French Indo-China

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE
CENTRAL ASIAN SOCIETY

FRENCH INDO= CHINA

A. cOiiuKuui. i ' I.C.S., LL.l).

May 23, 1906

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LONDON

!LNiKAi. ASIAN SOCIETY, 22, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1906

Iproceebinos of tbc Central
Hsian Society-

FRENCH INDOCHINA

BY

A. COTTERELL TUPP, I.C.S., LL.D.

BEAD MAY S3, 190fi

SRLF
URL

CONTENTS

PART I

Introduction and Geography

PAfiK

1. Connection with Central Asia; — (1) Physical. (2) Ethnological 5

2. Name and Constituent Provinces: — UltrmHa: (1) Barma —

Upper, Lower. (2) Siam — Upper, Lower. (3) Indo-China
— Tongking, Laos, Annam, Cambodia, Cochin China.
(4) Malayan Peninsula — South Siam, Malay States, Singapur 6

3. Political Administration - - - - - 9

4. Physical Geography - - - - - - 12

5. Railways and Communications - - - - 16

PART II

Discovery and History

6. Early History and Exploration hefore the French Conquest - 20

7. French Exploration and Conquest : — Henri Mouhot, Fran<j'ois

Garnier, Auguste Pavie, and Prince Henri d'Orleans - 27

8. The Khmer Civilization and its Monuments : — Angkor Wat

and Angkor Thorn - - - - - - 34

PART III*

Politics and Future

9. France and Siam : — The long contest and its results.
10. France and England in Ultrindia; — Their present position and
future.

* Tlii.s |iait had to be postponed for waut of time.

lU

FRENCH INDOCHINA
PAKT I

INTRODUCTION AND GEOGRAPHY

1. Connection with Central Asia.

Sir Thomas Holdich, in introducing the lecturer, said : Dr.
Cotterell Tupp is well known to the members of this Society for
the very kindly and useful interest he takes in its finances. I do
not know exactly how we should be able to do without him.
This afternoon he is reading to us a paper on a subject about
which we have heard very little of late either here or elsewhere
— the position of the French in the East. He has collected his
information from such varied and exceedingly comprehensive
sources that I am quite sure that the compilation he has made
as a result of his studies will be most interesting to us. We
shall have the advantage of having put before us a vast amount
of information which it must have taken Dr. Tupp months to
collect.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, — It may
have occurred to some of you that the connection
between Central Asia and the Indo-Chinese penin-
sula is neither very ol)vious nor very intimate ;
and it may be asked why Indo-Chiua should be the
subject of a lecture at the Central Asian Society. The
answer is that the connection between these two portions
of Asia is both physical and ethnological. All the
great rivers of the Ultrindian peninsula (which is the
name I venture to suggest for the great mass of land
which juts out to the south from the south-east portion

5

( « )

of Asia) have tlifir origin in tlie eastern extremities of
the Himalayan range.

Taking them from west to east, the Irawaddi, the
Salwi'n, and the Mekong, all rise in the eastern high-
lands of Tibet near the borders of China. The Menam,
the great river of Siam, does not begin its course till
these ranges have sloped down into the mountains of
the Shan States and of the Laotian Kingdom ; but this,
the Menam, is the only one of the four great rivers of
the Ultrindian peninsula, which does not rise directly
in the Central Asian mountain ranges. I will speak of
the ethnological affinities of Central Asia and Ultrindia
further on ; it is enough to say now that there is little
doubt that a large portion of the population of the
northern part of the peninsula is of Central Asian
origin, just as a large part of the southern portion is of
Malayan origin.

2. The Name and Constituent Provinces.

And now as to the name. This great ])eninsula Is
composed of Barma on the west, Siam in the middle,
and French Indo - China in the east, with the Malay
States and Singapur in the extreme south. It is obvious
that the name Indo-China is not appropriate to a country
situated between India and China, and belonging to
neither. Chryse the Golden and the Golden Chersonese
are fanciful epithets and not names ; whereas ' Fui'ther
India ' would appear to indicate that it was another India
further east than the real India, but it is not India or
Hindusthan in any sense, and tlie inhal)itants are not
Hindus ; I therefore venture to reconunend to you the
name of Ultrindia^ or the countries beyond India, as a
good working name for this great peninsula as a whole.

