Page:ประชุมพงศาวดาร (ภาค ๔๕.๒) - ๒๔๗๐.pdf/6

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

inclined to think that its real author is Sunt'orn P'u. But this is impossible, since that famous poet died in 1855, two years before the date of the Embassy. One of the most remarkable peculiarities of the "Voyage to London" is that every time the author has to use an English name oran English word, he always succeeds in finding an appropriate Siamese word to rhyme with.

3)The English extracts which form the last part of this book are not very different in substance from Mom Rajot'ay's records. One of their interesting features is that they give the English text of the address read by the First Ambassador at the Royal Audience, and also the reply of H. M. Queen Victoria. The chief peculiarity of these comments lies in the fact that the English journalists of that time, being not well acquainted with Siam and the Siamese, made all sorts of funny mistakes about Siam and the personalities of the Siamese ambassadors, and published many amusing but unfounded pieces of gossip, which were subsequently denied by better informed papers (see p. 36), or even by the Court (p. 70).

I trust that this book will be read with pleasure by all those who will receive it.

Damrong
Royal Institute, 7 February 1928.