Davy Jones' Locker go vessel and crew."

(_Ritter_, IV. 1017; _Reinaud_, I. 18; _A. Hamilton_, II. 402; _Mem. conc.
les Chinois_, XIV. 53.)

NOTE 3.--Pauthier reads the name of the kingdom _Soucat_, but I adhere to
the readings of the G.T., _Lochac_ and _Locac_, which are supported by
Ramusio. Pauthier's C and the Bern MS. have _le chac_ and _le that_, which
indicate the same reading.

Distance and other particulars point, as Hugh Murray discerns, to the east
coast of the Malay Peninsula, or (as I conceive) to the territory now
called Siam, including the said coast, as subject or tributary from time
immemorial.

The kingdom of Siam is known to the Chinese by the name of _Sien-Lo_. The
Supplement to Ma Twan-lin's Encyclopaedia describes Sien-Lo as on the
sea-board to the extreme south of Chen-ching. "It originally consisted of
two kingdoms, _Sien_ and _Lo-hoh_. The Sien people are the remains of a
tribe which in the year (A.D. 1341) began to come down upon the Lo-hoh, and
united with the latter into one nation.... The land of the Lo-hoh consists
of extended plains, but not much agriculture is done."[2]

In this _Lo_ or LO-HOH, which apparently formed the lower part of what is
now Siam, previous to the middle of the 14th century, I believe that we
have our Traveller's Locac. The latter half of the name may be either the
second syllable of Lo-Hoh, for Polo's _c_ often represents _h_; or it may
be the Chinese _Kwo_ or _Kwe_, "kingdom," in the Canton and Fo-kien
pronunciation (i.e. the pronunciation of Polo's mariners) _kok_;
_Lo-kok_, "the kingdom of Lo." _Sien_-LO-KOK is the exact form of the
Chinese name of Siam which is used by Bastian.

What was this kingdom of Lo which occupied the northern shores of the Gulf
of Siam? Chinese scholars generally say that _Sien-Lo_ means Siam and
_Laos_; but this I cannot accept, if Laos is to bear its ordinary
geographical sense, i.e. of a country bordering Siam on the _north-east
and north_. Still there seems a probability that the usual interpretation
may be correct, when properly explained.

[Regarding the identification of Locac with Siam, Mr. G. Phillips writes
(_Jour. China B.R.A.S._, XXI., 1886, p. 34, note): "I can only fully
endorse what Col. Yule says upon this subject, and add a few extracts of
my own taken from the article on Siam given in the _Wu-pe-che_. It would
appear that previously to 1341 a country called Lohoh (in Amoy
pronunciation Lohok) existed, as Yule say