( 7 )

It is composed of the three great States — Barnia, 8iaui,
and Indo-China. In this lecture I have nothino; to do
with Barma and Siam, except in as far as they border on,
and have political relations with, Tndo-China ; and in the
case of Siam, inasmuch as a great part, or nearly the
whole, of the present French Indo-China was at one
time under the rule of the Siamese, and has been
annexed from time to time from that kingdom.

I shall afterwards "ive a short account of how and
by whom the French conquests and annexations were
made ; but in this geographical portion of my paper it
is perhaps enough to say that Indo-China, as it now
exists politically, is composed of five ])rovinces :

1. Tongking in the north, next to China, and
traversed by the Red River.

2. Annnm along the eastern coast, from north to
south, and wholly beyond or east of the great river
Mekong, which traverses Indo-China from north to
south.

3. Next to this on the west conies the great province
of L(ws^ which .stretches from the Chinese border in
the north in lat. 23° to lat. 12° on the borders of Cam-
liodia. Its western boundary is the great river Mekong
throughout.

4. The fourth province is the ancient Cambodia.,
stretching from 14° N. to 10° N., and having the Siamese
province of Battambang on the west. The river Mekong
flows right through the middle of this province and of
the remaining tiftli province —

5. Cochin China.1 and empties itself into the sea
south of Saigon in lat. 10°. Cochin China is the ex-
treme southerly province which occupies the southern
extremity of the great peninsula from lat. 12° N. to
lat. S° N., and includes all the mouths of the Mekong

( « )

To tliese five provinces must now be added, since
1896, a great slice of Siani, extending from the Mekong
westwards as far as its tributaries extend to the west.
At first the French contented themselves with Annam
along the eastern coast ; then they gradually al)sorbed
the whole of Cochin China and parts of Caml)odia ; and
they finally annexed all the Laotian districts — i.e., those
between Annam and the great river Mekong ; then they
took a zone 25 kilometres wide to the west of the river,
first making it neutral, and then annexing it ; but in the
last arrangement, which has now been sanctioned by
England (in 1S9G), the whole country west of the Mekong
and covered by its tributaries has been made over to the
protection of France (Doumer, p. 44) ; and the boundary-
line now runs roughly down the 100th parallel of east
longitude, from the great bend of the Mekong at Xong-
Khay in lat. 18° to near Battambang in lat. 13°. The
French have now, therefore, in their possession the whole
of the peninsula east of the 100th parallel — about
270,000 square miles — ('Ireland,' p. 146); and the
boundaries of their territory are : on the north, China ;
on the east, the Chinese Sea ; on the west, a small extent
of Barma and for the rest Siam ; and on the south, tlie
Gulf of Siam and the Chinese Sea. The French took
possession of Battambang and Chentaban (the port on
the Gulf of Siam), and held them till quite recently ;
but an article by Dr. Morrison (the Times correspondent
at Fekin) in the Times of May 19 states that Chentiiban
has now been given up by the French to the Siamese.
Battambang is now within the watershed of the Mekong,
and does not, therefore, come within the agreement of
1896 with England.

3. The Political Administration.

French Indo-Cliina is governed, under the control of
the French Colonial Office, l)v a Governor-General or
Viceroy, who is usually appointed from those deputies
or senators who have had colonial experience, or have
distinguished themselves in debate on colonial subjects.
The last but one was M. Paul Doumer, who is now
President of the Deputies' Chamber, and who was in the
runnina,' for the Presidencv when M. Loubet resio-ned.
M. Doumer has written a very large book on his govern-
ment of Indo-China for five years, from 1897 till 1902,
and I recommend those who wish to pursue the subject
further to read his book, for though it is diffuse and
might have been more systematic, yet it is a storehouse
of facts ; and it is the first, and, as far as I know, the
only authoritative, account of Indo-China which is in a
moderate compass, for M. Pavie's great work, ' La
Mission Pavie Indo - Chine,' has already reached five
volumes quarto, and is still unfinished, and I am afraid
that a work of that size would daunt the courage of
most of us.

