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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I RICHARD HUDSON ^|4-J5t?5 FURTHER INDIA --S J_ - — THE STORY OF EXPLORATION Further India BEING THE STORY OF EXPLORATION FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES IN BURMA, MALAYA SIAM AND INDO-CHINA BY HUGH CLIFFORD, C.M.G. ^ -- AUTHOR OF **IN COURT AND KAMPONO," ** STUDIES IN BROWN HUMANITY/ ** BUSHWACKING," *'A FREE-LANCE OF TO-DAY," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAPS AND WITH MAP IN COLOURS BY J. O. BARTHOLOMEW NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS .,_-£* Copyright, igo4. By Frederick A. Stokes Company Published in September, 1904 t^l t 1/9 G TO d£ms THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED IN MEMORY OF THE DAYS DURING WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN n' CONTENTS Chapter Piige I. Chryse the Golden and the Chsrsonssus AUREA I II. The Medieval Wanderers 24 III. The Coming of the Filibusters .... 45 IV. The Explorations of the Portuguese . . 74 V. The East India Companies, and After . loi VI. FRANas Garnier, the Man 129 VII. The Problem of the Khbcer Civilisation . 145 VIII. From Pnom Penh to Ubon 167 IX. Ubon to Luang Prabang — Mouhot and Other Explorers 191 X. The Shan States and Yun-nan .... 220 XI. Journeys of Exploration in Burma . . . 255 XII. Further Exploration of Siam, French Indo- China and the Malay Peninsula . . 299 XIII. Chryse the Golden as It Stands Revealed To-day ,• • • • 33^ 225116 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A General view from Mandalay Hill . . Frontispiece Part of the World, according to Pomponius Mela Facing page 4 Part of the World, according to Ptolemy . " 6 Ptolemy's Further India, as interpreted in the Fifteenth Century The World, according to Edrisi .... The World, according to Masudi .... Marco Polo Odoric Alfonso Dalboquerque Malay Peninsula, by WaldsiemuUer. Strass- burg Ptolemy, 15 13 Malacca, in the Sixteenth Century . . . J. Huyghen van Linschoten Linschoten's map, 1599 Further India. From Blaew's Atlas, 1663 • Further India. From Danville's Map of Asia, I7SS Francis Gamier Further India, 1840. From Lizar's Edin- burgh Map V it 10 23 23 24 34. 54 56 60 104 106 108 114 132 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Doudart de Lagr^e Facing page 1^2 Western Front of Ankor Wat ** 144 Plan of Temple of Ankor Wat <* 146 Sculpture at Ankor Wat, Kambodia ... *♦ 148 Ravine near the Mekong " 174 The Mekong at Hsin Tu Ku " 178 Alexandre Henri Mouhot " 192 Prairies on the Mekong '' 240 On the Irawadi River, in the First Defile . " 260 The Bazaar at Bhamo " 262 Plain south of Bhamo '' 268 Second Defile of the Irawadi River ... " 272 Colonel Sir H. Yule, K.C.S.I., C.B. . . " 274 Forest Scenery, Burma " 276 Burman Family Group ^' 280 Augustus R. Margary " 292 Captain WiUiam Gill, R. E " 294 Edward Colbome Baber " 294 Lao Town, Muang-Nan " 298 Bangkok '' 302 River Scene, Bangkok " 306 On the Mon River " 310 Auguste Pavie " 312 The Great Rapid. Red River, Lukay to Manhao " 316 Village Road, Anam '* 318 Kachin Village '' 320 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii ^ew of the River from Belida, Kechau, Pahang Facing page 326 On the Tenasserim River " 328 Forest in Anam " 338 Valley of the Upper Donnai " 342 Saigon. From Saloim's L'Indo-Chine . . " 344 Map in colours, by J. G. Bartholomew, at end oj Volume '^ —i.m u t*. •^1 i i''— 1 FURTHER INDIA CHAPTER I CHRYSE THE GOLDEN AND THE CHERSONESUS AUREA THE great peninsula which forms the south- eastern corner of the Asiatic continent, com- prising, as we know it to-day, Burma, Siam, French Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula, will be found, in comparison with other regions of the East, to have suffered at the hands of Europeans from a wholly unmerited neglect. Latterly, it is true, the lowers of the West have been busy here, as in other quarters of the world ; but in spite of their new-born political impor- tance only a languid interest has, for the most part, been excited in the countries themselves and in the problems to which their affairs have given rise. The failure of the lands of southeastern Asia to make a strong appeal to the imagination of the peoples of Europe is to be ascribed, however, not to their intrinsic unimpor- tance, nor yet to any lack of wealth, of bes^uty, of charm, or of the interest that springs from a mysterious and mighty past. The reason is to be sought solely in the mere accident of their geographical position. Lying as they do midway upon the great sea-route which leads 2 FURTHER INDIA from India to China, it has been the fate of these coun- tries to be overshadowed from the beginning by the inmiensity and the surpassing fascination of their mighty neighbours. Thus, even when India and Cathay had emerged at last from the nebulous haze of myth, super- stition and conjecture with which the imaginations of Europeans had early enshrouded them, southeastern Asia continued to be wrapped in obscurity, such knowl- edge of it as was possessed being practically confined to a bare acquaintance with its coast-lines, with a few ports of call, and with the seas traversed by ships in their pas- sage from the shores of Malabar to the southern provinces of China. Similarly, in our own time, while every schoolboy can point out Canton or Peking, Delhi or Peshwur, as a matter of course, not one educated man in fifty can put his finger unhesitatingly upon the spot on the map which represents Chieng Tong or Bhamo, Pahang or Pnom-Penh. The real exploration of this r^on, beyond the limits of a narrow zone of coast- lands, was not accomplished until during the latter half of the nineteenth century, while the work done in this direction by Francis Garnier and a host of smaller men is even less known in these islands than are the localities in which their labours were performed. It is not easy to realise to how late a period in their history the Greeks remained in almost total ignorance of the Eastern world, or indeed of any inhabited lands lying at a distance from the seaboard of the Mediterranean. It was not until the invasion of Xerxes forced the fact upon CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 3 their attention in uncompromising wise that they com- pletely grasped the proximity of Persia. Hecatsus of Miletus, who wrote between 520 and 500 b. c, is the first of the ancients to make mention of India and the Indus by name, and Megasthenes, who was in the service of the Syrian King, Seleucus Nicanor, during the third century b. c, was the earliest writer to extend the west- em acquaintance with the East to the banks of the Ganges. He traversed the great peninsula from the Indus to the former river by means of what he describes as << the royal road " — ^probably the first of the grand trunk-roads of India — crossed successively the Sutlej and the Jumna, and descended the Ganges to Palibothra, a town at the mouth of the Sone which was the capital of a king called Sandracottus (Chandra-gupta). He brought back with him much detailed information concerning the country, its people and its products, and he speaks of cinnamon and other spices as being imported from the southern parts of India, which may possibly be an indi- cation of the existence, even in his time, of the spice-trade of the Malayan Archipelago. It was not, however, until after the beginning of our era that the first, faintest hint reached Europe concern- ing the existence of lands lying to the east of the Ganges. It is found in the writings of Pomponius Mela, whose date can be fixed from internal evidence at A. D. 43, which make mention of a headland named Tabis, described by the author as the most easterly extremity of Asia, and of another, apparently further to the south, called Tamus. Off the latter lay Chryse, or the Golden ■wi -^—.r^sMA^.r-r—: 4 FURTHER INDIA Isle, while Argyre, the Isle of Silver, was opposite to the mouth of the Ganges. Pomponius Mela places the land of the Seres — the name by which the inhabitants of northern China were known — south of Tabis and be- tween that headland and India. These statements, though they represent nothing more than a vague grop- ing after the truth, are interesting because they mark the dawn of a perception that beyond the Ganges there lay further to the east certain inhabited lands, and because they show that in Pomponius Mela's time the Seres were recognised as occupying country at the extreme east of the Asiatic continent. Concerning Chryse itself Pomponius Mela, it is probable, entertained no very definite ideas, but his mention of the mythical isle indicates that a new geographical conception had come into being. Hence- forth the Ganges was no longer to be regarded as the eastern limit of the habitable world. The map of the earth according to Pomponius Mela, here reproduced from Mr. E. H. Bunbury's admirable History of Ancient Geography^ shows the distorted character of his notions concerning the configuration of the seas and continents ; but in the insignificant island of Chryse, there seen lying off the promontory of Tamus, we must recognise the earliest attempt ever made by a European to locate the lands of southeastern Asia. It was about this time, as we learn from the works of Pliny the Elder and from that of the anonymous author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, both of which be- long to the latter half of the first century, that a great revolution was worked in Asiatic navigation. Pliny tells ■irfr-inmMirT"[ r'liiimaaiiiiiBiii Part of the World according to Pomponius Mela From Bunbury'i " HiUan' of Ancknl Geognphj" CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 5 US that the southwest monsoon was called the Hippalus, and the author of the Periplus explains that "a pilot named Hippalus was the first, who, from observing the position of the ports, and the configuration of the sea, discovered the mode of sailing right across the open sea; from which the name of Hippalus is given to the local wind which blows steadily from the southwest, in the 'Indian seas." The voyage of Hippalus, whose example had been so generally followed in the time of FUny that the journey to and from India was then regularly made by many ships every year, marks an epoch in the story of naviga- tion. Up to this time the seamen of western Asia and of Europe had not ventured out of sight of land, and the length of their voyages had been determined by the con- volutions of the coast-lines which they skirted. The man who, first of all his kind, had the hardihood to face the open sea, to lose the comfortable sight of terra firma, to stake his life upon the accuracy of his own crude knowl- edge of geography, and to sail thus bravely into the Unknown, deserves to take rank with the world's great adventurers, with Colombus, with da Gama, with M^el- lan, and in that he had less of accumulated experience to fortify his resolution, he may even be accounted a greater than they. The opening up of the direct sea-route to India thus eflected served at once to give an enormous impetus to trade between Alexandria and the East, and Pliny was able to obtain first-hand information on the subject of Ceylon from four ambassadors whom a king of that 6 FURTHER INDIA island sent to the Court of the Emperor Claudius. He states, among other things, that trade was carried on by the natives of Taprobane (Ceylon) with the Seres of northern China, though doubt is cast upon the matter by the fact that the Chinese are described as fair-haired, blue-eyed giants. On the other hand it is significant that no mention is made of any commercial relations sub- sisting between the peoples of Ceylon and those of south- eastern Asia. This is, at the best, but negative evidence, yet it is noteworthy as seeming to indicate that the sea- route between India and China was not even then in general use, despite the fact that commercial intercourse between the two empires had been carried on overland from a period of remote antiquity. Of Chryse, the Golden, Pliny, in fact, has nothing to tell us, and the author of the Periplus, whose personal knowledge did not extend beyond Nelkynda, probably Melisseram, on the Malabar coast, says of it only that it was situated opposite to the mouths of the Ganges and that it produced the best tortoise-shell found in all the Erythraean Sea. He speaks, however, of Thina, the land of silk, situated << where the seacoast ends externally," whence we may gather that Chryse wais conceived by him as an island lying not only to the east of the Ganges, but also to the southward of the Chinese Empire. This indicates a distinct advance in knowledge, for the isle of Chryse, albeit still enveloped in a golden haze, was to the author of the Periplus a real country, and no mere myth- ical iairy-Iand. Rumours, it would seem, must have reached him concerning it — rumours upon which he be- i FURTHER INDIA sailed t«e»»i ^/ umlk fcr a stiU longer period untU tbc town of tattJspw* ^ast reached. The exact locaUty of Catt^^ra ita^ U«tt imjcii deputed, Mannert placing it m Borneo, tttik busiMvy inclines to the beUef that some point on tie outtt U Oxhin China is indicated On the other hand iUnn^M and Holcmy both expressly state that CattJstfa nai^ a csty of the Sinae, or in other words a port of M/uthern China, and a study of the route fol- lowed at a later period by Arabian and European travel- lers alike reveak the fact that few ever passed on a long voyage to the eai^ward of the Golden Chersonese unless they were bound for the Celestial Empire. Furthermore, it will be found that it is only by taking some port of southern China as our starting point — vis., as being the town of Cattigara.— that Ptolemy's itinerary can be made to have any sequence or meaning. The Sinus Magnus, which is described as the first sea crossed after leaving Cat- tigara, would then be the China Sea ; the Promontorium Magnum, dividing it from the Sinus Perimulicus, which is perhaps identical with Marinus's Zabx, would be some point upon the shores of Indo-China, corresponding with Champa, the kingdom which at a later period was an in- variable port of call for vessels making the China voyage. Similarly, the Sinus Perimulicus itself, which is described as washing the eastern shores of the Golden Chersonese, would be the Gulf of Siam; the Golden Chersonese would be, as it is usually agreed that it is, the Malay Peninsula; and the Sinus Sabaricus, on the western shores of the Chersonese, would correspond to the Straits of Malacca from their southern portals to the Gulf of tMMMHft..- CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 9 Maitaban. The island of labadius, or Sabadius — the reading of the name is doubtful — ^has generally been taken to represent Java, though there appears to be slight reason for the assumption, Java lying at a consid- erable distance from the sea-route to China, and being to a much later time visited with comparative infrequency by travellers from the west. On the other hand, Sumatra lay close to the track of ships plying between India and the Far East ; was a regular port of call from the period to which belongs the first authentic records of the China voyages ; and could not fail to be sighted by ships run- ning up the Straits of Malacca. It will be seen from the above that it is only by starting from southern China, that is by recognising Cattigara as a port of the Celestial Empire, possibly the Za}^on of the medieval wanderers, or a town which preceded Za}^on, as Za}^on itself pre- ceded Canton, that Ptolemy's descriptive outline can be applied to the true geographical facts of the region dealt with. No straining of probabilities becomes necessary ; no statements have to be elaborately explained away; and it may be stated without fear of refutation that this ceases to be the case if any other point be taken as the site of Cattigara. To the account of the distances said to have been sup- plied to Marinus by the sailor Alexander, no real impor- tance can be attached. It was the rough estimate of a man who was probably very ignorant, and it was given to a geographer who was not averse to making a bold guess if thereby the reported facts could be forced to fit in with ideas previously conceived. The same quaUfying ,o FURTHER INDIA consideration must be held to apply to the direction in which ships making the voyage to Cattigara are said to have sailed after passing the Golden Chersonese. The brief examination of Ptolemy's itinerary already attempted will suffice to establish the probability that Marinus's in- formant had actually travelled over the sea-route to southern China, and that the geographical confusions shown in the map of the world according to Ptolemy were due less to error in the information supplied than to the faulty reasoning occasioned by misconceptions on the part of the philosophers themselves. Although, as we have seen, the earliest indication of any conception of lands lying far to the east and south of the valley of the Ganges on the part of the learned of the West belongs to the year a. d. 43, and the first men- tion of the Chersonesus Aurea occurs in the works of Marinus of Tyre about a century later, it would appear that the name which the latter was the first to attach to a definite locality had become familiarly known to savants in Europe at a somewhat earlier period. This came about, it is probable, through the accounts brought back by mariners who had themselves made the voyage to this distant quarter of the earth, of whom there is no particular reason to believe that Marinus's Alexander was the first The name itself would be suggestive of great wealth; distance would lend to it its customary enchantment ; the vague information current concerning it would serve to deck it with a halo of mystery, with the glamour of romance ; whence it would naturally arise that the Golden Chersonese would come to be regarded vMutJuiA J.im>^"'mw ^ I'lck-my's FurlluT Imliu, us interprded in ihe XVth CVnIury ...•.i^-UVfudTijtfiteiiiiiBiiil -.e^^^^^fl CHRYSE THE GOLDEN n as the source whence was drawn the almost fabulous riches of which histoiy held the record. In this connection a curious passage may be cited from Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, which was writ- ten during the latter half of the first century, at a period, it will be noted, prior to the date of the works of Marinus of Tyre. Here, in speaking of the pilots furnished to Solomon by Hiram of Tyre, he writes : "To whom Solomon gave this command that they should go along with his stewards to the land that of old was called Ophir, but now the Aurea Chersonesus, which belongs to India, to fetch gold." Here, it will be remarked, Josephus speaks of the Chersonese with a certain familiarity, as of a r^ion with the existence of which his readers would be in some sort acquainted, but apart from this he makes two very defi- nite statements — that Ophir and the Chersonesus Aurea arc one, and that Ophir belonged to India. The second of these would seem to imply that he recognised that the Chersonese was not an int^p^ portion of India, and since the name had never been borne by any country of the West, he must have intended to convey the meaning that it lay beyond the valley of the Ganges, which in his day was recognised as the eastern boundary of Hindu- stan. It is now generally held that Ophir itself was, in all probability, a mere distributing centre situated some- where in the neighbourhood of the entrance to the Red Sea, and that the pilots of Hiram of Tyre did not guide the Stewards of Solomon to the actual source of the gold 12 FURTHER INDIA which went to deck the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem. The discovery of vast mines in southern Africa, which are believed to date from an immense antiquity, has led of late years to the conclusion that this was the region whence Solomon in his glory drew his stores of gold. M. Auguste Pavie in the second volume of his monu- mental work on Indo-China contends that ancient Kam- bodia is the original Ophir, and that to the whole of the vast peninsula, rather than to its southern portion of Malaya, was applied in ancient days the name of the Chersonesus Aurea, The wonderful civilisation of the Khmers which brought into being the splendid buildings of Angkor, of which more will be said in a later chapter, testifies to the existence of a mighty empire in Indo-China which must once have been a centre of wealth and com- merce. The vast siltage, borne down from the remote interior by the floods of the Mekong, has changed the face of the country within historical times, and Angkor Thom itself, now distant nearly two hundred miles from the coast, was once a seaport. That the Khmer Empire must in its day have played an important part in the his- tory of eastern Asia cannot be doubted, but M. Pavie's arguments, plausible though they often are, fail to carry conviction when he seeks to prove the identity of Kam- bodia with Ophir. Also, as regards his contention that the whole of Indo-China was included in the term the Golden Chersonese, it is difficult to believe that what is in fact an immense peninsula was ever recognised as such by the early mariners and geographers. Its bulk is too .....»•> ,m»>i\ u II Hi iliH 11 ill Ui lU til I A -^jt^^KU^ CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 13 great for its peninsular character to be easily or immedi- ately appreciated, while the Malay Peninsula, that long and slender tongue of land projecting to the south of the continent of Asia, forces an understanding of its nature upon the least scientific and observant traveller. In these circumstances M. Pavie's arguments seem to be impossible of acceptance, and the recent discovery in the Malayan State of Pahang — the home of apes and ivory and peafowl — of immense gold mines of very ancient date and of a workmanship that has no counter- part in southeastern Asia, supplies an ample reason for the designation of " golden " so long applied to the Cheisonese. Here, hidden away under the shade of the primeval forest, are excavations which must have yielded in their time tons of the precious metal, and if Josephus spoke truly, and did not, as is more probable, merely hazard a bold conjecture, here perhaps are to be found in the heart of the Chersomsus Aurea the mines of Solomon the King. Of the race that worked them, of the slaves who toiled and suffered and died therein, we to-day possess no clue, for this, the story of the earliest exploration of a portion of southeastern Asia, is lost to us forever. Here, however, at the very outset of our enquiry, we obtain a glimpse of one of those pregnant suggestions wherewith Asia impresses our imaginations by virtue of her antiquity, her wonder and her mystery. Hers is the land of buried story, of hidden records, of foi^otten romance. The East baffles while she fascinates us : fascinates because she baffles. Sphinx-like she pro- pounds riddles which few can answer, luring us onward H FURTHER INDIA with illusive hopes of inspiring revelations, yet hiding ever in her splendid, tattered bosom the secrets of the oldest and least amply recorded of human histories. After the time of Rolemy there follows a long and barren period during which Uttle advance in geog^raphical knowledge was made by the nations of the West, nor is it until the sixth century that anything resembling new light is thrown by a European upon the topography of southeastern Asia. Moreover the shedder of that light is himself a grotesque figure, an angry theologian bent upon proving the impossible, and moved to intense fury by the impiety of those who, touching more nearly the skirts of truth, have not the advantage of agreeing with him. This is Cosmas Indicopleustes, a monk and an Alexandrian Greek, who between 530 and 550 a. d. set himself the task of proving that the universe was fashioned after the model of the Ark made by the Children of Israel in the desert It is not necessary to follow him through the mazes of his argument, all of which he supported by texts culled from the Scriptures, but out of the tissue of absurdities to which he pinned his faith two facts emerge. While inveighing in season and out of season against those who clung to the belief that the world was globular, and against the unspeakable naughtiness of the adherents to the poisonous doctrine of the antipodes, he displays a sound knowledge of the sea-route to China, stating that a ship after travelling sufHciently far to the east, must turn to the north, and must sail in that direction <* at least as far as a vessel CHRYSE THE GOLDEN ij bound for Chaldea would have to run up the Straits of Honnuz to the mouths of the Euphrates " in order to reach the Celestial Empire, thus disposing once for all of Ptolemy's theory of a great southern continent enclosing the Indian Ocean upon which the land of the Sins, or southern Chinese, was formerly supposed to be situated. Cosmas, too, as Yule remarks, " was the earliest writer to speak of China in a matter-of-fact way, and not as a country enveloped in a half-mythical haze." In his work, therefore, we find the first written record of an appreciation on the part of a European of the true relative positions of China and of the lands of souA- eastem Asia. The advance in knowledge thus indicated is not great, but it is considerably ahead of that possessed by Ptolemy, and for the sake of the truth which he was the eaiiiest to disseminate we may foigive Cosmas the monk the farrago of nonsense with which he surrounded it, and also much of his bigotry and rage. Meanwhile inter-Asiatic intercourse by means of the sea-routes had been steadily on the increase. It was the enei^ and the enterprise of Hippalus, a Greek, — or so we are led to believe by the classical writeis who are on this point our only authorities — which showed the way to the Arabs and the Persians across the Indian Ocean, but during the centuries which followed upon his dis- covery, though an immense trade was in the hands of the merchants of Alexandria, the greatest sea-power in this quarter of the world, after the decline of the Roman Empire, was that of the Persians. As early as the middle of the second century the Romans had e>* i6 FURTHER INDIA tablished trading-stations at Aden, on the shores of Arabia and in Socotra, while during the same period the commerical relations between the Persians and India had undergone a g^eat expansion. Before the first half of the fifth century had ended this commerce had been considerably extended while the Roman trade had de- dined, and according to Masudi and Hamza of Ispahan the port of Hira was visited at this time by numbers of vessels, not only from the mainland of India, but also from distant China. The rise of the Muhammadan power, while it closed the portals of the East to the nations of Europe, gave to the Muslims the practical monopoly of Asiatic trade with the West, and during their prime the Khalifs of Baghdad were well-nigh supreme in the Indian Ocean. Muhammadan colonies were scattered broadcast over the eastern world, and in 758 the followers of the Prophet in China were suffi- ciently numerous to be able to cause serious disturbances in that country. The existence of these colonies too made it possible for a Muslim to travel with ease in almost any quarter of the East, and the excellent Ibn Batuta, the professional religious man who preyed upon the Faithful with such satisfaction to himself and to his victims, though he was one of the earliest to give to us a detailed account of his wanderings, was certainly not among the first Muhammadans to take advantage of the opportunities which the accident of their religion afforded to them. It has already been noted that no mention of the sea- route to China occurs in any work prior to that of Mari- --- — .F •- CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 17 nus of Tyre, despite the fact that the overland route from India to the Celestial Empire had been in general use from a very remote period. It is certain, however, that the existence of the former means of communication must have been known to the mariners of the Far East long before any rumour concerning it filtered through to the geographers of Europe. The overland route was still much frequented as late as the thirteenth century, when the Polos passed over it on their journey to China, and its greater antiquity would suffice to account for the fact that it was familiarly known to traders from the West who visited India long before the sea-passage had been heard of by them. It is none the less impossible to believe that the latter highway was unknown, at any rate to the natives of Southern China, some time before the beginning of our era. The Chinese civilisation is one of the most ancient in existence, presenting as it does the twin marvel of an immense antiquity and of a pre- cocious development inexplicably arrested. The Chinese are said to have understood the use of the mariner's compass as early as b. c. 2634, and though there is reason to question the accuracy of this statement, their written records concerning the properties of the lodestone date from early in the second century of our era, and it is thought that the compass was in practical use long be- fore the earliest treatise of this kind which has come down to us. If this were so, it is at least possible that Chinese seamen were accustomed to venture out of sight of land before ever Hippalus made his way across the Indian Ocean, and a glance at the map will show that i8 FURTHER INDIA few opportunities for doing so would occur unless voyages from the point of Kambodia to the Malay Peninsula and the islands of the Archipelago, or again from the Straits of Malacca to Ceylon and India had become habitual. We may conclude with a fair show of probability that the littorak of the China Sea, the Gulf of Siam and the Straits of Malacca were explored by the seamen of China not earlier than the coast-line between the mouths of the Indus and the Straits of Hormuz was skirted by the fleet of Alexander under Nearchus in the fourth century b. c. Again, the unmistakable impress of Hindu influence which is to be detected in the architecture of the Khmers of Kambodia, several of whose buildings date from 200 B. c, demonstrates the fact that intercourse between India and Indo-China must have been frequent at a very early period, and such intercourse would almost certainly have been conducted by sea. It has even been accepted by many as a fact that Gauthama Buddha himself visited Kambodia, and if this were so — ^the matter is one which is hardly susceptible of mathematical proof — it would presuppose communication between India and Indo- China as early as 500 b. c. Owing to the fact, already noted, that after the rise of the Muhammadan power the sea-borne trade between western and eastern Asia passed almost exclusively into the hands of Muslims, the first detailed accounts of the sea-route to China come to us from the Arabian and Persian geographers. The earliest Arabic manuscript of this kind belongs to the year a. d. 851, and has been edited and translated by M. Reinaud, the French On- Mcai CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 19 entalist The first few pages of this work are lost, but its earlier portion was obviously written by one who had himself made the China voyage. The second part of the book dates from the year 916, and is the work of a certain Abu 2^d Hassan, a native of Siraf on the Per- sian Gulf, who, though he does not appear to have had any personal experience of the trade-route dealt with, must have enjoyed opportunities of obtaining first-hand information from those who had themselves made the voyage. The portion of the book written by the mer- chant-mariner is in the nature of sailing directions, and the Arab's genius for mispronouncing foreign tongues, which is second only to that of the Englishman, causes the proper names given in the manuscript to present a series of puzzles to the enquirer. M. Reinaud himself would appear to have completely misunderstood the route indicated, and by far the best identification which has yet been suggested is to be found in an article from the pen of M. Alfred Maury in the Bulletin de Giographie for the year 1846. It would be tedious to examine in detail the grounds for the identification of the various seas and lands there set forth, but the facts to be gathered from an examination of the somewhat wearisome itinerary laid down in the man- uscript are that ships sailing from India for China took, during the ninth century, approximately the following course. After touching at Ceylon and the Nicobars, they came to anchor in a port near the northeastern ex- tremity of Sumatra. Thence, after occasionally touch- ing at a State on the western coast of the Malay Penin- 20 FURTHER INDIA sula, they made their way to the southern outlet of the Straits of Malacca, halted at the island of Bentan to take in fuel and water, or for similar purposes at an island of the Natuna group, came to port once more at some har- bour either of the eastern shores of the Malay Peninsula, Siam or Kambodia, passed on to Champa, and thence to Zayton or some other port of the southern provinces of China. It will be noted that the route thus traced is practically identical with that over which we have sup- posed the sailor Alexander to have journeyed, and in a later chapter we shall find that a precisely similar course was followed by all the medieval travellers to and from China of whose wanderings we have a record. The sea- route via southeastern Asia had by this time become a well-beaten track, but certain ports of call were used to the exclusion of all others, and the primary value of this great highway was as a means of getting to and from China, few wanderers being tempted to stray from the appointed path which custom had marked out for ships plying in these waters. The establishment of important commercial colonies in China by the Arabs and the Persians, concerning which Abu Zaid Hassan's portion of the manuscript furnishes some interesting particulars, presupposes that the passage to the Celestial Empire via the Straits of Malacca and the China Sea was now made by these peo- ple with great frequency, and the ports of call along that route, which seem to have been practically the same from the time of Marinus of Tyre to that of Ibn Batuta who returned from his wanderings in 1 347, were also to some i*«T¥"-'SJilMK;^ CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 21 extent used by the Arabs as settlements and trade depots. It is obvious from internal evidence furnished by the works of Abu Zaid, of Masudi, Edrisi and Abulfeda that a few Arab mariners turned aside from the beaten track sufficiently far for Java to become a country which was comparatively well-known, but this was the exception, not the rule, and nowhere do we find reason for thinking that the Arabs ever ventured far inland, save only in China itself. In spite of a wider and surer knowledge of Malaya and Indo-China than any which at this time was possessed by Europeans, the notions en- tertained concerning these regions by the Arabian geographers were still very vague and imperfect. Ptolemy's misapprehension concerning the Mediterranean character of the Indian Ocean was endorsed and per- petuated by successive Arabian geographers, many of whom doubtless arrived at this false conclusion independ- ently of their great predecessor. Some held with him that the African continent was prolonged in such fashion that it lay to the south of Malaya, while others were of opinion that the great southern terra incognita^ whose existence they had deduced from unknown premises, was divided from Africa by a narrow strait. For the rest, in spite of persistent attempts to treat geographical questions in a scientific manner, and to divide the habitable world into climates, or latitudes and longitudes, the general ideas at which they arrived concerning the comparative sizes and the relative positions of various countries were extraordinarily inexact. This is well illustrated by the two maps showing the 22 FURTHER INDIA world according to Masudi and Edrisi respectively, here reproduced from M. Reinaud's excellent edition of La Giographie d' Aboulfida, Masudi, who wrote during the first half of the tenth century and who was a con- temporary of Abu Zaid Hassan, had not only travelled extensively, but was also well versed in the literature of his subject and had had access to older Arabic works which have since been lost to us. His book therefore rep- resented the widest and soundest geographical knowledge of his time, yet a glance at the chart which puts his con- ception of the universe before us in a convenient form suffices to demonstrate how radical were many of his mis- conceptions concerning the form and nature of the earth's surface, and how great was his confusion in matters of detail. For him Indo-China and Malaya consisted of one lozenge-shaped peninsula to the south of which lay Sumatra in the same latitude as Ceylon, while Java was situated further to the eastward almost on the same parallel. China itself was also a peninsula, separated from that of Indo-China by a great gulf, while far to the south of all lay a vast terra incognita which had its be- ginning near the south of the Sudan. Edrisi's chart is even more confusing, although its author who lived and wrote under King Roger II of Sicily, completed his work in 1153-54. He fills almost the whole of the southern hemisphere with the African con- tinent, makes the Mediterranean occupy an altogether disproportionate space in the universe, vastly exaggerates the size of Sicily and of Ceylon, while to neither India nor China does he give the prominence which rightly CHRYSE THE GOLDEN 23 belongs to it When he passes to the eastward of Al Rami, or Sumatra, he becomes involved in inextricable confusion. An examination of these two charts will serve better than aught else to bring home to the reader the exceed- ingly rudimentary state of geographical knowledge even as late as the twelfth century, yet it must be remembered that at this period the geographers of Arab nationality were far in advance of Europeans, and that, notwith- standing their many errors, substantial progress is shown by their work if it be compared with the shadowy sur- mises and guesses of Marinus and Ptolemy, more espe- cially with r^;ard to southeastern Asia. CHAPTER II THE MEDIEVAL WANDERERS THE first of the European wanderers in the Far East, the personal narrative of whose adven- tures has come down to us, is Messer Marco Polo, the Venetian. The wonderful story of the great overland journey made by this traveller in the company of his father and uncle when they set out from Constan- tinople " to traverse the world," will be dealt with in a sep- arate volume, and need not here be recapitulated in detail. For us the travels of Marco Polo begin and end with his passage across the seas and amidst the islands of south- eastern Asia on his return journey from Cathay to Europe. And once again the fate, which we have noted as doom- ing the Indo-Chinese peninsula to obscurity, causes this portion of Marco Polo's narrative to be more tangled and more destitute of detail than almost any other chapters in his book. The slovenliness of his descriptions of the countries between Champa, or Chamba, as he calls it, and Ceylon, and the scant measure of reliable fact which is to be extracted from his account of his journey, moved the late Mr. John Crawfurd to contemptuous in- dignation. " The information communicated," he declares, " is more like what might be expected from a Chinese than a European traveller, and the author who had gone to China at eighteen, and lived there for twenty 24 Maico Polo, from a painting in the Gallery of Monsignorc Badia at Rome From Iht book ot Str JIarco Tolo (by pemii-'sim o( Mr, J<,hn Mumv) .Jm^^ MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 25 years, was probably in his turn of thinking as much a Chinese as a European." What hampered Marco Polo in his observations of southeastern Asia far more ma- terially than any accident of training, however, was that after traversing the entire continent, and living for a score of years in the land of the Great Kaan, the com- parative insignificance of the countries of the Malay Archipelago must have struck him with peculiar force. There is internal evidence of some such attitude of mind in many of his references to these regions. In several passages Polo is constantly to be detected comparing everything he saw with that greater world of Cathay in which so large a portion of his life had been spent, and it is not wonderful, therefore, if he dismissed with a bare mention lands and peoples which fell so far short of the standard whereby he scaled them. Setting out from the port of Zayton in the province of Fokien, Marco relates that " after sailing for some three months" he and his shipmates arrived "at a certain island towards the south which is called Java. . . . Quitting this island they continued to navigate the Sea of India for eighteen months before they arrived whither they were bound," viz,, at Hormuz. The journey was made in immense Chinese junks, several of which carried crews of 250 or 260 men. The Java of which Marco Polo here speaks is not Java proper, but " Java the Less," as he elsewhere names it, or in other words, Sumatra. To the voyage to the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, there- fore, must be added the run up the coast of Sumatra to a point near its northeastern extremity, an insignificant 26 FURTHER INDIA it is true, but one which a sailing vessel may take a long time in covering, since in these sheltered waters navigation is not aided by the constant winds of the monsoon. When every allowance has been made, however, it must be confessed that Marco Polo's journey from China to Sumatra occupied a prodigious time. When, therefore, Sumatra was at last reached the force of the northeast monsoon was spent, and Marco Polo and his comrades had to make up their minds to a five months' stay upon the island while they awaited the retium of a favourable wind. Concerning the lands of southeastern Asia he has no very illuminating information to supply. Champa, or Chamba, was to him remarkable chiefly because it was a «* veiy rich region, having a King of its own," whose children numbered 326 souls! He notes the vast quantity of tame elephants in use in this country, the ** abundance " of lignaloes, and the existence of extensive forests of a jet-black timber, called donis, but his account of Kublai Kaan's attempts to subdue the country is startlingly inaccurate. His description of Java — not ^ Java the Less," but the smaller and richer island over which the Dutch flag flies to-day — is hardly more exact, and it is plain that, lying as it does far from the highway between China and the West, he never personally visited it He greatly overestimates its size, mentions that its king had no over-lord, and credits it with many vegetable products which it does not produce, the fact being that Java was at this period the great emporium of the trade of the Malayan Archipelago, the produce of the iskmds \-_?