Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/377

 CHAPTER XII

THE FURTHER EXPLORATION OF SIAM, FRENCH INDOCHINA, AND THE MALAY PENINSULA

HE comparatively meagre knowledge possessed by Europeans concerning the geography of Siam up to the middle of the last century is well exemplified by a paper on the subject which was read before the Royal Geographical Society in London on December 10th, 1855, by Mr., afterwards Sir, Harry Parkes, who at that time occupied the position of British Consul at Bangkok. The only surveys of the country then available, he declared, were those which had been made in the course of their professional journeys by Dr. S. R. House and his fellows of the American Missions. These journeys had always been made by boat, and the surveys were taken by the somewhat primitive system known as "time and compass." The map thus com- piled, however, contained, Sir Harry Parkes wrote, " all the authentic geographical information we possess on that most important part of the Siamese dominions, the great valley of the Menam." Yet when we come to ex- amine it, the area delineated is very meagre and circum- scribed. It is covered by barely as much as two degrees of latitude, and embraces nothing beyond the lower valleys of the Menam and Meklong Rivers. Bishop Pallegoix, whose important work on Siam appeared in 1852, had penetrated somewhat farther into the interior,