Note 67 — BOOK FIRST.

The Chinese geographers and historians are very well acquainted with Siam; there is an interesting description of this empire in the Hae kwo hëen këen, p. 21, and in the 57th book, p. 13, of the memoirs concerning the south of the Mei ling mountains. That Siam acknowledges the supremacy of China, was known to the most early European travellers. Cluver says (in his Introductio in omnem Geographiam Wolfenbuttelæ, 1694, 4to., p. 473), that "Rex Siamensis irruptione crebriori Tartarica pressus, Chano denique Chinensi sese beneficiarium aut vasallum submisit." Mendez Pinto, who was in that country in the year 1540, states that the king of Siam acknowledged the supremacy of China; Bernhardi Vareni Descriptio regni Japoniæ et Siam; Cantabrigiæ 1673-8, p. 128.