We owe some additional information respecting the great river of Cambodia to Dr. Morice, who travelled in Cochin-China in 1872.

Of the Annamites, the inhabitants of Cochin-China, he says at the outset, that his first feeling with respect to them was one of disgust. Those faces more or less flattened, and often devoid of all intelligence or animation; those livid eyes; and, especially, that broad nose, and those thick upturned lips, reddened and discoloured by the constant use of betel-nut, do not answer to the European ideal of beauty. But after a long acquaintance with them, he, as is the case with other Western visitors, began to discern a glimpse of meaning in most countenances, and even to make distinctions between the ugly ones. He met with some eyes which were not oblique, some noses which had an almost Caucasian character, and his repugnance gradually disappeared.

Still, from the most favourable point of view, they are a race of low stature and unprepossessing appearance; feeble, deficient in stamina, and never likely to make a noise in the world. Their French rulers grow into giants when compared with these dwarfs; and their muscular energy is far inferior to that of Europeans, whether owing to natural causes or to want of hygienic knowledge. As for their complexion, while some are deeply tinted, others are quite wan and pale. In two respects only can the Annamites be said to surpass their masters: in their ability to row ten hours consecutively, and in the impunity with which they can encounter the burning rays of a tropical sun.

As for their character, it is that of a people whom slavery, ignorance, and sloth have rendered poor, timid, and apathetic. Yet they are capable of being raised to a higher moral and intellectual standard. They have many serious defects, it is true; they are deficient, for example, in the artistic sentiment. Even of the latter evidence is found in some surprising mural paintings, which reproduce, with loving fidelity, all that is bright and living in nature,—birds, insects, flowers. But, as a rule, the Annamites are insensible to the arts. Their shrill monotonous music is terrible to a cultured ear; and it may be doubted whether ours is agreeable to them. Of sculpture they know only the rudiments; their poetry is indifferent; they cannot dance. Their literary research is confined to an acquaintance with a few Chinese characters; and their scientific acquirements are a blank.

Then as to their attire. They never abandon their clothes until they fall into rags and tatters, though they are insufficient to protect them against the variations of their climate, and more particularly against the keen frosty mornings of December and January. Their huts or hovels, nearly all built upon piles, half in the water and half in the earth or mud, are singularly unhealthy. The cultivation of rice, and their occupation as fishermen, have rendered them almost amphibious. Water rises frequently to the floor of an Annamite house, particularly in high tides, but it does not discompose the owner; who, in such an event, crouches contentedly on the domestic hearth, or rocks to and fro in his rude hammock, murmuring some monotonous air, or smoking a cigarette shaped like a blunderbuss.

At Saigon (or Sai-gun), the French settlement and seaport, situated at the mouth of a river of the same name, the traveller finds much to interest him. The Botanic Garden, for instance, will well repay inspection, stocked as it is with rare, beautiful, and curious specimens of tropical vegetation. Close at hand lies the so-called Plain of the Tombs; the scene, a century agone, of numerous battles between the inhabitants of Lower Cochin-China and the Annamites; and, between 1860 and 1864, of several engagements between the Annamites and the French. The uniformity of its vast expanse is broken by a number of mounds or tumuli; some on a modest, others on a splendid scale. Constructed of earth or brick, they are covered with a kind of cement, on which are depicted in vivid colours the figures of fantastic animals and impossible plants, while the name and titles of the deceased are inscribed in conspicuous characters.

Here, one day, Dr. Morice chanced to be the spectator of an Annamite funeral, which is always celebrated with a certain amount of pomp, and attended by a numerous train of mourners. The coffin is planted in the centre of a small portable house, made of paper painted in brilliant colours, and cut into curious shapes. A score of bearers carry this miniature temple, resting upon their shoulders the bamboos which support it. A company of persons with torches scatter along the road their prayers to Buddha, traced on golden and silver papers, and set fire to them. In the rear march the friends and relatives of the departed, some uttering forced lamentations, all smiling “in their sleeves;” for these singular people are never so moved by their sorrow that they cannot laugh at a jest, or at any incident of which they immediately seize, as by intuition, the comic side.

