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Captain Gordon, the present resident at Manipúr, well aware of the importance of this step, is encouraging others of the better class of Manipúris to engage in the same study; and appears well disposed to advise and aid in every proper means of elevating the people. No missionary, so far as we know, has yet entered that field.

In the language of the Friend of India, after reviewing the whole, we conclude; 'thus a portion of territory full three hundred miles in length and nearly as much in breadth, has fallen under the care and protection of the British government without any preconcerted plan of conquest, and almost without the knowledge of the inhabitants of our Indian metropolis. On the south, nothing separates us from Burmah but the little state of Manipúr, recovered and preserved by British power; on the east, thirty leagues of Burman territory may intervene between us and the Chinese province of Yunnan; but if we go northward through territory wholly our own we come directly to Tibet, which is completely under the Chinese government.'

Art. II. Siamese History: distinction of sacred and common eras; with historical notices from a.d. 1351 to 1451, the eighth century of the Siamese era. From a Correspondent.

Occasional statements drawn from personal inquiry and journals of personal observations during a limited residence in Siam, have frequently been published. Hitherto the accounts which the Siamese have recorded of themselves have been inaccessible to foreigners. The jealous eye with which they have always looked upon foreigners, has induced them studiously to conceal their national history; and it was not until after numerous protracted and unsuccessful efforts that I was fortunate enough to get possession of the first ten volumes of it. It is written on the black books in common use in the country, folded backwards and forwards somewhat like a fan. The whole history is said to be comprised in about twenty-five volumes.

The Siamese have a sacred and a common era. The former commences with the death, or, as they say, the annihilation of Godama, and dates at the present time (1836) 2378 years. This is used in their religious writings and sacred edicts. The latter, dates from Phyá Krék, a man of distinction at Kutabong, (now called Batabong,) a province in Kamboja, respecting whose exploits the Kambojans relate many marvelous stories. Of this era, the present year is the 1197th. This is used in their history, and in the transaction of all ordinary business. Wherever, therefote, the Siamese common era occurs, we have only to add 639, and it gives us the Christian era. This, however, is not perfectly accurate, inasmuch as the Siam-