Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/51

 coast the Sah Bap hills extend some thirty miles. Bishop Pallegoix says that in an hour or two's wandering through these mountains his party collected a handful of precious stones. Gems are more abundant on the frontiers of the Xong tribes, at the north-east corner of the gulf, where the mountains form an almost circular barrier and the wild highlanders are accused of poisoning the frontier wells to keep off strangers. Ship-*timber abounds near Chantaboon, and building after European models is prosecuted with vigor at the government dockyards. The chief town is situated some miles inland, near Sah Bap, where the windings of the little streams, the high forest-clad mountains, give a varied and picturesque aspect, and the climate, owing to the mixture of sea- and mountain-air, is more propitious than at Bangkok.

The famous Lion Rock, a mass of rudely-*shaped stone which stands like the extremity of a cape near this port, is held in great veneration by the natives. "From a distance," says M. Mouhot, "it so resembles a lion that it is difficult to believe that nature unassisted formed this singular colossus. Siamese verse records an affecting complaint against the cruelty of the Western barbarian—an English captain, whose offer to purchase had been refused, having pitilessly fired all his guns at the poor animal."