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ed my curtains, and resolved to indulge myself in that listless musing, that half delirium, which is often so grateful to the mind. A sycamore tree, which according to the tradition of our family, was planted towards the middle of the last century by my great-grandfather, grew on the outside of my window; its branches, driven by the wind, were moving slowly backwards and forwards before the glass, and in the almost dead stillness around me, I could hear the noise of the breeze passing through its leaves. This tree was an acquaintance of mine from my infancy, but I had never before seen it in so interesting a point of view. The whistling of the wind, the movement of the branches which seemed almost voluntary, and the alternate shades of light and darkness thrown by this movement on the floor, gave it altogether a liveliness which struck me forcibly, and it required but little aid from the imagination to bestow on it consciousness and animation. "How old, and yet how vigorous," said I, "is this beautiful sycamore! A hundred summers have shed their dews on its leaves; and a hundred more shall witness its unfading verdure; but he who planted it has long ceased to live; and the being that now contemplates it shall soon be motionless also. Yet art thou not, Oh Tree! exempt from the laws of decay: thy branches shall wither;-thy trunk grow dry and sapless ;-the matter that forms thee resolve into its parent earth, and mingle with the dust of man, over whom thou triumphest! But hast thou indeed a substance, or art thou only a creature of the mind? An hour ago, where wert thou? In the arms of sleep, I perceived thee not, and how do I know that thou differest in aught from the phantasins of the night, which then seemed real? In a few hours hence I shall sleep again as before, and that which seems now a dream, shall again become reality. In a few years I shall sleep longer and deeper; and this pillow of down shall be exchanged for a pillow of dust; but who shall say that I shall then be senseless? The night of the tomb may present a new scenery before me, more beautiful and complete; and when I awake to its enjoyment, I may look back on 'this fev'rous being, as on a turbulent dream! Divine Berkeley! Thou second Plato, but greater than the first-how just and sublime are thy views! Mind alone has essence: the forms of matter are but shadows. The whole choir of earth and heaven?-what is it? What, but a passing vision ?"

In this state of mind, so favourable to the operations of fancy, the impressions of sense gradually became more indistinct; a dark vapour seemed to spread itself over my eyes, and when my consciousness returned, the following pageant appeared before me.

I found myself on the side of a lofty mountain, rising out of the sea, the waves of which dashed against its base. The water was covered with a thin vapour, through which the sight penetrated with difficulty: and the objects on its surface, seen indistinctly, seemed agitated by the heavings of the surge. Casting my eyes behind me, I saw the mountain divide into two branches, which appeared to lose themselves in the clouds. Between them was a narrow passage, in the front of which stood a

Being of more than mortal stature. His coun tenance had the bloom of youth; his eye, which was upon me, shone with divine radiance ;-in one hand he held a spear, and with the other he beckoned me to approach, with benignant aspect. Wonder and reverence took possession of my heart; and I advanced with humble and hesitating steps. "Fear nothing," said he, "I am the angel Ithuriel, the servant of the Most High; obey me, and be instructed. I have strengthened thy sight: turn thy face towards the ocean, and tell me what thou seest." The clouds which had brooded over the water were rolled away; and the sea was covered with vessels of different sizes, all bending their course towards the mountain where we stood. On board of them I could discern the figures of human beings, sometimes directing the helm or expanding the sails, and at other times resting indolently on the deck, and trusting themselves to the tide. Many of these vessels seemed to enjoy a steady gale, but some were almost becalmed, and others appeared to be tossed and agitated by the violence of a tempest. All, however, approached us, though with different degrees of celerity; the whole being carried forward by a strong current which set towards the shore. While I was about to ask an explanation of what I saw, the angel again addressed me. "Direct thy view upwards," said he," and contemplate the sky as it hangs over the ocean." I turned my eyes towards the heavens, and saw them illuminated with streaks of light, and with meteors of transcendent beauty, shooting from behind the mountain where we stood across the hemisphere, and tinging the clouds with various colours of celestial hue. I gazed with astonishment and rapture; "Whence," said I, "Oh, inhabitant of heaven! arise those glorious visions, and what do they represent?" "A portion," said Ithuriel, "of the never-ending circle of being is presented before thee in the tablet of human life. Thou standest on an isthmus : below thee is the sea of Time, behind thee, where thine eye cannot penetrate, the boundless regions of eternity. The meteors that play on the heavens before thee are irradiations from objects too luminous for mortal eye, which have penetrated across the dark vapours that overshadow this mountain, and give a faint display of the real beauties of a brighter world. Again reflected from the impending clouds, they are thrown with diminished lustre on the surface of the ocean, where they assume a thousand unsubstantial forms. It is these phantoms, which they mistake for realities, that thy fellow mortals are pursuing; thy sight is farther strengthened; observe them more narrowly, and tell me what thou seest." "I see," said I, "the countenances of those who are advancing on the water agitated by various passions; and I can discern some of the objects which attract them, and which appear to dance before them on the billows as they approach. In their direct course I can discern a mighty whirlpool, towards which all the waters of the sea seem to flow, and the vessels are carried along by the power of its vortex." "The whirlpool which thou observest," said Ithuriel, is the termination of mortal life; the innumerable tribes that cover

the countries to the east of Bengal, it has within the last few years lost much of its importance in consequence of the purchase by the Company of the more conveniently situated island of Singapore, which has recently, however, been annexed, along with that of Malacca, to the government of Penang. The increase of the civil and military establishments at Singapore, which this arrangement has occasioned, is reprobated by our author as wholly uncalled for.