- ' wm aK MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 27 being brought thither and thence distributed to the markets of the world The islands of Sondur and Condur, 700 miles from Champa, at which Marco's ship would appear to have touched, are the Pulau Kondor of to-day, once the site of a factory of the British East India Company, and now a penal settlement to which convicts are sent from Saigon, the capital of French Indo- China. Locac — *' a good country and a rich ; (it is on the mainland) ; and it has a king of its own. The people are idolaters and have a '.peculiar language, and pay tribute to nobody, for their country is so situated that no one can enter it to do them ill," — is also described as yield- ing brasil " in great plenty; and they also have gold in incredible quantity." " They also," he adds, •« have elephants and much game. In this kingdom too are gathered all the porcelain shells which are used for small change in all these regions." The identity of Locac has been much disputed, but the strongest case is made out by Sir Henry Yule, who places it in the Malay Peninsula, somewhere in what is now called Lower Siam. Marco Polo's Pentam, " a very wild place," 500 miles towards the south, is almost certainly the island of Bentan near the entrance to the Straits of Malacca, " and when you have gone these sixty miles and again about thirty more, you come to an island which forms a kingdom, and is called Malaiur. The people have a king of their own and a peculiar language. The city is a fine and noble one, and there is great trade carried on there, and all other necessaries of life." It is impossible to disregard Polo's distinct assertion that Malaiur was an island, and 28 FURTHER INDIA further the fact that it is not included in his list of Sumatran kingdoms, wherefore it seems probable that in his day there existed a Malayan state of considerable importance, possibly upon the island on which the town of Singapore now stands. Sumatra, or " Java the Less," is dealt with in some- what greater detail. In speaking of Ferlec (Perlak) he says : " This kingdom, you must know, is so much fre- quented by the Saracen merchants that they have con- verted the natives to the Law of Mahommet — I mean the townspeople only, for the hill-people live for all the world like beasts, and eat human flesh, clean or unclean. And they worship this, that, and the other thing ; for in fact the first thing they see on rising in the morning, that they do worship for the rest of the day." We have here yet another proof of the frequency with which the Arab merchants resorted to Malaya, and a hint at the length of that intercourse, for even the more civilised sections of a community do not become con- verted to an alien faith save after long and intimate asso- ciation with its professors. Basma (Pasei), another Sumatran State, declared itself, Marco Polo tells us, to be subject to the Great Kaan, though it paid him no regular tribute, only sending him presents from time to time. Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveller, when he returned from China some fifty years later, made the voyage in a ship which belonged to " the King of Su- matra " who had been to pay homage to the Emperor, and it is possible that this Muhammadan potentate may MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 29 have been no other than the then Raja of Pasei. It is in writing of this State that Polo tells us of wild elephants and of " numerous unicorns, which arc very nearly as big." His description of these latter monsters is de- lightful : " They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone ; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles (and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue). The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and it is not in the least like that which our stories tell us of as being caught in the lap of a virgin : in fact 'tis alto- gether different from what we fancied." Here, in spite of some flowers of fancy, we have no sort of difliculty in recognising the rhinoceros, a truly different creature to the graceful unicorn of our legends; but it is curious that the Sumatran species is two horned, and that while it has hair like that of a water-buffalo, it carries its head far more erect than does the one-homed variety commonly met with on the other side of the Straits of Malacca. One cannot help fancying that Polo had actually seen a specimen of the one-horned rhinoc* eros, and that he subsequently heard of the existence of the creature in Sumatra, for on the whole he describes the animal with wonderful accuracy. 'Tt-tr* 30 FURTHER INDIA Another interesting passage about Basma is as follows : " I may tell you moreover that when people bring home pigmies which they allege come from India, 't is all a lie and a cheat For these Uttle men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island, and I will tell you how. You see there is on this Island a kind of monkey which is very small and hath a face like a man's. They take these, and pluck out all the hair, except the hair of the beard and on the breast, and then they dry them and stuff them and daub them with saffron and other things until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat ; for nowhere in India nor anywhere else in the world were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pigmies." The creature here referred to is obviously the yellow gibbon, found in great numbers in the Malay Peninsula and in Sumatra, an ape of peculiarly human aspect, tail- less, and though of a purely arborial habit unable to walk save upon its hind legs. If Polo is right, the man- ufacture of " freaks " would seem to be by no means a modem or an American invention I Of Dagroian, which would seem to have occupied the position of the little State now known as Pedir, Polo tells us that the natives were in the habit of devouring their ailing relatives, whose death they caused by suffo- cation as soon as their recovery had been declared to be impossible by the medicine-men. The reason of this custom, as given by Polo, is curious : " And I assure you," he says, " they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 31 tkey say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed wonns, and then the worms would die for want of food, and the death of tittae worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man's soul. And so they eat him up stump and rump. And when they have eaten him they collect bis bones and put than in fine chests, and carry them away, and place them in caverns amoi^ the mountains where no beast nor other creature can get at them. And you must know also that if they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay ransom in coin, they kill and eat him straightway. It is a very evil custom and a parlous." As every one has learned from experience, who has himself made some attempt to collect versions of local superstitions, to examine quaint customs, and to seek for their explanations from the people among whom they prevail, it is fatally easy to misconceive and misinterpret if long and familiar intercourse has not given to the en- quirer a very thorough understanding of and sympathy with the native point of view. One and the same prac- tice, regarded from the standpoint of those to whom im- memorial usage has made it a matter of course, and from that of the stranger who tights upon it unexpectedly, assumes wholly different aspects and proportions, and to this fact is due more than half the cock-and-bull stories and patently absurd explanations which to this day travel- lers bring back with them from their sojourns among peoples whom they have imperfectly comprehended. Of Lambri — the Lambrij of de Barros, the Al Ramni ctf the Arabs — a State which seems to have been situated -^T'^^'SIRftir'u.'. -^ppFiU^^ 32 FURTHER INDIA upon the northern borders of the modern Acheh, Polo tells us that the natives called themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan, that they cultivated brasil, and had " plenty of camphor and all sorts of spices." He also relates that there were here men with tails, " a palm in length," hairless, and " about the thickness of a dog's," — a very popular fable of the Archipelago which is still current among the natives in many places even in our own time. Polo's remarks on the subject of the Sumatran States have been examined in some detail, not because they have much intrinsic importance, but because they can claim a certain interest as being the first notes ever made by a European upon the condition of an island of the Malayan Archipelago. Of geographical data little in- deed is to be won from a perusal of Messer Marco's book, his itinerary showing, what we already knew, that the sea-route from China via southeastern Asia had be- come a great highway of commerce, and that certain ports of call, known to the Arabs centuries earlier, were still used to the exclusion of all others at the end of the thirteenth century. For the rest we learn that the trade in the distinctive products of the Malayan Archipelago was flourishing in 1 296, as it had been, in all probability, before the days of Ptolemy ; that the ubiquitous Arab merchants had already established colonies and begun the conversion of the Malays to Muhammadanism on the east coast of Sumatra ; and that cannibalism was a marked feature in the customs of the pagan people of the island. All this adds little to the story of explora* MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 33 tion in southeastern Asia, yet we have felt constrained to follow Marco Polo closely because the figure of this early European wanderer is at once so interesting, so pic- turesque and so romantic, and the imagination is tempted to dwell and linger over the story of the three lonely white men who so far as we have any record, were the first of their kind to sojourn for a season amid the mysterious forests of Malaya — the lands which were fated to become at a later period the heritage of the nations of the West The impossibility of fixing even approximately the date which first saw the opening-up of the sea-route to China has already been noted, and though Messer Marco Polo is the earliest European wanderer in the Far East who has become for us articulate, it is possible that many before him penetrated to Cathay or traversed the seas of which he wrote. The wide dissemination of Nestorian Christianity from Jerusalem eastward to Peking, which had taken place by the fourteenth century, argues a closer intercourse between the West and the East via the overland route than is generally recognised, while the celebrated inscription disinterred at Sing-an-fu proves that the heretical doctrine was publicly preached in China, and received sanction and encouragement from the authori- ties, as early as the seventh century. That the inter- course which is thus implied was carried on wholly by land seems the reverse of probable, yet the fact remains that no authentic record of Europeans having travelled through southeastern Asia is to be found earlier than the date of the Polo manuscripts. i^^m 34 FURTHER INDIA Of later wanderers, however, there are not a few, though for the most part their references to Malaya and Indo-China are merely incidental, and it is curious to note the impunity with which, during the Middle Ages, solitary white men were able to travel unmolested through Asiatic lands. This forces upon us a recogni- tion of the fact that the European invasion of Asia, which began with the rounding of the Cape by Vasco da Gama in 1497, has had a very injurious efiect upon the character of the Oriental peoples. Prior to the coming of the white men an extraordinary measure of tolerance, even of hospitality, was extended to strangers without distinction of race or creed. All the early travellers combine in bearing testimony to the care which was taken of aliens by, for example, the authorities in China, the people who before all others are to-day a byword for their suspicious dislike of foreigners. The reason of this change of attitude is to be sought for, not in the naughti- ness of the Oriental, nor in his moral degeneracy, but in the misconduct of the early European filibusters which put the East forever on the defensive, and caused the name of the white man to stink in the nostrils of the brown peoples. The only medieval wanderers with whose passage through southeastern Asia we need concern ourselves are Blessed Odoric of Fordone in Friuli, a friar of the Order of St. Francis, Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah El LawUti, commonly called Ibn Batuta, ''the traveller without peer of the whole Arab na- tion," as he is affectionately called by a holy man of Odoric leCiltldino tt -»i^ MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 35 his own faith, and Friar John de' Marignolli, who in 1338 was sent by the Pope on a mission to the Great Kaan. Odoric is supposed to have been born in 1286, to have begun his Oriental travels about 1318, to have returned to Europe in 1330 or thereabouts, and to have dictated bis reminiscences to a brother Franciscan at Padua ere he crept home to the House of his Order at Udine, where he died in January, 1331. He made his way to Constantinople, thence overland to the Persian Gulf, eventually reaching the coast of Malabar, where he visited the shrine of St Thomas the Apostle at Mailapur, the modern Madras. « Departing from this region towards the south across the ocean sea," he tells us, " I came in fifty days to a certain country called Lamori (the State in Sumatra called Al Ramni by the Arabs and Lambri by Polo) in which I began to lose sight of the north star, as the earth intercepted it And in that country the heat is so excessive that al) folk there, both men and women, go naked, not clothii^ themselves in any wise." The natives of this State are described as " an evil and pestilent generation " who had no formal marriage, all women being in common. This is an allegation often made agrainst savage and semi-savage communities since Cxsar wrote of Britain, and on closer examination it is usually found to be based upon a misundeistanding of native customs. Odoric's narrative is interesting because he is the first writer to make mention of a "kingdom by name 36 FURTHER INDIA Sumoltra/' doubtless the same as Polo's Samara, which he places to the south of Lamori, a State which later gave its name to the island upon the coast of which it was situated. It is doubtful whether the fact of the insularity of their native lands was realised at all generally by the inhabitants of Sumatra, of Java or of Borneo, and I greatly question whether the average Malay of these parts, even now, has any true apprecia- tion of these geographical facts. Odoric also mentions still further to the south « an- other realm called Resengo," though he tells us naught concerning it. The name, however, would lead us to infer that the country of the Rejang is indicated, the State in which the British East India Company's station of Bengcoolen was subsequently established. Its inhab- itants, of whom by the way Polo makes no mention, were among the most civilised of the Sumatrans, possess- ing not only a peculiar language, but also an original written character. From Sumatra Odoric passed to Java, which he states was ruled by a king who had seven other monarchs tribu- tary to him. It is, he quaintly says, " the second best of islands that exist," and he was greatly struck by its riches and by the magnificence of the palace in which its sov- ereign had his dwelling. He adds that the Great Kaan *' many times engSLged in war with this king ; but this king always vanquished and got the better of him," a statement which is historically true, Kublai Kaan having launched two unsuccessful expeditions against Java dur- ing the time which had elapsed between Marco Polo's MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 37 passage through the Straits of Malacca and Odoric's visit to the island. Near Java — a somewhat v^ue term — Odoric places a country called " Panten, but others call it Thalamasyn, the king whereof hath many islands under him." It produced sago, honey, toddy and a deadly vegetable poison, which was used to smear the blow-pipe darts of the natives who were " nearly all rovers," or pirates. All this points with some certainty to Borneo, and Ban- jarmasin, which was a flourishing kingdom as early as the eleventh century, may have been Odoric's Thalama- syn, or Panten may have stood for Kalamantan, a name by which a portion of Borneo was known in ancient times. " By the coast of this country towards the south," Odoric continues, " is the sea called the Dead Sea, the water whereof runneth ever towards the south, and if any falleth into that water he is never found more." At a later period de Barros relates a superstition of the natives to the effect that the currents beyond the Straits of Bili acted in a similar manner, and it is possi- ble that in this l^end is to be found the germ of the tale concerning the current which wrecked Sindbad, and cast him up, more fortunate than his fellows, upon the bone-strewn island whence he escaped by means of the subterranean passage. To Odoric we also owe one of the earliest descriptions of the bamboo " canes or reeds like great trees," and of the rattan, while he further speaks of stones found in these " canes " which were re- garded as charms that conferred the advantage of invul- -: ;rvt 38 FURTHER INDIA nerability upon their wearers. It is curious to note that these siliceous deposits are still treasured by the Malays for similar reasons in the present day. Champa, or 2^mpa as he spells it, is the last country in this part of the world of which Odoric leaves us any record, and here he echoes Polo's astonishment at the number of the king's offspring which he places at ** a good two hundred." It will be seen from the above summary that the Blessed Odoric does not add materially to the sum of our knowledge concerning the lands through which he wan- dered, and his narrative is chiefly noteworthy because it demonstrates that at the beginning of the fourteenth century it was possible for a solitary Italian friar to roam up and down the east without let or hindrance, mainly, it must be supposed, at the charges of those whom he encountered on his journey. The achievement is all the more remarkable because, unlike Ibn Batuta, his religion gave him no claim upon the piety of the ubiquitous Mu- hammadan communities. The Arab traveller, who was born in Tangier on Feb- ruary 24th, 1 304, set out upon his wanderings in his twenty- first year. He did not return until 1 347. In all he covered more than 75,000 English miles, a respectable record even in these days of easy and swift journeying ; wandering over a large part of Asia before he finally made his way back to Fez, in which place his book was dictated by the order of the Sultan. It is a marvellous record, and the manner in which it is told is inimitably naive and amusing, but to us its chief interest lies in the fact that it illustrates in a MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 39 Striking manner the opportunities for travelling which in the early fourteenth century were open to any adventur- ous Muslim. Ibn Batuta, professional holy man, regarded his coreligionists as created for his comfort and conven- ience. Wherever he went he preyed upon them shame- lessly, and deemed them sufficiently honoured by being sufTered to minister to his needs, travelling in this fashion to the very ends of the then known earth. He managed things on a scale of unexampled magnificence, and it is our good fortune that he lived to tell his tale for our delight, but it is probable that he was only a preeminent member of a class, and that at this period there were numerous Muhammadans, with a curious taste in wives and a rapa- cious appetite for " rich presents," who wandered up and down the world and drew much profit from the ubiquity of the great religious fraternity established throughout the East by the Persian and Arabian merchants. Ibn Batuta traversed the well-worn route to China, and has little enough to tell us concerning the lands of south- eastern Asia. He was duly impressed with the number of the king of Champa's children, and noted the multitude of tame elephants used in that country. He touched at some point in the Malay Peninsula, which he calls Mul-Java, or the mainland of Java, and he spent a season awaiting the change of the monsoon on the island of Sumatra. Here he was present at the marriage of the daughter of his host — the " king of Sumatra," as he calls him, though this potentate only ruled over a small portion of the island — and the account which h£ gives of the ceremony might have been written by an "iyf-a^ 40 FURTHER INDIA observer of a modern Malay wedding, a striking proof, were proof needed, of the extraordinary conservatism of this people. For the rest he has nothing new to tell us concerning these regions, though he shows us incidentally that ships still adhered as of old to the few well-known ports of call and rarely strayed far beyond the beaten track which had been in use for centuries. Friar John de' MarignoUi, a Franciscan like Odoric, was born in Florence between 1280 and 1290. In December, 1338, he was sent from Avignon on a mission to the Great Kaan, and travelled overland to China, returning to India via Zayton and the Malay Archipelago in 1346 or 1347.' Beyond the bare fact that he left Zayton and eventually arrived at Columbum (Quilon) he tells us absolutely nothing, but after some travels in India he paid a visit to an island which he names Saba, and clearly imagines it to be the same as the Saba of the Scriptures. The island, we learn, was so far to the south that the polar star was no longer visible ; it was ruled by women ; its queen possessed a fine palace, the walls of which were decked with historical pictures ; there was a huge mountain on the island, and there were beasts in its forests nearly resembling human beings; elephants were in use, especially among the women ; a few Chris- tians lived there, and when he quitted its shores he was storm driven into a port of Ceylon. These are all the data which we have concerning Friar John's Saba, and it has been identified with Java by Meinert, and with the Maldives by Professor Kunstmann. Colonel Yule has shown that this latter theory is untenable, and declines MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 4' to accept Java as the true identification because it is impossible to show that female government ever prevailed upon that island. He has, however, no alternative sug- gestion to make, and ends by giving the puzzle up as hopeless. To me, however, it seems that the best case can be made out for north Borneo, the native name of which is Sabah. The name alone would be of no sort of importance ; but its position satisfies the friar's astronomical requirements ; it is dominated by the magnificent mountain of Kinabalu, round which still cluster many of the super- stitions of the natives, superstitions which the pious monk might very easily identify, as in truth he does, with traditions of Ellas and the Magi ; the jungles in which the mayas, or ourang-outang, abound may well be said to contain " monsters " with faces like men j while tame elephants were plentiful in Brunei when Magellan's ships visited the place in the sixteenth century, and the forests of northern Borneo are the only part of the island in which these animals now run wild. More important than all, however, is the fact that among the Diisun tribes, which compose the lai^er proportion of the natives of northern Borneo, women occupy a peculiar position and influence. This is mainly due to a belief that the world — which the Diisuns rightly regard as a very imperfect piece of work — was created by the goddess Sinemundu during the temporary absence of her husband, Kin- horingan, who had designed a flawless universe, and a woman having thus brought the earth into being, it is felt to be right that women should manage the spiritual af&irs of the creatrix's world. Priesthood, therefore, and 42 FURTHER INDIA tuA infrequently, the chieftainship of a tribe, are vested zmf}ng thefie people in the women, and this may well be a relic of female sovereignty such as is described by Friar John. The palace, if such a building ever existed in nfjfihern Borneo, has utterly disappeared, together with itM paintingii, but there is evidence to show that this part of the island has sensibly degenerated in its arts and in the standard of its civilisation, while its population has dwindled and become debased, ever since its rediscovery by the Spaniards less than four hundred years ago: Uftr need we experience much surprise that all tradition concerning the existence of a kingdom of such magnitude and importance as that described by Friar John should have vanished so speedily from the memories of the Borneans, for historical facts of a far more recent date, which are preserved for us in the writings of the European travellers of the sixteenth century, have also passed into oblivion, leaving among the natives of the island not so much as a whisper of story. In the semi-uncivilised lands of Asia dynasties have risen, have flourished, have come to proud maturity, have dwindled, pined and dis- appeared with a wonderful rapidity, and when the waves of time have closed over them they are forgotten with a completeness which finds few parallels in Europe. It is possible that the dense forests of northern Borneo may even yet yield up to us some traces of the wonderful palace which filled the Franciscan monk with awe and admiration. The difficulty of the return voyage which saw the monk's ship storm driven into a port of Ceylon need not greatly trouble us. A traveller, who fared from MEDIEVAL WANDERERS 43 China to Malabar without saying a single word concern- ing the places at which he touched upon the way, may be supposed capable of passing through the Straits o( Malacca, or even through those of Sunda, on his way from Saba to India, without making any particular men- tion of the fact. With Friar John and his mysterious island we take leave of the portion .of our enquiry in which from the outset we have found ourselves groping through a fog of doubt and of conjecture. We have noted the frequency with which the sea-route to China was used by men of numerous races from very early times, and the compara- tively exact information concerning the Far East which from time to time was brought home by wanderers re- turning to the West It is, therefore, a matter of considerable surprise to find that when these regions were rediscovered by the Portuguese and Spaniards in the six- teenth century they were regarded by the whole of Europe as worlds undreamed of. The scant knowledge possessed by the ancients of India extra Gangem and of the Chersonesus Aurea had been practically forgotten ; the more accurate and detailed information supplied by Marco Polo and his successors had been dismissed as in- credible, or had been scorned as the purest inventions bom of unruly or disordered imaginations ; the immense force of Isl3m had reared a wall between Europe and Asia which for a long period the former was powerless to scale. Even the Book of Messer Marco himself had come to be regarded as a piece of mere fiction, and ac- cordingly by the time the first Portuguese vessels made •w* ^^Jff**^ 44 FURTHER INDIA their way round the Cape of Good Hope, seeking a new highroad to India, the minds of even the learned of Europe presented something like a tabula rasa upon which was inscribed none of the facts concerning south- eastern Asia that had been collected by the geographers and mariners of antiquity, which had been added to by many Arabian writers, and which had received detailed confirmation from the European wanderers of the Mid- dle Ages. It is in the coming of the Portuguese, there- fore, that the exploration of Malaya and of Indo-China by the peoples of the west may properly be said to have had its beginning. CHAPTER III THE COMING OF THE FIUBUSTERS IT was in November, 1497, that Vasco da Gama, after those two desperate beatings to seaward and tacks to the south which have made htm famous,' during which he faced and overcame, not only the fury of the elements, but the fears and the mutinous murmur- ings of his comrades, came at last to land on the eastern shores of southern Africa. The story of the last great tack is told to us by Gaspar Correa tn a fashion which leaves a wonderful picture upon our memories, and his words may fittingly b^ quoted here. ■• As he (da Gama) was a very choleric man, at times with angry words he made them silent, although he well saw how much reason they had at every moment to despair of thdr lives : and they had been going for about two months on that tack, and the masters and pilots cried out to him to take another tack ; but the captain major did not choose, though the ships were now letting in much water, by which their laboun were doubled, be- cause the days were short and the nights long, which caused than increased fear of death ; and at this time they met with such cold r^ns that the men could not move. All cried out to God for mercy upon their souls, for now they no longer took heed of their lives.. It now seemed to Vasco da Gama that the time was come for 45 46 FURTHER INDIA making another tack, and he comported himself very angrily, swearing that if they did not double the Cape» he would stand out to sea again as many times until the Cape was doubled, or there should happen whatever should please God. For which reason, from fear of this, the masters took much more trouble to advance as far as they could ; and they took more heart on nearing the land, and escaping from the tempest of the sea : and all called upon God for mercy, and to give them guidance, when they saw themselves out of such great dangers. Thus approaching the land, they found their labour less, and the seas calmer, so they went on running for a long time, steering so as to make the land and ease the ships, which they were better able to do at night when the cap- tain slept, which the other ships did also, as they followed the lantern which Vasco da Gama carried : at night the ships showed lights to one another so as not to part com- pany. Seeing how much they had run, and did not find the land, they sailed larger so as to make it ; and as they did not find it, and the sea and wind were moderate, they knew that they had doubled the Cape ; on which great joy fell upon them, and they gave great praise to the Lord on seeing themselves delivered from death. The pilots continued to sail more free, spreading all the sails ; and running in this manner, one morning they sighted some mountain peaks which seemed to touch the clouds ; at which their pleasure was so great that they all wept with joy, and all devoutly on their knees said the Salver It is true that Vasco da Gama was not the first of the THE FILIBUSTERS 47 Portuguese mariners to double the Cape of Good Hope, the feat having already been performed by John Infante and Bartholomew Dias, and that da Gama had with him pilots who had sailed with these captains. It is true also that da Gama, unlike Magellan and Columbus, was not the originator of the design which it fell to his lot to carry into effect, and that he owes his fame, less to his own adventuresome spirit and to his individual enterprise and initiative, than to the happy accident of his selection by the King of Portugal for the post of captain-major of the pioneering fleet. All this must be admitted, but nothing can weaken the impression which we receive from Correa's narrative of the dof^ed strength, the grim resolutioa, the unshakable courage, moral and physical of the man. The ships held upon that cruel two-months' tack, through angry seas, through cold and tempest, with seams gaping under the long strain, with crews half-fam- ished by the bitter weather, mad afraid, and worn to death with weary toiling at the saib and pumps, and never once did they swerve from the appointed course, because " the captain-major did not choose f " When every soul in all that fleet was calling upon God in his extremity, and was beseiging the captain with entreaties to abandon the desperate enterprise, he alone was de- termined, fearless, and answered their prayers with fierce threats of yet other tacks which he would take tf this one failed to accomplish the purpose upon which his will was set. Here in a few words we have the man revealed to us, and if even in this the hour of his greatest achieve- ment we see traces of the ruthlessness, the absence of all .