Here too he saw some geckos: indeed, they were numerous enough to be considered the genii of the place. Inhabiting the forests and waste places, as well as the huts of the Annamites and the houses of the French, this large lizard, so common in Cochin-China, is one of the animals which give to the fauna of the country its peculiar character. Does the reader know what a gecko is like? If not, let him try to conceive of a gigantic terrestrial salamander; its skin, of a bluish-gray, covered with a quantity of tiny tubercles rising in the middle of an orange-tinted patch; its great eyes having a large gold-yellow iris; while, owing to the sucker-like lamellÆ that line the under surface of its feet, it is able to walk easily on the smoothest surfaces, and utterly to defy the laws of gravitation. Its cry, to which it owes the name given to it in every language, is curiously sonorous; and when first heard, fairly startles the hearer. A shaky grumble or grunt serves as prelude; then, five, six, or eight times, lowering its voice regularly half a tone on each occasion, it jerks out its cadenced notes, which are sometimes written gecko, and sometimes tacke; the performance terminating with a grunt of satisfaction.

The gecko grows as familiar with man as the domestic cat or dog,—entering human habitations freely, and rendering valuable service by the eagerness with which it devours flies, spiders, and other insect-plagues. During the day, it lurks generally in some obscure nook or dark corner; but at dusk sallies forth in search of prey, running up or down the steepest walls with wonderful swiftness, and giving utterance to a quick shrill noise by smacking its tongue against its palate. So flexible is its body, that it can adapt itself readily to any depression or irregularity in the surface of the ground, forming apparently a component part of it. This deception is facilitated by its dulness of colouring. It is a home-keeping animal, and never strays to any great distance from the lair which it has chosen. Despite its ugliness and its cry, which at night, when a dozen are heard replying to one another, becomes insupportably wearisome, it is one of man’s most useful allies in the animal-world, and merits his respect.

A word as to the formation of its wide feet. All the toes are broadened considerably at the edges, and their under surface is divided into numerous transverse laminÆ, from which exudes an adhesive fluid. Its claws are sharp, crooked, and retractile like those of a cat.

Another animal of the same group, but much smaller, and closely resembling the tarenta of which the Toulonese are so afraid, is the margouilla, the “con-tan-lan” of the Annamites. It inhabits trees and houses with equal complacency. Every evening, when the tapers are lighted, it may be seen promenading along the ceiling, where it pounces upon the insects, uttering from time to time its short cry of satisfaction, which may be translated by the syllable toc ten times repeated. It is partial to sugar; but as it is the inveterate enemy of the mosquitoes, no one begrudges it a dainty morsel from the sugar-basin.

From Saigon Dr. Morice made an excursion to Kholen, the second town in size and population in Cochin-China. It lies about three miles from Saigon, but is connected with it by a line of villages, of pagodas, and of the country-houses of the wealthier Chinese merchants. Kholen is the centre of all the Chinese commerce of the colony. The amount of rice, stuffs, and products exported from China, which is sold there, almost passes belief; and the stranger surveys with interest the animation of its busy streets, and the numerous Chinese junks and Annamite sampans moored alongside its quays.

Among its peculiarities may be specialized its parks or preserves of crocodiles. A barrier of long and solid piles surrounds a space of about twenty square yards on the river-bank; in the mud and slime thus enclosed, and regularly inundated at high water, sprawl from one hundred to two hundred crocodiles. When the people wish to sacrifice one of these monsters, two of the piles are lifted up; a running knot is flung round the neck of the largest of the herd, which is then hauled outside; its tail is fastened close to its body lengthwise; its feet are cut off, and used to garnish its back; the jaws are tied together with ratan; and these vegetable bonds are so firm that the huge creature is incapable of movement, and can offer no defence. As for the flesh, though rather leathery, it appears to have a certain value, and is not so strongly impregnated with the odour of musk as some writers pretend. On Annamite tables it figures as a favourite dish.

From Saigon Dr. Morice’s next excursion was to Gocong, which lies in the centre of a district famous for its rice-fields. Thence he made his way to Hatian (or Cancao), of which he gives a lively description furnished to him by a French colonist:—

“Hatian-of-the-Roses is a small gem of flowers and verdure; magnificent pagodas, wooded hills, the limestone mass of Bonnet-À-Poil; everything which one finds nowhere else.”

