ceeded in ascending in boats as far as to Wink-yan, which was at that time the Royal City. They found the river to be wide in places, but in others, on the contrary, to be narrow, and obstructed by rocks. They had often, indeed, to effect portages, and renew the navigation at a higher point. Villages and towns were met with on the banks of the river, pretty well built, after the fashion of the country; and they were, altogether, seven weeks on their journey. The embassy was not unfavourably received, albeit all the extravagantly exclusive and vain observances of an Oriental despotism were as usual adhered to; but all the advantages that could have been derived from the expedition were frustrated by a native revolution.

Although so little visited by Europeans, and it appears to be very doubtful (although Spanish missionaries from the Philippines wrote in 1596 of Laos as a rich and powerful country, and as if they knew it personally) if the missionaries really did visit it, Laos is known in actual times to be a dependent, prostrated, miserable country, to which CochinChina professes to be a mother and Siam a father! The father, indeed, inflicts sometimes a little parental chastisement, as in 1828, when the King of Laos having omitted to send the tree of gold-emblem of vassal tenure-to Bankok, an army of twenty thousand men was sent to put Laos to the fire and sword-a savage mission, which is said to have been carried out to the letter, the king himself having been made prisoner, and conducted to Bankok in an iron cage, where he was subjected to the most atrocious tortures that Oriental ingenuity could devise.

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'What," pertinently asks a French writer, "is the future reserved for these poor people so long oppressed, who dwell along the long banks of the May-kong, and whom contact with Europeans can alone initiate in the benefit of civilisation and commerce? These are questions, the solution of which appear to belong more particularly to England, whose establishments in Tenasserim and in the Malayan peninsula can never attain the development and the prosperity to which they are called by the force of things unless the great rivers that water Indo-China are applied to the high destiny which is reserved to them by nature as means of communication and of transport." This reflection upon the dormant spirit of enterprise of Great Britain does not apply itself solely to the great rivers of Indo-China. It applies itself even to the rivers of India. It is only in our own times that the availability of the Ganges and the Indus are beginning to be put to a practical test, and that the navigation of the Yang-tse-kiang, the May-kong, the Irrawaddy, the Burrampooter, and the Euphrates are beginning to be talked about.

The Annamese are themselves by no means insensible to the advantages of navigable intercommunications. They commenced, in 1820, the opening of a channel that had got blocked up between the Kangkao or Hatien mouths of the May-kong; 20,000 Cochin-Chinese and 10,000 Cambodians were employed at the work for several years, and

* Christoval de Jacque de los Rios de Mancaned, in the Archives des Voyages, par H. Ternaux-Compans. See also the Memoir on the Geography of CochinChina, by Monseigneur Taberd, Bishop of Isauropolis, and Vicar Apostolic of Cochin-China, published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vols. vi. vii.

10,000 of these unfortunates are said to have perished from sickness, fatigue, and privations.

There are several lakes in Cochin-China. Crawford notices two fresh-water lakes to the north-east of Pe-nom-peng. They are the same that are described, by the Chinese traveller, whose narrative has been translated by Abel Rémusat ("Description du Royaume de Camboge par un Voyageur Chimois." Paris: 1819). Taberd also notices a large lake called Bien-ho, but we know nothing positive regarding either lakes or mountains in the interior from modern narratives, or from the still more vague information imparted by olden travellers.

The whole chain of islands from Ko-kong to Pulo-obi, and the islands outside the gulf, as Pulo-pau-jang and Pulo-wi, belong to Cochin-China. The largest of these islands, Hasting's Archipelago, is called Phu-kuok by the Cochin-Chiuese, and Koh-dud by the Siamese, and is thirty-four miles long. It supports buffaloes and deer, as also oxen and pigs. The population, some 4000 to 5000 souls, live by the fishery of the tripang, which they kill with the harpoon in two or three feet of water.

Notwithstanding an intertropical position, the existence of vast deltas, alluvial flats and marshes, Cochin-China does not appear to be generally unhealthy. Fevers, especially yellow and black fevers, and dysenteries, are uncommonly acute at times, and prove rapidly fatal; but they are rare in the dry and hilly districts, or on the open coast with a fair sea breeze. The natives are said to be at once active and robust. Primitive rocks, as granite and syenite, advance in ridges from the inner chains down to the very shore, as is more particularly the case at Cape St. James and Huah; and this disposition of the soil is the most favourable that can well be in a sanitary point of view. The inner mountains reveal mines of gold, silver, lead, and iron. This is more particularly the case in Tonquin. They are said to be wrought entirely by Chinese.

