of them are engaged in the commercial department,
chiefly as interpreters. They are all indigent,
but very inoffensive. The whole number
at Bangkok was estimated to me at eight hundred.
A t the old capital there are about seven
hundred, and in the Siamese portion of Kamboja,
probably about five hundred, making the total
about two thousand.
According to these very imperfect data, the population
of the Siamese Empire throughout will
be as follows :—
Siamese
Laos
Peguans
Kambojans
Malays
Chinese
Natives of Western Ir
Portuguese
dia
1,260,000
840.000
25.000
25.000
195.000
440.000
3,500
2,000
Total 2,790,500
The area of the country being estimated at
190,000 square miles, it follows, that the population
is only at the rate of between fourteen and
fifteen inhabitants to the square mile,—a miserable
proportion for a kingdom of such extent, and
affording conclusive evidence of barbarism and
bad government. The data on which this estimate
of the population of Siam has been formed
are undoubtedly extremely unsatisfactory. I feel
satisfied, however, that, small as it is, it is not
underrated. One of the French writers, indeed,
estimates it in the last century at only 1,200,000.
But I suspect that he excluded from his calculation
the dependencies of the kingdom, which at
the time were not considerable, while the Chinese
settlers were very few indeed, in comparison to
their present amount.
Whatever may be the actual population of
Siam, there can be no doubt whatever but that,
for so extensive a country, it is extremely scanty
and insignificant, when compared even with any
tolerably civilized and well-governed country of
Asia. This is a conclusion, indeed, at which any
one who inquires into the subject must soon arrive.
A Mohammedan prince of India, the King
of Golconda, as he is called by the French writers,
sent an ambassador to Siam, in the seventeenth
century, and in his route from Mergui this officer
necessarily crossed the immense wilderness which
lies between that place and Ayuthia. One of
the Siamese Ministers afterwards rallied him on
the small extent of his master’s dominions, in
comparison to those of the Great King. The In dian
ambassador replied, that it was true his master’s
dominions were small, but they were inhabited
by human beings; whereas the territories of
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