But, says Dr. Morice, he forgot the fever.

There can be no doubt that Hatian is a lovely spot. It is situated on the borders of a lake which opens into the Gulf of Siam; a lake bordered on the west by ranges of green hills, luxuriantly clothed with magnificent trees. To the east extends a vast plain, in the centre of which rises the isolated mass of limestone known as the Bonnet-À-Poil. The fields are enamelled with flowers and studded with flowering bushes; and winding paths lead through a succession of scenes of the most various beauty.

The plant chiefly cultivated is the pepper-plant. On a soil raised several feet above the ordinary level are disposed parallel rows of sticks like those which are used in the Kentish hop-gardens, and round each of these coils a vigorous plant. It takes five years for a plant to become productive. Maize is also cultivated, but not to so large an extent.

While Dr. Morice was at Hatian, its Annamite inhabitants celebrated their feast of the TÊt or New-Year’s Day, in which are oddly mingled the religious rites of Buddhism, and the worship of the manes of their forefathers, the fear of the devil or Maqui, and the noisiest possible manifestations of popular mirth. It lasts at the least seven days,—with the rich much longer; and the entire settlement gives itself up for this period to the most unrestrained enjoyment.

Before each house, on a table covered with a mat, is to be seen the offering of meat and drink, rice-spirit in a small white porcelain teapot, tea, betel with all its ingredients, fish, various kinds of Annamite vermicelli, roast duck, a quarter of pork, rice, bananas, and oranges. All this display is set out with flowers; then a couple of small tapers are lighted, and the manes, or domestic spirits, are respectfully invited to come and take their share of the consecrated love-feast. More: on a plate supported on a moderately high post, other and more delicate offerings are displayed,—composed generally of a bouquet of only two species of flowers, the one violet-tinted, the other yellow. As they are seen everywhere, it is probable that a symbolical meaning attaches to the union of these two flowers. Moreover, the rich plant an areca, the poor a large bamboo, in front of the various oblations, and to the top of each fasten a tiny basket of ratan, divided into five compartments. Finally, the altar of Buddha, which forms an indispensable appendage of every hut, is decked out with special pomp; and strips of yellow, red, and violet papers, inscribed with Chinese characters, are affixed to every door. These are intended to avert the presence of the evil spirit during the new year.

Meantime everybody, clothed in their best attire,—men, women, and children,—that is to say, in a striped tunic and pantaloons blue, red, yellow, violet, green, often with the two legs of different colours,—sallied forth to exchange greetings, or amuse themselves as best they might. Among the pastimes most in favour were the following. Javelin-throwing; in which a long lance of black wood was made to pass through a ring suspended from a post about three feet high, and this at a distance of six to nine yards. This game, which resembles the old Scotch exercise of tilting at a mark, requires considerable skill on the part of those who engage in it. Still more popular, especially among women and children, was the swing, single or double. And it was not without astonishment that the traveller found here, in the far East, a kind of “merry-go-round,” such as we see at our fairs and holiday fÊtes, with a score of persons enjoying its revolutions. There was also the game of shuttle-cock, which was launched either with hand or foot. In the midst of all this turmoil might be heard the monotonous tomtom, the isolated sounds of some three-stringed guitars, and especially the sharp reports of petards, which are indispensable at every festival, and resemble sometimes the file-firing of infantry.

For this great yearly revel every Annamite saves up his money for months, and when it comes he disburses his little store most conscientiously. Frequently an itinerant troop of actors comes—at least in the principal towns—to contribute its part to the general rejoicings. As it is the wealthy citizens who in turn defray the expense of its representations, we need hardly say that they are very largely attended. The plays included in their repertory are always of a noisy character, and plentifully sprinkled with coarse jokes, at the expense of the military mandarins, husbands, and especially the Chinese. Actors hideously painted, with the view of giving them a formidable appearance, perform in desperate combats, diversified by guttural cries and heroic poses of the most ridiculous character.

