P a t a n i !
G u l p h of
S ia m .
jP i p e r i ;
pecially the Chinefe, and fell the crews and paffengers for flaves.
It is not infrequent that they murder the whole crew. Their
veifels are crowded with men, armed either with lances and
crefies, or ihort daggers. They fuddenly board the ihips they
think they can mailer; and having their native ferocity
heightened by opium, inftantly ftab all whom they find in their
way. Thefe mifcreants fwarm in the ftreights o f Malacca, and
in all the iilands which go under the name aï Malaye,
Patani, in Lat. 6° 50', the next town o f note, lies clofe on
the fhore, and was once greatly frequented by ihips from Surat,
the Malabar coait, and that of Coromandel, befide what come
from China and other neighboring countries ; but the merchants
finding no protection from the murderous pirates, quite deferted
the place. This may have been the Balonga o f Ptolemy.
A d v a n c in g itill north, we enter the gulph o f Siam, the
Magnus Sinus of the fame geographer ; the land after paffing
Patani, makes a confiderable curvature towards the weft, which
continues as far as Patanor, in about Lat. 10°, where it bends
towards the north-eaft, till it ends in the bottom o f the gulph at
the river o f Siam. Thus finiihes the outline o f this celebrated
peninfula.
In this Curvature, near the bottom o f the bay, flood the an-
tient Sipiberis, the modern Piperi ; and to the fouth o f it Sindu,
thé prefent Sini.
W e ihall take a review of its whole extent, from the northern
end of its iflhmus, in Lat. 9" 12', toits fouthern extremity at
cape Romano, which is about fix hundred and fixty miles. The
breadth in the wideft part, is about two hundred miles; from
that
that part it gradually narrows till it ends nearly in a point at cape
Romano. All the interior parts o f the country' are h illy ; the
lower grounds towards the fea marihy and wooded.
In refpedt to the general view of the peninfula, its productions,
and the Angular manners and government o f the inhabitants,
it is impoffible to give a more clear ftatement than in
the words o f M. Le Poivre, the author o f the celebrated Voyages
dun Philofopbe. We ufe the tranflation o f 1769, which is done
in a ityle equally elegant w‘ith that of the original; I will not injure
it by abridgment, but give the whole, from p. 67 to p. 78,
and afterwards fome explanatory remarks on certain parts, and a
brief account of the natural hiftory, collected from different materials.
In the articles o f botany, mineralogy, and zoology,
there is fo great agreement between the productions o f the op^
polite ¿'««air« and the peninfula, that I ill all, except in a very
.few initanceSj defer entering on thofe fubjecls till I arrive in that
great ifland.
I sh a l l now return to M. Le Poivre.
“ Beyond the kingdom of Siam," fays that moil obfervant and
judicious traveller, “ is the peninfula of Malacca, a country for-
“ merly well peopled, and confequently well cultivated. This
“ nation was once one of the greateft powers, and made a very
“ confiderable figure on the theatre o f Afia. The fea was
“ covered with their ihips, and they carried on a moft extenfive
“ commerce. Their laws, however, were apparently very dif-
“ ferent from thofe which fubfift among them at prefent. From
“ time to time they fent out numbers,of colonies, which, one
“ after another, peopled the iilands of Sumatra, Java, Bor-
V o l : III. F . “ neo,
O f t h e
M a l a y e s .