^»c^ itl^Jf^' ''^i¥^l^:: 48 FURTHER INDIA care or sympathy for others, which later led him into the commission of crimes more cruel than those of Cortez or Pizarro, we see also in him the embodiment, as it were, of the strenuous spirit of Portugal at the beginning of the sixteenth century — ^the spirit which made possible the miracles of conquest which then were wrought in Asia, the spirit which awoke that bitter, impotent hatred of the white men which still lingers in the East in the tradt- tiotts of a people little apt to forgive or to forget After Vasco da Gama had opened up the new highway of trade to the East which, diverting the wealth of Asia from its old markets on the shores of the Adriatic, ruined many an Italian city while it brought a hitherto un- dreamed of prosperity to the towns of Portugal, it be- came the custom for a large and well-equipped fleet to sail from Lisbon in the spring of each year. . These fleets bore with them reinforcements for the white ad- venturers in Asia wherewith to carry on the ruthless war which then was raging between the newcomers and the ancient kingdoms of the East. They bore too large numbers of men fired by a desire to win for themselves a share of the plunder concerning which such dazzling accounts had reached Europe — men who, like Alexander, lusted after new worlds to conquer, and regarded the re- cently discovered lands as mere stepping-stones to wealth. It was in a spirit of frank brigandage that the Portuguese, irom the highest to the lowest, swarmed into Asia. They were utterly without any sense of responsibility in so far as the lands and the men who were their appointed vie- THE FILIBUSTERS 49 tims were concerned, for the belief in the mission of the white races to order the destinies of the East for the greater good of the Orientals is a comfortable doctrine of quite modem growth. Instead they occupied in their own sight something of the position of the Children of Israel, and never doubted but that the spoiling of the ^yptian must be pleasing to the God of justice and love. Moreover, since the Portuguese were a people of the Peninsula, with whom the hatred of the Moors was an inherited superstition, their religious faith tended to stimulate them to ill-doing, and was in no sense a re- straining influence. Many of the early adventurers were animated by a sincere zeal for their religion, and by a keen desire to force its acceptance upon all and sundry whom they might encounter, and to these the invasion of the East undoubtedly presented itself in the light of a new Crusade. The religious motive is found cropping up in the most unlikely people, and in the most gro- tesquely improbable circumstances, throughout the his- tory of the doings of the early filibusters, and the cruelty and ruthlessness which avarice and ambition dictated found their constant justification in Christian fanaticism. It is necessary to appreciate the existence of this double incentive to conquest by which the Portuguese were ani- mated in order to understand how it was possible for so much wickedness to be done under the cloak of religion. To the filibuster of the sixteenth century God fought ever on his side, and the stubborn fight in which he was engaged was battle done for the Cross. The enemy, therefore, was of necessi^ the child of the devil, and to -4%; ■>#-7^s' -gtrilrfV^;** 50 FURTHER INDIA such all rights of person or property were of couise de- nied. The earth and the fulness thereof was God's gift to his people; the Muhammadan or the pagan who chanced to be in possession was logically to be rq;anled as a usurper of the Christian's inheritance^ and force or fraud were weapons which might be freely used in order to deprive him of that to which, in the sight of the Al- mighty, he had no just claim. It was in this spirit that the Papal Bulls divided the newly discovered earth be- tween the kings of Spain and Portugal ; it was in this spirit that the filibusters set to work to give eflect to those sweeping decrees; and it was in this spirit that deeds were wrought in Asia which have done more than aught eke to rear up between the brown and the white races barriers which few, even in our own day, have the tact, the patience, the sympathy or the energy to sur- mount. With the first few fleets which sailed from Portugal during the years that succeeded the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, we have at present no concern, since their goal was India, and they did not penetrate to the seas or ports of southeastern Asia. In i S08, how- ever, on April Sth, of that year, Diogo Lopez de Siqueira, the Chief Almotaqel of the kingdom of Portugal, set sail as captain of four vessels with ro}ral instructions to explore and conquer Malacca, a rumour concerning the wealth and importance of that dty hav- ing reached the Portuguese in India, and having by them been reported to headquarters. A great deal has been made of the treachery of the Sultan of Malacca, THE FILIBUSTERS 51 and of his double-dealing with Siqueira, and it is there- fore well to note that the latter came to his kingdom, not merely in the guise of a peaceful trader, as othen of many nationalities had come before him, but with the deliberate design of " conquering " the land. It was here that the white men differed so materially from the Arabs, the natives of India, and the Chinese, all of whom had during many centuries carried on an exten- sive commerce in Asia. With none of these people were exploration and conquest synonymous terms. The Hindus, at a very early period, had deeply impressed Java, L&mbok and BiU with their influence, and they have left an enduring mark upon the superstitious beliefs and upon the magic practices of the Malayans. None the less, there is no record of anything resembling a Hindu invasion of these islands. Similarly the Mu- hammadan traders settled in the Archipelago and in the Malay Peninsula had succeeded, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, in converting the bulk of the native populations to the faith of Islim, but they had not profited by the moral and intellectual ascendency thus gained to wrest the reins of government from the rulers of the land. The Chinese, too, after the period of the great Tartar invasion and the innumerable expeditions of Kublai Kaan, had traded freely with Persia, with India and with Malaya without seeking to annex an inch of foreign territory. The Portuguese, on the other hand, and many of the white nations after them, trusted, not so much to peaceful commerce, but to lawless pillage for their speedy enrichment, and the annual fleets seat ^,-^.w^^^^. "jd*t* 52 FURTHER INDIA out from Lisbon started on nothing more nor less than a succession of filibustering raids. Their objects were to confirm the power of Portugal in the r^ons ah-eady reduced to subjection^ to extend the conquest in new directions, and thus to squeeze the kings and the popula- tions of the East dry of all the wealth which they could be made to yield, employing for that purpose every device which cunning could suggest, and which force, courage, and an unscrupulous ruthlessness could translate into action. When Diogo Lopez de Siqueira reached Cochim he found the affairs of Portugal in a condition which was far from edifying. The viceroy for the time being was Dom Francisco Dalmeida, but the great Alfonso Dalboquerque, fresh from his furious battles in the Persian Gulf, claimed that the government ought to be handed over to him by virtue of certain documents, giving him the reversion of the viceroyalty, which he had received from the King prior to his departure from Portugal. Dalmeida was very loth to resign his author- ity to any man, least of all to Dalboquerque towards whom he seems to have entertained a lively feeling of dislike, and at the moment of the arrival of Siqueira the position had become extremely critical Dalmeida, recognising this, thought to find a way out of his diffi- culties by inviting Siqueira to assume the governorship of the Indies, declaring that if this could be arranged he, Dalmeida, would forthwith set out for Portugal taking Alfonso Dalboquerque with him. The prudent Siqueira, however, would have nothing to do with any SMch THE FILIBUSTERS S3 [HDposal. " Laissez mot done planter mes pots" he said in effect ; for while he did his best to ingratiate himself with both contending factions, he pointed out that he had come to the East for the purpose of exploiting Malacca, and that his only desire was to set forth upon that undertaking so soon as his ships should have under- gone certain much needed repairs. Eventually, there- fore, taking with him some of the followers of Dalbo- querque who had incurred the anger of Dalmeida, he left the quarrelsome atmosphere of Cochim, and sailed across the Indian Ocean to the Straits. The Malay chronicler tells us in the Hikayat Hang Tuah that from the first moment of their arrival in the port the strangers began to abuse the hospitality ex- tended to them, and that having obtained a grant from the Sultan of as much land as could be enclosed by a buffalo's hide, they adopted the stratagem of the Pious i£neas, and cutting it into thin strips made it the bound- ary line for a goodly plot of ground. Upon this, so the chronicler tells us, they proceeded to build a formidable citadel whose position menaced the town and the royal precincts, whereupon trouble ensued. The version which comes to us from Portuguese sources is somewhat differ- ent. Here we learn that Siqueira received a warning from a Javanese giri, who was the mistress of one of his men, that treachery was meditated. This girl swam off to the Portuguese ships under the cover of darkness, and brought word that the Sultan intended to massacre the white men at a great banquet to which he would pres- ently invite them, and that when this piece of business '^^^ 54 FURTHER INDIA had been despatched, he would seize upon their ships. This intelligence, which may quite possibly have been true, does not appear to have been in any way tested by Siqueira, who seems to have accepted it unreservedly, and to have acted at once with more, perhaps, of promp- titude than of wisdom. He sent a native man and woman ashore ** with an arrow passed through their skulls " to the Sultan, ** who was thus informed," de Barros tells us, ** through his subjects that unless he kept a good watch the treason which he had perpetrated would be punished with fire and sword." The Sultan retaliated by arresting Ruy de Araujo, the factor, ** and twenty other men who were on land with him attending to the collection of the cargo of the ships," though it is to be noted that the Muhammadan monarch used them with no such atrocious barbarity as that which the Chris- tian captain had practised upon his Malay victims. Siqueira, finding his force thus considerably dimin- ished, burnt two of his vessels, since he had not enough men to navigate them, and sailed out of Malacca, pro- ceeding himself direct to Portugal, after despatching a couple of vessels to bear the tidings of his abortive en- terprise to Cochim, where the great Alfonso Dalboquer- que was now reigning unopposed. The news of the check which Siqueira had received caused considerable annoyance to the authorities both in Portugal and in India, and on March I2th, ISIO, Diogo Mendez de Vasconcellos with a fleet of four ships set out ** to go and conquer Malacca." The situation in India, however, was at this moment so critical that Alfonso Alfonso D;illH){jucn]iie THE FILIBUSTERS 55 Dalboquerque refused to allow Vasconcellos to proceed upon his way, and retained him and his fleet to aid him in a combined attack upon Goa. The hands of the greatest of the Portuguese viceroys were more than usually full at this juncture. The coming of the filibus- ters had set the whole of the western coast of India in a flame of war ; the Portuguese settlements on the island of Socotra and in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf were importunate in their prayers to Dalboquerque to come to their assistance; and meanwhile, in distant Malacca, a number of white men, held in captivity by the Malays, were scanning the sky-line to the north hoping to sight the rescuing fleet for which, during so weary a period, they looked in vain. By February, 151 1, however, Goa had been retaken, and the Coromandel coast was for the moment cowed into submission, wherefore Dalboquerque had leisure at last to look to the more remote portions of his dominions. In that month, accordingly, he set out for the Straits of Hormuz to carry succour to those of his countrymen in that direction whose clamour, backed by repeated orders from the King to erect a fort at Aden, had distracted him all the time that he was too deeply engaged in India to be able to spare them a man or a ship. But the winds proved adverse, and finding that he battled with them in vain, Dalboquerque decided to make a virtue of necessity, and to turn his face towards the Straits of Malacca. Diogo Mendez de Vasconcellos who, it will be remem- bered, had been sent out for the special purpose of chas- tising the Sultan of their kingdom, had throughout "^^ MHESailiAatfaiHiHHI^HHVHMM^BlRr.z^ i6 FURTHER INDIA shown great restlessness under the restraint imposed upon him by Dalboquerque, and at last» defying the viceroy, he actually set sail for Malacca on his own ac- count Dalboquerque, however, succeeded in recalling him, and as a punishment for his insubordination sent him back to Portugal in disgrace. Accordingly the task of subduing the Sultan of Malacca now fell to Dalboquer- que's lot without the assistance of the men actually ap- pointed by the King of Portugal for that purpose, and the viceroy set about its accomplishment in his own thorough fashion. The lawlessness which characterised the proceedings of the Portuguese at this period is well exemplified by the first incident recorded by the author of the Commentaries as having occurred during the voyage to Malacca. <« When they had got as far as Ceilao (Ceylon)," he telb us, ** they caught sight of a ship. Alfonso Dalboquerque gave orders to chase her, and they took her, and he was very glad to find that it belonged to the Guzerates, as he felt his voyage would now be carried out safely, for the Guzerates understand the navigation of those parts much more thoroughly than any other nations, on account of the great commerce they carry on in those places." Here we have given to us an instance of the acts of unprovoked piracy which the Portuguese, from the moment of their arrival in the East, were accustomed to commit as a matter of course ; and if some excuse be found in the fact that pilots were needed, no similar justification can be alleged for the capture of four other Guzerati vessels which Dalboquerque chased and took ^m^ni6'nof-\y^\i' |j» |.r.[.t|.|.t*|»..|t4^yi|ip.J5i.^to|i,..[4H ' Malay Pi-nin-iiila. liv WaUlsii-nnillcr. Stras;.lnirg I't..lcniy I5H THE FILIBUSTERS $7 between Ceylon and Sumatra. The man who was acting in this fashion, too, was no irresponsible free- booter, but the Portuguese viceroy of the Indies, and his piracies afTord us a just index to the spirit and con- duct of his countrymen in Asia. It is true that sea- brigandage in the East has been suppressed finally by the nations of Europe, but it is well to remember that at an earlier period the white men themselves were the most ruthless and daring of all the rovers who infested Asiatic waters. The first port touched at by Dalboquerque was that of Pedir in Sumatra, where he found one Joao Viegas and " eight Christians of the company of Ruy de Araujo, who had arrived thus far in their flight from the city of Malacca, and Joao Viegas recounted to him how the king of Malacca had endeavoured to force them to become Moors, and had ordered some of them to be tied hand and foot and circumcised ; and they had suffered many torments because they would not deny the faith of Jesus Christ" All of which was probably true, and was, of course, excessively improper, though the Sultan of Malacca's conduct still compares favourably with that of Siqueira in the matter of the arrow passed through the skulls of a man and a woman. Viegas also told Dalboquerque that ** a principal Moor of Malacca," named Naodabegea, [Nakhoda Begak] who had instigated the Sultan to cut off Siqueira, and had subsequently joined with the BendSh&ra of Malacca in a plot against the throne, was even then in hiding in the neighbouring Sumatran kingdom of Piseh. To PUseb, therefore, Dalboquerque forthwith sailed, and ?■?••■-" • 58 FURTHER INDIA demanded that the ** Moor " in question should be de- livered up to him, but the King of PsLseh, as became a Bilalayan raja, made all manner of specious excuses, and professed his utter inability to lay hands on the con- spirator. Dalboquerque, conceiving that the hour had not yet come for the declaration of hostilities with the King of Paseh, concealed his chagrin as best he might, and proceeded on his way to Malacca. Chance, how- ever, favoured him, for he presently caught sight of a large native vessel, which his people captured after a hard fight. On board this ship they found Naodabegea him- self, ''half dead, without any blood flowing from the numerous wounds which he had received. Aires Pereira commanded the mariners to throw him into the sea just as he was ; but when they perceived that he was richly clothed, they sought first of all to strip him, and then they found on his left arm a bracelet of bone, set in gold, and when they took this ofT his blood flowed away and he expired." The survivors of the crew informed Dalboquerque that " the bracelet was formed of the bones of certain animak which were called cabals, that are bred in the mountain ranges of the kingdom of Siam, and the person who carries these bones so that they touch his flesh can never lose his blood, however many wounds he may receive, so long as they are kept on him." The term used by the natives was unquestionable kebal (often pronounced kabal by the Malays of Sumatra) which means invulnerable, and all they intended to con- vey was, we may surmise, that the bracelet was a charm which conferred this advantage upon its possessor, and THE FILIBUSTERS 59 that it had been brought to the Peninsula from Siam. Such charms are worn to this day by many a warrior in Malayan lands. After taking this vessel, Dalboquerque, for some unexplained reason, retraced his steps towards Paseh, and fell in with two native ships, one from the Coramandel coast, which struck at once, and another from Java, which was only captured after a very spirited resistance, in the course of which the Javanese set fire to their own craft. On board this vessel Dalboquerque found the unfortunate King of PSseh,'' and when he saw him," the Commentaries tell us ** he begged his pardon very earnestly for this un- fortunate afiair " — in truth an euphemistic way of describ- ing such an unprovoked act of piracy — ** which should not have happened if he had known of his Royal High- ness being on board, and he showed him those cere- monies and that good treatment which is due to a personage of such dignity." Dalboquerque also promised to aid the king in subduing certain of his rebellious sub- jects^ — an engagement which cost him nothing since he never intended to keep it — and he then continued his vo)rage to Malacca, capturing a " very rich junk " upon the way. He had already pillaged five Guzerati ships between Ceylon and the port of Pedir; between PSseh and Malacca he had taken three, one belonging to the G>ramandel coast, one manned by men from Java, and a third whose ownership and nationality are unknown. This was sufficient to spread the evil reputation of the strangers tu and wide throughout the seas of south- .■•.-♦=* •■*M^C^ 60 FURTHER INDIA eastern Asia, and to set all tbe countries bordering them on the defensix'e* while he nov meditated a more decisive stroke — the cv^nque^t of Malacca, which then was the head and front of all the Malayan kingdoms — ha\ing for his object the establxshment of the power of Portugal in the very centre of the commerce of all the eastern Archipelago. Such then ^*as the fiist coming of the European fiUbusters, \nth which began the real exploration of the lands of southeastern Asia, — lands which were destined, with hardly an exception, to £adl under the dominion of the white peoples, lands in which, after a weary period of suflTering and of strife, the men of the brown and yellow races were to \i'atch their birthrights pass into the keep- ing of the strangers. It was in dramatic fashion that Dalboquerque made his entry into the harbour of Malacca — ^the entry of the white men into the inviolate lands which destiny had marked for their possession. It was about the hour of sundown, the author of the Chronicles tells us, and to one who knows the Malay Peninsula that phrase conjures up at once a vivid picture. The merciless heat of the tropic day was passed ; a grateful coolness, which yet carries with it a suggestion of melancholy, of spent energies, of exhaustion, had succeeded. The sun lay upon the horizon out yonder in the direction of Sumatra, with great banks of resplendent cloud grouped about it ; enormous fan-shaped rays of light stretched upward from it bll they attained the very summit of the heavens. THE FILIBUSTERS 61 which stained with every tint of scarlet and purple and gold, showed here and there little inlets of an ethereal azure. Beneath that glory in the skies, the sea, steel- blue under the gathering darkness, heaved gently, mo- notonously, as a weary sleeper draws his breath, a ruddy sheen marking the furrows between wave and wave. To the landward the native town clung to the beach, swarmed up the sides of small conical hills, and fell away into the heavy forest inshore. Near its centre rose a rude stone building surrounded by a wall draped in crowding creepers, but for the rest the place was a hud- dle of thatched roofs, rising at all angles, sloping unevenly, set in all directions without order or arrange- ment, with a blue haze of smoke hanging above them in the motionless air. In the harbour itself junks from China, sharp-nosed prahus from Java or the Archipelago, and fishing-smacks innumerable lay at anchor, and on the yellow stretch of sand before the town, crowds of men and women strolled listlessly, diaffering with the fisherfolk, and enjoying the peace and the coolness after the burden of the day and the heats, That scene had been enacted daily, repeated in this unchanging climate each succeeding evening for years. It may be witnessed to-day down to its last least detail in the capital of Trengginu which, like ancient Malacca, lies upon the seashore, and as I have sat watching it in this former place, whither as yet the tide of the white man's invasion has not yet attained, it has seemed to me that I have looked back through the centuries upon the 62 FURTHER INDIA Malayan lands which as yet were free from the aggression of the filibusters of Portugal. But this evening the beach was thronged more densely than was common, and there was withal a subtle restlessness, a tenseness of expectancy in the air. Word had reached Malacca of the approach of the mysterious strangers from afar, the men with the bearded faces and the corpse-like complexions, the rumour of whose evil doings on the Coramandel coast had carried into the remotest corners of the East. The besetting peril was at hand^ even at the gates of the city, but how it might be averted, stayed or met were problems surpassing the wis- dom of the wisest. And then, before the last of the daylight died, as the mobs of gaily clad natives stood upon the shores, op- pressed by fear, restless with suspense, their dark faces darker in the gathering gloom, suddenly the West was upon them ere they well knew it The fleet of Dal- boquerque, '< all decked with flags, and the men sounding their trumpets," swept into sight from behind the shelter- ing islands to the north, the great bellying squares of strangely rigged canvas catching the faint breeze. On and on it came, inevitable as Fate, the Power of the West sailing into the heart of Malaya unresisted and ir- resistible, and with panic in its heart the East stood in impotence watching it from the shore. One by one the vessels came to anchor, and then from all there roared a salvo of artillery, the salute of the white men to their victims, an explosion that broke upon the peace of the quiet scene and sounded the knell of the brown man's THE FILIBUSTERS 63 free enjoyment of the lands which God had given to him. We of this latter age know how much, in the fulness of time, the rule of the white man had served to ease the burden of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula at least ; but none the less there is something infinitely pathetic in the contemplation of this rude breaking in ofthe strangers from the West, the hard and restless workers, upon the indolent peace of these ease-loving peoples ; the thought of the storm-torn ships from distant Portugal sailing in- solendy into this quiet haven while the dusky men ofthe East stood gazing at them fearfully from the shore, see- ing in their coming a sure presage of what the future held for them and for their children. Upon the arrival of Dalboquerque there followed negotiations of the usual wolf-and-lamb character. The Sultan of Malacca made haste to send a messenger to the Porti^uese viceroy, asking why he had come with so great an armament, declaring that he had, poor soul, no keener desire than to live on terms of amity with the King of Portugal, " and giving him to know that the Bendara (Bendilhira) had been put to death on account of his complicity in the rising which had taken place against the Portuguese captain (Diogo Lopez de Siqueira) who had come to that port, and had resulted in the murder of the Christians who were there in the land, but this was no feult of his." The author of the Commentaries char- acterises this pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable as an " ardiil ^>olc^," and tells us that the great Alfonso 64 FURTHER INDIA « dissembled with " the Sultan in the hope that he might by that means get Ruy de Araujo and the other Chris- tians — who, by the same token, do not appear to have been murdered — ^into his hands, and so into safety, before he delivered his contemplated assault upon the town. The unfortunate Sultan, however, who saw in the posses- sion of hostages the only lever by the aid of which he could hope to bring pressure to bear upon the intruders, replied that he could not regard the surrender of the prisoners as a condition precedent to peace. He was fully prepared to hand them over to Dalboquerque, but pleaded that an agreement of friendship should in the first instance be ratified between himself and the repre- sentatives of the King of Portugal. In the circumstances this can only be regarded as a stipulation dictated by common prudence, the more so when the reputation which the Portuguese had earned for themselves in Asia be remembered, but this attempt to ** curb the spirit of Alfonso Dalboquerque," as his chronicler calls it, served only to precipitate the doom of Malacca. The author of the Commentaries pretends that Dal- boquerque at this time was really averse from war, and would have been well contented if a peaceful settlement could have been arrived at. But viewing the matter im- partially, we are forced to accept the conclusion that war was intended from the first, and that the only object of the preliminary parleys was the removal of the captives from the power of the enemy before matters were pushed to an extremity. The pious Alfonso, we are told, seeing that the Sultan remained firm and that he was preparing THE FILIBUSTERS 65 himself as best he might to repel an attack, arrived at the comfortable conclusion that *' this was a judgment that had come upon the king, and that Our Lord desired to make an end of him for good and all, and to cast the Moors and the very name of Mafamede, out of the land, and to have his Gospel preached in these regions, and their mosques transformed into houses of God's praise by means of the King D. Manuel and by the labours of his subjects, so he gave orders for an attack with armed boats and two large barges with heavy bombards, with the object of viewing the men who rallied at the alarm, and seeing where they had stationed their artillery, and how they managed their defence." For your Portuguese filibuster of the sixteenth century, while he recognised the awful finger of God guiding him in even his most unjustifiable actions, took care that it should lose nothing of its force through any neglect on his part to ** keep his powder dry." All being now ready, and the mind of the great Al- fonso determined upon war, councils were held, plans laid, the scheme of attack explained, and two hours be- fore daybreak on the feast of St. James, July 2Sth, 1511, a trumpet on board the viceroy's ship called the men of Portugal to arms. The force which consisted, according to the chroniclers, of only 800 Portuguese and 200 na- tives of Malabar armed with swords and shields, was di- vided into three bodies which delivered a simultaneous assault upon the northern and southern quarters of the city, and upon the bridge by which they were connected. Sounding their trumpets, and shouting their war-cry of »<•» . 66 FURTHER INDIA SancHago! (St James!) the Portuguese rushed to the attack, ** and on this/' says de Barros, ** the air was rent with a confusion of noises, so that the trumpets, the can- non, and the shouts could not be distinguished from one another, the whole forming a doomsday of fear and terror." The Malays and the Muhammadan traders who fought with them resisted stoutly, though the mosque and many of the stockades were won from them, and the white men began to entrench themselves upon the ground gained. All day long the battle waged, and the Portuguese toiled at the construction of their defences under the merciless Malayan sun, but gloss it over though they will, the chroniclers are forced to admit that in the end the assault iailed, and that by nightfall all the Europeans had been obliged to withdraw to their ships, bearing many dead and wounded with them. One cannot but marvel at the stubborn courage of these filibusters, battling here under a tropical sun at a distance of thousands of miles from their base ; bearding the mightiest of the kings of Malaya in his very strong- hold ; and daring to oppose their puny numbers to the fighting strength of a town whose population was esti- mated at 100,000 souls. It was a stupendous enterprise, almost insolent in its scorn of opposing odds, and no parallels to it are found in history save in the story of the European conquests of the earth. The supreme self- confidence which alone could inspire such audacity as this, the reckless courage, and the pride which held the power of the enemy so cheap, no less than the wonderful THE FILIBUSTERS 67 energy which made success a possibility, would seem to be qualities which are developed to the full only in the European character, which can be communicated to the Oriental only when he is upheld by the leadership of white men in whom he trusts. If the traditional reward of the meek has fallen to the lot of the white nations, it is not through meekness that they have inherited the earth. After the first abortive assault upon Malacca there fol- lowed a period of nine days during which Dalboquerque instituted a rigorous blockade of the place with a view to starving it into submission. Once more the slender band of Portuguese adventurers flung itself at the teeming na- tive city, and this time the bridge, which was throughout the key to the entire position, was wrested from the Ma- lays, and they and their allies were routed. On each oc- casion the Sultan of Malacca had himself taken an active part in the fighting, and in the melee the elephant upon which he was mounted was badly hurt, whereupon, says de Barros, " feeling the pain of its wound, it seized the negro that guided it with its trunk, and dashed him to the ground, on which the king, wounded in the hand, dismounted, and not being recognised, effected his es- cape." And thus Malacca fell, and passed for ever out of the keeping of the Malays, though it was destined to be reft from Portugal by Holland, from Holland by Great Britain, to be surrendered once more to the Dutch for a little space, and to come finally into the hands of England. " In this second time of taking the city," says the i 68 FURTHER INDIA author of the Commentaries ^ ** many of our men were wounded, and some of those who were wounded with poison died, but all the others were cured, because Alfonso Dalboquerque took very good care to give orders for their cure, and of the Moors, women and children, there died by the sword an infinite number, for no quarter was given to any of them." The city having now fallen into his hands, and being, as Dalboquerque rightly foresaw, the beginning of yet another empire in the East, he next set himself, with all his accustomed energy, ruthlessness, shrewdness and wisdom, to the task of consolidating the power of Portugal in the newly won possession. Order was also taken for the organisation of the gov- ernment of Malacca ; a coinage was instituted ; a gov- ernor was appointed; and the Javanese headman, Utemutaraja, a man of ninety years of age, and his sons, being suspected of a conspiracy against the conquerors, were publicly executed by way of a salutary example to all malcontents. It was their sheer ruthless- ness, and their complete freedom from the trammels of a too exacting sense of justice that alone enabled the Portuguese to hold what they had gotten, and to rule teeming native populations, bound to them by no con- sciousness of benefits received, who were simply cowed into submission. But it is to these qualities and to the methods whose adoption followed from them that the eventual loss by Portugal of the bulk of her colonial empire is to be traced. She made no friends in Asiatic lands, and when in the fulness of time her European ij- THE FILIBUSTERS 69 enemies fell upon her, the men of the brown races, her power over whom she had abused, watched her defeat with jubilant satisfaction, and raised none save reluctant hands in her defence. But in another direction Dalboquerque showed a sounder and more far-seeing policy. Before the second assault had been delivered, he had allowed the Chinese junks, of which mention has already been made, to start for Canton, only exacting from them a promise that they would put in on their way at the port of Siam. With these traders he despatched one Duarte Fernandez, who had escaped from the cap- tivity which he had shared with Ruy de Araujo and his fellows in Malacca, to act as his ambassa- dor at the Siamese Court. This man was the first European of whom we have any record to visit the ancient capital of Ayutha, some miles further up the Menam River than the modern city of Bangkok, and thus from the fall of Malacca begins also the earliest exploration of Siam by men of the white races. The rumour of the daring deeds wraught by the Portuguese in Asia had already spread far and wide, travelling with that marvellous speed which is one of the stock wonders of the East, and the King of Siam, be- tween whose subjects and the Malays no love was ever yet lost, hastened to send a return embassy to Dalbo- querque, to wish him all success in his adventures in Malacca, and to cement a friendship between the white men and the Court of Ayutha. Dalboquerque in reply despatched a second mission to Siam under one Antonio ^o FURTHER INDIA ^(;ch, Petini, and Scnggora into Lower Siam, and so al/iHK the Isthmus of Kra to the Valley of the Menam. It is difficult to believe that such a journey was really perfr^med by a white man as early as the year 151 1 or 1512, the more so since sailing craft of many t3rpes and various sizes abound on this coast, and aflbrd far superior means of transport to any which in the same regions are found ashore. There is one fact, however, which lends vraisemblance to the account given to us by the author of the Commentaries concerning the route followed by Antonio de Miranda. The mission to Ayutha would seem to have started from Malacca shortly before Dalboquerque himself set out on his return to India, that is to say in the autumn of 15 11, and by that season the northeast monsoon would have begun to make itself felt. Miranda sailed with the Chinese junks as far as Trengginu, and it is almost certain that by the time he reached that port the strong headwinds would have made further navigation to the northward impossible to native vessels. He would then have to make his choice between wintering in Trengginu THE FILIBUSTERS 71 and undertaking the arduous march to Ayutha overland, and as the men of his race and age were little apt to be daunted by obstacles, we may perhaps conclude that he decided upon the latter alternative. If this be so, we must hail Antonio de Miranda, who to us is nothing but a name, as the first if the least articulate of the European explorers of Lower Siam and a portion of the Malay Peninsula. The noise which the invasion of Malacca had oc- casioned had not been without its effect upon other kingdoms of Malaya, and before ever Dalboquerque sailed for India, embassies reached him from the Sultan of Kampar, whose kingdom was situated on the western shores of Sumatra, who, though he was a son-in-law of the ill-fated Sultan Muhammad Shah, was moved by his fear of " the fury of the Portuguese " to make terms for himself with the conquerors. From Java too came overtures of