It was about the time of the conquest of Lapoon, according to Siamese history, that the Siamese were expelled from Kiang Hai by the Prince of Sittang. The Siamese fled southwards, and founded a new capital at Muang Pehp or Pet, opposite the present city of Kamphang Pet on the Meh Ping. In 1320 they deserted that city and founded another in the neighbourhood, and thirty-one years later migrated to the south, built their new capital at Ayuthia, on the site of a deserted Cambodian city called Viang Lek, founded dukedoms or _Muangs_ at Soo-pan-Boo-ree and Lop-Boo-ree, and joined the confederation formed by the Ngai Lao States, over which the King of Sukkhothai was then suzerain. This king had attacked Cambodia in 1296, pillaged its cities in the valley of the Meh Nam, driven the Cambodians to the eastward, and thus rendered the country available for the Siamese settlements. As time went on the Siamese became the predominant State in the kingdom, and entered on frequent wars of aggression with Cambodia, Annam, Vieng Chang, and Zimmé. In 1546, six years after the Burmese King of Toungoo had conquered Pegu, the Siamese commenced the series of wars with Burmah which ended in nearly exterminating the population of both countries. Every able-bodied man who did not take refuge in flight was forced into the ranks, either to defend his country, or to attack that of his neighbours, or the neighbours of the power to which his own State was tributary. Armies, from forty thousand to two hundred thousand men strong, ravaged the land, and swept away, as in a great net, those of the inhabitants who were not killed in battle. In vast tracts not a man, woman, or child remained; and elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, deer, wild cattle, and other wild animals took possession of the devastated country. At length the Mon armies of Burmah, who hated forced service, mutinied, and, taking their wives and children with them, fled into Siam; and Zimmé, which had been under Burmah, except in times of rebellion, from 1558 to 1774, threw off the yoke and asked for the protection of Siam. To such an extent was the population thinned out by the incessant warfare, that when we annexed the Burmese province of Tenasserim, which borders Siam and Zimmé, we found in it barely seventy thousand souls. Burmah is blessed with a fruitful soil and a bounteous rainfall. It only requires increased population to make it the garden of the East; and every chief commissioner, from Sir Arthur Phayre downwards, has advocated its connection with China by railway, as the means for supplying that want from the most industrious and enterprising people in Asia, the Chinese.