infinite de petits
bateaux de pecheurs qui sortent de la riviere avec le jour, et qui ne
rentrent que le soir, lorsque le soleil se couche. Vous diriez un essaim
d'abeilles qui reviennent a la cruche chargees du fruit de leur travail.
Lettres Edifiantes Tome 1. For a more modern account of this city I beg
leave to refer the reader to Captain Thomas Forrest's Voyage to the
Mergui Archipelago pages 38 to 60, where he will find a lively and
natural description of everything worthy of observation in the place,
with a detail of the circumstances attending his own reception at the
court, illustrated with an excellent plate.)

The king's palace, if it deserves the appellation, is a very rude and
uncouth piece of architecture, designed to resist the attacks of internal
enemies, and surrounded for that purpose with a moat and strong walls,
but without any regular plan, or view to the modern system of military
defence.*

(*Footnote. Near the gate of the palace are several pieces of brass
ordnance of an extraordinary size, of which some are Portuguese; but two
in particular, of English make, attract curiosity. They were sent by king
James the first to the reigning monarch of Acheen, and have still the
founder's name and the date legible upon them. The diameter of the bore
of one is eighteen inches; of the other twenty-two or twenty-four. Their
strength however does not appear to be in proportion to the calibre, nor
do they seem in other respects to be of adequate dimensions. James, who
abhorred bloodshed himself, was resolved that his present should not be
the instrument of it to others.)

AIR.

The air is esteemed comparatively healthy, the country being more free
from woods and stagnant water than most other parts; and fevers and
dysenteries, to which these local circumstances are supposed to give
occasion, are there said to be uncommon. But this must not be too readily
credited; for the degree of insalubrity attending situations in that
climate is known so frequently to alter, from inscrutable causes, that a
person who has resided only two or three years on a spot cannot pretend
to form a judgment; and the natives, from a natural partiality, are
always ready to extol the healthiness, as well as other imputed
advantages, of their native places.

INHABITANTS.

The Achinese differ much in their persons from the other Sumatrans, being
in general taller, stouter, and of darker complexions. They are by no
means in their pres