Among the queer articles of export from this place to China, are snake-skins, which are there used for musical instruments principally, and also for medicinal purposes. Many of the reptiles, from which these are taken, are of large size; and it is said are upward of thirty feet in length, and wide in proportion. The floating houses on the river, when sunk nearly to the water’s edge, by the decaying of the bamboos on which they rest, are frequently annoyed with them, for they are always in search of poultry. Among other methods of taking them, is this: a chicken is placed at the further end of a bamboo coop, near the door, over-night; a hole is made in this coop of a sufficient size to admit the entrance of a snake of fifteen or twenty feet in length; if the reptile enter, after having gorged himself with his prey, he is unable to get out, and is then easily killed. The skin is then dried, and rolls of it are found suspended from the ceiling of the floating shops. The entire carcasses of tigers are also exported to China, for the people of that country ignorantly suppose them to possess great medicinal qualities. Last year, sixty carcasses paid duties on exportation, besides a large number smuggled; they are generally in a very putrid state long before they are shipped. The thick hide of the rhinoceros is also another article of export to the same country, and by a peculiar process, it is made into, and used as a nutritious jelly. [Sidenote: BUDHA--CANALS.] _March twenty-seventh._ Reconnoitring in my boat yesterday evening, on the left bank of the river, up one of the numerous canals, we saw under a common shed, a short distance from a wat or temple, a number of idols. We stepped on shore to examine them, and at the feet of the great idol, lay a poor wretch, dying with the confluent small-pox; his bloated features and his person, covered with pustules, made him a disgusting object; he had crawled thither that morning, and had brought half a dozen saucers of sweetmeats, cooked rice, and fruit, and placed them on the lap of Budha, praying no doubt most fervently, that he would be pleased to cure him of his foul disease: but his cries were of no avail to this gilded block of wood, although they lasted from morning until eventide; for he died that night, at the feet of Budha.