for example, took into his haram the
daughter of the principal Mohammedan at Bangkok,
but soon dismissed her in consequence of
the lady’s declining to serve alms to the priests.
The number of their own mosques at Bangkok is
nine ; all very poor buildings indeed. According
to the information given to me, the number of
Mohammedan families at Bangkok was three
hundred, and at the old capital four hundred ;
which, at five persons to each family, would make
their number three thousand five hundred.
The Christians residing in Siam are all either
the descendants of Portuguese, or persons assuming
the Portuguese name. From a large mixture
of Indian blood, or being merely the descendants
of native converts, these persons are fully as dark
as the Siamese themselves, and much more so
than the resident Chinese. The greater number