rice and cotton furnishing food and clothing and the mountain-streams fish in abundance. They seldom remain more than two seasons in one spot, and all through the jungles are found abandoned Karen hamlets, where rank weeds and young bamboo-shoots supplant the cultivated fields.
II. THE SECOND BASIN—SIAM.
The river Menam (or Meinam) is formed by the union of streams from the north. About halfway in its course mountains close upon the river, which passes from the upper plateaux of Laos into the valley of Siam proper through some of the finest mountain-scenery in the world.
The rich alluvial plain of Siam is estimated at about four hundred and fifty miles in length by fifty miles average breadth. The main stream, above Rahany, is known as the Maping. Below the rocky defiles the river divides several times, and contains some larger and smaller islands; Ayuthia is built on one of the latter. The founding of this city, about 1350 A. D., was one of the most memorable events in Siamese history. In 1766 the Burmese depopulated the country and burned Ayuthia. A new dynasty, with Bangkok for the capital, was founded about a century ago.
Bangkok, sometimes called "the Venice of the Orient," is the Siamese metropolis—the first city