The capital of French Indo-China is Saigon, which
is in the east of Cochin China, and near the south-east
extremity of the peninsula. The Governor- General
generally lives in Saigon, and the headquarters and
Government House are there ; l)ut he also resides at
Hanoi, in Tongking, on the Red River in the extreme
north. Under the Governor-General are the provincial
Governors who live at the headquarters of provinces ;
Hanoi for Tongking ; Hue on the east coast for Annam ;
Luang Prabang on the Mekong for Laos ; Pnom-penh at
the junction of the Mekong and the great lake for
Cambodia ; and Saigon for Cochin China.

2

( 10 )

Under these, again, are the Prefets of what we should
call 'divisions' in India — i.e., groups of four or live
districts each ; and finally the Subprefets of districts.
I may here remark that there is nothing moi-e difficult
in the study of this great country than to ascertain
accurately the proper names of places and of people.
In all cases they are in languages with which the
ordinary Englishman is little likely to be acquainted,
such as Laotian, Khmer or Cambodian, Chinese, and
Siamese. Then we have acquired our knowledge of
these names chiefly from French sources, and you will
be well aware how strong is the tendency in French to
corrupt and mutilate all proper names of places and of
persons. It is only since McCarthy in the employ of
the Siamese Government has surveyed so much of the
peninsula from 1883 to 1900 that many of the names
have acquired a fixed form and an intelligible spelling.
The Anglo-Burmese Boundarv Commission of 1889-
1890 ; the Anglo-French Mekong Commission of 1894-
1896 ; and the Barma-China Boundary Commission of
1898-1900, have all added greatly to our knowledge of
places and boundaries in Indo-China ; but even now
the official French map of M. Pavie diflfers seriously
from the maps given in M. Doumer's ' Indo-China ' and
in Hugh Clifford's ' Further India ' ; and in the latter the
spelling in the text constantly differs from that of the map.

The population of Indo-China is about 20,000,000,
divided into —

Cochin China ... ... 3,000,000*

Cambodia ... ... 1,000,000

Laos ... ... ... 1,000,000

Annam . . ... ... 7,000,000

Tongking ... ... 8,000,0001

* Norman says 2,000,000. t See Doumer, p. 32.

( n )

According to M. Doumer, these populations are
fairly well ascertained ; but, apart from making allow-
ance for Oriental inaccuracy, it seems improbable that
Laos and Cambodia, which are together more than
double the size of Annam, should have only 2,000,000
against Annam's 7,000,000, particularly as Annam is
extremely mountainous, while Laos is in the fertile
vallev of the a:reat Mekono-.

The present Indo- China is nearly conterminous with
the old Empire of Annam when at the height of its
prosperity. This empire included Tongking, Annam,
and Cochin China ; and Cambodia was tributary to it, but
Laos seems never to have been completely conquered by
it. Most writers agree that the inhabitants of these
provinces were to a large extent of Malay origin,
especially in the south ; but in Laos there appears to
be a different race, and in Tongking there are, of course,
many Chinese. I can discover very little in M. Doumer 's
book on Lido-China about the native functionaries who
work under the French otHcials, but in one place (p. .59)
he says that the French have preserved the titles of the
old Annamite officials, and that they are —

Huyen = Sous-Prefet ;

Phu = Pref et ;

Doc-fu-su = Deputy-Governor ; and

Tong-doc = Governor ;

but he adds that there are really no Annamite Tong-
docs, or Governors, now, as the French have absorbed all
these posts for themselves, and the titles are merely
honorific.

