Xvi.). When
the group was visited by Mr. John Crawford on his mission to Cochin China
the inhabitants numbered about 800, of Cochin Chinese descent. The group
is now held by the French under Saigon. The chief island is known to the
Chinese as the mountain of Kunlun. There is another cluster of rocks in
the same sea, called the Seven Cheu, and respecting these two groups
Chinese sailors have a kind of Incidit-in-Scyllan saw: -
"Shang p'a Tsi-cheu, hia-pa Kun-lun,
Chen mi t'uo shih, jin chuen mo tsun."[1]
Meaning: -
"With Kunlun to starboard, and larboard the Cheu,
Keep conning your compass, whatever you do,
Or to Davy Jones' Locker go vessel and crew."
(Ritter, IV. 1017; Reinaud, I. 18; A. Hamilton, II. 402; Mem. conc.
les Chinois, XIV. 53.)
NOTE 3. - Pauthier reads the name of the kingdom Soucat, but I adhere to
the readings of the G.T., Lochac and Locac, which are supported by
Ramusio. Pauthier's C and the Bern MS. have le chac and le that, which
indicate the same reading.
Distance and other particulars point, as Hugh Murray discerns, to the east
coast of the Malay Peninsula, or (as I conceive) to the territory now
called Siam, including the said coast, as subject or tributary from time
immemorial.
The kingdom of Siam is known to the Chinese by the name of Sien-Lo. The
Supplement to Ma Twan-lin's Encyclopaedia describes Sien-Lo as on the
sea-board to the extreme south of Chen-ching. "It originally consisted of
two kingdoms, Sien and Lo-hoh. The Sien people are the remains of a
tribe which in the year (A.D. 1341) began to come down upon the Lo-hoh, and
united with the latter into one nation.... The land of the Lo-hoh consists
of extended plains, but not much agriculture is done."[2]
In this Lo or LO-HOH, which apparently formed the lower part of what is
now Siam, previous to the middle of the 14th century, I believe that we
have our Traveller's Locac. The latter half of the name may be either the
second syllable of Lo-Hoh, for Polo's c often represents h; or it may
be the Chinese Kwo or Kwe, "kingdom," in the Canton and Fo-kien
pronunciation (i.e. the pronunciation of Polo's mariners) kok;
Lo-kok, "the kingdom of Lo." Sien-LO-KOK is the exact form of the
Chinese name of Siam which is used by Bastian.
What was this kingdom of Lo which occupied the northern shores of the Gulf
of Siam? Chinese scholars generally say that Sien-Lo means Siam and
Laos; but this I cannot accept, if Laos is to bear its ordinary
geographical sense, i.e. of a country bordering Siam on the north-east
and north.
