This caravan arrives at a place called _Lanchin_, where
the king and his court reside. I conversed with a Persian who had been
three years in that city of _Lanchin_, and told me that it was a city of
great size and wealth.
[Footnote 158: Perhaps the author may have expressed _of 23 carats
fine_. - E.]
[Footnote 159: Perhaps the mixed metal called tutenag may be here
meant. - E.]
The voyages which are under the jurisdiction of the captain of Malacca
are the following. Every year he sends a small ship to Timor to load
white sandal wood, the best being to be had in that island. He also
sends another small ship yearly to Cochin-China for aloes wood, which is
only to be procured in that country, which is on the continent adjoining
to China. I could never learn in what manner that wood grows, as the
people of Cochin-China will not allow the Portuguese to go into the
land except for wood and water, bringing provisions and merchandise and
all other things they want to their ships in small barks, so that a
market is held daily on the deck of the ship till she is laden. Another
ship goes yearly from Malacca for Siam to lade _Verzino_[160]. All these
voyages belong exclusively to the captain of Malacca, and when he is not
disposed to make them on his own account he sells them to others.
[Footnote 160: From another part of this voyage it appears that this is
some species of seed from which oil was expressed. - E.]
SECTION XV.
_Of the City of Siam_.
Siam was the imperial seat of the kingdom of that name and a great city,
till the year 1567, when it was taken by the king of Pegu, who came by
land with a prodigious army of 1,400,000 men, marching for four months,
and besieged Siam for twenty-two mouths, during which he lost a vast
number of men, and at lost won the city. I happened to be in the city of
Pegu about six months after his departure on this expedition, and saw
the governors left by him in the command of Pegu send off 500,000 men,
to supply the places of those who were slain in this siege. Yet after
all he would not have won the place unless for treachery, in consequence
of which one of the gates was left open, through which he forced his way
with great trouble into the city. When the king of Siam found that he
was betrayed and that his enemy had gained possession of the city, he
poisoned himself. His wives and children, and all his nobles that were
not slain during the siege, were carried captives to Pegu.