Before I leave the subject of the administration, I
may say a word as to the French view of their persistent
expansion eastwards at the expense of Siam. They say

2—2

{ 12 )

that they have succeeded to tlie old Annamite Einjiire,
which, as we have seen, included all the eastern pi'ovinces,
including Cambodia and, to a ])artial extent, Laos, so that
as long as the Fi-cnch restricted their claims to the country
east of the Mekong they had some justification for their
action ; but when they extended them to the 25-kiIo-
metre zone west of the Mekong, and then to the whole
valley west of the Mekong, right up to its watershed
with the Menam, it is difficult to see any moral right in
the matter ; and they have now, I believe, occupied the
purely Siamese districts of Battambang and Chenttiban,
for which there is no excuse, as they promised to give
them up if the valley of the Mekong was ceded to them,
but the Times of May 19 says Chentaban has been given
up again. Of course, we have no right to throw stones,
for we have taken the whole of Barma by no better
right, and we have even encroached on Siamese territory
in the Malayan Peninsula, but I believe we have never
annexed any portion of Siam proper. Our Barmese
borders march with Siam for 900 miles, and with Laos
for 100 miles, or altogether 1,000 miles ; but we have as
yet had no serious disputes with either France or Siam
about our boundaries in these regions ; indeed, we
surrendered to France portions of the Shan States on
the Laotian border which we might very well have kept
for ourselves, and I am not sure that we shall not some
day regret having done so.

4. Physical Geography.

From the southern face of the Continent of Asia
there project three great subcontinental peninsulas ;
beginning from the west, they are, first, Arabia, then
India, and lastly Ultrindia. The Indian and Ultrindian

( 1--5 )

peninsulas are connected in the extreme north, where
Bengal and Assam join on to I'pjter Barnia. To the
North of Assam and of Upper Barma the eastern
extensions of the great chain of the Himalayas form
stupendous mountain harriers between them and Tibet
and China ; and still further east, in the Chinese pro-
vince of Yunnan, great spurs of the Himalayas stretch
awa}- southward till they divide Tpper Barma from the
Laos States, and, being continued in smaller ranges still
further south, they divide Barma from Siam, and stretch
right down the whole length of the Malay Peninsula. In
the east of Yunnan they stretch down into Tongking, and
then, forming the eastern edge of the peninsula, consti-
tute the rano-e of mountains which traverse Annam from
north to south and form the backbone of Tndo-China.
Between the range on the west, which goes down to the
Malay States, and the range on the east, which traverses
Annam, lie the fertile valleys of the Mekong and the
Menam, which form the countries of Laos, Siam, and
Cambodia.

It is these great ranges and the southern spurs
of the Himalayas which determine the course of all
the great rivers of this peninsula, for all of them, except
the Menam, rise in the Yunnan Mountains, which are
prolongations of the Himalayan range. Taking them
from west to east, the Irawikli, the Sal win, and the Mekong
all rise in the north of Yunnan, not far from one another.
The Irawadi flows down through Upper and Lower
Barma to Rangoon, and discharges itself into the (lulf
of Martaban ; the Salwin flows through Yunnan, Upper
and Lower Barma, to Maulmain, and also discharges
itself into the Gulf of Martaban, not far east of the
Irawiidi. The great Mekong, the mightiest of them all,
rises far away in the north of Yunnan, traverses the

( It )

whole width of that province, and then divides Upper
Barraa from Laos, and Siam from Laos, and Annam
from Cambodia, and passing through tlie centre of
Cambodia and Cochin China, it del)ouches by many
mouths into the South China Sea. Tt is roughlv 1,800
miles long from Yunnan to Cochin China. It forms the
great waterway through Indo-China, dividing Laos from
Cambodia and Siam. It is reallv navigable onlv for
300 miles, up to Stung-treng, in Cambodia, where there
are formidable rapids ; but French gunboats have pushed
on past the rapids nearly up to the great bend in lat. 18°,
where the Mekong turns south after a long easterly
course.