During his sojourn at Hatian, Dr. Morice paid a visit to a singularly constructed edifice—the ancient Chinese palace of the Maqueuou. This Chinese worthy, it is said, was a simple fisherman; but as the products of his avocation did not enrich him with sufficient rapidity, he began to cultivate a little ground, and started a pepper plantation. One day, while digging, he turned up a store of money,—a supply so ample that it enabled him to bring over to Hatian a large number of his compatriots. He trained them, enrolled them, practised them; and the result was that, one fine morning, Hatian, enriched and largely increased in population, declared itself independent of the empire of Annam, or rather Cambodia, and raised Maqueuou to the throne. He built for himself a splendid palace, and lived for many years afterwards, enjoying the rare pleasure of witnessing the realisation of his dreams. But when he died his organizing genius died with him. Hatian was again annexed to the empire, and the palace fell into ruin; only its four walls are now extant.

The European stranger visits the spot with a feeling of respect for the memory of a bold and energetic man. With some difficulty he clears a path through the luxuriant vegetation, and arrives in front of walls of Cyclopean solidity. Two vast halls, almost choked with balsam, daturas, caster-oil plants, parasites, and refuse, form the entrance. Then come four smaller apartments, in better condition, and each provided with a great circular window. Here some geckos have established their abode, saluting the stranger with astonished glances and piercing cries.

Next comes an immense chamber, almost exactly square; and several tombs or memorial buildings are here overshadowed by venerable trees. The highest, raised in honour of Maqueuou himself, consists of successive courses of masonry, diminishing gradually from base to summit. Unfortunately, built of bad materials, it has been seriously injured by the action of the sun and the rains. A swarm of bees was domiciled in one of the crannies; and a tree, the seed of which had probably dropped from the bill of some wandering bird, soared upward from the very apex of the pyramid. Four smaller monuments, all oblong in shape, and traditionally appropriated to Maqueuou’s family, are scattered around the former. They still bear traces of the carving with which they were formerly decorated.

Solitude and silence prevail within the precincts of this vast ruin. The geckos, the birds, and a squirrel or two, are its only inmates.

Another remarkable object is the so-called pagoda of Maqui, or the devil. Dr. Morice was greatly surprised to see appended to its walls a complete series of water-colour sketches, on very stout paper, representing the tortures of an Inferno which would bear comparison with Dante’s. The satellites of the Annamite devil are shown in those pictures as engaged in the variety of occupations which the old medieval legends attributed to the imps of Beelzebub. They are roasting, impaling, cutting to pieces, and flaying the guilty; throwing them into caldrons of boiling water, grilling them over fires, and flinging them to the hungry jaws of enormous tigers.

That Hatian is not without its unpleasantnesses, Dr. Morice discovered in an unexpected fashion. Some workmen, in pulling down an old wall, came on the lair of a large serpent, which lay in “multitudinous coils” hatching its store of eggs. As everybody knew Dr. Morice’s zoological tastes, the workmen sent him immediate information of their “find,” and he quickly arrived on the spot, armed with a stick and a long and strong pair of nippers. Had it not been for its eggs, the animal would probably have retreated; but it remained rolled up in its hole, showing only its spotted and dusky-coloured head. To seize its neck with his nippers, was Dr. Morice’s instant manoeuvre; and then, to the great terror of the Chinese workmen, he raised it up bodily, and proceeded to carry it off in triumph. Meanwhile, the irritated creature discharged at its captor’s forehead a jet of liquid, from which, at the time, he felt no disagreeable sensation. On reaching home, Dr. Morice deposited the reptile and its eggs in a chest lined with straw; which he nailed down carefully, and raised above the ground on vessels of water, as a protection against the attacks of ants. Then, and not till then, he washed his forehead, bathing, with due caution, the part touched by the fluid discharge; but still not believing that the serpent was one of the venomous kind. He troubled himself no more about his prisoner until, a few days later, he found in his chamber four tiny serpents, which he took up in his hand, in spite of their angry hissing. These he transferred to a glass jar. The next morning, wishing to examine them, he was unpleasantly surprised to find them rearing their head erect and expanding their neck laterally; and still more disagreeably surprised to detect on the neck thus expanded the characteristic V. A COBRA CAPELLA. They belonged to the genus of the spectacled serpent, the naja of India, the dreaded cobra capella!