The produce of the country is, in other respects, pretty nearly the same as that of other regions similarly situated. The chief cultivation in the low districts is rice. Cochin-China, being hilly and rocky, is mainly supplied with this staff of Oriental life from the valleys of Cambodia and Tonquin. Maize, earth-nuts (Arachis hypoga), batatas (Convolvulus batatas)-the potato of Shakspeare and contemporary writers, the Solanum tuberosum being then scarcely known in Europeare also extensively cultivated. The cocoa-nut tree and the areca-nut,

or cabbage-tree, are among the chief resources of the country. The first is, wherever it abounds, of most varied and useful application; the nut of the latter is, as usual, cut in slices, wrapped in the aromatic leaves of the betel-pepper, covered with a thin layer of shell lime, and then perpetually chewed. The Chinese prefer the areca of Cochin-China to that of any other country. The best fruits in the country are oranges, pineapples, mangos, guava, and litchi (Dimocarpus litchi), a berry in bunches of a red colour, rather larger than the grape, and with a slightly subacid taste. That delicious and wholesome fruit, the mangosteen, is said by Crawford to be wanting; but there seems some doubt about this, for Taberd notices it in his "Hortus Floridus Cocincina" ("Dict. Anamatico Latinum," p. 631). The sugar-cane is more cultivated in Cochin-China than in Tonquin or Cambodia. The produce is not, however, much esteemed-a circumstance which is attributed to the manu

facture not being, as in Siam, Java, and the Philippine Islands, in the hands of the Chinese. Cochin-China also produces pepper, but not in sufficient quantity to become an object of commerce. It also produces the cardamom seeds, so much sought after by the Chinese, and supposed by Loureiro to be not an alpinia but the Amomum medium, and of which another species, Amomum villosum, is much sought after for medicinal purposes, both being, in reality, kinds of ginger. The true cinnamon (Laurus cinnamomum), which more particularly affects a pure quartz sand, thrives wild in Cochin-China, which appears to be, indeed, its native home. It is also largely cultivated, and immense quantities are exported, some kinds at an extravagant price, for it is pre ferred in China to that of Ceylon, or of any other country. The seeds of the aniseed-tree (Illicium), which must not be confounded with our aniseed (Pimpinella), are also largely exported. Cotton is also extensively cultivated and exported to China, where it fetches, it is said, twenty times as much as Bengal cotton. This is one among other important points we are here enumerating, which presents a fine field to the commercial enterprise of any nation armed with the advantages of modern civilisation, more especially small screws or steamers adapted to the navigation of the great rivers as well as the seas of the extreme east. The white mulberry is also largely cultivated both in Tonquin and in Cochin-China, but the silken produce is much inferior to that of China. This is, however, open to any amount of improvement. A variety of the tea-tree, supposed to be a bohea, is also cultivated. Father Marini "Histoire Nouvelle et Curieuse des Royaumes de Tunquin et de Lao." Paris: 1666) describes it as a coarse, rough beverage, and says that the finer kinds of Chinese teas are used by the wealthy classes. Crawford did not dislike it. We must not omit in this enumeration the durion, the smell of which, when broken open, is like that of a rotten onion, but which is said to have the sweetest and most delicious flavour imaginable; the grape-vine, tobacco, yams, pumpkins, melons, certain colouring plants, gum-lac, and dragon's-blood. Timber is also abundant, and of the finest qualities and most durable properties. The eagle-wood is the most sought for. Its fragrance and perfume are exquisite, and one is exclusively reserved for the king's use. It is said to fetch 200 ducats a pound in Japan, pieces being placed under the pillows of the luxurious at night. There are also teak, go-Nunclea orientalis of Loureiro-and other trees, which grow to an amazing size, strength, and beauty. It is evident, then, laying aside the mineral resources of the country, sufficient of which are known to attest the existence and probable abundance of the most valuable metals, that the vegetable produce and high state of cultivation of Cochin-China entitle it to rank, on that score, among the most favoured countries in the world.

Elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, monkeys, boars, and deer, the latter of very large size, are met with in these countries. The elephant is a very fine animal, similar to the one of Bengal. The best come from Cambodia, and our Chinese authority, before quoted, says that there are five thousand kept for the purposes of war! Certain it is, that amongst the Cochin-Chinese the elephant is a most useful and indefatigable servant. The horses are small, but agile. Asses and mules are also common. The number of tame cattle, such as buffaloes and cows, is said to be very

great. The buffalo is a large animal in Cambodia, but it dwindles down in Cochin-China to a small reddish-brown beast, without a hump. Strange to say, the natives, like many other people of the extreme East, do not partake of the flesh of buffaloes or cows, and actually abhor milk! We have never seen the cause of this satisfactorily explained, for there is, no doubt, a reason for it, just as there is for the repudiation of swine's flesh in the dry and hot regions of Arabia and Palestine. Goats and sheep do not abound; the latter, indeed, are said to be very rare, but pigs are very numerous, both in the wild and domestic state, and the latter are said to be the objects of peculiar care both in the breed and the rearing.