I need not deal in detail with any of the other great
rivers, as they flow through Barma and Siam, and do not
affect French Indo-China ; but one other river which
flows throughout the whole length of Tongking must be
mentioned — viz., the Red River, which has become
famous as the scene of many of the fights between the
French and the Chinese and Tongkingese. This river
rises in the Yunnan Mountains, west of Yunnan city,
and flows down to the l)orders of Tongking south-easterly
at Lao-kai ; thence it flows south-east throughout Tong-
king, and, passing the capital, Hanoi, it empties itself
into the Gulf of Tongking.

I must not weary you with further details of the
physical geography of this great and little-known
country ; l)ut, before concluding this section of my
subject, I may perhaps draw your attention to the
general construction of the whole country, and to tlie
wonderful way in which it is extending its whole area.
It begins at its highest on the l)orders of Yunnan, in
China, and slopes gradually downwards, as is shown by
the course throughout it of the great liver Mekong, to

( 15 )

the South China Sea and the Gulf of Siani, and in the
north it slopes eastwards to the Gulf of Tono;kiiig. The
consequence is that the Mekong, Avitli all its iiuiumerable
tributaries, the Menam in Siani, and the Red River in
Tongking, all bear down to the sea immense quantities
of silt, which is derived from the higher ground, and is
constantly deposited in the sea, near the embouchures of
these three rivers. The land is therefore ever encroach-
ing on the sea, and nearly all of Cambodia and Cochin
China must have been formed in modern times, geologi-
cally speaking, while a great part of their southern
borders have been created within human, if not within
historical, ^iei'iods.

There is in Cambodia a great lake, the Tonle-Sap,
which is at present 120 miles from the sea, and which
communicates with the Mekong near its mouth. This
great lake in the rainy season covers hundreds of square
miles, and occupies a considerable part of Cambodia, and
there is every reason to believe, from the physical
geography of the region and from the great ruins of
Angkor Wat, which are situated near the lake, and
which I will describe later, that this lake was at one
time quite close to the sea, and that, at an earlier time
still, the sea extended up to the mountains which are
100 miles north of it.

The immense deposit of silt and the gradual encroach-
ment of the land are further proved by the persistent
and constant silting up of the Gulf of Siam ; it is
shallow everywhere, and the northern part has got much
shallower within historic times. It is possible, there-
fore, to look forward to a time, no doubt historically
remote, but still geologically not far distant, when the
Gulf of Siam will be completely silted up — in its
northern part, at least — and when the Malay Peninsula

( 16 )

will be joined on to the west coast of Cambodia by dry
land of the deltaic aspect, which we now see in Cochin
China and in the south of Siaui.

5. The Railways and Communications.

As you will easily imagine, all the railways in Indo-
China date from a period sa))sequent to the French
conquest, and they are not as yet numerous or very
extensive. They all start from one of the three capitals,
Hanoi in Tongking, Hue in Annam, and Saigon in
Cochin China. There are no railways as yet in the
provinces of Cambodia and Laos. There is a projected
railway from Bangkok, the capital of Siam, to Hue, the
capital of Annam, right across the peninsula in about the
15tli degree of latitude. The first portion of the railway,
as far as Korat, will be Siamese ; and is, I believe, already
constructed ; but the portion from the Siamese border
to Hue is not yet made, and will be a work of years ; as
it traverses part of what was Siam, and the whole width
of Laos and Annam, besides crossing the great Mekong
where it is a mighty river.