Dr. Morice hastened to bore some large holes in the chest containing the serpent and the eggs, and by means of these he introduced into the interior a quantity of burning sulphur. When, after a sufficient time had elapsed, he opened it, he found the mother and eighteen young ones suffocated, while four eggs still remained intact. How had the others been hatched? The circumstance was a novel one, for it was supposed that only the great serpents—the pythons and boas—hatched their eggs. At all events, it was an interesting fact that this animal had remained faithful to its brood. Among the sixteen young serpents, only one was a female, and most of them had already once changed their skin. They were about thirteen inches long, and their fangs were clearly discernible. Dr. Morice felt that he had good reason to be thankful that he had not been wounded by the cobra capella when he so rashly pounced upon it.

We next find our unwearied travellers undertaking a journey to Chaudoc, which is situated near the mouth of the Mekong. On both banks of the river, but more particularly on the right bank, are arranged the numerous Annamite huts; and above them frown the grim walls of a fort, which is in itself of the size of a small town. The province, of which Chaudoc is the capital, includes one hundred and five villages, and has a population of eighty-nine thousand souls, of whom eight thousand are Cambodians and sixteen thousand Malays.

Still continuing his explorations in the districts watered by the mouths of the Mekong, which forms a considerable delta, traversed by innumerable canals and branches, Dr. Morice arrived at Tayninh, which lies to the east of Saigon. It lines the river-bank for some distance; the houses of the Annamite population being built, not of mud and clay, as in the western districts of Cochin-China, but of good solid timber, and with much care and good taste. Their roofs are also of better construction: instead of the leaves of the water-palm, a close fine thatch is used, to which the action of the atmosphere soon gives a pleasant tint of age. Flourishing coffee-plantations surround the town, in the rear of which spread the shadows of a mighty forest, that spreads far up the sides of a chain of granite mountains of moderate elevation. The highest of these is the “Black Lady” (Nui-ba-dinh). On the summit, in a picturesque nook, stands a celebrated pagoda, the cells of its bonzes being excavated out of the neighbouring rock. The pagoda owes its repute to the neighbourhood of a miraculous spring; and this spring rejoices in a legend, which may be told as follows:—

A bonze of indescribable holiness, who loved to offer up his prayers in the high places of earth, climbed the mountain one day in order to make his devotions on its lofty summit. Despite his sanctity, however, he was human; and as the mountain was of great elevation and equal barrenness, he soon grew faint with hunger, but more particularly with thirst. Disdainful, like all sages, of purely physical needs, he had not taken the precaution of providing himself with these precious necessaries of food and drink, which are the first thought of ordinary mortals. What was he to do? He began to pray; and lo! as he prayed, an enormous rock, which reared its dark front before him, was suddenly cleft open, and revealed to his delighted gaze a crystal spring falling into a basin of stone. From that time the well has never ceased to pour out abundant waters, which heal all the diseases of humanity;—though, strange to say, men, women, and children still die in Cochin-China!

Ten minutes’ climbing brought Dr. Morice face to face with this perpetual marvel. His companions hastened to drink copious draughts of the fresh cold water; but Dr. Morice, rejecting the legend, and having less confidence than he ought to have had in temperance principles, resorted to his pocket flask, poured out a glass of French wine, and drank to the majesty of the glorious mountain.

On another occasion Dr. Morice took part in an exciting adventure, which had a painful issue. A tiger, whose depredations had become intolerable, having carried off the best dog of one of the best hunters of the country, it was decided that he must undergo immediate and condign punishment.

The tiger is not often hunted in Cochin-China, where the elephant, that living fortress, does not place at the disposal of the European its high shoulders and formidable tusks. The inhabitants generally resort to snares.

