Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/378

though Sir Harry Parkes believed that his explorations only extended on the Menam as far as Pakprian, a dis- tance of 30 miles from the point at which the Ameri- can survey terminated, on the Meklong for a distance of about 120 miles from its mouth, and on the Tachin as far as Supanburi, a matter of 180 miles or so from its outfall. For the rest, the latitude of Ayuthia, the ancient capital of Siam, and of Lopburi, a town some- what farther up the valley of the Menam, had been fixed by Captain Davis, the commander of a merchantman, who had accompanied the King to these places a year or two before the time of which Parkes was speaking.

Topographical and statistical information on the sub- ject of Siam, albeit of a character of only approximate accuracy, was not, however, lacking. Merchants and missionaries were now residing in Siam in fair numbers, and in 1852 Frederick Arthur Neale, an Englishman who had spent many years in Siam, published an account of the country. His personal knowledge of it does not appear to have extended much beyond a few trade- centres, and in the same year Bishop Pallegoix's far more important work made its appearance. The Roman Catholic missionaries in south-eastern Asia have made good their claim to be regarded as among the most ad- venturesome of their kind, and Pallegoix, from his posi- tion as head of their organisation in Siam and from his intimate knowledge of the natives and of their language, had been able to collect a remarkable amount of reliable information concerning Siam and its inhabitants. His book, therefore, represented by far the most important contribution to European knowledge of Siam that had