Beginning in the south, the railways in Cochin China
are a short line from Saigon south-west to Maitho, on
one of the mouths of the Mekong — this is about
50 miles long. The other railway runs north-east from
Saigon, and is constructed with some gaps up to Hue,
the capital of Annam. From that place there is another
gap of 200 miles, and then it is complete into Hanoi, the
capital of Tongking. From Hanoi there is a I'ailway for
nearly 200 miles up to the Chinese frontier at Lao-kai ;
this is intended to be prolonged up to Yunnan city, the
capital of Yunnan ; and, if feasible, on to the Yang-tse,
the erreat river of China. The French have found the

( 17 )

Red River, which runs parallel to this railway, entirely
iintit for navigation, and they have therefore devoted all
their eftbrts to creating- railway communication with
Yunnan, and so drawing off the trade of South-West
China into Tongking instead of into Barma ; hut from
what Mr. Colquhoun says of the greater fertility of
Western Yunnan, it seems probable that the greater part
of the Chinese trade will always go westward, either via
Bhanio and Momein, or by Mr. Colquhoun's route
through the Shan States further south. At this last
point China is nearer to the sea than anywhere else in
the south-v/est, and it is quite possible that the route
parallel with the Salwin River, and coming out at
Martabau or Maulmain, will be the trade route of the
future. The south-west corner of Yunnan is as near to
Akyab as it is to Maulmain, and it might be expected that
trade would go to Akyab ; but in this mountainous
country the trade routes are bound to go north and
south parallel to the rivers, and not east and west across
the valleys and at right angles to the rivers, as com-
mercial intercourse is practically impossible in this
direction. From a telegram that has been recently sent
from M. Beau, the present Governor-General of Indo-
China, it appears that he expects that the railway from
the north frontier at Lao-kai towards Yunnan city will
be finished to Mengtse, about half-way to Yunnan, in
three years' time ; so we have still time to begin our
railway from the south, and to penetrate Yunnan through
the Shan States.

Besides railways, the only other communications in
Indo-China are the two great rivers, the Mekong and
the Red River, whose courses I have already described ;
both of them are full of rapids and obstructions, and
really only afford navigation for boats and small vessels

3

( 1« )

except for a certain distance from their mouths. Large
vessels come up the Mekong to Stung-treng, and up the
Red River to Hanoi ; but beyond these points navigation
is practically confined to boats, though I am informed by
the late Lieutenant-Governor of Barma that the French
now have gunboats in the Upper Mekong, near Luang
Prabang.

There is one other route of commerce which must be
mentioned — viz., the great lake of Tonle-Sap, and the
River Mesap, which joins it to the ^Mekong. The lake
itself is about 120 miles long in the dry season and
from 5 to 20 miles broad, and in the wet season it
expands into a veritable sea, stretching from Sisophon
in Siam to Pnom-penh, the capital of Cambodia, or
250 miles long and 70 miles wide from Angkor Thom to
Pursat. This river and lake give communication between
all places on their banks and all those on the Mekong,
and afford a trade route between Siam on the west and
Cambodia and Cochin China on the east. As regards
the trade of Lido-China, I shall not weary you with
statistics, but a few facts show the immense costliness
of the colony to the French nation. It cost the French
:B600,000 to build the railway from Saigon to Maitho on
the River Mekong, which is under 50 miles, or
£12,000 a mile (Candler, p. 161), and yet it has never
been of any real use to trade. It is reckoned that the
French have spent £19,000,000 in order to dispose of
£2,500,000 worth of products ; and Mr. H. Norman,
M.P. ('Far East,' p. 133), reckoned that Tongking had
cost the French taxpayer £4,881 a day,yo?- every day he
has had it. Everything is subsidized — the chief towns,
the steamers, the papers, the opera, the hotels, the
merchants, and everyone ; and the cost of this may be
imagined. Of course, protection is the rule everywhere

( li> )

in a French colony, and heavy duties are levied on all
articles imported, which restricts trade, and which has
prevented even the French themselves from liaving any-
thing but a small share — aliout a quarter — in the total
imports (Ireland, p. 150).

