M is s io n a r ie s .
fumes the priefthood ; they ufually lead a monadic life, and have
their convents ; thofe of each province are governed by a fort of
bilhop. Nuns or female monaftics are frequent. The pagodas
are o f various forms, fome have a great refemblance to the Cbi-
nefe architecture. The idols are mondrous in their appearance.
T he fird knowledge o f the Chriftian religion was received by
the million of Jefuits, led here under the conduit of Alexander of
Rhodes, fome time before the year 1658, when pope Alexander
VII. fent over a reinforcement of religious men, but thefe being
o f other orders, were treated by the Jefuits with the utmod in-'
dignity, nor would they condefcend to permit them to ihare
in their labors, which had been attended with prodigious fuccefs.
As to the meUage.-Lcwir XIV. fent by his embaflador Mr.
Chaumont, in 1684, modedly requefting his Siamefe Majefty to
become a good Catholic; he received this very proper reply,
“ that he left it to his mod Chridian Majedy to judge, whether
<! a change of a religion that had -been followed in his .domi-
« nions, without interruption, during two thoufand two hun-
8 dred and twenty-nine years, could be a matter o f fmall im-
“ portance to him, or a demand with which it was eafy to com-
u ply, and a matter which related entirely to God and not to
“ him.” This well might check the zeal o f the miffionaries;
hut in the next reign, on the difcovery o f the treachery o f the
French general, and the murder of Phaulkon, the whole troop of
the religious were fent away, and all hopes o f return .entirely-
overthrown.
In many refpeCts the Siamefe have an agreement with the
Cbinefe;
Ch'tnefe; we mud except their bodies, which are fmall. In their
head-drefs they agree in the pointed bonnet, in the frequent inhabiting,
of ihips and boats, and now and then in their ornamented
architecture. The faces o f the inhabitants are large, F o rm o f t h e
their cheek bones prominent, their foreheads and chins contraCi SlAMESE-
equally to a point; their cheeks hollow, their eyes fmall and oblique,
nofe ihort and rounded; their ears long, by artificial dif-
tenfion; their complexions fwarthy; their hair black and coarfe,
and would be extremely long, but that it is cut ib very clofe
that their heads feem befet with bridles; their teeth black
from art.
! t is to be lamented, that fo well informed a traveller as Kcemp-
/¿r ihould not have left us any thing on the fubjeCt of the natural
hiftory o f fo fertile a kingdom ; we have nothing to fay o f its
vegetable productions, and as to its animals, we can only inform
our readers that it fwarms with elephants, and that their teeth E l e p h a n t s .
are a confiderable article o f commerce. In this tyrannous government
they are quite a p e d ; thefe, and other herbivorous
beads, deftroy the labors of the huibandmen, and none dare repel
the attacks o f thofe ravagers. Elephants are here only re-
ferved for date; the king keeps great numbers, and often makes
them the indrument o f his cruelty. They are the executioners
of his wrath on his offending fubjeds, and are indruCted how to
put them to various kinds o f death, either by trampling them
under their broad feet, or deliberately tearing their limbs off
with their lithe probofcis, or flinging them up into the air, and
catching them empaled on their great tufks.
Buffaloes and deer are found here in vafl numbers; their D e e r .
ikins