Chapter 1

The city or town of Siam is located at approximately 16 degrees north latitude. And there is a

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[134r] monsoon from Melaka to this city in the month of August, and in February it is also possible to sail along the coast. And because there are numerous pilots and rutters that describe this voyage nothing more will be said about that here.

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Chapter 2

If one intends to sail from the Philippine Islands to Siam, or from China to Siam, he will have a monsoon from mid-February to the end of March. And during this time and earlier it would be best for him to chart his course according to the rutters which are found for this voyage.

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Chapter 3

The bar of Siam lies at 14 degrees north. A landmark for recognizing it is an islet that lies north to south with respect to the bar; this islet is approximately five leagues from the bar. And there are other islets at a far remove from this one, and anchor can be dropped at any one of them, especially at this one, which lies north to south with respect to the bar. And the entire fleet, however big it may be, can lie behind this islet without being detected by the people on land and the city of Siam, because Siam and all of its ports are ensconced in the interior. And as soon as the entire fleet that sails to Siam arrives in view of some high peaks that resemble organs, called Peynes, which are on the west side, it should not approach the land, thus escaping detection. And it should then head for the said islet, and there and at the other islands it can remain for one or two months without being seen. And departing from this 

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[134v] islet with the tide and the wind, in four hours at most it will arrive inside the bar, which has a sandbar that lies under eighteen spans5 of water and mud; it sits north to south with respect to the said island; and the sides to the right and left of it are full of sandbars for ships that draw deep water; but oared vessels can always go there on either side. At the entrance to the bar on the right side is a stream called the Mandarin’s stream where there are always ten or twelve men who man light prows by command of the King in order to send the alarm to the city when ships enter in. The mouth of the stream is very easy to take because there is no other exit to the river, and with two brigantines it can be barred, which should be done as soon as they6 spot the fleet so they do not carry the news to the city. And the stream can be entered without being detected because the said men have no other task than to be lookouts for this purpose.

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Chapter 4

This bay of Siam from the said Peynes Mountains to the bar has several ports, one of which is Bangplasoi. The city of Phetchaburi8 has a very beautiful river, which was in former times very large. And in the year 1582 the King of Cambodia came against it and conquered it and carried all of the people off to live in his lands, leaving no living soul there; it became all unpopulated wilderness. But

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[135r] now it has been rebuilt, as if the said destruction and ruin had never occurred. The aforementioned ports have very good anchorages and spacious inlets, though the far end of it has only three fathoms of water. There is much Brazilwood there from which inks are made in Spain. And in the interior there are many more villages that are not discussed here because they are so small.

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Chapter 5

It is approximately thirty-five or forty leagues from the bar of Siam to the city, and any oared vessel would be able to traverse this distance in four hours if it were fitted out because the tide comes in with great force as far as a village called Tabanga, which is approximately three leagues from the city. Many prows continuously sail up and down this river of Siam, because every league there is a village, each with numerous fresh orchards. The residents abandon their villages when they receive word of an enemy attack, rushing to congregate in the city and the seat of this river. No one will ask you who you are except at a house that is like a customs office, which is called peridiagui, where they ask the people from the ships that come in what they are declaring, who and how many there are in their party, where they are coming from, and for what purpose, and so on. And once a ship has completed these transactions with this customs office of peridiagui, a very swift prow is dispatched to the village of Enbanga to make it known. And at the ship’s arrival, they make her cast anchor and allow her to proceed no farther until she makes obeisance

 

[135v] to the King’s hand-picked officer who has been stationed there. And once the said obeisance is made, she makes her way to the city, where she pays her tax according to the custom of the land. Heading towards the terminus of this river of Siam there are numerous inns where people eat according to their manner and customs. And the houses of these inns are the very prows they travel in. And all the food is sold only by women, and they themselves are the ones who row the said prows they travel in. The main food of this land of Siam is noodles cooked in a fish broth and stewed shrimp with pepper and tamarind.

