Note 308 — VI. OF THE GIFTS OF FORTUNE.

Our author says in a footnote: “See the narratives about the kingdom of Siam.” The zombay seems to have been a very profound inclination and prostration of the body. In “A New Historical Relation of Siam by M. de Loubère, envoy extraordinary from the French king to the king of Siam in the years 1687 and 1688, done out of French,” and printed in London in 1693, we find “they (the Siamese) kept themselves prostrated on their knees and elbows, with their hands joined at the top of their forehead, and their body seated on their heels; to the end that they may lean less on their elbows, and that it may be possible (without assisting themselves with their hands, but keeping them still joined to the top of their forehead) to raise themselves on their knees, and fall again upon their elbows, as they do thrice together, as often as they would speak to their king.”