some little article of dress.  The covetous mandarins, or officers of the crown, would have counteracted the royal permission of free trade, by taking every thing they pleased at prices of their own making, and paying when they pleased, acting in short more corruptly than those in any other part of India, though assuredly the rest are bad enough:  but, on complaint being made to the king, he gave orders not to molest the English in their trade; after which all their goods were carried to a house assigned them by the king, being the best brick house in Siam, and close to that of the Hollanders.  The time when our people were at Siam was the season of the rains, when the whole country was covered with water.

[Footnote 380:  Rather Bankok, near the mouth of the river Menan.—­Astl.  I. 438. h.]

On the 26th October there arose such a storm of wind as had not been remembered by the oldest of the natives, tearing up trees by the roots, and occasioning extensive desolation.  Among other things destroyed on this occasion, the monument which had been erected by the reigning king, in memory of his father, was overthrown.  Our ship, the Globe, very narrowly escaped, by the diligent care of Mr Skinner and Samuel Huyts, and by means of dropping a third anchor, after she had drifted, with two anchors, from six fathoms to four, she was at length brought up, when only a mile from the land.  On this occasion Mr Skinner was beaten from the anchor-stock, and very strangely recovered.  Five men were drowned, one of whom was supposed to have been devoured by a whale, which was seen about the time when he disappeared.[381] After raging four or five hours, the storm subsided, and the sea became as calm as if there had been no wind.  Yet a tempest continued aboard the Globe, occasioned, as was reported, by the unreasonable conduct of the master, who was therefore put under arrest, and Mr Skinner appointed in his room, on which this tempest also subsided.  Their trade also was too much becalmed, although this had formerly been the third best place of trade in all India, after Bantam and Patane, the causes of which falling off will be best understood by the following narrative.

[Footnote 381:  Whales are not of this description.  Perhaps Mr Floris had said in Dutch, by a great fish, meaning surely a shark.  At this place Purchas observes, in a side-note, “that the road of Siam is safe, except in a S.S.W. wind.”—­E.]

Sec. 2. Narrative of strange Occurrences in Pegu, Siam, Johor, Patane, and the adjacent Kingdoms.

Siam, formerly a mighty and ancient kingdom, had been, not long before, subdued, and rendered tributary to Pegu, yet did not continue long under subjection.  On the death of the king of Siam, two of his sons, who were brought up at the court of Pegu, fled from thence to Siam.  The eldest of these, called in the Malay language, Raja Api, or the fiery king, set himself up as king of Siam.  He it was whom