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Chapter 6

A few short years before the kingdom of Siam was destroyed by the King of Pegu, it was an empire. And he is the most venerated King in our day that we know of, because nobody speaks to him by looking directly at him; rather, he does so with both hands raised and with his face to the ground. And in this manner, kneeling off to the side a good distance, he tells what he wants to one of the King’s mandarins, who according to our ways would be like a member of the King’s council. And this mandarin, displaying the same courtesy with his raised hands, tells the king what the person wants and is requesting. The latter then answers very slowly, telling the mandarin the favor that he will grant the person. And to speak to the King in this way before he grants a request,

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[136r] the King must first know what gift or present is being brought to him. If it is of the sort that pleases him, he speaks to him, and otherwise he will not, and the supplicant turns back without speaking to him.

As stated earlier, this kingdom of Siam was once a great empire; it was her- alded as lord over all its neighboring kingdoms, who paid it tribute. And today Patani sends it a certain acknowledgment that it was obligated to pay by its ancestors, and it is true to say that it was one of the kingdoms in the world whose lands still belong to Siam. And the number and quality of bays are the highest in the world, as is explicated below.

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Chapter 7

The King of Siam who presently rules is placed on the throne by the Burmese King of Pegu. And he is a very old man. He has two sons, one of which seeks his father’s throne solely in order to extricate himself from submission to the Burmese. His father does not wish to give it to him. He20 is very wicked and possessed of bad habits. And he is so arrogant that he understands the world to be too small a place for him. He is a great shooter of harquebuses, which are made better in Siam than in Goa, to our shame.

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Chapter 8

This kingdom of Siam contains everything necessary for sustaining human life, and this in so great abundance that in order to collect the harvest, the one from the previous year is discarded, especially 

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[136v] rice, of which there is so much that all the neighboring kings, save the one from Cambodia, receive their supply from Siam, for which purpose more than 300 junks enter this river yearly from the kingdoms of Ligor, Patani, Pahang, Banten, Johor, Jambi, Drugun, Palembang, Bangka, Banjarmasin, and from Arrimata, and many other aforementioned ports.

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Chapter 9

This kingdom of Siam also has an abundance of cattle. And one very large cow is worth two phai, which is a little more than a cruzado. There are many pigs, and so many deer that they are impossible to count, which, when the freshets come, are captured by hand and taken to the houses. And so many are killed that yearly they sell 20,000 and 30,000 and 40,000 hides to Japan and other places. This land has much indigo, gunpowder and ink, which supplies all of Java and Minangkabau; 20,000 tinajas of this indigo are produced yearly, and indigo and rockrose are very cheap. It abounds in sappanwood, which is Brazilwood, with which the whole of India, China and Japan are supplied. It has a great deal of white benzoin in brick-size pieces, as well as an abundance of coarse piece goods—by comparison fine piece goods are worth much in Siam. It abounds in timber for building carracks and galleys, more than in other lands of our time.

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[137r] Trading, buying and selling are so robust in Siam that every day is market-day, and once a week there is a general market-day on their Sabbath, which is celebrated once on the day of the new moon, again on the quarter, again on the full moon and finally on the last quarter. This city has enormous freshets that flood the entire city and the adjacent countryside in a cubit37 of water. And when this occurs there is no transportation except by prows. And with prows and other boats they perform all of the trading, buying and selling and any other business.

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Chapter 10

The river of this city of Siam has good depth. Big carracks and junks that draw eighteen spans of water enter it, and they travel up river as far as the city, and much farther if they wish, because all of the said river is good with fine anchorages.

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Chapter 11

The city of Siam is situated on a floodplain and is completely surrounded by brick and earth that was dug to make the wall and which disintegrates on its own. And in many places the said wall measures over eight leagues in circuit, so that a person walking swiftly would have his work cut out to walk around it in two days. And because it is built of earth and brick, it is ill-defended, quite apart from the fact that it was built in an order and fashion that makes it easy to breach. Furthermore, because of the city’s great size, it has numerous parts where it can be entered because of the numerous streams that run into it. They are navigated in prows.