friendship, dictated by the wholesome dread which the prowess of the Portuguese had inspired, and the Sultan of the Sumatran kingdom of Menangkibau hastened to follow the example set by his neighbours. Thus Dalboquerque's design to build up Malacca as the centre of trade in southeastern Asia, preserving under the flag of Portugal the position which it had occupied under the rule of its own kings, — a design which he had kept steadily in view from the first — was accomplished with little difficulty, and the conquest of this single port served to establish the power of the aliens upon a firm basis in this region, and through the prestige it brought to them secured immediately a political and commercial 71 FURTHER INDIA %»tf^t^priiy nuch an had never before been enjoyed by 4n/ %ift^\c kingdom of Malaya. (}ru: fAhcr thing was done by the great Alfonso ere he ixttntA \fSkck to India and to the warfare which awaited him ^ (idA. He despatched a fleet of three ships, under th^, CT/mmand of Antonio Dabreu, who had received wf/iituh and earned distinction in the assault upon the bfi/ige at Malacca, upon a voyage of discovery in the Malayan Archipelago. *' And the instructions which AlU^nno I^lboqucrque gave to Antonio Dabreu, were, cm no zcamnt whatever on that voyage to take any fjffi/xA, and to go on board of no vessel whatever, nor to Cfptwcni U) zny of his men going on shore, but in all the harboura and in all the islands at which he might touch t// give presents and gifts to the kings and lords of the c^Ainiry, and for this purpose he ordered there should be f^fven out many pieces of scarlet and velvets of Meca, and many other kinds of merchandise ; and, further, he gave riders that the captains should not interfere with a •ingle ship of Malacca or of the other ports (whether they belonged to the Moors or to the Hindoos) which he might meet with in these Clove islands (/. e,, the Moluccas) or Apple islands taking in cargo, but rather show them iavour and give them as much assistance as he possibly could ; and in the same way that such ships as these ne- gotiated for their cargo, so also in like manner was he to act for his cargo, observing all the customs of the re- spective countries." From which it will be seen that the great Alfonso added the wisdom of a statesman to the reckless daring of a filibuster, and that on occasion even THE FILIBUSTERS 73 his religious zeal could yield to considerations of policy. We possess, unfortunately, no details concerning Da- breu's voyage, though there seems to be some reason to believe that he penetrated sufficiently far to the south- east to lay up his ships for refitting at the island of Am- boyna, which lies to the south of the western extremity of the island of Ceram. This would lead us to the infer- ence that the southern coast of Borneo was skirted by Dabreu's fleet, and that the islands of the Celebes and Molucca groups were visited and explored in so far, at any rate, as their principal ports were concerned. More- over, if Dalboquerque's instructions were obeyed, this voyage of exploration was conducted with a policy and in a spirit which were little common among the adven- turers of the early sixteenth century, its object being to attract trade to Malacca instead of the commission of acts of piracy and pillage, wherefore the Portuguese, who had earned a great reputation as warriors, must have been free from molestation, and since they were in no aggressive mood must have sailed whither they would without let or hindrance. This voyage, then, although we possess such scant details concerning it, is an event of importance in the history of exploration in south- eastern Asia, and to its pacific character is largely to be attributed the rapidity with which during the succeeding fifty years the Portuguese traders spread themselves through the ports of Malaya, a matter which we shall have to examine more particularly in the following chapter. c2£AFrER rv '^^ THE arctiUBCuicis winch led to the establisb- iDcitt >^t the Portuguese Power in Malarra have lieett >rGttBuied la the piecediiig chap t e r with a minutcnes which -;i jwy warranted by the buct that tiiis event tnark$» as ^liis^ MSt oiready ofasenred, the begummg ol A itcw v^poch \a ±e ^sqiioratiun of soudieastem Asia. Over tltc v^xpionmons which tbilowed upon the settle- ment ol MoLiixa we shail now have to pass with mudi less ol vietail ami vmrticuiahty. pardy because consider- atiuns ol ^pttce turbid oxure eiaborate treatment of this sin|{(e portion ot' our subject; and pordy because die records of tnany wanderings are lost to us^ while diose which exist ore too ottxat of a very fragmentary character. From the vitspotdh by Ehdboquerqne of embossks to Siam, to Java and to several Sumatran kingdoms, and from the launching by him of die exploring fleet to the Moluccas, dates the gradual founding of commercial posts by white ad\'entureTS throughout southeastern Asia and the Malayan Archipelago. Malacca stood to each of these as a base of operations ; the prestige of Malacca served to protect isolated outposts and individual traders ; and the rumour of the wealth which was to be won in these r^ions speedily caused a host of hungry folk to 74 — ^ — ^-'^ THE EXPLORATIONS 75 quit Portugal in a continuous stream which poured unchecked into the distant East. Riches, rather than power, were the lure which tempted these men away from their fatherland, and in the pursuit of their object no difficulties or hardships sufficed to daunt them, no humanitarian considerations placed restraint upon their actions, and no regard for the rights of person or prop- erty vested in their Oriental victims served to shackle their lawlessness or their licence. They kept faith with no man, not even with their native allies ; no sense of honour or love of fair-dealing actuated them in their in- tercourse with the Asiatics, whether questions of policy or of trade were in point ; the cruelties which, on occa- sion, they committed, can only be recalled with horror ; their avarice and cupidity were at once shameless and insatiable; and with very few exceptions they abused their power and their positions, seeking none save ig- noble, selfish ends. Therefore it is an ugly chapter in the history of the relations of Europe with the East that holds the record of their doings — doings which have be- queathed a legacy of hatred the force of which is not yet wholly spent But, through all and in spite of all, it is impossible to withhold from these men the tribute that is due to a dauntless courage and a tremendous self-reli- ance, or to divest them, squalid though many of their actions were, of the cloak of romance which must ever ding about the memories of those who adventured greatly. Even in the heyday of their extraordinary success the Portuguese in Asia never had at their back the advantage -r> FURTHER IN*DIA -r^ t«^ our people to-day so inmiense a moral it^ui w;4N AX that time a thing of very recent growth, a !%rliri f.Mm4 A nru . hut in some sense as a dominant power. •• At the time o\ the death of Alfonso Dalboquerque," uTitr> ihr auihoi of the (v'mMmv/^znrj, '^ peace was uni- versal ti\>m i>ninj? to Ceylon; and all the kingdoms of Camha>-. CIkuiI. Oahul, Cn\a, Onor, Baticala to Mount de Dell, C^naiun. c'l^i^oubo and the Cape of Comorin — all the kinj^ and Km\Is and marine merchants — and the in- terior landN he \c\\ - ^ - . ^;v"^^- THE EXPLORATIONS 77 iheir part, used to visit Goa with their wares without mo- lestation being offered to them. And from the Cape of G>morin eastward Alfonso Dalboquerque left the kings of those countries in perfect peace and friendship with the King of Portugal, sending to them ambassadors bear- ing presents in his name, and they sent similarly to him. Among these I may name the King of Pegu, the King of Siam, the King of Pase, and the fortress of Malacca, in repose. He remained also in the closest terms of peace with the King of China, and the King of Java, the King of Maluco, with the Gores, and all the other neighbour- ing princes were kept by him in a state of submission and tranquillity." This account, which is substantially accurate, shows the spread of the Portuguese power during the first fifteen years of the sixteenth century. It must be remembered, however, that trade, rather than territorial possessions, was the lure which tempted the Portuguese adventurers to the East, and that Dalboquerque, more far-seeing than the majority of his contemporaries, did not desire an ex- tensive empire so much as the command of the sea and the acquisition of convenient ports which might be used as business-centres and suitable bases for Portuguese com- merce with the eastern world. In Malaya, for example, he was content with the conquest of Malacca, which dis- posed once for all of a formidable rival ; and that accom- plished, he did his best to establish friendly relations with the neighbouring kings and countries. Command of the sea and of the trade-routes once secured, the Portuguese had no great hankering after inland possessions, and ac- -stftr Jtrn^ '^^f^ ^f*^^ 78 FURTHER INDIA cordingly their explorations were practically confined to the islands and ports and the coast regions of the East The Moluccas or Spice Islands, the home of the clove and the nutmeg, had from the first been the principal goal which the Portuguese adventurers were bent upon reaching, and Dalboquerque, as we have seen, lost no time in despatching an expedition to explore this archi- pelago as soon as Malacca had fallen. Antonio Dabreu, who was in command, was not the first European, how- ever, to visit the group. Prior to the date of Dalbo- querque's victory in the Malay Peninsula, the Moluccas had been visited by the Italian wanderer, Ludovico di Varthema, and by Barbosa, the former being, so far as our information goes, the first white man to land upon their shores. Dabreu returned to Malacca in 15 14 with all his party, except the crew of one vessel who, with their captain, Francisco Surao, had lost their ship at Ter- nate and had remained behind on that island. Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's voyage, who was at Tidor during the latter months of 152 1, mentions that this man, whom he calls Francisco Serrano, had become the " cap- tain-general of the King of Tarenate when he was mak- ing war upon the King of Tidore," and by his prowess had so earned the hatred of the latter that means had been contrived to poison him. Pedro Alfonso de Loroso, another Portuguese who was living at Temate at the time of Pigafetta's visit, came to see the Spaniards and told them, '* That he had come to India sixteen years ago, and of these years he had passed ten in Moluco ; and it was just . .■>. ■ THE EXPLORATIONS 79 ten yeais since these islands had been discovered by the Portuguese, who kept the discovery secret from us. He then related to us that a year, less fifteen days, had lapsed since a lai^e ship had come hither proceeding from Ma- lacca, had gone away laden with cloves." From this it is evident that direct trade between the Portuguese of Malacca and the Molucca islands began with the expedition sent to the group by Dalboquerque, and was carried on with more or less regularity from that time forward. It was not, however, until after the coming of the Spaniards had threatened the Portuguese monopoly of trade with the Moluccas that any portion of the group was annexed by Portugal. This was formerly done after the appointment of Lopo Vas de Sampayo to the post of Portuguese Grovemor of the Indies in 1526. The enormous importance which was attached to the establishment of trade with this little archipelago by the nations of Europe is proved by the fact that, while the Portuguese kept the discovery of the Moluccas a close secret, the great voyage of Magellan had for its real and principal object, not the circumnavigation of the globe, but the opening up of a new sea-route to these precious islands. Pigafetta tells us that Francisco Serrano was a personal friend of Magellan, and that he had been instru- mental in instigating him to attempt a voyage to the Moluccas 7na the western route. It was because Magel- lan was himself a Portuguese who, having served in the East, was in the possession of what we should call *< trade secrets," — among the most prized of which was a knowl- edge of the exact locality of the Moluccas — that his tak- I** _ 80 FURTHER INDIA ing ncrvicc with the King of Spain was r^;arded by his cy^'-- 104. FURTHER INDIA Portuguese ships sailing from India, but his crews had had their fill of wanderings and adventures, and as their leader was stricken down by sickness at this juncture, they insisted upon sailing for the Cape. Lancaster's voyage could hardly be accounted much of a success, but it was memorable because it was the first attempt made by the English to strike right into the heart of the Por- tuguese empire in the East Drake and Cavendish had both passed through the Malayan Archipelago, and each had done his best to cause trouble to the Spaniards be- fore ever Lancaster sailed from Plymouth; but Caven- dish, at any rate, had had some not unfriendly inter- course with the Portuguese merchants in Java, and both he and Drake had come by the Cape Horn route, and had sailed for the Cape of Good Hope without attempting to penetrate into the Straits of Malacca. Lancaster, on the contrary, though in effect he accomplished little, sailed round Africa by the great Portuguese highway; harried Portuguese shipping from the Atlantic to the mouth of the Perak River ; and captured vessels almost within sight of the great Portuguese stronghold of Malacca. This was a considerable achievement, for he had given practi- cal demonstration of the fact that the position of the Portuguese in the East was by no means unassailable, and he brought back with him some valuable information, not only regarding routes and trade, but also on the subject of the political situation in Asia. During the last decade of the sixteenth century, indeed, the secrecy which the Portuguese had been at such pains to maintain concerning their eastern conquests and dis- J. Huygen Van Linschotea-' EAST INDIA COMPANIES 105 coveries began to be penetrated by the other nations of Europe. A period was set to the time during which all detailed information concerning the geography, the trade, the politics and the peoples of the East was, in a sense, the exclusive and jealously guarded property of Portugal. The capture of the carradc, the Madre de Dies, by the Ei^lish in 1592, on board which was a copy of the *■ Notable Register and Matricole of the whole Govern- ment and Trade of the Portuguese in the East Indies," furnished the merchants of London with much precious information which hitherto had been withheld from all the world, and this document became in fact the pros- spectus of the first British East India Company. Dr. Thome, an Englishman who had long resided in Seville, also supplied his countrymen with a valuable report on the political and commercial relations of Spain and Por- tugal with the East A similar service was rendered to the merchants of Holland by Jan Huygen van Lin- schoten, who had resided many years at Goa under the patronf^ of the Archbishop, Vincente de Fonseca, and had collected a great store of information relating to all the eastern lands with which the Portuguese held com- merce. Linschoten returned to Holland in September, 1592, and two yean later the States General granted him a license to publish his work. Its appearance, however, was delayed until 1 596, as its author, who shared the then popular belief in the possibility of opening a trade-route to the Indies via the north of Europe and Asia, wasted this period upon a fruitless voy^e undertaken with that object Although hb book was not given to the public io6 FURTHER INDIA • until 1596, it seems probable that the manuscript was examined by many who were interested in the future of Holland's trade with Asia, and its subsequent publication, and translation into many tongues, dealt a tremendous blow to Portugal, for it contained a merciless exposure of the futility of her system and of the rottenness which was eating into the heart of her administration in the East. On April 2, 1595, a fleet of four vessels, equipped by the newly established Dutch East India Company, sailed from the Texel, under the command of Cornelius Hout- man. The Cape route was followed, and in June, 1596, the fleet reached Sumatra. Coasting towards the south, Houtman passed through the Straits of Sunda, and made a considerable stay at Bantam, the town at the north- western extremity of Java, where a Portuguese factory was already in existence, and where the Dutchmen speed- ily obtained permission to establish a trading-post of their own. Their coming was, of course, viewed with great dissatisfaction by the Portuguese, and though the latter concealed their hostility, they set to work to intrigue against their rivals, and succeeded so well that serious misunderstandings arose between Houtman and the na- tives. After leaving Bantam, the Dutch adventurers passed to Jaccatra, the town upon the ruins of which Batavia, the modern capital of the Dutch East Indies, has been reared, and thence, coasting along the northern shores of Java, visited Bali and Lombok. At the latter place he found that his crews had been so much reduced that their number no longer sufficed to work all the ships, and the Amsterdam^ a vessel of 200 tons, was abandoned t^—. EAST INDIA COMPANIES 107 and burned. Houtman then set sail across the Indian Ocean, doubled the Cape, and reached the Texel in Au- gust, IS97. having with him only eighty-nine men out of the company, 249 strong, which had shipped with htm little more than two years earlier. His voyage is chiefly interesting because it illustrates the difTerent policy adopted fron] the beginning by the Dutch, as compared with that of the Portuguese. The methods of the latter we have already examined : the qualities which characterised the Dutch system may be summed up in a few words. To begin with the Hollan- ders had in view a single object — trade. They evinced no desire to proselytise, or to insult the religious or social prejudices of the natives. They made no attempt at fili- bustering ; behaved with considerable self-restraint in very trying circumstances at Bantam; and their generally peaceful and orderly behaviour made a deep impression on the Orientals who had become used to the license of the Portuguese. This favourable view of the newcomers was confirmed at a later period by better acquaintance with the Dutchmen, and Pyrard de I^val, for instance, tells us that at Bantam " the king had an affection to- wards them and the people loved them." Their claim upon the good will of the natives rested also to no small extent upon their open hostility to the Portuguese, and though they were guilty of many acts of piracy, they tried to make a distinction between the property of their European enemies and that of Asiatic traders. Speaking generally, both the Dutch and the English were well re* cdved in the East, principally because they were not -^M -jf^ "^' 108 FURTHER INDIA Portuguese, and because their coming was known to be viewed with intense disfavour by those white men who had earned and deserved the hatred of the native popula- tions. Houtman, therefore, was able to bring back with him a very encouraging report of the prospects presented by the newly opened trade between Holland and the Indies, and so quick were the merchants of the Nether- lands to seize the advantages thus offered to them that by the summer of 1601 — only six and a half years after the sailing of the first expedition — no less than forty-nine Dutch vessels had been sent out bound for Malaya via the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, on December 31st, 1599, the Charter of Incorporation of the first British East India Company had been granted, " Being a privilege for fifteen years to certain adventurers for the discovery of the trade of the East Indies, namely, George Cliiford, Earl of Cumberland and 215 knights, aldermen, and merchants." A capital of £T2,qoo was subscribed, and on February i6th, 1600, Lancaster sailed from England in command of the first fleet of the East India Company. Taking the Cape route, he reached Achem (Acheh) on June Sth, 1602, delivered a letter addressed by Queen Elizabeth to the king of that state, established good relations with him and his people, and opened a factory in his capital. A Portuguese ambassador from Malacca tried vainly to in- duce the King to have no dealings with the Englishmen, but the Achehnese had from the first constituted them- selves the especial defenders of the brown man's birth- right against the aggression of the Portuguese, and they EAST INDIA COMPANIES 109 were accordingly prepared to give a warm welcome to any Europeans who were enemies of the hated race. Lancaster not only carried on his trade in Acheh with- out molestation under the protection of its king, but actually used the place as his base of operations for a piratical raid which he presently made upon the Portu- guese in the Straits of Malacca — an expedition which resulted in the capture of one very rich prize. On his re- turn to Acheh a treaty of friendship was made with the King, and Lancaster coasted along Sumatra, passed through the Straits of Sunda, and opened a factory at Bantam. Thence he sailed for England, leaving behind him eight men and two factors, the chief of whom was Master William Starkey, whose purely mercantile charge must be regarded as the germ out of which there grew in the course of time Great Britain's enormous empire in the East Bantam itself had been first visited by the Portuguese in 1511, when, immediately after the fall of Malacca, Henrique Leme, one of Dalboquerque's captains, touched at the port. Houtman, as we have seen, established a trading-post there in 1596, at which time a Portuguese factory was already in existence, and the station now founded by Lancaster became later the principal Presi- dency of the British East Indies to which the agencies of Madras, Bengal and Surat were alike subordinate. The importance of Bantam for both the English and the Dutch lay in the fact that it furnished a convenient centre from which to trade with Sumatra for pepper, and especially with the Moluccas for spices, the latter being '^'^ no FURTHER INDIA the most precious produce in the East No sooner had the Dutch power in the Malayan Archipelago attained to sufficient proportions than a descent was made upon Amboyna, which was captured by Van Nek in 1599, al- though the Portuguese had a fort on Tidor. Two years later the Portuguese sent a fleet under Andre Furtado " to expel the rebel Hollanders/' and for the moment Amboyna was retaken. Aided by the Spaniards, who were now strongly established in the Philippines, the Portuguese tried in 1603 to annex Ternate, but the at- tempt failed, and in 1605 the Dutch made another swoop upon the Moluccas, their leader, Van der Hagen, driving the Portuguese not only out of Amboyna but also out of Tidor. Two years later Pedro de Acuiia, the Spanish Governor of the Philippines, attacked the Dutch and de- prived them of all their possessions in the Moluccas, ex- cept Amboyna. Meanwhile, in 1606, the Dutch under Matelief laid seige to Malacca itself, thus striking at the very heart of the Portuguese power in Southeastern Asia, and it is to be noted that the Sultan of Johor took part in the cam- paign against the successors of Dalboquerque. It was in these latter years that the Portuguese began to reap the crop of hatred which they had sown among the natives of the East during the preceding century. The Portuguese Viceroy, Martin Affbnso de Castro, sailed from Goa to the relief of Malacca with the greatest armada which had ever quitted that port. In the first instance he attacked Acheh, whose king had, as usual, befriended the enemies of Portugal, and was heavily repulsed. He then passed EAST INDIA COMPANIES m into the Straits of Malacca, forcing Matelief to raise the siege, but was immediately after trounced most soundl/ by that redoubtable Dutchman in a great sea 6ght. For the moment, however, Malacca itself was saved, but a death-blow to the prestige of Portugal in Malaya had been dealt, and from that moment the fate of the first conquerors of Malacca was sealed. Matelief, flushed with victory, sailed to the Moluccas, where in the following year he succeeded in driving the Spaniards out of Tidor. Till i6ii this island was held by the Dutch, but in that year it was retaken by the Spaniards together with the island of Banda, though soon after the Dutch reestablished themselves in Temate. In 1641, however, Malacca fell before the joint attack of the Hol- landers and the Achehncse, and passed into the keeping of the former, as also in the course of time did the Moluccas and most of the islands of the Malayan Archi- pelago. After the final defeat of the Portuguese and the con- quest of Malacca the power of Holland in Malaya grew rapidly. By means of superior energy and enterprise the Dutch contrived to engross the greater part of the spice- trade, leaving to the English traders only an insignificant residue. In 1682, by fomenting an insurrection headed by the son of the King of Bantam, they succeeded in driv- ing the British out of Java, which they then annexed little by little, till they had made themselves masters of the whole. The English fell back upon Sumatra, where they held factories in Acheh, at Priaman, Fort Marlborough, and at Bengkulen, stations which became of less and less '*«<, 111 FURTHER INDIA importance as England gradually hcgan to win a new empire in India. On the mainland the Dutch estab- lished trading-posts in Perak and Selingor, but through these were presently withdrawn. Malacca was held until 1795, when it was attacked and taken by the British; it was restored to Holland in 1818 under the Treaty of Vienna, but six years later was exchanged for Beukulen, and this time passed finally into the keeping of Great Britain. The East India Company had meanwhile founded a settlement on the island of Penang, which was leased by them from the Rdja of Kedah in 1786, and in 1 798 the territory on the mainland, now known as Prov- ince Wcllcsley, was purchased for ^2,000. Sir Stanford KafTles, whose statesman's eye saw the strategic and com- mercial value of the position, obtained the cession of the island of Singapore from the Sultan of Johor in 18 19, but the territory immediately behind the town of Malacca was nut brought under British jurisdiction until 1833. An English expedition invaded and took possession of Java in 181 1, but in 18 18 the island was restored to Holland. The remaining British settlements on the is- land of Sumatra were ceded to the Dutch by a treaty concluded in 1 871, under the provisions of which Hol- land abandoned all claims in the Malay Peninsula, and with the extension of British influence throughout the Native States of the mainland, which began in 1874, the real exploration of this Malayan region had its beginning. Up to this time the Malay Peninsula, in all save its coast-line and its ports, at some of which small Dutch factories had from time to time been established, was EAST INDIA COMPANIES 113 a complete terra incognita to Europeans. The story of its subsequent exploration will be told in a later chapter. To return now to the doings of the East India Com- ' panies in the other lands of southeastern Asia, it was not until 161S that trade began to be conducted by the Brit- ish with the valley of the Irawadi, the exploitation of which by Portuguese adventurers has already been noted. Cu- riously enough the first of the Company's factors to visit Burma came, not from India, but overland from Siam. In 1618 the factor at the Siamese capital, Lucas Anthon- ison by name, sent a sub-factor, one Thomas Samuel, up the Menam to Zengomay ( Chteng Mai ), to investigate the prospects of trade in that place, which shortly before had passed into the hands of Siam. The forces of the King of Ava retook Chieng Mai while Samuel was still there, and the unfortunate merchant was carried to Pegu with all his property, and soon afterwards died there. He was not the first white man to accomplish the journey from Ayuthia to Pegu, since the Portuguese contingent which aided the Peguan army in its invasion of Siam in 1548 must have traversed approximately the same line of country ; but his arrival led indirectly to the opening up of commerce with that country by the agents of the British Company. Anthonison,*who had meanwhile been trans- ferred to Masulipatam, no sooner heard what had befallen Samuel than he despatched two sub-factors to Burma, ostensibly to enquire for the dead merchant's effects, but really with a view to establishing trade. He was badly served by his agents, who tried to keep the commerce of Burma in their own hands and to discourage its exten- '^»'*^ 114 FURTHER INDIA sion, but none the less British intercourse with the country shortly afterwards became freer than it ever was again until after the annexation of Pegu in 1852. The East India Company had settlements at Prome, Ava and Sir- ian, and a trading-post somewhere on the confines of China, at a place which in all probability was Bhamo, on the Irawadi, over 300 miles above Mandalay. The Dutch Company also had a considerable trade with Burma, pos- sessing factories in the upper districts, and, it is said, occupying the island of Negrais. From 1631 to 1677 they had a factory at Sirian, once the capital of the ill-fated de Brito, and Valentyn attributes their abandon- ment of trade with Burma to the constant wars which in this region made peaceful commerce impossible. The British trade also languished, but between 1680 and 1684 the Company reestablished its factories in Burma, and in 1C86-7 the island of N^[rais was surveyed and taken nominal possession of by the English. In 1695 Nathaniel Higginson, the Governor of Fort St George, sent Edward Fleetwood and Capt. James Lesley to Ava with presents to the King, out of which the sender, who instructed his agents to haggle manfully, hoped to make a profit in the form of return-gifts. A grant for a new factory at Sirian was obtained, and a Resident was appointed there to su- pervise the trade, but almost immediately afterwards a gen- eral expulsion of foreigners took place, and thenceforth the East India Company had no direct financial stake in Burmese commerce. Sirian, however, continued to be the residence of British and other foreign merchants, and when the Siamese and the Peguans, leagued together 7 7"7J\"\J \^*^ m fe Wl 1 "^mv ^ fr I? 1 *' ^ A |\ S^ ^ fe ^3 .■f ^ .^'*- — - E ^ ■■■^ f-^i- » ■- ' '"''' ^._. < 1 a- i ^'' -^ ~- „ c'^^'XIt- i S ^ -..<^ ^^- '^ ^^ "~T^is ( !i0 "^s i^Sf I'urlhor Imlu Fnnn llanvilLc's liLipuf i\tu. IJS5 EAST INDIA COMPANIES 115 ^^nst Ava, took the place in 1 740, these strangers were not molested. Three years later Sirian was retaken by Ava, and subsequently was burned by the P^uans, when the British, whose Resident, Mr. Smart, had acted, as be- fitted his name, with duplicity in his dealings with both parties, were obliged to retire. Negrais was settled from Madras in 1753, while war was once more raging be- tween Ava and Pegu, and two years later the British fectory at Bassein was destroyed by the former. A mis- sion under Captain Baker was sent to Ava -to ask for redress and to ofTer the support of the Company, which had been prudently withheld until the defeat of the Peg- uans had become a manifest certainty. Baker was badly received, and when he spoke of " assistance " the King bared his thighs, smote them with his palms, laughed in- sultingly in the envoy's face and asked him what he thought such a king as he had to do with aid from any man! In 1757 another envoy. Ensign Lister, was sent up the Irawadi to Ava, and as the result of a most hu- miliating interview, a new factory was opened at Bassein. In 1759 Negrais was practically abandoned, only a small staff remaining there in chaise of the buildings, and the entire population of the island, including ten Europeans, was treacherously murdered veiy soon afterwards by the Burmese. The weakness which characterised the deal- ings of the Company with Burma was never better ex- emplified than by the action taken on this occasion, for the envoy sent to plead for redress was received with con- tempt and insult, and there the matter ended. Bassein was l,but some trade was carried on with Ran- ^rSSS-. -■''«?V,: 116 FURTHER INDIA goon until 1794, the merchants doing little business, while the Company's agents possessed no political influence, and occupied for the most part positions of great humiliation. Over Chittagong and Assam, however, the Company had established its hold, and when in 1 794 the Burmese sent 5,000 armed men into the former province " to ar- rest robbers dead or alive," the British at last showed fight, and the Burmese yielded without forcing the issue. The following year Capt Michael Symes was sent upon his famous embassy to Ava, a mission of which he sub- sequently wrote an elaborate account He was accom- panied by Lieutenant Woods, who made the first reliable survey of the Irawadi from Rangoon to Ava, and by Dr. Buchanan, who collected a great deal of information bearing upon the districts traversed. This was the only really important achievement of the mission, for Symes was treated with the utmost insolence, was presented to the King, in circumstances of intense humiliation, upon a kodau, or " beg-pardon day," and effected nothing of any importance. He moreover carried away with him a wholly exaggerated idea of the might of Ava, and though Cox, the next envoy, corrected his predecessor's erroneous impressions, Symes was regarded at the time as the more reliable authority, and his book was probably not with- out its effect in leading the Government of India into continuing the weak-kneed policy which had too long been followed towards the arrogant Burmese Court. Be- tween the time of Cox's visit and 18 10 three other mis- sions were sent to Ava, each in turn to be subjected to insults which it is humiliating to recall, and on each EAST INDIA COMPANIES 117 occasion the King declined to take the slightest notice of the letters sent by the Governor-General, deeming it below him to have any dealings with one who was not a crowned head. All these missions followed the river route to Amarapura, the then residence of the King, and no material addition was made to the information which had been collected by the officers attached to Symes's mission. Ava during the whole of this time continued to treat foreigners with the utmost contumely, and in 1S05, for instance, all the British subjects in Rangoon were imprisoned, owing to some misunderstanding which arose over the seizure by the Company of a ship in whose cat^o the Burmese authorities were in some way interested. The Company, however, was long-suffering, and it was not until Chittagong had been repeatedly raided that war was at last declared. Sir Archibald Campbell ascended the Irawadi and reached Prome on April 4th, 1825, where he went into cantonments until the end of the rainy season. The land column under Cotton, operating in conjunction with him, had been heavily repulsed by the Burmese at Donabyu, but other- wise the resistance offered had been poor. In September the King sent down from Ava to know on what terms the British army would retire. The reply was that Arakan and Tenassertm must-be ceded to the Company. The King declined, and hostilities were renewed, the Burmese being badly beaten a little north of Prome. As the British army continued to advance, the King decided to sue for peace, and on February 24th, 1826, the peace of Yandabu was signed, whereby Tavoi, Mcrgui, and "^^^^ 118 FURTHER INDIA Tenasserim — together constituting the long strip of coun- try lying between the Bay of Bengal and the frontiers of Siam — were ceded to the British, and with Arakan be- came the foundation of our Burmese empire. The same year John Crawfurd was sent to negotiate the commercial treaty which had been provided for in the terms of peace, but the Court of Ava had not yet learned its lesson, for though his reception compared favourably with those accorded to his predecessors, he met with both impertinence and bad faith. On Decem- ber 31st, 1829, Major Burney was appointed British Resi- dent at Ava, a position which he held with distinction for eight years, only retiring to Rangoon and sailing for England after the usurpation of the crown by the savage and arrogant King Tharawadi had robbed him of all in- fluence. With the appointment of Burney to this post at Ava a new chapter opens in the story of the explora- tion of Burma, but its details will have to be examined by us later on. Turning next to Siam, we find that intercourse between this country and the Dutch East India Company began as early as 1604, before a decade had elapsed since the sailing of the first vessels from the Texcl; and in 1608 a Siamese mission was sent to the Dutch factory at Bantam. It was not, however, until 1634 that a Dutch post was established in Siam, and in 1663 the Company withdrew its agent, averring that its agreement with Siam had been violated by the latter. That Siam saw the removal of the factors with regret is proved by the fact that in the following year an embassy was sent to Batavia, by means n-^n EAST INDIA COMPANIES 119 of which friendly relations were once more established. These continued unabated for some years, the Dutch agent in 1685 being the first foreigner ever admitted to the presence of the King. In 1706, however, a differ- ence arose once more, and this time the Dutch were obliged to ask for such terms as the Siamese were dis- posed to grant to them. Subsequently the trade between the Hollanders and Siam languished and almost ceased. In 1740 an effort was made to restore the former state of things, the King of Siam making friendly overtures to the Dutch, but the negotiations led to nothing, and so completely did the intercourse between the Dutch and the Siamese cease that when Bowring visited Bangkok in 1857, he found no trace remaining there to show that the connection, which had lasted for more than a century, had ever existed. A remarkable figure in the history of Siamese relations with the West is that of Constantine Phaulkon, or Fal- con, a Greek of Cephalonia, who ran away to England in about 1640, when he was a mere child, and afterwards sailed for tlie Indies in one of Old John Company's ships. Later, having acquired a vessel of his own, he was wrecked near the mouth of the Menam, passed some years in Siam, and learned the language of the country. Sailing from Siam, he had the misfortune to be again wrecked on the coast of Malabar, his whole ship's com- pany perishing, while he alone escaped, carrying with him a sum of 2,000 crowns. Naked and in a sorry plight, he was roaming the shores upon which he had been cast, when he lighted upon another shipwrecked mariner. 