The Siamese tongue appears by far the most widely spoken language of Ultra-India. It was at one time the lingua franca of Kedah, almost as much as the Malay, and even that wandering Negro tribe the Semang spoke it in some places. It was also current in Assam and Yuianan at the opposite extremities of Ultra-India.
Though wives or concubines are kept in any number, according to the wealth or will of the husband, the wife who has been the object of the marriage ceremony called the Khan mak, takes precedence of all the rest, and is really the sole legitimate spouse ; and she and her descendants are the only legal heirs to the husband's posses sions. Marriages are perraitted beyond the first degree of affinity. A widow may marry her deceased husband's brother, and a widower his deceased wife's sister. Sovereigns may marry a sister or a daughter to preserve the royal race. After child-birth, the mother is placed near a large fire, where she remains for weeks exposed to the burning heat, and death is often caused by this exposure. The king himself attempted to interfere ; but his young and beautiful wife, though in a state of extreme peril and suffering, was subjected to this torture, and died while before the fire,' a phrase employed by the Siamese to answer the inquiry made as to the absence of the mother. In Siam, with laymen of rank, a.
with the priesthood, the dead are embowelled, and the body preserved embalmed for a long period before being consumed on the funeral pile. In their disposal of the dead body of a Khroopacha Acharya, or spiritual guide of superior sanctity, the rewards awaiting those who perform the funeral rites are innumerable. The bodies of the poorer classes are exposed to the elements and beasts of prey. Coal of excel lent quality has been discovered. Gold was dis covered in Rabin, copper and iron at Lapaburi, and lead and tin at Kanburi. In the Precious Stone Mountain, the topaz, the ruby, the sap phire, the garnet, and others are found.
The principal articles of export from Bankok are rice, sapan-wood, sugar, pepper, hides, horns, cardamoms, til seed, tin, stickjlaa, silk, paddy, teak timber, ebony, rosewood, mangrove bark, gum benjamin, gamboge ; and all the spices of the Southern Peninsula and the islands grow.— Latham's Ethn. ; Siam and Cambodia, by D. C. King ; Ain% Royal Geo. Soc.; Boarriny's Siam, p. 27 ; Earl's Archipelago, p. 1G8 ; Jour. Ind. .Arehip., 1817 ; Craufurd's Embassy; Aiteheson's Treaties, p. 315 ; Rangoon Times, 1863.