. With the world's great travellers;. ceed no farther. These functionariesembark on state barges, issue the royal mandate to thewaters, bidding them turn back in their course, and theyaccompany their intervention with exorcisms, which aresometimes ineffectual, and show that the falling of thewaters is no more subject to the commands of the sover-eign of Siam than were the tides on the British shorescontrolled by the Danish king. . In ascending and descending the Meinam I was amusedwith the novel sight of fish leaving the river,—gliding overthe wet banks and losing themselves among the trees of
. With the world's great travellers;. ceed no farther. These functionariesembark on state barges, issue the royal mandate to thewaters, bidding them turn back in their course, and theyaccompany their intervention with exorcisms, which aresometimes ineffectual, and show that the falling of thewaters is no more subject to the commands of the sover-eign of Siam than were the tides on the British shorescontrolled by the Danish king. . In ascending and descending the Meinam I was amusedwith the novel sight of fish leaving the river,—gliding overthe wet banks and losing themselves among the trees ofthe jungle. Pallegoix asserts that such fish will wandermore than a league from the water. Some years ago,I translate his words, a great heat had dried up all theponds in the neighborhood of Ayuthia; during the nighttorrents of rain fell. Next day, going for a walk into thecountry, how great was my surprise at seeing the pondsalmost full, and a quantity of fish leaping about. Whence THE MONSOON Ml., ?L& i •/.^-^ ^. H^lfi/. BowRiNQ] THE VENICE OF THE EAST. 227 have these fish come? I inquired of a laborer: yesterdaythere was not one ! He said they were come under favorof the rain. In 1831, when fish were uncommonly cheap,the Bishop of Siam thought fit to buy a supply of livingfish, and he poured fifty hundred-weight into his ponds jbut in less than a month nine-tenths escaped during a rainthat fell in the night. There are three species of thiswandering fish, called pla-xon, pla-duk, pla-mo. The firstis voracious, and about the size of a carp; salted and dried,it can be preserved for a year; it is very abundant, is ex-ported to China, Singapore, and Java, and is a particularlywholesome and health-giving fish. The dogs-tongue is a fish shaped like the sole; it at-taches itself to the bottom of boats, and makes a sonorousnoise, which is more musical when several are stuck to thesame bank and act in concert. Kampfer (one of the oldest and most authoritative ofOriental travellers
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