120 FURTHER INDIA even more destitute than himself, who was also the only survivor of his crew, and the moment this man opened his mouth to speak Constantine discovered that he was a native of Siam. Enquiry led Constantine to ascertain the fact that this waif was a high official who had been de- spatched by his King on an embassy to Persia, of all places, — ^yet another proof, were any such needed, of the extent of the inter- Asiatic intercourse which existed prior to the domination of the East by white men — and the wily Greek, whose charity, we must suspect, was not untainted by self-seeking, invested his all in a ship, in which he con- veyed his new-found friend back to Siam. The man whom he had thus so handsomely befriended recommended him to the officials in Siam, and Constantine presently won for himself great renown by his skilful manipulation of the accounts of some Muhammadans, whereby he proved that far from the King being in their debt, they owed the monarch a substantial sum of money ! At an Oriental Court tact and wisdom such as this were sure of recogni- tion, and Constantine rose in the public service until he at last occupied the proud position of Prime Minister. He attained this eminence in 1665, and at Lopburi in the Menam valley there are still extant the ruins of the works which were built under his direction. During his youth in England he had abandoned Catholicism, and had be- come an Anglican, but the Jesuits, who long ere this had established missions in China and in other parts of the Far East, found him out and won him back to the faith of his fathers. Thereafter Constantine appears to have cherished a desire to convert the King of Siam to Chris- EAST INDIA COMPANIES 121 tianity,- and it was largely through his agency that the missions of which Pere Tachard and Pere Choisi were the chroniclers were despatched to the Court of Siam by Louis XIV in 1685 and 1687. These embassies, the second of which was under the leadership of the Chevalier de Chaumont, were mainly composed of Jesuits, and their sole object was the conversion of the King. They were well received, and the Chevalier de Chaumont was care- ful to submit himself to none of the humiliating observ- ances which, until a much later period, were exacted from British envoys to the Court of Ava ; but the King, albeit he was a most liberal-minded monarch, far in advance of his age and race, had no intention of adopting an alien faith. De Chaumont, therefore, presently returned to France; but the Jesuits remained behind, and for a period occupied positions of importance in the Siamese service. They were instrumental in helping to suppress a rebellion headed by a Muhammadan, in which some refugees from Macassar took part, but they gradually became hateful to the nobles and the people of Siam, and were eventually massacred to a man, Constantine himself being ignomin- ioiisly executed. During the eighteenth century intercourse between Europeans and Siam was confined to the visits of a few traders and missionaries, and Hamilton's Account of the East Indies, published in Edinburgh in 1727, is probably the best work on the lands of southeastern Asia which that period produced. It shows, however, an intimate knowledge of nothing save the ports and coast-lines, all information relating to the interior being derived from 122 FURTHER INDIA native sources of no great accuracy. Hamilton may be regarded as typical of his class and age, and a study of his work shows us how slow was the progress of know- ledge of these regions after the great discoveries of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. The missionaries, as ever, were ubiquitous and scornful of risk, but they were for the most part inarticulate for us, and when in 1821 John Crawfurd was sent to Bangkok and Hue on a special embassy, George Finlayson, in his account of the mission, writes of these countries as though they were in some sort being rediscovered. Hitherto, he declares, they had been " almost unknown to us.'* Craw- furd and his party were coldly received in Siam, and after a short stay at the capital they coasted as far as Pulau Kondor, touching at several islands on the way. They visited Saigon, where they met a M. Diard, " a lively, well-educated Frenchman," and passed thence to Hue by water after calling in at Turon. At the Court of Cochin- China they found that French influence was predominant, but permission to trade was granted by the King to the East India Company, and the mission then returned over- land to Turon. Five years later Burney, afterwards Resident at Ava, was sent to Bangkok to enlist the co- operation of the Siamese against Burma, with which the British were then at war, but he was not too well received, and the peace of Yandabu was concluded before any active steps had been taken. We have now traced the history of European intercourse with Siam up to the time of the first Burmese war, and as the detailed exploration of the country is a work that belongs to the last seventy EAST INDIA COMPANIES 123 years of the nineteenth century, it will be more conven- ient to continue the narrative in a later chapter. Turning finally to Indo-China — namely, Cochin-China, Kambodia, Annam, Tongking, and the Laos country in the valley of the Mekong, — we find that after the firet settlements had been formed by the Portuguese during the sixteenth century, as h^s already been related, the British and Dutch East India Companies both established factories in this region. The English had their factory on Pijiau Kondor, now the penal settlement of Saigon, establishing it there in 1616, but a mutiny of the Com- pany's Macassar troops, who had been kept on after the expiration of the terms of their agreement, led to its abandonment. This, and the English factory at PetSni, from the possession of which we were ousted by the Dutch, were practically the only ventures of the Com- pany on the shores of the China Sea. The East India Company of Holland founded a factory in Cochin-China in 1635, in competition with the Portuguese, who had been established there some fifty years earlier, and the Dutchmen had also a trading-post at Pnom Penh, the cap- ital of Kambodia. To them, moreover, belongs the dis- tinction of having been the first to explore the interior by the Mekong route. In 1641 some Laos traders having come from Pnom Penh to Batavia in one of the Company's vessels, Van Dieman, the Governor, decided to attempt the establishment of commercial intercourse with their country. To this end he deputed a sub-factor named Gerard Van Wusthof to visit Laos, then more or less united under the King of Vien Chan. The story of this 124 FURTHER INDIA remarkable expedition will be examined in more detail in a later chapter in connection with the French mission of 1866, but it may be mentioned here that the party as- cended the Mekong as far as Vien Chan and resided there some months. This journey, however, was not repeated, and did not lead to the opening up of Laos, as in 1642 the Portuguese contrived to cause the Dutch factor, Jeremias de Wal, to be murdered while on a journey to Pnom Penh, and after that the Dutch factories in Cochin-China and Kambodia were abandoned. The Portuguese themselves never penetrated far into the in- terior, though an Italian missionary priest, named Leria, reached Vien Chan in 1642, and later travelled overland into Tongking. His example, however, found no imita- tors, and from his time until late in the last century Laos was not visited by missionaries. For a space after the departure of the Dutch the Portuguese who remained in possession exercised con- siderable influence at the Court of Kambodia and in the delta of the Mekong, but towards the end of the seven- teenth century the native officials, instigated it is said by China, organised a general massacre of the white men, dealing a blow to the power of the Portuguese in this region from which it never again recovered. From that time onward, the intercourse of Europeans with the lands of Indo-China was confined to the mission- aries and to a few visits from traders. Most of the mission- aries were Frenchmen, though a proportion came from Spain, and the latter half of the seventeenth century saw the growth of French influence in these regions. The EAST INDIA COMPANIES 125 French Bishop, Pigneau de Behaine, is the commanding figure in the drama. He was bom in 1741, came out to Cochin-China, built a church at Saigon, and so won the confidence of the King Ngueyen Anh, afterwards Iietter known as Gia Long, that he was actually entrusted with the custody of his son, whom he took to Paris in 1787 and presented at the Court of Louis XVL France was at the moment over-busy with her internal affairs, being as she was on the eve of the great Revolution, and be- yond a gift of arms and a treaty of alliance, the main pro- visions of which were never fulfilled, nothing tangible re- sulted at the time from Behaine's mission. Subsequently, however, the existence of this treaty was recalled to mind, and the fact was made a foundation upon which to base France's right to interfere in the affairs of Indo- China. Behaine's visit, however, attracted the attention of Frenchmen to this distant corner of the world, and a number of adventurers of that nationality visited Annam. By their aid and that of Behaine, King Gia Long suc- ceeded in conquering the whole of the ancient kingdom of Annam, from the Gulfof Siam to the frontiers of China, thus uniting under a single sceptre Cochin-Cbina, Annam and Tongking. His gratitude to the white men who had assisted him in this work led him to show an unwonted measure of tolerance to the preachers of the Christian religion. When Behaincdied in Saigon in i789hewasac- corded a state funeral, and the monument erected by his patron over his grave still ranks as one of the most in- teresting historical relics of the place. By 1 802 Gia Long ■y^ ^^>^ -■-*^ 126 FURTHER INDIA had made himself master of his whole kingdom, and for eighteen years more he ruled it with an iron hand and extended open tolerance to the Christians. In 1820, however, he died, and his successor, Minh Meng, ex- pelled the French and persecuted the native Christians before he had been four years upon the throne. A second massacre of missionaries — for the Roman Catholic priests of the Societe des Missions Etrangeres returned again and again to the charge, as also did the Spanish missionaries, — occurred in 1851, and a war vessel was sent to destroy the forts at Turon. In 1857 Bishop Diaz, a Spaniard, having been brutally murdered by the authorities, France and Spain took joint-action with the result that Cochin-China was invaded by a Franco-Spanish expedition. It was not, however, until the hand of France had been freed by the signing of the Treaty of Peking in i860, which put an end to the war with China, that really effective action was taken, and Cochin-China was ceded to France. ' Kambodia meanwhile had been invaded during the latter half of the eighteenth century by Siam and Annam, and had g^radually become subservient to both. In 1857 her King, Ang Duong, appealed for aid to France, and a French protectorate over the kingdom was proclaimed by France shortly after the accession of his successor Norodon in 1859. Siamese influence continued to be predominant at the Court of Kambodia until 1863, when Siam was bought out by France, the provinces of Siam- reap and Batambang being ceded to her without the knowledge or consent of the unhappy Norodon, whose EAST INDIA COMPANIES 127 protests, however, were unavailing. These provinces had, as a matter of fact, been occupied by Siam for many years, and from the French point of view it was all-im- portant that Siam's demands should be satisfied, and that a clear Held should be left in which the influence of France might operate unchecked. Captain Doudart de Lagree, of whom much more hereafter, occupied for some time the post of Resident at the Court of Kambo> dia, and it was on the eve of his departure on the great journey of exploration which cost him his life, that the rebellion of Fu Kombo broke out in that State. Noro- don was aided by French troops who rescued him from a precarious position in the beleaguered town of Fnom Penh, aiid this led to the increase of French ascendency, so ^t to-day though Kambodia is nominally only a protectorate of France, its finances and administration are entirely in the hands of Frenchmen. In Tongking a Dutch factory had been established in 1637, but it was abandoned in 1700, and after that time no permanent European colony appears to have been formed in this kingdom. Tongking was conquered and annexed by Annam in 1802, after which period it was in- frequently visited by Europeans, save only a few mission- aries, until the Frenchman Dupuis, of whom something will be said in a later chapter, attempted to make the Song Koi River a highway of communication and trade with China. This led to interference on the part of France, and eventually to the practical annexation of the country after a period of prolonged and harassing warfare. The glance which we have now taken at the history of 128 FURTHER INDIA European intercourse with all the lands of the great Indo- Chinese Peninsula, from the coming of the British and Dutch East India Companies to 1826 in the case of Burma and Siam, to the date of the active interference of France in the case of Cochin-China, Kambodia, Annam and Tongking,to the eve of British expansion in the Na- tive States in the case of the Malay Peninsula, — >h3s been necessitated, not because it adds very materially to our information on the subject of the exploration of these countries, but because it is from these periods that the most important part of our story begins. The establishment of European supremacy, or at any rate the wide extension of European influence, were necessary preliminaries to the great task of exploring the Hinter- land of Indo-China which bad been kept jealously closed to white men from the early days of the seventeenth century when the whole of the East not yet learned be- gun to fear and suspect her invaders. The true explora- tion of Burma dates from the appointment of a British Resident to Ava after the first Burmese war; that of Siam was a work left for accomplishment to the last quarter of the nineteenth century; the interior of the Malay Peninsula was almost entirely unknown when Perak and Sel^gor were placed under British protec- tion in the early seventies of the last century ; while the valley of the Mekong was first revealed to Europeans with some fulness of detail by the De Lagree-Garnier expedition of 1866-1868. Itiswiththe last named jour- ney, as being at once the most important and in many respects the most interesting, that we shall now deal. CHAPTER VI FRANCIS GARNIER, THE HAN IN the preceding chapters the knowledge gained by Europeans of the lands of southeastern Asia h^ been traced from its earliest beginnings, in the im- aginary island of Chryse, the Golden, until by the seven- teenth century the coast-lines of the whole of the vast Indo-Chinese peninsula had become familiarly known to the geographers and merchants of the West. Similarly we have followed the growth of knowledge of this part of the world, and the events which contributed to it, until in the nineteenth century the spread of European influ- ence in Burma, in Malaya and in Cochin-China and Kam- bodia opened the gates to enquiry and made the scientific exploration of the Hinterland a possibili^. The work lay now ready to the hand, and of all the men who took a share in it and succeeded in writing their names large upon the maps of these regions, Francis Garnier, the Frenchman, the naval officer, colonial ad- ministrator, explorer, cartographer, man of letters and dreamer of dreams, is perhaps the most arresting figure. It is no part of my present plan to attempt a biography of Francis Garnier; our concern is with his achievement rather than with his character. Yet in order that a true appreciation of the former may be arrived at, something must be known of the latter. Its keynote is to be >«9 •^5**^ ^o *^ 130 FURTHER INDIA found in the strong constructive imagination of the man, in his ability to plan and to organise, in his tireless energy, mental and physical, in a certain largeness of view and quenchless enthusiasm, and withal in an inspiring nobility of spirit. Garnier was bom at Saint-Etienne in 1839, but he was brought up at Montpellier within sight of the sea, which early exercised over him a great fascina- tion. He was educated at the naval college at Brest, into which he passed eleventh out of a hundred successful candidates, and from which he in due time entered the regular service after gaining distinction in the examina- tions. It is immediately prior to his maiden voyage as a naval officer that we get the first, and as I think, the most illuminating glimpse of Francis Garnier the man. It comes to us from certain boyish letters addressed to a friend, and though his opinions are of a nature little flat- tering to our national self-esteem, they may stand as a picture of a young Frenchman of the best type in early manhood. There are crudities and absurdities in every line. Facts and fictions are accepted at second-hand without enquiry or examination, without test or proof. Passionately patriotic, Garnier is here seen to be the vic- tim of the hate that is ever the fringe of love, and the rank injustice of the verdicts into which it betrays him is too exaggerated to arouse anything save amusement. None the less, Garnier's letters, penned at the age of twenty, are instructive. They show the creed of anglo- phobia in which, it is to be feared, too many young Frenchmen are educated, and though it so chanced that their author in after life won enough of experience where- '->'^ •"•^m- FRANCIS GARNIER 131 with to correct his earlier impressions, it is melancholy to remember that many othen, who have imbibed the same opinions in youth, have never had occasion or opportu- nity to revise and alter them. The inherited and unrea- soning dislike of the average English schoolboy for Frenchmen is undeniably strong, but it is of a wholly diflerent brand to the hate which here may be seen to in- spire the opinions of Francis Gamier; and the ordinary Englishman of our own time puts such prejudices off when he comes to man's estate together with other things of the child. The fervid virulence of angry .hate which finds its expression in the following quotations has no home among ourselves, and the mere fact that we are in- clined to laugh at such frenzies unquestionably adds fuel to the flame. It is the Englishman's almost contemptu- ous indifference to the dislike of which he is the object, and his inability to return the sentiment in kind, which contribute so largely to his unpopularity abroad. But Gamier's tirade, for all its insensate hatred of Eng- land, for all its boyishness, all its folly, gives token of other more estimable qualities. There is here the enthu- siasm, the optimism, the tremendous self-confidence, the generous ambition which are bred of youth and inexpe- rience, and above all we see Gamier in the character that made him great, as the dreamer of dreams who is yet a man of action bent upon giving concrete form to his im- aginings. His aim was nothing less than the total destruction of England, and he hoped to that end to form a confraternity which should bring about a consummation so devoutly to be wished. 132 FURTHER INDIA " I tell you/' he writes to M. Joseph Perre, his lifelong friend, ** that if there be manufacturers with enough heart and intelligence to apply themselves to the impoverish- ment of Protestant England, — men who understand suffi- ciently well the interests of civilisation and of France to desire to diminish England's commerce and influence^ — there are also young men of sufficient courage, eneigy, and will to work for an even more difficult end. Ideal, do you call it? But not impossible for them ; and this end is to overthrow her utterly and to strike her name from the ranks of the nations. " What young and ardent soul is there that is not, dur- ing its hours of aspiration after the beautiful and the great, smitten with some noble idea, some immense and magnificent aim ? What young man is there who, in the solitude of his soul, has not dreamed of the means whereby he may attain the pure and radiant crown of glory which encircles the brows of those philanthropists who have passed obscure lives in the most toilsome labours in order to ameliorate the lot of their kind ? But soon the vortex of the world and the selfish interests which govern it efface the vividness of these impressions, tarnish them, cause them to be forgotten, and so, becom- ing sensible, as it is called, one loses the illusions and the dreams of youth. " For those of whom I speak to you it has not been thus. The idea which appealed to them was that of civi- lisation in general and of the regeneration of mankind in certain countries in particular. " Behold France, the arbiter of Europe, making use of I-'urlhcr India, 1S40 Knmi Ij^iir-- F.linlwrKli M.ip FRANCIS GARNIER 133 her influence only for the happiness and for the moral improvement of the peoples. Behold her spreading everywhere, whither her arms have penetrated, benefits and civilisation, pacifying all confusions, appeasing all quarrels, making the peoples abroad listen always to her solemn voice when it has become necessary to make others respect the rights of misunderstood men. " Now look at England astonishing the nineteenth century by her influence and her expansion. Go to India, visit this country ruined and impoverished by the plunderings of the English Company. See the lands lying waste, the canals dried up, the natives brutalised by a de- grading yoke, deprived of almost all the rights of the native and the citizen, and ask yourself if this is the country which of old was the centre of Asiatic civilisa- tion, which was renowned for her wealth, her fertility and for the might of her inhabitants. Is this the part which a civilised nation ought to play towards a vanquished people? Has England fulfilled the duty which her very conquest imposed upon her 7 Go everywhere else throughout the English Colonies, arid you will find only misery, despair and forced labour designed to satisfy an insatiable metropolis. Examine modern history. Who was not disgusted when the Parliament of London de- clared war on China because her Emperor forbade to his subjects the use of the opium that was killing them, 'action which was taken because the edict diminished a trade of which England had the monopoly and the profit What honest heart was there that was not made indig- nant when, profiting in cowardly fashion by the superior- •^■<^ 134 FURTHER INDIA ity of her arms, England forced the Chinese Emperor to revoke his edict, and so to sanction the poisoning of three hundred millions of men ? But what did this matter to London ? She had a few millions more. I say nothing to you of the role which the British Cabinet has played and is playing in Italy, nor of the insults which Lord Palmerston lavished upon a white-haired old man ! All the iniquities of English policy have for the rest been eloquently denounced by M. de Montalembert in France and by Mr. Brownson of the United States, and to them I refer you. <' And this is the conclusion at which the young men of whom I spoke to you just now have arrived after an examination of a situation which I have been unable even to sketch for you : it is that such a country, such a dis- gusting picture of disorder and of immorality, such a spectacle of all the miseries, the theatre of all the crimes which afflict and degrade humanity, a country which breathes corruption upon the world, a country whose Machiavellian Government has lies and cowardice for its policy, that England, in a word, the infamous melting- pot in which the lives of men are exploited for the profit of the few, in which, for the enrichment of the two mil- lions of individuals who compose the English aristocracy and Government, one hundred and fifty millions of men waste now and always their sweat and their blood, having only misery, despair, and corruption for their bed, living and dying like brutes— that this country, I say, which presents to the very nineteenth century human degrada- tion on so vast a scale, ought to be put under the ban of FRANCIS GARNIER 135 the nations so that such a monstrous abuse of force be made to cease. " These young men have told themselves that Europe will never be peaceful or happy while such a monster stiis in her breast and sheds upon it its venom, and they have devoted themselves to a task, slow, patient, but active, the task of overthrowing her I In making an ap- peal to unknown races and to the indignation of man- kind, to those who have no definite end in view, to those whose energy stands in need of a stimulant, they have hoped to succeed. Only a sailor " — a delightfully youthful and naive touch this ! — " can thoroughly understand all the chances of success of the plan which they are already be- ginning to put into execution. " We shall fail perhaps ; but we will die in the en- deavour, and that which a nation dares not try to ac- complish we, at least, shall have the glory of having at- tempted. Mon Dim ! I know that at first sight the en- terprise seems foolish. England, you will say, is a Co- lossus. Granted, but her feet are rotten. Shake her and she will fall. England is universally execrated, and in our day public opinion makes and unmakes empires. When Tell and his two comrades swore in the darkness to give back her liberty to their country, was not the en- terprise a folly? We, we desire to restore liberty to the world, and the world will be on our side, for it groans and laments under the painful restraint, the constant encroachments, which this nest of pirates and robbers, having become powerful, imposes upon it and makes on every occasion." '^**' ,#^-^ ^^-itvr 136 FURTHER INDIA It b impofiiiible to imagine a letter such as this coming from the pen of an English youngster, and our insular self-complacency tempts us to the inference that some- thing re!>embling a subconscious sense of inferiority is responsible for this and for other similar tirades. There is an almost hysterical note in this young Cato's reiterated Delenda est Carthago, but behind the rodomontade is to be detected the man of ideas and enthusiasms, the man who can conceive great schemes, who is not to be daunted by difficulties, or even by impossibilities, and who, not content with dreaming, is bent upon immediate, energetic and decisive action. This is the Francis Gamier who, in his riper maturity, when the vainglorious follies of youth had been set aside, and his powers and views had been tested by experience did such magnificent work for France and for science in the Hinterlands of Indo- China. It is satisfactory, too, and creditable to Gamier's impartiality, powers of observation and good sense, that when at a later date he visited the India, of which in his boyhood so deplorable an account had reached him, he puts aside his preconceived prejudices and writes as fol- lows of the British administration of Hindustan. " Thanks to the genius of Dupleix, the French were able to dream for a season of gaining supremacy over all this vast and rich peninsula. But a more peiscvering and more fortunate nation has reaped what they sowed. England has at last succeeded in founding from Cape Comorin t/^ the Himalayas a flourishing empire of *^^ hundred millions of men. Taught by the hard lessons of a contly cxwrricnce. she Has s«noiislv undertaken to FRANCIS GARNIER 137 reconcile the elder branch of our race with its younger European branch. Purely mercantile preoccupations have given place to speculations of a more elevated de- scription. To material has succeeded moral conquest which, marching with the torch of science in hand, strives to destroy prejudices, to dissipate misunderstand- ings, and invites the vanquished to enjoy all the advantages of a generous civilisation. One cannot but admire the magnificent //u^M^/rofresearchesandofdeeds which have adorned the efforts of English colonisation. Conquests thus justified are a benefit to those who submit to them and to all mankind. They are the only conquests of the kind which our era has witnessed." In this passage we have again the enthusiasm, the love of that which is good which always distinguished Francis Garnier, and those of us who know the East must admit Hat once more his fiery imagination and his inclination to indulge in dreams caused him to do our countrymen something more, as he had formerly done them some* what less, than justice. If England's main task be that of reconciling the peoples of the East with those of the West it may be questioned whether she has accomplished much more than a magnificent and generous failure. We do not like Francis Garnier any the worse, however, be- cause when he became a convert to admiration of England his impulsive and enthusiastic nature carried him somewhat beyond the prosaic facts and betrayed him into some exa^eration. Nor can we avoid being flat- tered when at a later date we find this whilom Anglo- phobe, who by a thousand proofe showed himself a 138 FURTHER INDIA patriotic, loyal and loving son of France, marrying an English wire, and once in the bitterness of his soul, echo- ing unconsciously the sentiment of the great Voltaire, " What a misfortune it is that I was not born an English- man I With them I should have been a man at once powerful and honoured ! As bad luck will have it, how- ever, I cannot make up my mind to be no longer a Frenchman I " Such was the man the story of whose explorations in the Indo-Chinese peninsula we shall presently examine, but before we pass on to this part of our subject we must trace in as few words as possible the history of his con- nection with the regions with which his name was des- tined to be so intimately associated. On January 9th, i860, Gamier, having volunteered for service with the naval expedition then about to sail for China, left Toulon on board the Duperri, and on his out- ward voyage earned distinction by an exhibition of more than usual courage. At 1 1 p. u., on May 30th, when the vessel was running some five knots an hour, and the night was very dark, the cry was raised that a man had fallen overboard. Gamier instantly threw himself into the sea, seized the life-buoy which was cast after him, swam with it to the drowning sailor, and succeeded in supporting him until a boat lowered from the ship had the good luck to find him and the man whom he had saved. An act of this kind, which draws its inspiration from no feeling of personal devotion or affection for the man for whom the terrible risk is run, which is not bom of the intoxication of battle, which can draw no stimulus from the plaudits FRANCIS GARNIER 139 of spectators, argues the possession of a resolution, an un< selfish and steady bravery, such as is found only in very exceptional men, and all will agree that Garnier richly deserved the promotion to the rank of ensign which was immediately given to him as a reward of his valour. This was his first opportunity for making his merit known, and he had seized it in a noble fashion. Vice- Admiral Charnier at once attached him to his Staff, upon which he served during the whole of the war with China. In October, i860, the treaty of peace was signed in Peking, and the French Government was able at last to turn its attention towards Saigon. This place had been captured by a joint Franco-Spanish expedition in Febru- ary, 1859, as also had the harbour of Turon, but owing to the inadequate force at the disposal of the authorities dur- ing the war with China, the latter had to be abandoned in March, i860, and the retreat at once inspired the natives of Cochin-China with the hope that they mightsucceed in dislodging the French. The Emperor issued a proclama- tion in which he said : " Behold they have departed, these noxious and greedy beings who have no inspiration save evil, no aim save sordid gain ! They have departed, these pirates who de- vour human ftesh, and who fashion garments from the skins of those whom they have eaten I Put to flight by our valiant soldiers, they have shamefully saved them- selves ! " '"" Thus encouraged, the forces of Cochin-China beset Saigon, in overwhelming numbers the city was then garri- soned by only 800 men, of whom a fourth were Spaniards, "^^ 140 FURTHER INDIA aided by two corvets and four despatch-boats. In July two night-attacks were made, but the little force repulsed them with considerable slaughter, and after that, though Saigon was closely invested, no attempt to take it of any determined character was made. The innate inefficiency of the Oriental to which, more than to the prowess of the white races, is due the conquest of the East by the West, resulted, as it had so often resulted, in delay when all depended upon no time being wasted, in aim- less manceuvres when the only chance of success lay in striking a decisive blow. In the months dur- ing which the little force, completely isolated, and without any immediate prospect of succour, held out in- side Saigon, the fate of Cochin-China was sealed. Her people had their opportunity, which circumstances com^ bined to render unwontedly favourable, and failing to take it a similar chance of success never again presented itself. In February, 1861, Admiral Chamier, upon whose StafT Francis Garnier was still serving, arrived at Saigon with a large force which included 230 Spaniards and a corps of native Christians who had been recruited at Turon. The siege was raised in triumphant fashion, more than a thousand of the enemy being killed in an engagement in which the French lost only twelve men killed and 213 wounded, and in which Garnier had the good fortune to distinguish himself under the eyes of the Ad- miral. He was present later at the taking of Mytho, and had the satisfaction of seeing the real work of conquest accomplished before he returned to France with Chamier in the following October, FRANCIS GARNIER 141 In France he devoted himself to study, chiefly of an historical, geographical and scientific character, and to the dull round of his routine duties. His recent experiences had served only to whet his appetite for adventure ; the glamour of the East had cast its spell upon him ; the mystery of lands in which no white man had set foot since the beginning of things had fired his imagination ; the itch of travel was upon him, goading him to restless- ness. The reaction of the enforced inactivity to which he was now condemned irked him, seemed the veriest bathos after the experiences of the strenuous days in which he had delighted. "I am in Lower Brittany," he writes to M. Perre, " occupied in drilling marine riflemen for seven hours a day, a task which develops one's intelligence very little and satisfies one's heart even less I " So depressing was the life which he now was leading that he speaks, in true French fashion, of the final setting of ■■ his star," and seems even to have thought of throwing up the naval service. .' ' The young officer, however, had aheady made his mark, and when the conquest of Cochin-China was accom- plished, and the Treaty of June, 1862, had been signed between France and the Court of Hue, Gamier was re- membered, and was presently appointed inspector of Na- ' tive AAaiis in the new colony. By this Treaty the Provinces of Bien-Hoa, Gia-Dinh (Saigon), Dinh-Tuong (Mytho), and the island of Kondor were ceded to France ; the free exercise of the Christian religion by all who de- sired to adopt it was formally permitted ; French war- ships were granted access to the Mekong River, and 142 FURTHER INDIA Frencli merchaats were given the right of trading upon its banks. An indemnity of four million dollars was also paid by the Emperor of Annam. Gamier reached Saigon in 1863, and though he was still a youth of barely twenty-four years of age, he was appointed to the chaise of Cholen, a suburb of Satgon. His post was now what we should call that of District Ofllicer, though he was more under-staffed than is usual with even our short-handed administrations, and appears to have combined in his own person the duties of half-a- dozen offices. He paid special attention to public works, and his rule of the little town was characterised by the energy, the enthusiasm and the imagination which dis- tit^ished everything to which he set his hand. He early perceived that the country ceded to France had no natural boundaries, and that an extension of territory was imperatively necessary in the interests of the