The total area ol" Indo-China is 200,000 square
miles, or rather was before the annexation of Eastern
Siam. It must be now at least 250,000 square miles, if
this latter be considered as finally annexed to France.
Mr. Ireland states it at 270,000 square miles (p. 155).
lip to 1896 Indo-China cost France about £33,000,000 ;
in 1897 M. Paul Doumer began his financial reforms,
and by 1902 he had made the I'eceipts and expenditure
l)alance, and from 1902 to 1906 Indo-China has repaid
to France about £2,000,000 as military expenses. How
M. Doumer manas-ed to effect this miraculous chanare I
cannot say ; for he seems to have been spending freely
on public works, etc., all the time ; and, having had
some experience of Oriental accounts, I must confess
that some doubts of the exactitude of the recent Indo-
Chinese budgets have crossed my mind. These doubts
are confirmed by the opinion of one of the most com-
petent of Frenchmen, M. Leroy Beaulieu, who saA'S,
' Our colonial ofi[icial statistical documents incessantly
contradict one another' (quoted by H. Norman, p. 127).

3—2

PAET II

DISCOVERY AND HISTORY

6. Exploration before the French Conquest and
Early History.

From the dark and distant ages, from the dim and
obsciu'B twilight of primeval times, a faint glimmer of
light here and there reaches us in which we see the
peoples of what we now call Asia and Europe existing
as nomad tribes, scattered over the sparse and infrequent
oases of semi-cultivation, which were interspersed at
rare intervals among the deserts, the swamps, and the
forests of the age, when man was but little more than
one of the races of animals which roamed o'er the face
of the earth. Distances which are now traversable in
days were then immeasurable both in time and in
hardship, and presented the most formidable obstacles
to intercourse between tribes who were even a few
hundred miles apart. In all the vast extent of space
from the Arctic regions to the Black Sea there could
have l)een but little intercourse between Asia and
Europe. Any intercourse which did exist was confined
to Caucasia, the southern shores of the Black Sea, Asia
Minor, and Syria. To these countries, for unnumbered
ages, all the commerce which took place between east
and Avest was restricted. The earliest empires of which
we know anything grew up in that south-western corner

20

( 21 ) •

of Asia which we now call Pei-sia, Mesopotamia, Asia
Minor, and Syria, and it was not till a few centuries
before Christ that the Greek races formed States which
exercised any influence in Asia.

The lirst influence of Europe on Asia of which we
have any detailed records was that of Alexander of
Macedon ; the first influence of Asia on Europe was
that which filtered through Asia Minor to the western
coast, and gave to Ionia and the islands of the Levant
that Oriental tinge which has characterized them for
many centuries.

Of all the nations and countries of Asia there is not
one which took longer in becoming known to the
European peoples, and which was more completely left
undescribed, than Ultrindia. Right up to tlie middle of
the nineteenth century only the coasts of the Ultrindian
peninsula were known, and it was not until Henri
Mouhot, Fran(;ois Garnier, and Auguste Pavie made
their adventurous journeys up the great Mekong River,
and throughout the provinces of Laos and Tongking, that
we really knew anything of the interior of Lido-China.
Far away, even in the centuries before Christ, vague
rumours of a land beyond India which was yet not China
grew and spread, but no certain knowledge was attained ;
and so late as Pomponius Mela, in 43 a.d., the earliest
definite mention occiu-s of two headlands beyond the
mouths of the Ganges; but he seems to have thought
that the continent of Asia ended here, and that there
was nothing beyond these Capes.

About 70 A.D. the author of the ' Periplus of the
Red Sea ' (one of the first contributions to geography)
visited nothing further east than the Malabar coast in
India, and thought that Chryse was an island.

The next distinct mention is by Ptolemy, about

( 22 )

A.D. 130. Ptolemy describes, and enters in his map, a
large peninsula, jutting out south from the continent of
Asia, and situated east of the mouths of the Ganges ;
and he is, therefore, the first who defines Ultrindia in any
way, and even he is quite wrong as to the shape of it.
During these first centuries after Christ it was called
Chersonesos Aurea, and was believed to be the land from
which Solomon obtained his gold. M. Pavie still
supports this view, but it is extremely improbable.
After Ptolemy there is a long interval till Cosmas, the
monk, in about 550 a.d., describes the sea-route to
China, and dwelt on the necessity of turning north after
getting round Ultrindia. He was the first to get rid of
the idea of a great southern continent south-east of
Ultrindia.