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[137v] And all these streams have their gates in the city wall, which are weakly defended. And all of them can be forded at low tide.This city of Siam also has two bastions on the riverside with several pieces of artillery lying on the ground, without proportion or measure, because they have no experience in their use; these bastions afford as little defense as the said wall. This entire city is built of wood and bamboo and thatch, and in the whole city there might be twenty or thirty houses made of brick that some of the rich men have for fear of fire to which it is greatly susceptible; it burns many times. And for this reason there are reed beds next to the houses to prevent fire from spreading from one house to the next. Inside the city there are many varelas, which are their churches. And their priests are held in high esteem and enjoy the best there is to be had in the land. There must be in this city approximately 30,000 households. They are a weak people who do not know how to fight. The city is thus very ill-fortified and can be entered anywhere without much resis- tance, for the people are also cowardly and weak in spirit.

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Chapter 12

In this city there are numerous wealthy men who possess much gold, not because it is found in the land but rather because it comes from China every year for the purchase of Brazilwood that is taken there. There is also much silver. And everything is valued by weight. And when they want to make a payment to a merchant, they say that so-and-so possesses so many catty of silver and so many tinajas of gold, and all of these riches are kept in ships that are built inside the city on its streams, 

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[138r] which are called memas. And the ships function as houses when there is news of war, because the people travel in them upstream and enter the streams that are in the city. The coins of this realm are cowries, which are small snail shells that come from the Maldives and the Philippine Islands. In this land everything that has been mentioned is very inexpensive.

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Chapter 13

This kingdom of Siam has numerous cities and towns in the hinterland. And one may go from the city of Siam to Pegu by land, as well as to Tenasserim. This kingdom of Siam has on its east the kingdoms of Cambodia, which have a great abundance of cattle and foodstuffs, and much timber; the same is true of Champa, where there is much ebony. [Another neighboring realm] is the kingdom of Cochinchina, where eaglewood abounds, and the kingdoms of the great China, where there are all manner of goods. There are also the kingdoms of Japan where there is much silver. And there are voyages from Siam to all of these places, and trade. Also, on the western side is the kingdom of Ligor, where there is much pepper, and the same is true of Patani; Pahang, where there is gold, and diamond, and bezoar stones, and eaglewood. There is Johor and Melaka and all the islands of Borneo and the Philippines, the Maluku Islands, Java and all the other islands on that side that can be reached by sail. And to the north there is terra firma, and there is Pegu, as has been mentioned, and other kingdoms and cities, as far as the opposite

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[138v] coast on the Pegu and Tenasserim side.

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Chapter 14

This city and kingdom of Siam, according to what has been said, can be conquered with 1,000 men according to the following directive: in order to take these southern regions at the time His Majesty should send the fleet to Aceh by way of India, in accord with the report that is being sent to him. During the same year he should send, by way of New Spain and the Philippines, 2,000 men against Patani, as is stated in the report regarding Patani that accompanies this one; and once Patani is conquered, he should leave 1,000 men there to retain it. At the same time, the other 1,000 should go against Siam; they will be sufficient to pacify it, and thus all these southern regions will be tranquil. And once Aceh is razed, the following may be easily conquered: Patani, Siam, Cochinchina and China, and His Majesty will be the great lord, and will possess the city of Guangzhou, which is so rich and sumptuous, and all the other southern regions, which are many, and very great and very wealthy. And thus you will be the greatest lord that ever was in the world, as has been amply stated in the report that accompanies this one. And be advised that it is important that the conquest of Aceh, Patani and Siam be concluded quickly, because at present only 6,000 men need be sent to these regions, but later more will be needed, because these infidels are daily becoming more powerful and ingenious in matters of war, quite apart from the many millions of Christians who would be made in these regions, plus the riches and the advantages accruing to His Majesty’s royal

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[139r] revenues and to His vassals, which are limitless. May Our Lord preserve the Royal Person of His Majesty for many years. Your humble servant, from Melaka, December 27th, 1584.