new colony. This view he expressed repeatedly both in his private and official writings, and though an Annamite embassy to Paris in 1863 all but succeeded in persuading France to relinquish her conquests, Admiral de la Grandiere, the Governor of Cochin-China, contrived in 1867 to obtain permission to annex Vinh-Long, Sadec, Chandoc, and Hatien. It was while he was at Cholen that the idea of explor- ii^ in detail the Hinterland of Indo-China first presented itself to Francis Gamier as a definite scheme. France had now established her supremacy on the delta of the Mekong — that " Captain of all the Riveis ," as Linschoten named it, — and to Gamier, the man of strong imagina- Doudart de Lagrfe liiBi'nUtftlUIIII FRANCIS GARNIER 143 tion, that mighty stream flowing out of the heart of the land, whence no one precisely knew, was the propounder of a tremendous riddle. The fascination of the Unknown, for those whom it has no power to awe and discourage, is a force greater, perhaps, than aught else, and Garnier's was a nature to which it made an appeal more than usually vivid. A dreamer of dreams he saw visions of an empire won for France which might equal, if not trans- cend, the empire which Qive had wrested from the hold of Dupleix ; a statesman bent upon developing the re- sources of the colonies which France had already con- quered, he thought to find in the upper reaches of the Mekong a trade-route which should divert the commerce of the Chinese Empire Irom her own coast-ports to those of French Indo-China ; a man of science who loved knowledge for its own sake, he longed to learn the se- crets hidden so closely since the beginning by that un- trodden wilderness. His ofHcial memoranda embodied the earliest proposals for the exploration of the valley of the Mekong, and the matter excited the interests of the authorities in France and on the spot. It was not until June 1st, 1866, that his representations were translated into action, and then he was considered to be too junior in years and service to be entrusted with the chief com- mand of the expedition which owed its inception to his energy and imaginative foresight. The leadcTship of the party was vested in M. Doudart de Lagree, a post-captain in the French navy, who was then holding the important position of what we should call " Political Agent " at the Court of Norodon, King IM FC&THEE INDIA 4rCaBfa«Au4ie : tcei ieCoKvi &r E jf^ fyiy*^ v&sefi. ser a^^tt laii icsunex. ' j^oic ■ « — n-u*^ dK iji'i jU itftii m". aiBtiaaiincaL sod. seearoic^^si. ■c p e «f die «.MtfwJt,ic a- He i pnaeiic poMtacMi if aH -^ ■op «^ &e coi^b:7 gawgi-wJ . x aks i JWi'grtiiw Ae OBnnfibuitT s':^ run tt wmitp^M aa^jf^ br :£ie -aeiois 3 >» MMparii fte aijgaaogn ; aett(fA4aria( Ia»i'<>wces. Tse. icier iwrtnhr- s :[ =k ttcpedCJAa were SC Thscei, a. sxnl ■""^•^r :o=r. viu wa» dw b«CuMC «f the por^; H. Loca [JeiapcrtE. a iWva(aMis^«fcowaade«erart3a; H. E=gK3e Jst^iet. ttwiker mtAal oSaz, x gealogst ; and M. Lscs de Curm, *m oSctr jttM li wI to the SCcstiy of Forei^ AMHrt,wlH> enred lis sdectioa to die bcttiiathewasre- bCerf to the Govcnwroflado-Oun. De L^rce took itHh Mir abo a MrgcaM of mnnes mnied Cliarboiuuer, wlio uprAe Sta me i e and Asnamite, a prn-ate of "n"^™^, md two •ailon. The c cp e d i ti on was moteover accom- paMtcd by a aumber of native intoprcteTs. fM June 5th, tS66, the little band of white men left HtifCon on the first organised journey of coloration ever made by Europeans into the more remote portions of the unknown HtHUrttuidtA Indo-China, from the shores tA the China Sea. «ai»ia'iav»«lilllllinl _ CHAPTER VII THE PROBLEM OF THE KHHER CIVILISATION A DESPATCH-BOAT had been sent to Bangkok by the Colonial Government for the purpose of obtaining passports and a supply of Siamese money of which the expedition would stand in need when it quitted Kambodian territory and began to make its way through districts under the dominion of Siam. Pending the return of this vessel, the main design of the explorers — the ascent of the Mekong to its source — could not be proceeded with, and De Lagree decided to utilise the time of forced inactivity by paying a visit to the immense ruins of Angkor, the most remarkable of the many relics of a foi^ottcn civilisation which are to be found scattered throughout Kambodia, in the districts of Siamreap and Batambang (which had been wrested from that kingdom by Siam), and in some parts of the Laos country. De Lagree, while serving as political officer in Kambodia, had visited Angkor on more than one occasion, and had taken a scientific interest in its monuments and in the problems which they present for solution. Neither he nor any of his companions, how- ever, can claim to be regarded as in any sense the dis- coverers of these ruins, their existence having first become known to Europeans as early as 1570, as we shall pres- endy see. None the less, the accident of their sojourn at US 146 FURTHER INDIA Angkor aflfords us a convenient opportunity of taking in this place a rapid glance at the ruins themselves, at the few facts concerning them which can now be ascertained, and at the theories, conjectures, and surmises, to which they have given birth. The expedition steamed up the Mekong to Pnom Penh, the point at which the branch of the great Kam- bodian lake of Tonli-Sap falls into the river on its right bank, and thence up the whole length of the lake to its northern extremity. Here, about a couple of miles in- land, standing isolated in the centre of a plain, is a small hill crowned by two peaks, the higher of which is covered by a grove. Within this are the ruins of an ancient temple — the Pagoda of Mount Krom — overgrown, al- most hidden by vegetation, but displaying to the eye of the astonished traveller its graceful towers, its wealth of sculpture, its bas-rdiefe and its gigantic stone fig- ures, intact or pitifully broken and defaced. It is a wonderful sensation — as all who have experienced it bear witness — to come thus suddenly, without the smallest preparation, after travelling for weeks through a wilder- ness of forest broken by nothing more imposing than a cluster of thatched huts, upon this beautiful work of art, whereof the graceful lines, the slender domes and arches, the delicate detail of the carving, all attest the high culture and civilisation of the men who wrought so greatly. A few miles further on, between Mount Krom and Angkor, lies the modern town of Siamreap, an unsightly collection of hovels dominated by the stone fort occupied at the time of Garnier's visit by the Siamese Governor of r 1 ■'•»- • .'I, II ; s 1 ! • • !11 JTl I :1fcj \r :' 1- •ir -^ •a:;: 'I r ft ? 1 : : : : 7 r ; I Ju, n r- ■nr ►-ii.,^ — ir^ ^U j« ■ fc.« ••■if ■* 'i^^- I ■^ ■ •-■•■■■•••••••I :: :::: ;: *i L^ ;*Ki d il. [ -.0 ■ • • • •"T.* 1 • ••••■• m^m • ■ • # I . . I I « « * • • • ■ • • • • ■ • • ■ -JT^ 3^ 11 ' ~1 -f ^ 1 \ I J ...h.. . —-y-c :• \:f I ' I ■ » 4 » : ■* ■* *i •-' ; ( I t I I i i > I i I I : > c c c H .13 •3 1 i2 9) 3 •a c < a £ o H E 2'Mri - ..r \J^ Mt' rT xiiaiiiul'il'rillli'HUllllllinil KHMER CIVILISATION 147 the province and his body-guard. Leaving this place be- hind him the traveller passes once more into the forest, and then, ^ain without a moment's warning, comes face to face with the magnificent temple of Angkor Wat. The force of the contrast between the apparently prime- vat forest and this finished work of man is tremendous and dramatic. Its unexpectedness and the isolation of its situation give to the ruined temple an impressiveness such as even its beauty and its immensity could not other- wise claim, yet these are in themselves sufficient to fire the most languid imagination. " Its endless stair- cases and galleries," writes Gamier, " its inner courts and colonnades of an uniform aspect appeared to me, in spite of their symmetry, or rather because of their very symmetry, to form an inextricable labyrinth. The enormous pro- portions of each part of this great entity prevented one from taking in the whole. ... It required some time to appreciate the exact disposition of an edifice which measures, within ditches, five and a half kilometres (over three miles) in circumference." This immense building is constructed of sandstone brought from quarries distant some twenty-five miles. Some of the blocks are of great size, weighing more than eight tons, and though no cement was used, they are fitted together with so nice an accuracy that a line traced on a piece of paper laid over the junction between two stones is as straight as though it had been ruled. What were the mechanical contrivances by means of which these huge blocks of stone were cut, were transported to the site selected for the temple, and were hoisted into their -■H^jM^-"- 148 FURTHER INDIA destined places in the building, is a riddle to which it is by no means easy to supply an answer, but the amount of human labour at the disposal of the architects must have been enormous, and the civilisation which could con- ceive such designs and could carry them into successful execution must have attained to a very high standard. Even more astonishing than the Titanic character of the ruins is the wealth of beautiful detail which they dis- play. Almost every individual stone is curiously carved. Statues of immense proportions, figures of Buddha, of giants and kings, of lions, dragons, and fabulous monsters abound. The bas-reliefs show processions of warriors mounted on birds, on horses, tigers, elephants, and on legendary animals, combats between the king of the apes and the king of the angels, boats filled with long-bearded rowers some of them dressed in the Chinese fashion, cock- fights, women at play with their little ones, soldiers armed with bows, with javelins, sabres, and halberts, and in- numerable other scenes. The men who wrought these carvings must have been possessed by a veritable passion for artistic presentment, by a love of art for its own sake such as would seem to argue a degree of intellectual re- finement which has no counterpart among the peoples of the Indo-Chinese peninsula in our own day. About two and a half miles north of Angkor Wat is another ruined temple — ^the Pagoda of Mount Bakheng — standing like that of Mount Krom on the summit of a hill, the foot of which is guarded by two magnificent stone lions, each formed with its pedestal out of a single block of stone. A broken stairway leads to the cap of the hill. ..•■». ■ilalataiiiiill II Mill KHMER CIVILISATION 149 " whence," writes Henri Mouhot, " is to be enjoyed a view so beautiful and extensive that it is not surprising that these people, who have shown so much taste in their buildings, should have chosen it for a site. On the one side you gaze upon the wooded plain and the pyramidal temple of Ongcor, with its rich colonnades, the mountain of Crome, which is beyond the new city (Siamreap), the view losing itself in the waters of the great lake on the horizon. On the opposite side stretches the long chain of mountains whose quarries, they say, furnished the beautiful stone used for the temples ; and amidst thick forests, which extend along the base, is a pretty, small lake, which looks like a blue ribbon on a carpet of ver- dure. All this region is now as lonely and deserted as formerly it must have been full of life and cheerfulness ; and the howling of wild animals and the cries of a few birds, alone disturb the solitude." The temple of Mount Bakheng is obviously the most ancient of the Angkor ruins, just as the great temple of Angkor Wat is plainly the most recent ; in the former the idols are somewhat rudely fashioned, and would seem to belong to a period when the art of the Khmers was in its infancy and had not yet attained to the delicacy and ' precision of a later age. All the buildings hitherto mentioned were designed only as places of worship, and as such bear unmistakeable testimony to the religious enthusiasm which animated the people who fashioned and conceived them. Half a mile beyond Bakheng, however, ruins of a wholly different character are met with. Here, though temples are not 150 FURTHER INDIA lackiag, most of the edifices were built for the accommo- dation or the protection of man, for this is Angkor Thorn — Great Angkor — once the capital of a mighty empire. " The outer wall," says Mouhot, " is composed of blocks of remiginous stone, and extends right and left from the entrance. It is about twenty-four miles square {sic), three metres eighty centimetres thick, and seven metres high, and serves as a support to a glacis which rises almost from the top." An ancient road, in which, though it is partly obliterated, the ruts ploughed by the heavy traffic of a bygone age are Still descemible, leads to the main entrance across a wide ditch full of the debris of broken columns, portions of carved lions and elephants, and fallen blocks of stone. The portal is an arch some sixty feet in height surmounted by four immense heads, described by Mouhot as being " in the Egyptian style," these and the whole building being constructed of sandstone. At each of the four corners of the great rectangular ci^ there is another gate, and there is a sixth on the east side. Within the vast enclosure formed by the walls the forest riots wantonly — an inextricable tangle of grey-black trunks and spreading branches, of striving saplings, dense underwood, twining creepers and hanging curtains of parasitic growths, such as only the warm moist earth can produce in these prolific tropical lands. Hidden under this splendid pall of verdure, reverently concealed beneath God's green coverlet, lies the city of the dead. Here are pagodas, now the lairs of forest creatures, in which men of a forgotten generation put up their prayer or plaint, houses in which they were born, in which they lived and i>><»i uMili'HIMirUnilllll KHMER CIVILISATION 1J7 a puzzle, for it would seem to imply the existence of two dis- tinct epochs — the first during which the ancient character was used, and the second when the more modern form of writing was in vogue — and this would relegate even Ang- kor Wat to a period of very remote antiquity. In these circumstances, the finding of a satisfactory explanation which might account for the failure of the author of the Chinese manuscript to mention the great temple, becomes even more difficult, and many have concluded that the town therein described must have been some other city of Kambodia and not Angkor Thom at all. Although M. De Lagree himself was of this latter opinion, a careful examination of the account of the Chinese ambassador yields evidence which seems to me to be conclusive that Angkor Thom and no other place was referred to by him. The details concerning the shape of the town, its size, and the number and position of its gates ; the minute description of the Causeway of the Giants leading to it, and of a temple without the walls correspond- ing to Bakheng ; the legend which he relates of the nine-headed serpent, the " patron spirit," as it were, of the kings of Kambodia, whose effigy in stone is still in existence ;-— these and many other things all apply per- fectly to Angkor, and are inapplicable to any other known ruins in Indo-China. The reason why Angkor Wat escaped mention is, and must remain a mystery, but this omission is at the best only negative evidence of its non-existence at that period, and all the indications would seem to prove it clearly to have belonged to a much earlier age than the thirteenth century. "^iiC- i'-^jt^ 158 FURTHER INDIA I am inclined, therefore, to conclude that the capital of Chin-La described by the Chinese diplomat is indeed no other than Angkor Thom, but I conceive that the em- pire to which it belonged, though still flourishing, vr2S even then in its dicadance. The Chinese author does not speak of any great works having been in course of con- struction at the time of his visit, and the fact that e\'en some of the older buildings show signs of ne>'er having been quite finished would seem to indicate that the artistic zeal and skill, which in the past had accomplished so much, had declined before ever Angkor Thom T^-as deserted by its inhabitants. Furthermore, at a very early period of our era, Kambodia, as we learn from the Chinese Annals, had become subservient to China, and this alone would suffice to show that the Khmer empire was even then a decaying power. Buildings of such a character as those of Angkor must have been the work of dynasties who ruled supreme over a populous king- dom, who could conmiand an almost infinite amount of human labour, and who were so free fi'om menace from without that they could devote all the energy of their sub- jects to the construction of gigantic public works instead of to fruitless war. No such edifices ever yet were conceived or executed by kings who occupied the position of mere vassals, or who had aught to fear from imminent in- vasion. If then by the end of the thirteenth century Angkor was still great, still inhabited, but none the less was tot- tering to its fall, all we have to suppose is that events KHMER CIVILISATION 159 occurred which hastened the catastrophe and accelerated the process of decay, and here we seem to find a hint in the Chinese manuscript of what may have been the na- ture of the calamity which precipitated the abandonment of the royal city. The ambassador, as already stated, makes mention of lakes in the neighbourhood of Angkor which are no longer to be located in the directions indi- cated by him, while another lake appears to have come into being since his time. A change such as this wrought in the natural configuration of the surrounding country could only be the result of seismic convulsions, and such an explanation would also account for the battered con- dition of many of the buildings and the very general di- lapidation of the roofs. It is noticeable, too, that no human remains are found in large numbers in the houses of Angkor Thorn, as would be the case in all probability if the town had been abandoned on account of plague or pestilence, and it would seem to be more likely that the evacuation was due to sudden panic. When we re- member the innately superstitious character of these Ori- ental races, it is not difficult to conceive of the conviction that might have been bred in them by a succession of slight earthquake-shocks that it was the will of the gods that their ancient home should be deserted, and if once such a belief spread among the populace of an Asiatic city, nothing could save it from abandonment. The faith of the Oriental, which, not content with believing in the languid European fashion, has a wonderful power of real- ising as an actual fact the thing proposed for its belief, would in such an event prove strong enough to overcome *i:^ 160 FURTHER INDIA all attachment to home, all love of things ancient and sacred, all personal and private interests, all respect for the value of property. The will of the gods, once plainly indicated, once grasped, would be obeyed no matter what the sacrifice demanded by obedience, and something of this kind, I conceive, must be held to account for the abandonment of the noble edifices of Angkor to the encroaching jungle and to the wild creatures of the forest Picture then a population driven suddenly forth into the wilderness, as were the Children of Israel, but unlike them with no Moses for their leader and lawgiver. As I have already indicated, it is probable that before the exodus occurred the numbers of the race had diminished, while its arts had languished or had been lost, as so many wonderful arts have been lost completely in Asiatic lands. The kings would have lacked the men, the means and the resources wherewith to create new cities to rival their deserted cap- ital. Stonework, such as had been fashioned in ancient times by thousands of toiling men, would be altogether beyond their reach, and the limitless jungle spreading around them would yield timber and palm-leaves for roofing at the cost of little labour. It would naturally follow that the exiles would easily content themselves with the more modest accommodation at their immediate disposal, and that the sons of the' men who had lived in royal Angkor would speedily resign themselves to the thatched huts of the modem Kambodians. The fact that they were already a rapidly decaying people would make the decline more fatally easy. They would have in them KHMER CIVILISATION i6i no power of rebound, and the blow w4uch would have been dealt to their national importance and prosperity by the abandonment of their cities would be one from which they had not enough of enei^ to recover. For the rest the legend of their former greatness would very soon pass into a mere myth. The Malay hero, Hang Tuah, who as chief of the fleets of Malacca fought against the Portuguese, both at the time of the taking of that city and for many years after it had passed into the keeping of the white men, is to-day, and has been for the past two hundred years, a figure as fabulous in the popu- lar imagination as Hercules or Agamemnon. Around him has been woven a maze of marvellous story and miraculous tradition ; it is, as Crawfurd has remarked, much as though our own Sir Walter Raleigh had become by the eighteenth century a sotar-myth. Things such as this are constantly happening in the East, where the power of faith is stupendous, where the imagination is strong, where people have a natural leaning towards the marvellous, and where the unlettered populace know nothing of written history. To me it seems in no wise stmnge that in a matter of something over two centuries the Kambodiai^ should believe that Angkor was fash- ioned from potters' clay by the god Prea En, or should give credit to any other fabulous legend concerning the origin of buildings which in their present d^enerate state these people are unable even to conceive the possibility of de- signing or executing. As regards the encroachment of the forest, that, I think, need occasion no surprise. I have myself seen a ploughed f^-.¥>! 162 FURTHER INDIA fic3d in tiiipif jl Asa loiacd ia tbe spaoc of fifteen flKACs vith dense onder^grovdi tvdhne ibel in height, tSircK^gb vhkh a man coold pass onhr vxth the greatest daSc:Jt>% with the aad of a stout wood-kniie. U Ang- kor after its desertion ii^s protected by the tradition, aktady quoted above from the mxvk of R]badeneyra,diat die nathxs could not live in it, tm*o ce n tuii e s would be ample time for the f ocest to take back its ovn, and this tradition would seem to support the eaqdanation of die abandonment of the dty which I have here ventured to ptit forward. The origin of the Khmeis is wrapped in obscuri^, but the features of the men represented in die ancient monuments, as may be seen firom die statue of the Lep- rous King, here reproduced from the mxvk of M. Mou- hot, are disdnctivdy Hindu. The t>-pe is found to this day prevalent among Kambodians of pure descent, and it presents a very marked contrast to the broad-&ced, flat- featured Mongolian races of China and Siam. Kambodia in our time, however, is not peopled by a single nation, but rather by a very heten^;eneous population. The mountains are inhabited for the most part by aboriginal tribes of a very low standard of ci\-ilisation, who from time immemorial have been pillaged and enslaved by their more advanced neighbours. The trading and ener- getic portion of the community is composed almost ex- clusively of Chinese — mostly natives of Fok-Kien, for Kambodia still communicates with China by sea, and very rarely by the overland route. Here and there there are colonies of Bialays scattered about the country, who came KHMER CIVILISATION 163 there no one precisely knows how, and the Kambodians themselves have in most cases intermarried with strangers and so have lost their ancient purity of blood. In Bat- ambang and Siamreap the Siamese have also established a few colonies. Of the heyday of the Khmer empire we have no record whatsoever, but we may safely conclude that it dates from a period prior to the reduction of Kambodia by China. This is said to have taken place under the Chinese Em- peror Yao, who was also the first of his race to cause the Yang-tze valley to be colonised by Chinese. The practical dominion of China in Kambodia ended with the Thang Dynasty, which perished during the latter half of the tenth century of our era. One building at Angkor isbe- heved to have been constructed in the second century, an inscription which has been deciphered seeming to war- rant this conclusion, and it is possible that some of the edifices may be even older than this. A legend is still extant of a king of Kambodia who not only built Angkor, but who also subjugated many of the islands of the Archi- pelago and monopolised for a space the trade between China and the West. To him also are attributed the great roads, traces of which are still to be found in parts of the country. No reliance is to be placed upon such traditions as these, but Angkor itself and the numerous other ruins are triumphant evidence of what the might of the Khmer empire must once have been. That it derived its inspiration direct from India cannot be doubted — the character of the carving, the features of the statues, the practice by the Khmers of the cult of Buddha, all indi- 164 FURTHER INDIA cate this, while the appearance of the Kambodians of our own time seems to confirm the belief that the ancestors of these people came originally from the peninsula of Hindustan. We know that Hindu influence extended in very early times as far south as Lombok and Bili, and it is highly probable that Kambodia may also have been peopled from India by sea. The enormous encroach- ments of the land upon the ocean, caused by the immense amount of the deposits washed down by the Mekong, have added largely to the flat coast-lands of the country during historical, as opposed to geological times, and a thousand years ago Angkor was certainly much less dis- tant from the sea than it is to-day. None the less, since other seaward States in its vicinity escaped the Indian in- vasion, it is at least possible that the Khmers may have made their way into Indo-China overland, as is contended by some French writers, though the opinion is one which it is not easy to accept. To sum up, all that we can really ascertain at the pres- ent time concerning the Khmer civilisation is that it flourished and came to full fruition before its subjugation to China ; that the Chinese dominion ended before the conclusion of the tenth century of our era, though it had a nominal and more or less formal existence for more than three centuries later; that Angkor and the other towns of Kambodia were occupied by the natives of the country well into the fourteenth century, although by that time the civilisation of the Khmers had decayed, their arts would appear to have declined, and the numbers of their subjects to have dwindled. It further seems probable that laiiani'iHinaili'uiynii KHMER CIVILISATION i6j some time in the fourteenth century the ancient buildings were deserted owing, it may be surmised, to a supeisti- tious belief that it was no longer the will of the gods that they should be occupied — a superstition which exists to the present day, and which may have originated in, or have impressed itself upon, the public mind by reason of one or more earthquake-shocks. We have, it must be confessed, only a slender base upon which to build our theories, but the evidence of the Chinese ambassador, so often quoted in these pages, is something tangible and concrete which cannot easily be thrust aside. For the rest, I trust that I have succeeded in showing that the de- sertion of Angkor at a period subsequent to his visit is at any rate a possibility, and that the condition of the ruins at the present time, and the maze of myth and legend in which the imagination of the native population has en- tangled them, need excite little surprise when we remem- ber the Titanic nature of the buildings on the one side, and the appeal which they would inevitably make to a marvel-loving, superstitious, and unlettered people. When all has been said, however, the problem of the Khmer civilisation remains unsolved, for of the story of the great empire which existed before ever China effected conquests in Kambodia we know nothing. Judged by the gigantic remains which they have bequeathed to us, — the expres- sion at once of a tremendous energy and of a passion- ate love of art — the Khmers must have been a wonderful people, and such a people cannot have failed to have a marvellous and inspiring history. What that story was we know not, and perhaps shall never know, but we must i66 FURTHER INDIA all subscribe to Francis Gamier's tribute to the men of this vanished race. "Jamais nulle part pmt-itre uiu masse plus imposante de pierres n'a iti tUsposie avec plus d'art et de science. Si I' on admire les pyrammides comme une eeuvre gigan- tesgue de la force et de la patience humaines, h une force et une patience igales ilfautajoutericiltgkniel" CHAPTER VIII FROU FNOH PENH TO UBON IT was onlyon July 7, 1866, that the dcLagree-Garnier expedition at last began its ascent of the Mekong River from Pnom Penh. A short visit was paid to the pagoda of Pnom-Brashe, an ancient Khmer ruin situ- ated opposite to the Sutin islands. This is a magnificent temple, in general appearance not unlike a Gothic cathedral, and according to an inscription found in it, a translation of which was furnished to the explorers by a Buddhist monk, it dates from the second century of our era. De Lagree, who found it impossible to get over the difficulty presented by the omission from the manuscript of the Chinese ambassador of all mention of Angkor Wat, thought that the town described in that work was to be looked for in the neighbourhood of Pnom-Brashe, but there is little to be advanced in favour of this view, since the account of the capital of Kambodia as it was in the thirteenth century corresponds in almost every detail with Angkor Thorn, and is not applicable in an equal degree to any other of the great Khmer remains. On July 9th, Kratieh, on the left bank just below the Sombor rapids, was reached, and here the two shallow- draft gunboats, in which the expedition had so far been conveyed, were abandoned. Up to this time, no steamers 167 i68 FURTHER INDIA had aicendgd to a point so br front tbe coast, and the difficulties in the way of oavigatioa iriiich had been en- countered since leaving Pnotn Penh had been great Tbe gear and supplies of the exploreis were therefore transferred to native boats — long crafts Sishioned from trec'trunks, warped open by fire, tiieir carrying c^adty being increased by plank sides built 19 from the solid keeb. Each boat was furnished with a bamboo deck, supporting a low, thatrhrd cabin amidships* and was propelled by a number of punteis armed with long, iron- shod poles. Heavy rains had already begun to fall in the interior, and the river was some sixteen feet above its normal level. On July i6th the first formidable r^ids of the Sombor fli|^t were reached, and thus early in his journey Gamier was forced to resign one of his most cherished dreams. On each bank of Ae great river rose marvel- lous tangles of untouched forest — giant trees with but- tress^oots, treading on one another's toes, standing knee- deep in striving underwood, their branches interlocked, and bound each to each by vine and creeper, shaggy with ferns and mosses, draped with hanging parasitic growths, and set here and there with the delicate stars of orchids. Between these sheer difls of v^etation the great river rolled, sullen and persistent, its brown waters sweeping downward with irresistible force their freight of wallowing tree-trunks, rushing with a fierce hissing sound through the brushwood on either bank, foaming and fighting around the islands which here bespatter the surface of the stream, and squabbling noisily with the rough-hewn iiiilidHMll'Hililllllllltlllllllllill PNOM PENH TO UBON 169 sandstone outcrops which form at this point a broken bar at right-angles to the current Looking at this wild scene, Francis Garnicr, the lover of beauty and of savage nature, felt that his eye was filled with seeing, — filled with visions of sheer delight ; but Francis Garnier the practical statesman, the utilitarian, the naval ofBcer, took smaU comfort from the conclusions which were now forced upon his recognition. No highway of trade was to be beaten out of this whirling wilderness of troubled waters. Within ten days from his departure from Pnom Penh the hopes which he had cherished of discovering in the Mekong a practicable route, by means of which the trade of Yun-nan might be diverted to Indo-Chlna, had been brought to nought. Reluctantly and not without a struggle did he admit this truth. The river ran in flood three and a quarter miles in width, and he could not but hope against hope that in all that great expanse some possible channel for a steamboat might be found. Taking a small canoe with two or three native boatmen, he put out into the stream towards the right bank, but before he was well within sight of the great rapid of Preatapang his crew struck work. They refused flatly to carry him beyond an island in mid-stream, whence he could see nothing to his pur- pose. He coaxed, cajoled, bribed, entreated and finally had resort to threats, but all in vain. He had come into collision with the stolid, unshakable resolution of the Oriental whose mind is made up, and storming with rage he was obliged to return a defeated man to his jeerii^ companions. 170 FURTHER INDIA StiU huggit^ the left bank of the river, and travelling Tor the most part through the submerged forest, where alone the punteis could find bottom with their poles, the party crept painfully up-stream, reaching the mouth of the Se-Kong on the zist, and the town of Stung- Treng, in Siamese territory, on the same day. From Stung-Treng, Gamier, who felt that he still bore a grudge to the rapids of Sombor, set off down river to explore the right bank of the Mekong. After many risks in the rapids and difficulties with his boatmen, Sombor was reached, and finding there a boat containing belated supplies for the expedition, Garnier got on board her, and after five laborious days spent in punting up-stream, re- joined his comrades at Stung-Treng. Meanwhile de Lagree had utilised his Insure in explor- ing the Se-Kong, which falls into the Mekong on its left bank a little below Stung-Treng. The neighbourhood of the latter place had also been examined, and some cu- rious stone towers, yet other relics of the Khmer civilisa- tion, had been discovered. Concerning these Gerard van Wusthof, the leader of the Dutch expedition to Vten Chan in the seventeenth century, of which more will be said in a later chapter, has the following passage : "On August 17th, we passed the night at Bcctzong (Stung-Treng) near a stone church, ruined through age, where the Louwen (Laos folk) perform ceremonies and sacrifices. Candles were burning in this church on the altars of two idob. About fifty years ago the Kings of Kambodia resided in this place, but forced to retreat be- fore the incessant attacks of the Louwen, they left this ••goaiiiinillllilllilillMIHI PNOM PENH TO UBON 171 church to itself in the solitude of a grove, and descended to the spot where they now reside." Similarly in van Wusthof 'a time Kambodians occupied villages in the upper reaches of the Se-Kong, whereas long since the descendants of the once dominant race have retreated to the country lying below the Sombor Falls. Stung-Treng itself, an insignificant place of less than 1,000 inhabitants, is peopled by Laotines, though here as elsewhere in Indo-China, what little trade there is remains almost entirely in the hands of the ubiquitous Chinese. "Sans i' intervention de l' 'element chinois" writes Gamier, " ces contrees Hoign'ees mourraient bieniot h toute relation ext'erieure" and indeed the same may be said with truth of every portion of Indo-China and Malaya. The Chinaman possesses in a remarkable degree those very qualities of diligence, energy, business capacity, per- severance and thrift which the men of these regions most singularly lack, and any plan which has for its object the placing of the prosperity of the peninsula on a sound economical basis, and the endowing of them with the blessings of material prosperity, must include a scheme for the free immigration of the Chinese, under which they shall be granted full rights of citizenship. The valley of the Se-Kong is encompassed by moun- tains, and the country between it and the main range bor- dering Cochin-China is inhabited by wild tribes. For the rest the population is Laotine, and the standard of civili- sation does not compare favourably with that of the Kambodians, all trade, for instance, being still conducted on a system of barter. -J. <:■':' ■ " 172 FURTHER INDIA De Lagree explored the Se-Kong on this occasion as far as Sien-Pang, and he later completed the work using Bassak as his pied-h-terre. To the latter place he now decided to push on, his object being to establish a base from which to conduct further explorations, and in which he might fix his headquarters during the coming rainy season. His design was somewhat delayed by the severe illness — a malignant form of fever — ^by which both Gar- nier and Thorel were prostrated, but though the former was still delirious a start was presently made from Stung- Treng, and by the time the rapids of Khon were reached on August 17th, the second-in-command was sufficiently recovered to be able to take his usual eager interest in all that was going on around him. Above Stung-Treng the river is so bespattered with islands that it was rarely possible to catch a glimpse of both banks at the same time, but just below the Khon Falls the stream opens out into a great basin, some three and a-half miles across. The northern end of this is oc- cupied by a compact group of islands, divided each from each by narrow channels through which the river tears its way, its waters being precipitated into the basin be- low. In many of these channels all obstacles have been worn away, and here the waters glide downward in long, unbroken waves, the force of which is terrific. In the channels of Salaphe and Papheng, the two principal falls, however, the stream runs in absolute cascades, the body of water being«more than i,cxx) yards across, and plung- ing vertically from a height of fifty feet. From bank to bank the broken line of rapids, rushing through the group ••■n'i'il'li'llliwillllllllUII ..