On the 5th January, 1822, the Mission left Penang, and, after landing on the 9th on the largest of the Dinding islands, where they found the ruins of the Dutch fort, exactly as described by Dampier, who visited the place in the year 1689, and in which Mr. Finlayson discovered a new epidendron, with a flowering stem of about six feet long, and with from ninety to one hundred flowers upon it, arrived on the 13th in the roads of Malacca, and were very politely received by the Dutch Governor. A sketch of the history of this settlement (now a British possession,) is given by Mr. Crawfurd, with his usual accuracy. Its present population, which has not varied for the last six-andtwenty years, is only, he informs us, about 22,000. The inhabitants consist chiefly of Malays, a brown coloured race of savages, called Benua, and Jakong, a race of Hindoo colonists from Telinga, the Dutch settlers, and the descendants of the original Portuguese conquerors. Of the last of these classes he says:

"The Portuguese amount to 4,000, and are all of the lowest order. Although, with a great admixture of Asiatic blood, the European features are still strongly marked in them. I have no doubt there are among them many of the lincal descendants of the haughty, intolerant, and brave men, who fought by the side of Albuquerque; but they certainly inherit no part of the character of their ancestors, and are a timid, peaceable, and submissive race. They offer to us a spectacle not frequently presented in the East-that of men bearing the European name, and wearing the European garb, engaged in the humblest occupations of life; for we find then employed as domestic servants, as day labourers, and as fishermen."

We may also give his account of the more fashionable society of the place:

"Jan. 16-Last night Mr. Timmerman, the governor, gave a ball and supper, in compliment to the departure of the military officers of the station, relieved by fresh troops from Batavia. Besides the inhabitants of the place, the party consisted of the officers of three Dutch men of war, lying at the time in the Roads. This occasion gave us an opportunity of observing the manners and appearance of the colonists. Out of thirty-seven ladies, two or three only were Europeans, and the rest born in the country, with a large admixture of Asiatic blood. The female dress of the younger part, was in the English fashion, and a very few only of the elderly ladies dressed in the Malay habaya, a sort of loose gown, or wore the hair in the MaJay fashion. The long residence of the English in the Dutch colonies, the influence of the French, and lately, of their own more polished country-women, have nearly banished these external marks of barbarism. Before the last ten years, the habits and costume of the female

Dutch colonists partook more of the Asiatic than the European. Instead of Dutch, they spoke a barbarous dialect of Malay; they were habited, as I have described, in the dress of that people; they chewed the pawn-leaf publicly, and even in the ball room, each fair dame had before her an enormous brass ewer to receive the refuse of her mastication."

Leaving Malacca, after a visit of only a few days, our author and his friends proceeded on their voyage, and at six o'clock on the evening of the 19th, anchored in Singapore roads. Singapore, where Mr. Crawfurd was afterwards resident and local Governor, had at that time been only about three years in possession of the Company; but even already, every thing indicated the rapidly increasing prosperity and importance of the settlement. The details of its statistics and commercial activity are given, however, at greater length in a subsequent part of the volume, and we shall therefore take the liberty of leaving the subject for the present, although the violence of the easterly monsoon detained the Mission in the place for more than a month. On the 25th February, they were at last enabled to weigh anchor, but soon found it necessary to stand across for the coast of Borneo, in order to escape the force of the monsoon, and make out their northing under the shelter of that island. After touching at various small islands on the eastern coast of the gulf of Siam, they at length found themselves, on the 22d March, in the Roads of Siam, and at the mouth of the river Menam, on which stands the city of Bang-kok, the capital of the kingdom.

Before proceeding to Bang-kok, however, it was found necessary to come to anchor off the village of Pak-nam, the first station on the river, about two miles and a half from its mouth, and a short distance above a bar, over which the ship had been floated with considerable difficulty. We will transcribe Mr. Crawfurd's ac count of what occurred here, as affording a very amusing illustration of Siamese diplomacy, and of the sort of treatment subsequently experienced by the mission, throughout the whole progress of the negotiation:

March 26-A Portuguese interpreter, despatched from the Court, came on board this morning. He brought a message from the chief of Pak nam, the purport of which was, that he had received instructions from the Court, to entertain us, and that a barge had been sent down to bring us to the capital, but that before the ship proceeded, it would be necessary to land our guns, according to invariable usage in such cases. We returned a civil answer, and sent the chief a small present, taking this occasion to remonstrate against the landing of our guns, as well as to signify to him, that one boat was totally inadequate to the accommodation of so large a party as ours. In the forenoon his nephew came on board, to wait upon us. He stated, that the orders of the governor, on the subject of landing the cannon of foreign ships, were peremptory, and could not be dispensed with, but that a reference would be made to the court for instructions. On the subject of the barge, it was explained that the numbers of our party were not known, or more accommodation would have

been furnished. This was not true, for we had stated the exact number of the party in the letter to the Prah-klang, (the minister who conducts the affairs of strangers,) and the circumstance of sending a single boat only, was evidently an early attempt to underrate the mission, and the authority by which it was sent. A temperate resistance, therefore, however unpleasant, became necessary.

"Our visiter had brought an invitation to our party to land in the evening, and partake of an entertainment which the chief had prepared for us. This, after some hesitation, was accepted, and at the landing-place we were met by the governor's nephew, who escorted us to the chief's house. A crowd of men, women, and children, were collected out of curiosity, the greatest share of which seemed to be directed towards our Indian servants, whose neat, gay, and clean attire, formed a striking contrast to their own rude and slovenly seminudity. After passing a short way through mean lanes crowded with huts, we came upon the dwelling of his excellency, the governor, formed of the same mean and perishing materials as the rest. We were ushered into a large apartment, raised a few feet from the ground, on a platform of split bamboos, which formed the floor. The thatch within, was ill concealed by broken and soiled Chinese paperhangings; and from the roof was suspended a motley collection of old Dutch chandeliers, of miserable glass, and Siamese and Chinese lamps, covered with dust, with cobwebs, and with the smoke of oil, incense, and tobacco. The governor civilly met us at the door, and shook hands with us very heartily, in the European fashion, Chairs were placed for our accommodation. The chief was a man about forty-five years of age, of rugged features, but cheerful manners, and he seemed desirous to please. His nephew, who had ushered us in, and his secretary, sat upon a carpet before him. A messenger, who had just arrived from the court, and who was deputed to conduct us thither, was also present. The name or rather the title, of this person, with whom the mission had afterwards a good deal of intercourse, was Luang Kochai-asa-hak, formerly Nakhoda Ali. He was one of those Mohammedan adventurers whose ancestors had come, several ages ago, from the coast of Coromandel. He had visited Queda, Penang, and Calcutta, and spoke the Malayan language tolerably, for which reason it was that he was selected to attend us. In the centre of the apartment we found a table laid out in the European fashion, under the direction of the Portuguese interpreters, with plates, knives, forks, silver spoons, and some tolerable English glass ware. It was loaded with viands, such as pork, fowls, ducks, eggs, and rice; and with abundance of fruit, particularly mangoes, oranges, and lichis, all of which were in season.

five months ago; that his body was lying embalmed at Pak-nam, and that his funeral would take place on the 24th day of the present moon; but we had certainly no idea that we were to be favoured with the presence of the deceased during the feast to which we had been invited. Mr. Finlayson and Mr. Rutherford, when they landed the following morning, their curiosity being strongly excited, on the subject of the body which was lying in state, ventured to make some inquiry concerning it. Their questions were by no means taken amiss by the son, to whom they were addressed, but considered rather complimentary, and he invited them, without ceremony, to view the body. It was lying in a coffin, which was covered with tinsel and white cloth, and the lid of which, when removed, exhibited the corpse, wrapped up in a great many folds of cloth,like an Egyptian muminy, apparently quite dry, and covered with such a profusion of aromatics, that there was nothing offensive about it.

"The chief alone sat down at table with us, but without partaking of our fare. He was assiduous in pressing us to the good things that were placed before us. My interpreter explained to me, that he requested us to "eat heartily, and not to be abashed,"- -a customary form of compliment, it appears, among the Siamese, in addressing a guest. No questions respecting the object of the mission, were put to us during the entertainment, and I considered the visit as a matter of mere form and etiquette; but in this I was much deceived; for the repast was no sooner over, than question followed question with great vivacity. We were first bluntly asked what was the object of the mission. We answered, in general terms, that the English and Siamese nations were neighbours, and that on our part, we were desirous that a friendly and frequent intercourse should subsist between us, and that we were deputed to request such an intercourse. This did not satisfy the chief; he urged us over and over, to state what particular request, or demands, we had to make of the court, upon the present occasion. We declined giving him the satisfaction he required; observing, that, in proper time and place, we would explain ourselves fully. We were next requested to state the quality and amount of the presents brought for the king; and a secretary placed himself behind the chief, to take notes of what was said on this subject-one apparently of the first interest. We evaded giving any answer, except in very general terms, but we were cross-questioned with dexterity and perseverance. I had noticed, that among the presents there were some fire-arms. The chief begged to know their number. I said, a few hundreds. He begged me to conjecture some approximation to the actual number. I added, probably three or four hundred. The answer