“An expedition having been resolved upon, we surrounded,” says Dr. Morice, “the hill which served as a retreat for the monster. More than one hundred and fifty natives were present, shouting, gesticulating, and creating the most awful clamour which ever troubled a tiger’s siesta. As for us, the French inspector, a French soldier, and myself, we were in the plain, sprinkled with small mounded graves, which extends behind Tayninh, and waited in patience until it pleased the tiger to show his precious skin. It seemed to be his opinion that the boldest policy was the best; for in less than half an hour after we had drawn our noisy cordon he emerged from the wood, and advanced towards us. He was received with a rolling fire. Of our four balls one at least struck him, for he made a movement of pain, and turned towards the soldier who had accompanied us. That our movements might be more free, we had separated at some distance from one another. THE SOLDIER AND THE TIGER. The soldier immediately leaped upon a mound about three feet high, and with his loaded gun in his hand bided the wounded animal’s onset. A second ball from the inspector’s rifle hit him; but disregarding this new provocation, and yearning for his prey, he dashed towards the tumulus. With one bound he was at its foot, where he reared himself erect. Then took place a strange and lamentable scene, which showed how even the bravest lose their self-possession when face to face with these terrible beasts. That the soldier was a man of courage, numerous incidents had proved: it was he who had shown the most ardour in organizing the expedition; he had in his hand a first-rate rifle, and only the length of his arm apart was the white chest of the tiger, which seemed to await his death-dealing bullet. Well, for a few seconds he contented himself with striking the outstretched paws before him with the butt-end of his musket. The tiger extended his body, seized with one of his claws the unfortunate man’s leg, and began to drag him off.”

“A man touched by a tiger is a dead man,” says a German naturalist; “and it is useless to risk the life of another in an attempt to snatch from the cruel beast the mutilated victim whose sufferings will soon be terminated by death.” Such cold-blooded reasoning never prevails on the scene of action. Both the doctor and the inspector pursued the tiger as he still hauled along their comrade’s body; and two bullets, more fortunate than their predecessors, arrested his course for ever.

On examination, they found that their unfortunate companion had sustained a severe wound. Dr. Morice amputated his thigh in the hut to which he was transported; but, whether from loss of blood, which Europeans can ill afford in tropical latitudes, or from the violence of the shock to the nervous system, he died that same night.

From this painful scene it is pleasant to turn to the market-place of Tayninh, with its various specimens of the human race. Cambodians are tolerably numerous; their comparatively tall stature, their dark skin, their thick and heavy lower jaw, their hair cut close like the bristles of a brush, and especially their air of passive savagery, give them an appearance totally different from that of the Annamites. The two races detest each other cordially. The Annamite, proud of his lighter complexion, of his more advanced civilization, to say nothing of the numerous defeats he has inflicted on his neighbour, looks upon him as little above the MoÏs or wild people of the mountains. ANNAMITE AND CAMBODIAN. The Cambodians are savages, he says, whose nature is radically bad and vicious; they think nothing of law or order; they are stupid, and almost devoid of reason. On the other hand, the Cambodian, with his gloomier and more silent disposition, his deeper religious sentiment, regards with compassion the volatile Annamite. A cordial understanding between the two peoples will hardly ever be possible. The Cambodian, in spite of his somewhat coarse features, is more Hindu than Indo-Chinese; and both his language and his writing have affinities with those of the aboriginal inhabitants of the great Indian peninsula. He is the morose and untamable denizen of the hills and woods; while his neighbour is the sociable and light-humoured inhabitant of the plains. Unhappy is the Cambodian! Hemmed in between the Siamese on the one hand, and the Annamites on the other, who together have robbed him of his richest provinces; rendered stationary by the operation of a feudal law which prevents him from acquiring lands of his own,—a vigorous hand is needed to support him, and enable him to preserve his autonomy, while the ameliorating influences of European civilization are gradually brought to bear upon him.

Such are the two races which occupy the provinces watered by the lower branches of the great Cambodian river. In the large towns and seaports is found a considerable admixture of the Chinese element. Trade and commerce are almost entirely in the hands of Chinese merchants, who, here as elsewhere, exhibit an extraordinary amount of patience, industry, and thrift; and, here as elsewhere, untiringly amass large and even enormous fortunes. They preserve their nationality unaffected by the conditions in which they are placed; always a people apart, and always as distinct from the races around them as are the Jews from the nations of Europe.