(^iVEivSf^ PNOM PENH TO UBON 173 of islets, measures between seven and eight miles in width, while immediately above, the river is twelve miles across, though a little further up it narrows down again to its original breadth of about three and a-half miles. " Everything in this gigantic country," wrote Gamier, " breathes an unheard of force and clothes itself in over- whelming proportions." The land ts thickly populated and highly cultivated. The principal villages are Sit- andong and Khong, and with the Governor of the lat- ter place the expedition speedily established very friendly relations. For the rest the scanty trade consisted in the exportation of jungle produce obtained from the hill- tribes and brought to the river by means of a track lead- ing inland from its left bank. The province of Tuli-Repu, on the right bank of the Mekong, was formerly a part of Kambodia, but the chief in charge of it having rebelled and obtained the support of Siam, it passed, without any formalities of cession, un- der the dominion of Bangkok, as have so many other fragments of the ancient Khmer empire. After that event it became almost a desert, the mountainous parts being infested by lawless bands who lived chiefly by pil- lage, and Garnier saw in its annexation by France its only chance of salvation. This is an opinion which has since found much favour with French colonial statesmen, but even under the administration of France this part of the Mekong valley seems hardly likely to produce a trade of any remarkable proportions. Using Khong as his base, de Lagree ascended and ex- plored the Repu or Se-Lompu River, and on the banks 174 FURTHER INDIA or the Mekong, to the south of the island, he disco\'ered a few vestiges of ancient Khmer buildings. On Septem- ber 6th Khong was left and a start made for Bassak. The river, for the first time since Sombor, was found to flow in a single channel, its width being between 1,400 and 1,800 yards from bank to bank. For the first time, too, high mountains became visible to the north, and at the end of the fifth day the explorers found themselves be- ginning to describe a great curve, formed by the Mekong as it skirts the foot of a high range of hills. On Septem- ber I ith Bassak was reached, the whole of the country traversed from Khong to that place being densely popu- lated. Bassak is situated on the right bank of the Mekong, which here measures over a mtle and a quarter in width ; it lies opposite to the big island of Don-Deng, and moun- tains rise up at the rear of the town. A little to the north tiiere is a plain on the right bank, and beyond this a chain of mountains, skirted by the river, runs to the peak called Phu Molong. To the west is a peak called Phu Bassak, and east-northeast are seen the distant volcanic moun- tains, the most southerly of which was subsequently named Mount de L^ree by Francis Garnier when death had claimed his chief. The expedition had cause for congratulation in the selection of Bassak as its head- quarters, for the climate was found to be delightftil ; the thermometer registered between S7° ^ud 60" F. in the early mornings of January, the place being, in fact, far cooler than any district of Kambodia, and even than many spots higher up the river. Ravine near the Mekong FiDm CanicT'i " Voyage in Indo-ChiiK" ^?»s iniiwiiuiiui'iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii .ji^^m^^ PNOM PENH TO UBON 175 The explorers were now well into the Laos country, and they were much struck by the intelligence and gentleness of the natives. Garnier fancied that he dis- cerned in them some traces of that vitality and mental enei^ which are the germs of progress, and for a period he cheated himself into the belief that they might have a future before them such as is surely denied to the spent peoples of Kambodia. The people of Laos he says, "peuvent renaitre a I'aciiviti el a la richesse, au milieu des canities admirables qu'ils kabitent, sous I'influence civilisatrice de la France" an opinion which may or may not be true, but which has certainly not yet been justified in the smallest degree. It is to be feared that Garnier, deluded by his love of Indo-China and by his very natural enthusiasm for the future of countries with which he had become so closely identified, allowed himself to be blinded to some obvious facts. Compared to the Kam- bodians the Laotines were doubtless less utterly past hope, but the people of southeastern Asia who are most vital, most alive to-day are, without question, the Siamese, whose enei^ has been sufficient to achieve the reduction of so many of their neighbours ; yet no one who has studied modern Siam with any care, and has not had his vision confused by personal predilections and prejudices, can cherish many illusions concerning the future that awaits its people. As for the Laotines, such achievement as was possible to their limitations belongs to the days of Vien Chan's prosperity ; compared with that of Siam or Burma, leaving entirely on one side the great empire of the Khmers, it is a paltry thing, and as regards their future. '^'^ *-J:,1^*^*,*'.^.-^M-^^«-^ .^ 176 FURTHER INDIA the very tolerance of alien creeds, which Gamier found so worthy of praise, sets a seal upon their fate. This is a virtue which, in the East, never yet sprang from intel- lectual energy. It is in the Oriental a sure sign of the apathy of decay. Among the Kambodians, who have a proud past behind them, fanaticism is the last vestige of their ancient self-esteem: it is an expression of their hatred, their resentment of the foreign aggression which they fear, but are powerless to resist From September nth to Christmas Day Bassak con- tinued to be the headquarters of the expedition. The camp was formed in deluges of rain, and for many days the down- pour continued unabated, but when fine weather re- turned a number of interesting explorations were made from this new base. Gamier, Delaporte and Thorel be- gan by visiting the plateau situated to the north of Bassak, but did not succeed in reaching the summit. Next Gamier was sent by de Lagree to explore the lower reaches of the Se-Dom, a river which falls into the Mekong on its left bank some miles above Bassak. Up this stream he proceeded to a point where it bifurcates, and thence up the westem branch to the great faUs which are some fifty feet in height Thence he returned down- stream, and set ofT with elephants in search of some silver mines, the existence of which had been rumoured by Mouhot At the end of a laborious day's journey he found himself in the village of one of the wild tribes, and was informed by his guides that there were no mines to be seen, and that they had thought from the first that he desired to visit the habitations of the " savages." Neither PNOM PENH TO UBON 177 he nor his interpreteis had any great knowledge of the Laotine dialect ; " varied gestures and ingenious draw- ings," be tells us, " were called to the aid of our igno- rance of words, and it was rarely that by this process we did not obtain, at the end of half an hour of effort, seven or eight entirely contradictory answers." In these circumstances there was room and to spare for misunder- standings, but Garnier believed, and perhaps justly, that the locality of silver mines was being purposely con- cealed from him. He was unable to prove the truth of his suspicions, however, and eventually had to return to Bassak without having obtained any information concern- ing the object of his search. He reached headquarters on October 9th, and found that the Mekong had fallen more than sixteen feet during his week of absence. The end of the rainy season had come; on every hand preparations were being made for planting the land which had been enriched by the overflow of the river, and during the last days of the month, the travellers witnessed the great feast of Hena Song, which is a kind of public thanksgiving annually made for the harvest that is to be. Immediately after the feast Garnier set off down the Mekong, his object being to get word of the mail-bags of the expedition which were long overdue. Leaving Bassak on November ^.th, Gar- nier reached Stung-Treng four days later, and there learned the disquieting news that the insurrection which had broken out in Kambodia under Fu Kombo had assumed serious proportions, and that the valley of the Mekong to the south of Stung-Treng was in the hands of (.r^ 178 FURTHER INDIA the rebels. Gamier therefore sent his interpreter, Alexis, down river with letters for the French authorities, and himself returned up-stream on November 12th, reaching Bassak on November 23d, after spending much time in the detailed exploration and survey of the Mekong and its banks. Meanwhile de Lagree had led an expedition up the Se- Dom, hauling his boats up the rapids already discovered by Garnier, and ascending the river until the village of Smia, on the right bank, was reached. From this point his party trudged up the left bank of the Se-Dom to the falls of Keng Noi, and then struck across open grassy plains, broken by occasional rice-fields and patches of forest, to Saravan, where the Se-Dom was once more met with. From this village they continued the ascent of the stream, walking up its banks and crossing and recrossing it at frequent intervals, for four days, when they finally quitted it and struck across the dividing ridges in the di- rection of the head waters of the Se-Kong. The Se-Kong, when first encountered, was already more than 100 yards in width, but the travellers had to tramp down its banks for two days before the first in- habited villages were met with. At Ban Kumkang boats were obtained, and in these the foot-weary men were car- ried to Attopeu, the village which is the chief trade-centre of the valley and is situated in the heart of a district in- habited thickly by wild tribes. Ethnologically these tribes- men are distinct from the Laotines, their noses being straight and fine, their foreheads more developed. These tribesmen are known in Laos by the generic name of Khas, are #" ^ Mki. **- V-^^*-' '^' ^ '■ 4 ■■■'.-» *--»:. • . « PNOM PENH TO UBON 179 called Moi in Annam, and Pen-nong in Kambodia, and though it is probable that they belong to difTerent branches of a single race, they are known among them- selves by more than a dozen distinctive names. They furnish one of the many riddles propounded by south- eastern Asia to the ethnologist. The Negrito, who is represented by the Semang and Pangan tribes of the Malay Peninsula, is not found in Indo-China, but on the other hand the hillmen of a brown race, corresponding to the S^kai of Malaya, count many thousands of indi- viduals in Kambodia, Annam, Laos and the Shan States. In their character these unhappy folk to the south of Luang Prabang, who from time immemorial have been the prey of their more civilised and therefore stronger neighbours, appear to be peaceable, gentle and timorous. Some of the more remote tribes, who dwell in the fast- nesses of the mountains and hold communication only spar- ingly with even the tamer aborigines, are reputed to be ferocious, but the same legend is current wherever such tribes exist, and its origin may perhaps be traced to a de- sire on the part of the slave-traders to enhance the value of their wares. That the aborigines look upon all other human beings as their enemies is likely enough, since time out of mind their children have been abducted and sold into slavery. That they will fight on occasion to pre- vent this is also possible, but none of these down-trodden races have any love of fighting for its own sake, and they always prefer flight to battle, after the manner of all other denizens of the jungle. Gamier, in writing of some of these poor creatures, mentions the horror with which he noted -v=w; camp-fires had been lighted azid a wcil-camed rest was efljoyed. It was prec^ciy at this moment that the Gcrveroor of Su-Krom arrived with a large res- cue-party. He was mightily astonished to find that the diflficult descent had been eflSxted without his aid, and Garnier was careful to treat die matter lightly in order that the chief might be the more impressed by the energy and resource of the French explorers. A fter quitting the Ubon plateau. Gamier traversed a waste of sandy plain, and on January 25th reached Kon- kan, where he discovered the dried-up bed of an andent lakei — yet another trace of the seismic convulsions which mayi perhaps, have caused the abandonment of the Khmer towns. Near Suren he had already noted the ex- istence of ruins, and now close to Konkan he discovered a magnificent stone bridge standing thirty metres above the level of the stream, three great fragments of which still PNOM PENH TO UBON 187 span the Stung-Treng river. The central span is 148 metres long and fifteen metres broad; the parapets are sup- ported by carved monkeys and by dr^ons with nine heads, similar to those found at Angkor ; the arches are thirty-four in number, and the whole is fashioned from sandstone. Beyond this point more ruins were found, and the vil- lages became numerous. The Kambodians of the dis- trict, although they were under the rule of Siam, struck Garnier as being more faithful to the ancient usages of their race, and more wedded to its traditions, than are their countrymen to the south. Given the time, he thought that here, perhaps, might be learned something concerning the lost story of the great Khmer empire ; but Garnier could not allow himself the leisure even to turn aside to examine some of the ruins of whose existence the natives told him, and was obliged to push on to Siamreap, where he arrived on January 29th, He here received reliable news concerning Pu Kombo's rebellion. At one time King Norodon had been besi^ed in Pnom Penh, but he had been rescued from this preca- rious position by French troops. None the less most of the shores of the Great Lake and of its southern arm were still in the hands of the insurgents. Garnier thus found himself separated from his countrymen to the south by a narrow zone of country held by the enemy. Turn- ing a deaf ear to the protests of the Siamese Governor of Siamreap, he procured a boat and a crew of Annamites, and slipping past the rebel post at Kompong Fluk just before the dawn on February 5th, found a French gun- i88 FURTHER INDIA boat at Kompoag Looog, and die same erenzng reached Poom Penh after a dangerocs and toQsome yKsmcy ex- tendtag over twenty seven days. Ptoom Penh was oc cu pied by French troops, ace the predoiB maib were found at last Most of die prl^-are letters, and all the mm^^ instruments destined for the eacplorers, had been wantonly left bdiind at Saigon ; but the Chinese p assports were forthcoming, and Gamier contrived to procure the loan of a barometer. Judging rightly that safety by in speed, and in starting upon his return journey before word of his project could reach the rd>eb, he allowed himself only two days' sojourn at Pnom Penh, and left that post again on February 8th. Once more he successfully ran the gauntlet of the rebel war-parties, and on the sixth day reached Siamreap. From this point he struck out for Ubon, taking as direct a line as possible. Leaving Angkor Wat, he crossed a desert plain, passed over the Pnom Kulen range, — upon one of the highest peaks of which he discovered some new Khmer ruinsi — and so entered the Pre Saa, or " Mag- nificent Forest," through which he had great difficult}" in taking his bullock-carts. After traversing thirty miles of uninhabited country, he abandoned his carts at the first village, and thereafter was handed on from place to place by relays of porters. In some villages the men were busy with the harvest, and only girls were procurable for the transport of his baggage. Woman, as a beast of burden, he discovered, left much to be desired, for the damsels treated him and his business as an immense joke. When he entreated them to hasten and not to tarry by the way, PNOM PENH TO UBON 189 they giggled delightedly, but took no sort of notice of his prayers. At each stream they cast aside their scanty garments and bathed themselves elaborately, while he, in outraged modesty, stood protesting on the banks. It was with a sigh of intense relief that he at last saw their burdens transferred to the shoulders of sober-minded respectable men, who were innocent alike of their follies and their feminine caprices. Travelling in this fashion from hamlet to hamlet. Gar- nier crossed the Stung-Treng close to its source, and scaled the cliff, in which the Ubon plateau has its abrupt ending, at a point somewhat to the east of that at which he had descended it with so much labour. He discovered, however, that his guides had not taken him sufficiently far in the desired direction, and that he was even now only two days' march from Kukan. For this place he accordingly made, and thence followed his original route to Ubon where he arrived on February 26. The rest of the expedition had left for Kamarat more than a month earlier, so Garnier hastened to overtake them, descending the Se-Mun to its mouth and poling up the Mekong un- til, on March lOth, thirty days after his departure from Pnom Penh, he saw tiie French flag flying over a hut at Huden, and knew that his solitary journey was ended. Since parting with de Lagree at Ubon he had trav- ersed over a thousand miles of country, the greater part of which had never previously been visited by a European ; be had filled in a blank which had long disfigured this part of the map ; he had fixed the position of numerous landmarks, had discovered several Khmer ruins of im- ^'^"n 190 FURTHER INDIA poftance, and had twice run the gauntlet of the Kambo- dian rebeb. Above all, he had brought back with him the Chinese passports which were to open the doors of Yun-nan to the expedition. It was a goodly list of achievements, all of which had been effected in the space of two months, and de Lagree had indeed ample reason to congratulate himself upon the possession of such a lieutenant 1^ _. CHAPTER IX UBON TO LUANG PRABANG — MOUHOT AND OTHER EXPLORERS DURING the two months spent by Francis Gar- nier in making the flying visit to Pnom Penh described in the preceding chapter, the rest of the expedition had continued its explorations around Ubon and to the north. The province of Ubon at this time supported a population estimated at 80,000 souls, and the chief object of interest was the salt-pans which supply the natives of the district with a large part of their livelihood. A patch of country some forty miles in length, on the plateau of Ubon, appears to cover great reservoirs of brine, and each dry season the salt is precipitated on the surface in the form of a white, powdery dust. This is collected by the natives, cleansed in water, and is once more precipitated in a purified condition in large caldrons, which are exposed to the rays of the sun. A single worker wins about fifteen pounds per diem, and the in- dustry is in full swing for a period of three months. As soon as the dry season shows signs of breaking, the ground from the surface of which the salt has been gathered is sown with rice ; good crops are obtained, and the soil thus yields, as it were, two harvests annually to its owners. On January 15th, Delaporte left Ubon and descended the Se-Mun, for the purpose of surveying the Mekong 191 ^4^ ^'m 192 FURTHER INDIA from the moutii of t&e fionzier rvrcr to KarnaraL Tlxe rainy 3e»oa had act yet begun, sud tixe exposed bed ct the Mekong was 3eea to be a mass ot encnncus recks and boulden wfaich lay about in wooderf^ confusicii, piled one upon another like a heap of gigantic pebbles, miid which the river made it» way in nuznberJess shrunken streams. In places its rhannrl was barely 200 feet across; in no part did its width exceed xxxjc yards. At its narrowest and deepest, soundings could cot End bottom at yx> feet. Each narrowing of the fairway pro- duced rapids, the ascent of which was difficult and even dangerous, while here and there the current ran grandly between sheer d^fb of water-worn rock. The river, in (act, was now running through a mountainous zone, which it enters a little below Chieng Kang, and its course from that point to the mouth of the Se-Mun is beset with difficulties. None the less, it is freely used for the big rafts upon which the Laos people transport their goods down-stream, and it is also navigable for native craft of light calibre. De Lagree, meanwhile, and the rest of the part}% had left Ubon on January 20th, with fifteen bullock-carts and fifty I^aotine porters, bound upon an overland march to Kamarat. Four days' tramp over a flat and often sandy plain, covered with rice-fields and clearings, and traversed by an unmade cart-track, brought him to Muong Amnat, thirty-five miles due north of Ubon. Here the cultivation of silk-worms and of the coccus lacca were found to be the principal industries of the natives, and here too de Lagrce paid off his carriers and engaged fresh men for Alexandre Henri Mouhot ■iiiiiuMiillinH UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 193 the march to KamaraL The meticulous conduct of the Frenchmen, who insisted upon paying for services ren- dered to them, occasioned considerable surprise through- out their journey. The chiefs openly lamented the waste of good brass wire upon mere peasants, and thought that if such things were going cheap, they themselves should have been selected as the recipients. The porters could barely comprehend a love of justice wliich declined to de- fraud the labourer of his hire, and which at the same time restricted his indubitable rights ; for when performing a like service for Siamese officials they had always been permitted to rob the villagers of the whole countryside, and this de L,agree would by no means allow. On the whole it may be questioned whether the justice of the white man impressed the natives as anything more admirable than an inexplicable eccentricity. The point is interesting because it illustrates in an amusing fashion the divergent views of the East and the West, and the frequency with which the principles of the latter fail to make any appeal to the understanding or admiration of the former. From Amnat the way led through wild and sparsely peopled country, separated from the Mekong by a belt of- forest, to a district broken by gentle undulations, where the previously sandy soil, bespattered with out-crops of iron-stone, is replaced by rice-fields. On January 30th the travellers found Delaporte awaiting them at Kamarat. This place, the point at which the proposed railway will cross the Mekong, is situated on the right bank, as indeed, since the subjugation of Laos by Siam at the beginning 194 FURTHER INDIA V / of last century, are all the principal villages in the valley above the Khon rapids. Using Kamarat as his base, de Lagree undertook a short journey of exploration into the valley of the Se Bang-Hien, a left bank tributary of the Mekong which falls into the latter river opposite to Kamarat. He was absent eight days, and during that period travelled on elephants to Lahanam, where he found the Se Bang-Hien measuring 900 yards across. Thence he proceeded up the valley to Muong San Kon, below the mouth of the Som Phon, and so across marshy country, to Phong ; then east and north to Ban Najo and Lomnu ; and so south to Kamarat via Ban Tang Sum and Laha Kok. From Ban Najo the country traversed was populous, and the short trip served to fill in a small blank upon the map. Its interest, however, was mainly ethnological, de Lagree making the acquaintance of three remarkable tribes, the Sue, the Phu Tai and the Khas Denong. These " sav- ages," and especially the Sue, are comparatively civilised, and the last named, it is worthy of note, practise a form of ancestor worship, while their dialect is apparently a variant of Kambodian. V During this journey de Lagree also succeeded in estab- lishing the fact that up to 1831 Annam had exercised con- trol over the whole of the country situated on the left bank of the Mekong between the sixteenth and seventeenth parallels of latitude ; this region had paid tribute regularly to the Court of Hue. The information was of political im- portance in view of the position which France has since acquired in the Kingdom of Annam. De Lagree ascer- UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 195 tained that up to the time mentioned trade routes to the Annamite capital had been in constant use, and that the prosperity of the district had been considerable. In 1831, the Siamese, fresh from their reduction of the Laos States on the right bank of the river, invaded the country on the left bank, but were defeated by the Annamites. They returned to the charge, however, and this time they transported the entire population across the Mekong, leaving the left bank a desert. In this devastated and depopulated area the Annamite armies could not operate,' and at a later period the Siamese began quietly to colo- nise the abandoned territory afresh.^The absence of pity, which distinguishes the Oriental as opposed to the Occi- dental, stands him in good stead when he is bent upon conquest. No consideration bred of sympathy with human suffering, — let those who endure it be never so innocent and helpless, let the scale upon which it is con- ceived be never so great, — causes him to stay his hand when ruthless action will bring about the result at which he aims. It is appalling to think of the misery which the removal of the entire population from one bank to the other must have inflicted upon its victims — agriculturists who lived from season to season by such harvests as they could garner; but by no other means, it is probable, could the Siamese have possessed themselves of the country which they coveted, and from which they had already been driven when they attempted to seize it by force. Kamarat was left on February 1 3th, by boat, and the ascent of the Mekong, the bed of which is here strewn 1^6 FURTHER INDIA with great sandstone outcrops and obstmcted by numer- ous fligbts erf T2fids, was begun anew. At Keng Kabao the boats erf the expedition had to be nnlnadrri before they could be hauled up the CiUs, but a little above this point, at Ban Thasaku, the river was found ninning Arou^ an immrtwr plain co v ered with forest, and as it widened out the difficulties which it presented to naviga- tion ceased for a spsice. On Februaiy 15th, Ban Nuk was reached, a b^ village below which is the handsome temple of Tong Bao, with a bqsLdc inlaid with porcelain ; and a week later the party landed at Peu Nom, a pyramidal structure which is one of the most famous Buddhist shrines in aU the Laos country. The upper portion is obviously modem, but its base, the work of a Kambodian princess the wife of a King of Vien Chan, dates from eariy in the seventeenth century, and is believed to have been buih upon the site of a far older pyramid. Leaving Peu Nom on February 24th, the expedition made its way up-stream to Lakon, opposite to which vil- lage some enormous limestone bluf& spring suddenly from the plain ; from these the natives prepare large quantities of quicklime, both for building purposes and as an ingredient of the betel-quid. Here a small Annamite colony was met with, and the near neighbourhood of Annam suggested to Gamier the possibility of opening communications with the sea tna Hue, an idea which has since been furthered by the labours of other explorers. Huten was reached on March 6th, and thence de Lagree and Joubert ascended the Nam Hin Bun for two days. UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 197 and visited some lead mines situated in the valley of the Ban Haten. De Lagree, on his return, found Garnier at Hutien with the precious passports in his possession, and on the mor- row the journey up the Mekong was resumed. At San- laburi, at the mouth of the Sum Kam, the boats of the expedition were changed, and by March i6th the explorers found themselves once more passing through forest country, though four days later Bun Kang, ** a large and beautiful town," was reached, and the surround- ing district was found to be richer and more civilised than lower Laos. The Mekong River, which had been flow- ing from the west since above Lakon, was now discovered to be running definitely from that direction, and its wind- ings so enormously increased the distance from point to point that cart-tracks were used by the natives in prefer- ence to boats, though a few monster rafts continued from time to time to loaf down-stream. On March 23rd, a more thickly populated country was entered, and Nong Kun, opposite to the important tributary, the Se Ngum, was reached. This river is navigable for six days* journey from its junction with the Mekong, but time prevented its exploration by the expedition. At Pon Pisai, on March 24th, boats were once more changed, and a day and a half brought the party to Nong Kai, near which is situated the ruined city of Vien Chan, once the capital of a united Laos. The river to this point had frequently been difficult of navigation, but Lx^ the rapids of Hang Hong are the only very formidable obstacles, necessitating a complete cessation of traffic for 198 FURTHER INDIA some weeks at a time at certain seasons of the year. The rains had not yet come, and the heat was intense, the thermometer registering 92° F., even after sundown. Nong Kai itself, founded after the destruction of Vien Chan, is a very important place, the largest town which the travellers had seen since their departure from Pnom Penh nine months earlier. The Governor of Nong Kai treated the party with courtesy, and undertook to send one of the interpreters, named Seguin, overland to Bangkok, as de Lagree had decided to dispense with his services. At a later period this man was able to furnish Gamier with some useful information concerning the country traversed by him between Nong Kai and the Siamese capital. On April 2nd, the ruins of Vien Chan were visited. Though the town was not destroyed and forcibly aban- doned until 1828, it was already completely overgrown with jungle. From an architectural and archaeological point of view this place is not more interesting than Bangkok or Ayuthia, and it claims our attention solely on account of its historical associations and the tragedy of its destruction. It was formerly the capital of a Laotine kingdom, which, founded in the thirteenth cen- tury, extended from the Khon rapids to the twentieth par- allel of latitude, thus including Luang Prabang itself. In 1528 revolutions drove from the throne the last member of the dynasty which had ruled over this great state, and thereafter a subdivision of its territories ensued. The Laos people were further weakened by protracted wars with the Gueos — hill-tribes whose identity is uncertain-^ and in a weak moment the aid of Siam was invoked. UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 199 From that time the influence of Siam increased, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the subjugation of the whole of Laos was an accomplished fact. In 1767 Ayuthia was sacked by the Burmese, and Laos, which had endured the yoke of Siam with little gladness, took the opportunity to revolt. The insurrection failed, and all went on as before until early in the nineteenth century. About 1820 the King of Vien Chan, finding that he and his people were being mercilessly pillaged by the Siamese officer accredited to his Court, and having failed to obtain redress from Bangkok, caused the obnoxious official to be assassinated. A large Siamese army was at once sent against Vien Chan. Its ruler, King Anu, tried to raise the whole of Laos against the common enemy, but Luang Prabang prudently declined to take any hand in the matter. Vien Chan was taken and destroyed ; its population was expelled ; large numbers of people were burned alive in barns, and all manner of barbarities were practised by the invaders with the object of impressing the wrath of Siam upon the memory of the vanquished. Anu himself sought refuge in Annam, but his rendition having been obtained, he was brought to Bangkok and imprisoned in a cage, in which he presently died a mis- erable death. His son, having contrived to escape, and having thereafter been recaptured, committed suicide by precipitating himself from the summit of the pagoda in which he was incarcerated. Some of the survivors of this tragedy were used to populate the new town of Nong Kai ; others were driven off in herds to more distant places; while others again were distributed as slaves 20O FURTHER INDIA among the victors. Hundreds died of hunger, or fell by the way on that awful inarch which was to lead them to a lifelong captivity. Vien Chan, wrecked and shattered, was left to the forest and to the wild things of the jungle, after everything portable had been looted from it. The dream of an independent Laos was ended for ever. To this day children are cowed into obedience throughout the Laos country by the whispered name of the Praya Mitop, the Siamese General who commanded this bloody punitive expedition. The dread of being overtaken by the rains caused de Lagree to push on from Vien Chan with as little delay as possible, and twenty miles up-stream a narrow gorge suc- ceeded by difficult rapids was encountered. Progress was slow, and on April 8th the rapid of Keng Kan neces- sitated the abandonment of the boats, the explorers walk- ing up the left bank to Sanghao, limping bare-shod over burning rocks and through thorny jungles, and taking five painful hours to cover a distance of six miles. New boats were obtained, and at Ban Kuklao, reached on April i ith, other craft which had been sent to meet them were found. Next day the last of the rapids was passed, and at Chieng Kang the Mekong once more expanded as the explorers won free from the mountainous zone through which for so many miles they had been following it. For some time the Frenchmen had been greatly per- turbed by rumours of a party of English explorers, some forty strong, which was said to have cut in above them from Burma. So far the members of de Lagree's expe- dition had been passing, for the most part, through ^# UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 201 country which, though it had not been examined in der tail, had akeady been visited by Europeans. In only a few places had they been able to look around them with that peculiar pride and triumph which belong to the white man who knows that for him has been reserved from the beginning the tremendous privilege of gazing, the first of all his kind, upon scenes never beheld before by European eyes. That joy of joys to one bitten by the love of wandering was to be theirs when they should win free at last of the places over which their fellows had scored a trail ; but if an English expedition of imposing numbers, and presumably far better equipped than them- selves, had slipped in ahead of them, this experience was like to be indefinitely postponed. They never dreamed of questioning the accuracy of the report : it was felt to be vraisemblabUy to be completely in keeping with the ubiquitous character, the unblushing intrusiveness of the Englishman. They could only set their teeth and de- termine to die rather than to suffer themselves to be out- done, while they said bitter things of England and of Fate, and Garnier's anglophobia revived of a sudden with some- thing of its old passionate force. Intense therefore was their relief when, shortly after leaving Chieng Kang,they met three rafts journeying down -stream, on board one of which was a Dutchman, named Duyshart, a surveyor in the employ of the Siamese Government, who turned out to be the egg from which, through the incubation of the native imagination, this monstrous canard had been hatched. This man, the record of whose journey and surveys se^ms tP have b^en engulfed in th? files of one 202 FURTHER INDIA of the Government Departments at Bangkok, had ascended the Menam to Chieng Mai, had thence struck across country to the Mekong, striking it at Chieng Khong, about 150 mOes above Luang Prabang, and had rafted down the river from that point This prolonged the dis- tance which the Frenchmen would have to cover before they could pass into utterly unexplored country, but this bet notwithstanding, the transformation of an English expedition into a single Dutchman raised their spirits and sent them on their way rejoicing. On April i6th, the boundary of the province of Luang Prabang was crossed, and on the morrow Pak Lai, which had previously been visited by Mouhot who had come thither from Muong Lui, was reached. This was the first point on the Mekong at which Mouhot's route had been cut by that of the expedition, and Gamier found that the former explorer had misplaced it by sixty-four geographical miles, an error which repeated itself with more or less persistency in all his latitudes. The correc- tion which Gamier was now able to make was one of considerable importance, and necessitated a material rectification of the maps compiled from Mouhot's notes. From Pak Lai there is a cart-track along the right bank of the Mekong, now little used but formerly a highway over which annual Chinese caravans passed from Yun-nan to