Poultry is very common, Cochin-China being the indigenous country of the domestic fowl. It would hardly be thought that the tall longlegged species-the furor of a moment in this country-was the progenitor of our own diminutive race. The rearing of high-bred varieties of fowls is a passion also with the Cochin-Chinese, and the cruel spectacle of a cock-fight constitutes one of their national pastimes. Wild duck cover the lakes and marshes, and even the rice inundations at certain seasons of the year, and tame ducks are reared in incredible numbers. A large white goose, of a different breed from that seen in China, is reared at Saigon.

Fish abound in the lakes and rivers, as also on the coast. The fisheries on the latter especially are very productive, and the fish are of the rarest and most delicious kinds. A great number of hands are employed carrying fish from the sea-coast to all parts of the kingdom, as well as what are engaged in the fisheries themselves. The Cochin-Chinese use a kind of sauce, which they call balachiam, made of salt fish macerated and steeped in water. This is a sharp liquor, not unlike mustard, and serves more especially to render the ordinary boiled rice palatable. The islands also abound in the edible nests of the salangan swallow.

popu

The population of Cochin-China is composed of four distinct races: the Annamite; the Kambojian, or Cambodians; the Siampese, or Champese, or Loys; and the Moys. The Annamite race constitute the chief lation of Tonquin and Cochin-China. The inhabitants of these two countries, although frequently at war, speak the same language, are governed by the same laws, and are controlled by the same habits and manners. The Cambodians call themselves Kammer, or Kao-mien; they speak a different language from that of neighbouring nations, but they resemble the Siamese more than any other people in their appearance, their laws and religion, and their state of civilisation. The latter is of ancient date: they used to send ambassadors to China in the year 616. Constantly at war with Siam on the one side, and Cochin-China on the other, they appear to have attained the zenith of their power in the tenth century. In the twelfth they subjected the latter country. Kublai Khan invaded them in 1268, but the great Tartar conqueror appears to have contented himself with an acknowledgment of submission. In 1717 the Siamese invaded the country, and the sovereign, obliged to seek the assistance of the Cochin-Chinese, fell into the power of his auxiliaries. From that time to the present this fertile and populous, but unfortunate country, has been the constant seat of troubles. In 1786, the monarch, being an infant, placed himself under the protection of the Siamese; this

led to civil war, a rebel prince having, in 1809, assumed power, backed by the Cochin-Chinese. The Siamese were ultimately reduced to the possession of the province of Batabang only, and in the present day the country is virtually governed by Cochin-Chinese officers, civil and military, under the viceroy of Saigon, external forms and a few vain prerogatives being all that have been left to the native sovereign.

The people of Siampa are called, in the Annamite language, Loys. They inhabit the region that extends from Cape James to the province of Phu-yen. They have their own language, and profess a kind of Buddhism. Numerous temples in cut stone, with images of Buddha, Siva, and other Hindoo deities, are met with in the region in which they once ruled as an independent state. They have, however, been subjected by the Cochin-Chinese for now upwards of a century, the majority having taken refuge in the mountains, from whence they often carry on predatory invasions into the country of their conquerors. Another portion emigrated to the eastern shores of the Gulf of Siam, where they became mixed with the Malays, and adopted Mohammedanism. The existence of a mixed race, speaking a dialect of Siampese and Malay, at such a spot, is a curious fact in an ethnographical point of view.

Little is known about the Moys. Their original country appears to have been the province of Dong-nai, but, like the Loys, they were driven to the mountains by the Cochin-Chinese. Crawford speaks of them as uncivilised but inoffensive, but the worthy Bishop of IsauropolisTaberd-reports quite differently of them, and says that they are warlike, predatory, and ferocious.

There exists, besides these indigenous races, a mixed population in Cochin-China of a quite different character. The Christian religion was introduced into the country by the Portuguese Jesuits of Macao after the massacre of Japan, that is, about 1624. A further advent of Portuguese and half-breeds took place in consequence of their expulsion from Malacca about the middle of the same century, and their descendants are everywhere to be met with, although it is difficult to distinguish them in the present day from the natives who have embraced Christianity, and who are the poorest and most abject of the whole population. The Chinese are also very numerous, although, owing to the strictness of the laws, less so than in Siam, and in some other districts. They pay a capitation tax, and are not allowed to quit the country if they marry. The CochinChinese themselves are not allowed to quit the territory under any pretence. Crawford estimates the number of Chinese in Tonquin, CochinChina, and Saigon, at 40,000. The mixed colony of Malays and Siampese number some 4000 or 5000. Their chief places are Pong-som and Kam-pot. They are good sailors, active and commercial.

Annam appears to have been originally subjected to China, and the epoch of the founding of Chinese colonies on the coast has been traced back to 214 years B.C. The country did not recover its independence till A.D. 263, and even then paid tribute. The Tartar kings of China attempted to recover possession in 1280, but were unsuccessful. The Chinese invaded Tonquin again in 1406, and held the country till 1428. The Tonquinese next invaded Cochin-China in their turn in 1471, and they swayed the sovereign power, although subjected to another Chinese invasion in 1540, till the year 1553, when the Cochin-Chinese threw off