Very extensive fortifications are here to be seen on both sides of the river, having water batteries, apparently of great strength. A great number of soldiers manned the walls in compliment to us, all dressed in the royal red uniform. We proceeded on with the flood tide, cheered by the passing scene. Occasionally, we met a single hut or a group of huts, having a boat at the door, and a ladder to ascend into their only room; this ladder is taken away at night, making their habitations more secure against wild beasts and reptiles, which are in great abundance in the swamps. Their principal neighbours are tigers and leopards, snakes of various sizes from the boa-constrictor and venomous cobra de cappello to the more deadly viper, which they say is black, about four or five inches in length, and has two short legs. Alligators bask in the sun at the foot of the ladder or under their building, and moschetoes bear the palm here over the swamps of Louisiana and Texas, coming in myriads so as partially to obscure the sun. We passed on to Pack-lac situated on the right bank, where we again found very extensive fortifications; but we were unable to ascertain the number of guns either here or at Packnam, which is probably about ten or twelve miles below. The ebb tide here met us, and the slaves made but slow progress in rowing--a breeze occasionally helped us, but the remainder of the passage was rendered tedious by the great heat of the sun. The river has a great many bends, so that it is nearly double the distance, by water, from Packnam to the capital, being from thirty to thirty-five miles, and only twenty by land. The shores are upon a level with the river at high spring tides, even at Bang-kok, and as I am informed, a long distance above Jutaya the ancient capital. Not until we were within a dozen miles of the capital, were there many clusters of huts to be seen; but, from thence, they gradually increased in number till we arrived at the city. The graceful and favourite areca-palm, with its tall slender trunk and brush-like head, and the towering bamboo and cocoa-nut, were to be seen every where along the banks, interspersed with a great variety of fruit and forest trees; and the water’s edge was bounded by the attap, or cocos-nypa, which is in universal use as a thatch for their huts. As we approached the capital, we began to see pagodas, some houses with tiled roofs, and a great many large junks, building in dry docks, which consist of a simple excavation made on the banks, the water being drained out by an ordinary barrier of plank, well banked with clay. Many of these junks were upward of a thousand tons. From two to three hundred were lying in the river. [Sidenote: BUDHIST TEMPLES.]