Ken Tao, a province between Muong Lui and Pak Lai. To-day Chieng Mai and Muong Nan communicate with Yun-nan via Chieng Tong, the route partially explored by McLeod in 1837. Some distance above Pak Lai the expedition passed UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 203 through uninhabited forest country, where the river is obstructed by rapids every few miles ; above this stretch the stream flowed for some distance between magnificent marble cliffs, while limestone bluffs reappeared on its banks. The rapid of Keng Luong necessitated the un- loading of the boats, and this operation had to be re- peated at Keng Saniok. At Ban Koksai, a Laotine village, the hills in the vicinity were found to be peopled by the wild tribes called Khmus, whose numbers and spirit have enabled them to occupy towards their more civilised neighbours a position vastly superior to that of most of the hill-folk of southeastern Asia. These wild folk are, as it were, the rats of humanity, but while the Khas of lower Laos and the Sakai of the Malay Penin- sula are the timid and defenceless water-rats, the Khmus may be likened to the old, grey, English house-rat, and have like him an excellent notion of how to stick up for themselves. On April 29th, Luang Prabang was reached, the larg- est town which the Frenchmen had met with since their departure from Cochin-China. Gamier estimated the population of this place at 8,000 souls ; that of the prov- ince at not less than 150,000. It owed its prosperity partly to the fall of Vien Chan, when Luang Prabang stood neutral, and partly to the fact that it alone among the States of Laos had fallen less effectually than any of its neighbours under the yoke of Bangkok. Founded in the eighteenth century, it did not come into prominence until after the decline of the power of Vien Chan, and its prudent rulers were content with a much-tempered form 204 FURTHER INDIA fy( infirpi*n^r«^*^^ paying tribute to Qiina 2ttd Amxaxn as wdl as to Siam. The resuit of this poiicy is that, alter all the \ndssitudes which have hrtaUm its oeighbcurs, Luang Prabang remained the czxost important trade-centre of die yUkong Vzlley above CochinrChina, and tliis ia spite of die &ct diat it does not posess natural advan- tages equal to diose of lower Laos. Although, even when continuing tfaexr ascent of die Mekong above Luang Prabang, the travellers were not yet travening country never previously visited by white men, their arrival at dus, the last and greatest of the towns of Siamese Laos, presents a convenient opportu- nity for taking a rapid glance at the esqtloratioQS which had been effected in the HinUwiamd ci Indo-China by Europeans prior to the coming of the Frendi mission. The earliest of these was undertaken by the Dutch traders led by Gerard van Wusthof^ in 1641, of which frequent mention has already incidentally been made. The account of it was originally pu b lished in Flemish, nor was it rendered into any odier tongue until M. P. Vcelkel translated it for Francis Gamier, who printed it with hu) own notes in the Bullitin de la Societi di Geo- graphii in 1871, This has caused the narrative which telb of the fint visit paid to Laos by white men to be vety generally overlooked, nor indeed is the relation it- self of any extraordinary interest from a geographical or even from an historical point of view. It appears that in Search, 1641, certain Laotine merchants visited Batavia > Vide S«pn, pp. 93i ct teq. UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 205 on board one of the Dutch Company's ships, and that their coming suggested to the Governor, Van Dieman, the idea of despatching a mission to their country for the purpose of establishing trade relations with its inhabit- ants. For this duty Gerard van Wusthof, a sub-factor, was selected, the party under his leadership consisting of four Dutchmen, a servant, and one Malay. A start up the Mekong was made on July 20th, 1641 ; the party travelled by boat, and Sambor was reached on August 5. Bcetzong, which may be identified with Stung-Treng, at the mouth of the Se-Kong, was reached on August 17th,* and when on the 19th the party found itself among the maze of islands which here divide the river into many branches, Wusthof believed that he had left upon his west the mouth of a huge stream which took its rise in Burma. How this mistake arose it is im- possible to understand, but it must be remembered that long after Wusthof *s day the belief prevailed that the Me- kong took its rise close to the Bay of Bengal, while even later the theory was entertained that the Mekong and the Menam were joined together in the interior by a water- way was widely accepted. Earlier still it was thought that the Mekong had an out-flow in the Bay of Bengal itself. On August 25th an island was reached, called by Wusthof Saxenham, which would appear to be the island of Sitandong, to this day an important place, situated above the Khon rapids. On September 25th, Ocmum — obviously Pak Mun, the mouth of the Mun River, — was reached, the country above Khong being 1 Vide Supra, p> I3j. 2o6 FURTHER INDIA wilder and less thickly populated than Garnier afterwards found it. On October i8th, the party spent the night at Lochan, which is probably to be identified with Lakon. " The Laos-folk," says Wusthof, " regard Lochan as a great town, although it is no bigger than Harderwijk. We walked in the streets by the light of the moon. . . . This town is quite the most dreadfully pagan place there is in the world ; " for the worthy Dutchman was horrified at the behaviour of his native companions, though he adds characteristically, " Much gold is found here at a cheap price." On the night of November 3rd, orders were received from the capital that the mission was to halt at a mile from the town of Vien Chan (Wincian, Wusthof calls it), and on the morning of the i6th, the party was conveyed on elephants to the temple without the city, to which it is joined by an avenue of trees ; in this temple the audience with the King of Vien Chan was to be given to them. The King treated them with kindness. Wusthof himself, whose term of service with the Company was near its ex- piration, obtained permission to depart alone on his re- turn journey, and after some delay he was able to set forth, charged with certain pacific messages from the King of Vien Chan to the Court of Kambodia, which he undertook to deliver. Here his individual narrative is interrupted by a de- scription of the Kingdom of Laos. From this it may be gathered that Wusthofs notions of the geography of the country were vague and inaccurate, and that his under- standing of the teachings of Buddhism was even less ex- UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 207 act. It shows us, however, that at this period the King- dom whose capital was Vien Chan was one of considera^ ble power and importance : that it reckoned itself, and was reckoned by its neighbours, to stand on an equal footing with Siam, with Kambodia and with Tongking ; that it was rich and prosperous ; and that it was distin- guished then, as now, by the religious zeal of its people which manifests itself in the number and the beauty of the temples, pagodas and pyramids scattered through the country, and in the immense influence exerted over them by the innumerable bonzes who make it their business to live by the gospel and upon the faithful. On December 14th, Wusthof *s comrades, left behind at Vien Chan, did not receive their permission to depart until August I ith, nearly nine months after their first audience with the King, a characteristically inaccessible Oriental monarch of whom they do not appear to have sub- sequently seen anything. The Dutchmen reached Bassak on the 17th, Septem- ber, at which point their narrative ends. The Dutch merchants also mention that during their stay at Vien Chan a " Portuguese " priest named Leria visited the capital and tried unsuccessfully to obtain per- mission to preach Christianity to the pagan population. This man was not in truth a Portuguese, being a native of Piedmont He was a Jesuit, and his full name was Giovanni Maria Leria. To him belongs the distinction of being, not only the first, but up to the latter half of the nineteenth century, the only Christian priest who had endeavoured to spread his religion through the Laos 2o8 FURTHER INDIA country. He met with tremendous opposition from the bonzes, but in spite of this continued to reside in Laos for five years, and did not leave Vien Chan till Decem- ber, 1647. The next traveller, with whose journeys in Indo-China we need concern ourselves, is Henri Mouhot, of whom mention has already been made in connection with the Khmer ruins at Angkor.^ A native of France, brought up in that country, he had resided successively in Russia, in England and at Jersey : by profession a photographer in the days when photography was a new art, he had cultivated his taste for natural history, devoting himself particularly to ornithology and conchology. In 1858 he went out to Siam on a mission which received practical encouragement from the learned societies of England and France, his object being to explore the little known coun- tries of Indo-China and to examine the problems of their ethnology, and their flora and Csiuna. Making his head- quarters at Bangkok, he first ascended the Menam to Ayuthia, the ancient capital of Saam, and paid a visit to the famous temple of Prabat Moi, which he describes as having about it little that is remarkable. Its chief dis- tinction, however, and the fact which makes it celebrated and holy throughout Indo-China, is the footprint pre- served in its sanctuary which is piously believed by the faithful to be that of Buddha himself. After visiting Saraburi and ascending the Menam to 1 Vide supra, pp. 149, i jo. - — -t*^^-- — UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 209 Pak Priau, above which point the navigation of the river becomes more difficult owing to the number and the size of the rapids, he walked to Petawi for the purpose of vis- iting another famous pagoda. Mouhot subsequently returned down river to Bangkok, whence he travelled by Chinese junk to Chantabun, ex- ploring the islands lying off the coast and later the coun- try in the vicinity of his new headquarters. He also made a short journey into the neighbouring province of Batambang, and on his return travelled down the coast to Komput, in Kambodian territory. He visited Udong, the then capital of Kambodia, made a short stay at Pnom Penh, the present capital, and passing over the border into Annam spent three months among the wild tribes called Stiens, who occupy the Brelam country. After this he returned once more to Udong, ascended the branch of the Great Lake which joins the Mekong at Pnom Penh, and explored in detail the immense Khmer ruins of Angkor, which he was the first European to de- scribe minutely and with some pretence to scientific ac- curacy. This work accomplished, he passed a period of four months in the mountainous country of Pechaburi, thence returning overland to Bangkok, examining by the way some of the Khmer ruins in the province of Batam- bang. During all these wanderings Mouhot had broken little new ground, for almost everywhere the ubiquitous Roman Catholic missionaries. Frenchmen of the wonderful Societe des Missions Etrangeres^ had been before him ; but on his return to Bangkok he set about making prep- ^•■^^. FURTHER INDIA 3ir US imiajirm r Its ^ss cnzBtrrto ^ "rrre sic cc tas ofiKc of nX2 W5ci rae tr 7 o :s 2 aci .beset to be 5nt struck the reaches of the Xekx^ a had alreacif fsacie from PaocD Pessh to its nywrth Even after he had ir M ?yi! Mochot oootiiKied to trar^ 90C DT Doai. of the Xckoog. bet fagr bollock- of the river. The ardiKxs and rfilRnitr jovzmej' vhich be had accomj^xshed had abeadjr tried him socdy, and Mouhot^s journals show at this period unmistakabk s^ns o( acute mental deprcssioo. His inestruments* in die rough journey across country, appear to have fared no bet- ter than their master, and an examination of the map filled in from his notes, which was the best information on die subject of upper Laos available prior to the de Lagree- Gamier expedition, shows diat he had fallen into groGs errors both in distance and in direction. The vahie of lA«> . UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 211 the work which he had achieved at the cost of so much labour and pain was further depreciated by the fact that »Mouhot did not survive to correct and explain the notes which he had made, and it is possible that some of the errors which resulted were due to misinterpretation of his memoranda. Luang Prabang itself was reached on July 25th, and after some sojourn in the place and an interview with its king, Mouhot started to explore the country on the left bank of the Mekong. On October 15th, his diary shows, he started on his return-journey to Luang Prabang. On the 19th, he notes that he is stricken down by fever, and ten days later comes the last pitiful entry, the voice of one crying in tht wilderness, the despairing appeal of the lonely white man, far from aid and home and comfort, dying among aliens in a distant land : " Octobre 2pme. — Ayes pitii de tnoi, O mon Dieu!" Was ever the outcry of a human soul concentrated more pathetically into a single phrase? Five years later his countrymen found his grave in mid-forest near the little village of Ban Naphao, on the banks of the Nam Kan, at a short distance from Luang Prabang, and over it they reared a simple montmient. The spot where the dead explorer lies is finely described by Francis Gamier, and I quote his words here as in the original. Translation could only mar a passage whose beauty, if it stood alone instead of being but one of many striking pieces of word-painting, would serve to prove that Francis Gamier, the man of action, united to bis other great qualities those of the literary artist. .^"' ■vt I -J aia FURTHER INDIA *' Le paysage qui encadre k nansolee est gxadesx et thstt a la fc»s: quelqtics arfarcs an fcniUagc samhre rabritent. ct It bruissemcnt de lenr dmes se melc an grondement des eaux dn Nam Kan qui axik a Icnr pieds. £n face s eleve un mnr de rcxiics n oiialies qui fonne Tautre rive du torrent : nulle faafattatiaQ. nulk tnoe lin- maine aux alentcmrs de la demiere demenre de oe Frm- 9ais aventureux. qui a prefcre Tagitatiao des Tovages et Tetude directe de la nature, an cahne du foyer et a la science des lixTes. Scuk pariois une pirogfoe legere passera de\-ant ce lieu de repos, et le batelicr laotien rt^ardera avec respect, peut-ctrc avcc cffrxri, cc souvenir a la i(jh triste et touchant du passage d'ctrangers dans son pays. " Kcms nous etions rendus au lieu de la sepulture en suivant a pied les bords du Nam Kan ; nous l e vinu ies en barque a la fin du jour, en nous laissant aller au fil du courant. A chaque detour de la riviere, nous dccoo- vrions, sous les aspects les plus divers, le pancHama anime de Luang Prabang, apparaissant et disparaissant tour a tour derriere le rideau mobile des arbres de la rive; de nombreux pecheurs tendaient leiirs filets au milieu des rochers et jusque dans les rapides que nos legeres pirogues franchissaient comme des fleches; des troujxrs de baigneurs et de baigneuses folatraient pres des bancs de sable qui parfois elargissaient le lit de la riviere. Autour de nous, le soleil couchant faisait ctin- celer les eaux de mille reflets de pourpre et d or. Tout dans ce l^ysage, sans cessc renouvele par la rapiditc de notrc locomotion, respirait une tranquillite et un bpnbeur aw>arcnts qui invitaient a Toubli du monde bruyant ct I. UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 213 agit6 dont le souvenir bouillcHinait encore en nous. Quel contraste entre ce calme tableau du Laos tropical et cette Europe, dont le nom meme etait inconnu a ceux qui nous entouraient? Devions-nous les plaindre ou les feliciter de leur ignorance et de leur sauvagerie? Plus encore que la distance, ces differences entre la civilisation pour la cause de laquelle nous nous 6tions exiles, et la civilisa- tion dont nous etions devenus les botes, nous semblaient creuser entre nous et notre patrie un abime chaque jour plus grand/' Mention has already been made of the Dutchman Duyshart,* whose surveying expedition tmdertaken at the behest of the Siamese Government had been magni- fied by native rumour into a wholesale invasion of upper Laos by the scientists of Great Britain. The fact that no detailed account of his journey appears to have been published leaves the nature of his discoveries somewhat vague. He seems, however, to have ascended the Menam from Bangkok to the mouth of its western branch, the Me-ping, and that river to Chieng Mai, whence he trekked across country, striking the Mekong at Chieng Kong, a point some 225 miles above Luang Prabang. It had thus fallen to the lot of this obscure Dutchman to be, so far as is known, the first white man to traverse the country lying between Chieng Mai and Chieng Kong, and without doubt the first to descend and survey the portion of the Mekong which lies southward of that point and between it and Luang Prabang. More than this we do not know concerning Duyshart's work, but ♦Vide sapra, p. aoi. >^ii£;"''" ■■ ^--^ ^- ^0h'-: 214 FURTHER INDIA it is possible that his papers may have been disinterred from the pigeon-holes in Bangkok and have been utilised by Mr. J. McCarthy in the preparation of the great map of Siam published by the Royal Geographical Society, which is so largely the fruit of his own surveys and ex- plorations extending over a period of more than twenty years. The last, and in some respects the most important, of the travellers whose work, since it joins that of the de Lagr^e-Gamier expedition, calls for notice in this place, is the Scotsman, Captain, afterwards Major General, Mc- Leod. As his starting-point was Maulmain, his journey belongs properly to the story of Burman exploration, with which we shall presently deal in a separate chapter, but the more important part of his achievement havings been connected with the Shan States of Chieng Tong and Chieng Hong, and with his visit to the Mekong at the last named place, he is to be regarded in a special manner as the forerunner of the French mission, where- fore it will be more convenient to study his route now than later. McLeod started from Maulmain on December 13, 1836, in the company of Dr. Richardson, who had already thrice visited Chieng Mai from lower Burma. On the present occasion Richardson was bound for Ava, whither he eventually made his way through the hill coimtry of the Red Karins, while McLeod's immediate objective was Chieng Mai, whence he hoped to make a journey to Yun-nan through the eastern Shan States tributary to Ava. The travellers ascended the Gyne UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 215 River in boats, reaching the last village in British terri- tory on the i6th December, Frwn this point they pro- ceeded northward on elephant-back, crossing the Siamese boundary on Christmas Day, and parting company on the 26th, Richardson continuing his journey in a westerly direction to Mein-lung-hi, while McLeod headed for Muong Haut, or Muong Hal, by a route somewhat to the south of that followed by Richardson in his previous journeys to Chieng Mai. McLeod's path led into the valley of the Tsen-tsue, a tributary of the Salwin, and thence through the mountains to Muong Haut on the Me-ping, the river upon the banks of which Chieng Mai stands. On January 9, 1837, he reached Muong Lam- pun, or Labong as it was always called by the explewers from Burma, and after a sojourn of three days in that place passed on to "Zimme" (Chieng Mai), where he remained over a fortnight, the local authorities endeav- ouring to prevent him from proceeding upon his jour- ney. The explorer, however, had satisfied himself that the road leading to Chieng Tong was the only one which was of any importance for merchants boimd for Yun- nan, and he therefore turned a deaf ear to the persuasicms of the rulers of Chieng Mai and determined to travel by that route and by no other. At last on January 29th, accompanied by some Shan officers sent to escort him, he left Chieng Mai with six elephants, and on February 6th reached the village of Puk Bong on the frontier of Chieng Mai territory, whence the road to Chieng Tong branches off. The first village under Chieng Tong juris- diction was reached on February 13th, and thirteen days later McLeod entered Chieng Tong itself, all the country "*'*'"- -••■•- -.-..^fiifi^v^ife ai6 FURTHER INDIA from Chieng Mai having never previously been traversed by a white man. The traveller had made a survey of his route, and he fixed the latitude of Chieng Tong at 21** 47' 48'' N., and the longitude at about 99** 39' E. His latitudes were very fairly exact, as he was able to deter- mine them by astronomical observations, but his longi- tudes were confessedly only approximately accurate. At Chieng Tong McLeod was well received by the Shan king of the place. Although incidentally he was doing geographical work of great value, his mission had as its primary object the establishment of trade between Maulmain and the Burmese Shan States. He had from the first been accompanied by a ntmiber of merchants who had brought with them British goods for sale in the local markets, and for these there was so great a demand in Chieng Tong that the traders decided that it would be unnecessary for them to go any farther with their leader and protector. McLeod, however, was bent upon penetrating into Yun-nan if that could by any means be done; he therefore bought some pcmies for the journey, and at last persuaded the King of Chieng Tong to sufiFer him to depart. With this potentate the Scotsman succeeded in establishing most friendly rela- tions, and it is pleasant to recall that when de Lagr6e and Thorel visited the place thirty years later, they found McLeod's memory still green, and the King ready to aid any white man for the sake of the friend whom he re- membered with so much affection. McLeod left Chieng Tong on March ist, and passing through Muong La, reached Chieng Hong on March 9th. He here struck the Mekong at a point farther from the I ■..-^.r^^-.T — .— * = UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 217 coast than any at which it had previously been visited by a white man, and it should be noted that the de Lagjee- Gamier expedition, which had for its primary object the exploration of the course of the great river, never sue- ceeded in attaining to a point above that reached by the Scotsman. McLeod estimated the average width of the river at 100 yards at the season* of his visit, and at 220 yards at full water, its rise being at least 50 feet; he judged its velocity to be about 3 miles an hour. He re- mained at Chieng Hong for more than a fortnight while the authorities in Yun-nan were communicated with, but the answer to his request to be permitted to proceed was unfavourable. He was told that if he desired to enter the Celestial Empire, the front door, so to speak, was at Can- ton, a portal through which all foreigners were allowed to pass by the authorities at Peking, and that backdoors, such as the road into Yun-nan, were not open to visitors. He was also gravely told that " there was no precedent " for a foreign official coming by this route, and as, unlike the French travellers who later walked in his footsteps, he had not been furnished with letters of authority from Peking, he had no choice but to return to Burma. Ac- cordingly on March 26th he began his ride back to Chieng Tong, arriving there on the 31st; starting again on April 4th, he reached Chieng Mai on April i8th. Here he entered into long discussions with the King, his object being to get the road to Chieng Tong declared open to traffic for merchants from Maulmain, but in spite of the friendly nature of his intercourse with the authorities? he failed altogether in this object. McLeod fixed the latitude and longitude of Chieng Mai ai8 FURTHER INDIA at iff* 47' N. and about 99*" 20' E. ; he collected from the natives a considerable amount of information concerning the neighbouring States of Muong Nam, Muong Phe and Luang Prabang; and when he left Chieng Mai it was by a new route, the high road to Bangkdk. This runs south as far as Pang Nan Dit, then south-west to the Me-ping, which river McLeod crossed at Ban Nat. Up to this point the way had been through flat and grassy plains, but the Me-ping once crossed, more hilly country was entered, though only one really big hill had to be climbed. There were no cart-tracks here, but the diffi- culties in the way of making one were not great, and McLeod cherished the hope that the trade with Yun-nan might be tapped by this route and the Lakon road. Nothing, however, resulted from this suggestion. Mc- Leod made his way back to Maulmian via Kokarit and Mikalon. I have not dealt in detail with this traveller's descrip- tion of the Shan States through which he was the first to pass, as an account will be found in the chapters re- cording the journey of the French mission. It should be remembered, however, that McLeod was the first white man to visit and map these regions. The summary which has now been given of early ex- plorations in the Indo-Chinese Hinterland will enable the reader to understand when and to what extent the de Lagree-Gamier expedition was breaking ground en- tirely new, and when and to what extent they were stepping in the footprints of others. Even when the Frenchmen were not the first in the field, however, the almost unlimited time at their disposal and their superior UBON TO LUANG PRABANG 119 scientific equipment rendered it possible for them to achieve valuable ge<^^phical results such as had never been within the reach of their predecessors, to many of whom commercial advantage, rather than abstract know- ledge, had been the primary object of their journeys. ,#-"'^*ft CHAPTER X THE SHAN STATES AND YUN-NAN AT Luang Prabang, in spite of a certain frigidity which at first marked the relations of the au- thorities with his party, de Lagree's tact and firmness speedily succeeded in overcoming the prejudices of the natives. He obtained an audience of the King on conditions honourable to himself, and was well treated in the matter of accommodation and provisions. But he found the opposition raised to the continuance' of his journey less easy to remove. The Muhammadan rebellion in Yun-nan had been the signal for endless disorders in the Shan States which owed allegiance to China, and Luang Prabang had seized the opportunity thus afforded to omit sending the customary tribute, the contention of its authorities being that the roads to Yun-nan were impassable. It was therefore against their interests that a small party of Eur(q>eans should penetrate into China and so demonstrate the thinness of this pretext, and much was made of the difficulties which were declared to lie ahead of the explorers. Three routes were open to de Lagrde's choice : firstly, that which led up the valley of the Mekong; secondly, that up the Nam Hu, a left influent of the great river; and lastly, the route to Kwang Si, which traverses coun- try inhabited by mixed tribes situated between China and Tongking. The first route was also the longest, and it aao SHAN STATES AND YUN-NAN aai had further the disadvantage of running through districts which had been devastated while their ownership was in dispute between Burma and Siam ; it moreover led through the Shan States tributary to the Court of Ava, from which the explorers had obtained no letters of au- thority ; but on the other hand, from a gec^aphical and political point of view it was by far the most interesting. The Nam Hu route was more direct, and in Yun-nan the Mekong River, which the explorers were loath to abandon, would again be struck ; otherwise, however, it presented no special attractions. The Kwang Si route was perhaps the -most difficult of all, for the King of Luang Frabang was at that moment fighting in that region, and also with the Annamites on the east, aid being lent to him by Siam. The large number of merchants from all parts of Indo-China found in the markets of Luang Prabang enabled the explorers to obtain a considerable amount of information concerning the various routes, and de La- gr^e long continued to be strcmgly biassed in favour of that via the Nam Hu. Gamier, on the other hand, who confesses that he was obsessed by " la monomatiie du Mekong," pleaded hard that his beloved river should not be prematurely abandoned. In the end he succeeded in persuading his chief to adopt the first of the three routes, and de Lagree induced the King of Luang Pra- bang to provide him with letters of authority which should pass the expedition through all the country under his control. This was but another sign of the excellent relations which the Frenchmen had succeeded in estab- lishing with the natives ; indeed, their camp had become aai FURTHER INDIA the fashionable resort of the ilite of Luang Prabang of both sexes. It was somewhat of a blow to the self- complacency of the explorers when the King's niece, a buxom young damsel whose behaviour had been most empressi, vcdunteered the opinion that the advanced age of the visitors, as proved by their flowing beards, ren- dered them in the last degree innocuous, and made the bare idea of their exciting jealousy in the breasts of the most suspicious alt<%ether farcical and absurd. The ba^age of the expedition was now lightened as much as possible. Already the first rains had fallen, and the Mekong was coming down in semi-spate; but fight- ing their way doggedly against the current, the explorers reached Chieng Khong on June gth. Joubert and de Came were sent frmn Ban Tanun to explore some " volcanoes," which were reported to exist in the neigh- bourbood> but discovered that they were merely fissures in the ground emittit^ vc^umes of sulphureous and other gaseous vapours. Gamier took a few soundings in the Nam Hu. The character of the Laotine natives inhabiting these upper reaches of the Mekong was found to differ mate- rially from that of their neighbours in lower Laos. The " black-bellied " folk, as the northern Laotines are called on account of the tattooing from waist to knee which they practise, are swnewhat more vigorous in body and in mind than the " white-bellied " men of the south. They are more independent, more proud, more self- respecting, and Gamier declared them to be at once more frank and more lively than the people of lower Laos, who are losing little by little all that remains to them SHAN STATES AND YUN-NAN 1J3 of energy, initiative, and resource. Gimate has doubt- less had something to do with this, the constant and enervating heat of the trapics sapping in the long course of centuries the energy of the natives of Kambodia and lower Laos; but over and above climatic influence, po- litical circumstances must be taken into account. Their own decay contributed to their subjection to Siam, but the rule of any Oriental race by another, and especially the rule of any alien people by the cruel, corrupt and inefficient <:dficers of Siam, inevitably makes for the de- struction of all that is best in the character of the subject people. From Chieng Khwig the explorers passed up river to Chieng Hsen, a ruined city which is situated some three or four miles above the junction of the Nam Kok and . the Mekong. Under Thama Trai Pidok, one of the most famous of the many kings who ruled over a Laotine principality, and who in his time extended his conquest^ almost to Ayuthia, this place throve and prospered mightily. The exact period covered by its prosperity cannot be definitely ascertained. Chien Hsen itself was finally destroyed by the Siamese in 1774. The story of the numberless kingdoms of Indo-China has never yet been fully told. What knowledge we possess of it is in the nature of fragments, but even these suffice to show the welter of struggle and strife, invasion, attack and defence, travail of kingdoms suddenly reared and as suddenly destroyed, which taken together make up the recorded past of these unhappy lands. The end of their sufferings is not yet, but one cannot rise from an exam- ination of their history without a genuine sense of satis- M4 FURTHER INDIA faction that the influence of France on the one side, and of Great Britain on the other, has done much, and in the future will do more, to establish lasting peace among these troubled and contending nations. Above Chieng Hsen the Mekong was found once more to flow through a mountainous region, and on June 1 8th the foot of a rapid called Tang He was reached, an insurmountable barrier past which it was not possible to carry the boats. Messengers were sent forward to Muong Lim, a dependency of Chieng Tong, to obtain transport, and Gamier, loath to quit the river, tramped alone up the left bank, passing through un- touched forest in which the beasts had not yet learned to fear man, a little expedition of which he gives an account that is one of the finest passages in his works. Muong Lim, standing on a plain, was reached by cross- ing two small ranges of hills, and in these days, when it has become the fashion to decry the ingenuity and the enterprise of our merchants, it is gratifying to note that the admiration of the Frenchmen was excited by the discovery that the cottons here exposed for sale were all of English manufacture, and that they had evidently been woven specially with a view to the Burmese and Shan markets, their colours being those most popular among the natives, and the designs printed upon the stuffs being pagodas and other objects of local venera- tion. At this place, too, the near neighbourhood of China began to be apparent. Money was weighed, for instance, in the Chinese fashion, and Chinese as well as Burmese weights were in use. The confusion thus caused was worse confounded by the practice, almost universal in SHAN STATES AND YUN-NAN 225 the East, of employing two separate sets of scales — the one with very light weight, for selling, the other, prepos- terously heavy, for buying I The wild tribes encountered at Muong Lim, called Mu Tseu, Colonel Yule believed to be identical with the Miao-Tseu, people of Caucasian origin inhabiting some districts of southern China, who almost alcaie afford an example of a race which has had sufficient resistant power to escape assimilation with the Mongolian element. As will be seen from the illustra- tion here reproduced from Gamier's book, the Mu Tseu are a Gipsy-looking folk, much given to persMial adorn- ment with silver ornaments and tinsel. In appearance and costume they resemble curiously the Kadayan tribes of western Borneo. On June z8th leave to proceed was received from " the King of Khemarata and of Tungkaburi," as his majesty of Chieng Tong styled himself, but the French- men were warned that fresh authority would be needed before they could visit the capital. On July rst, there- fore, a start was made, the objective of the expedition being Chieng Hong, The health of the party had of late suffered severely owing to the prevailing rains, both Gamier and Thorel being prostrated by fever, while 5>elaporte had such badly ulcerated feet that he had to be carried in a litter. The resources of the expedition were also becoming perilously slender, and a further reduction of ba^^ge to save cost of transport was de- cided upon. It is impossible not to admire the pluck, endurance and tenacity displayed at this juncture by the Frenchmen, and it is enormously to their credit that the bare noticm of turning back or of abandoning their enter* ii6 FURTHER INDIA prise does not even seem to have been mooted among them. Paleo, the place at which the reduction of baggage was made, is distant only two miles from the banks of the Mekong, and although he had just completed a tramp of five hours' duration over wooded hills. Gamier was drawn to his river as by an irresistible magnet. He found the left bank still owing allegiance to Siam, though the notthem boundary lies only a few miles higher up. The river was flowing down, magnificent, imposing, beautiful as ever, but as a highway of trade it had ceased to be used, all goods being transported overland by preference. On July 9th, after tramping over hilly country cov- ered with dense forest, broken only here and there by a few cotton plantaticms, and after being drenched to the skin continually by heavy showers, the explorers reached Siam-Lao, where a halt was called until July 23rd. Gar- nier, indefatigable as ever, paid a visit to the Mekong, which he found still quite navigable, and in this district wild tribes called the Khas Khos and the Khas Kuis were met with, the former wearing their hair in pig-tails and shaving their scalps, the latter resembling the Burmans in appearance but wearing the dress of the Shans. On July i6th an invitation to visit Chieng Tong was received from the King of that place, but de Lagrfe decided to decline it, and two days later letters came in authorising the party to proceed to Chieng Kheng. A long day's march across country in which the rivers were in spate, the tracks submerged, and the only practicable paths so overgrown through disuse as to present formidable diffi- SHAN STATES AND YUN-NAN 127 culties, brought the explorers to Sop Yong on the banks of the Mekong, of which river, rolling down in hi^ flood, glimpses had been obtained from time to time throughout the tramp. On the way a hot stream, in which the mercury registered 218.8° F., was discovered, and the Nam Yong, a large and beautiful river which joins its waters to those of the Mekong at Sop Yong, was crossed in boats. Sop Yong itself was a miserable little village, containing only four houses, and proved to be quite unequal to the task of supplying a new relay of bearers or even a sufficiency of provisiiHis. Accordingly