After this the Muhammadan traders and adventurers
appear on the scene, and in 850 and 920 a.d. there are
books describing the sea-route to China by Sumatra, the
Malay Peninsula, Cambodia, and Canton, but they are
of the roughest description, and give no details about
Ultrindia (Clifford, p. 20). Ibn Batuta returned from
his travels about 1347, but he tells us nothing about
Ultrindia.

About 1300 A.D. Marco Polo returned, probably
from Amoy, to the Persian Gulf by the Straits of
Malacca, but he does not describe Ultrindia or seem to
know anything about it, though he proves that the sea-
route to China was well known and much travelled by
that time. Friar Odoric, who lived from 1286 to 1331,
travelled through Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, but adds
little to our knowledge. For more than two centuries
after this we have no further travels in South-East
Asia ; and it was not till 1500, after Vasco da Gama had
rounded the Cape and brought the Portuguese into

( 23 )

Eastern Asia, tliat we begin again to hear of the lands
east of India.

The Hindus and Muhamniadans, who had in their
turns converted many, if not most, of the natives of the
country south-east of India, never attempted conquests ;
but the Portuguese began at once to acquire territory,
and the first expedition was to Malacca in 150S, under
Lopez de Siqueira. In 1511 the great Dalboquerque
himself sailed against Malacca, and after a siege took it ;
and though it passed to the Dutch and then to the
English, it never returned to the native power after
that, and was thus the first permanent European settle-
ment in the Ultrindian peninsula. Dalboquerque sent
one Fernandez as an ambassador to Siam, and that was
the first European intercourse with that kingdom.
Before leaving for India in 1512, he sent Dabreu to
Borneo, Celebes, and other islands, and this was the
beginning of the Portuguese dominion further east than
Malacca. Dalboquerque died in 1515, and by that time
the Portuguese had made good their hold of Malaya and
the islands.

In 1526 the Portuguese annexed the Moluccas
(Geram, Amboyna, etc., on the equator just west of
New Guinea), and the Spaniards began to appear in the
east, though they were hampered by the decree of the
Pope giving the east to Portugal and the west to Spain ;
but the defeat of the Armada opened the way in 1588 to
the English and the Dutch, and they now appeared upon
the scene from about 1600 (Cliflford, p. 81).

Still, the Portuguese maintained their superiority for
some years, and it was not till almost 1630 that their
power declined ; and first the Dutch and then the
English obtained tlie supremacy. The first Englishman
to reach Barma was Robert Fitch, in 1586, but before

( 24 )

this, in 154.S, the Portuguese had hel])ed tlie King of
Pegu against Siam, and lie flourished till IGOO, when his
kingdom was conquered by the people of Arakan and
Tunghii. In 1G13 the King of Ava obtained the
ascendancy over all Barma, and this lasted down to our
own conquests in 1852 and 18<S5.

There was a colonv of Portua^uese in Siam from
1540 to 1636, and the first exploration of the coasts of
Indo-China was made by them in 1540-1541, under
F. Mendez Pinto. He touched at Pulo Kondor, an
island off Cape Cambodia, the south-east cape of Indo-
China, and then at one of the mouths of the River
Mekong ; thence he sailed up the coast of Annam, and
crossed to the island of Hainan, and then visited Tong-
king. This is the first European exploration of Indo-
China, and was made Avhile the Portuguese were still
supreme in the East. The Portuguese then settled in
Cambodia as they did in Siam, and they discovered the
great lake Tonle-Sap and the ruins of Angkor Wat
about 1570. About 1580 the Frenchman Louvet visited
the delta of the Mekong, and was the first of his race to
set foot in Indo-China.

The first Englishman to arrive in Ultrindia, and
to dispute the mastery of the Portuguese was James
Lancaster,* who afterwards commanded the first British
East India Company's fleet. He reached Sumatra and
Penang in 1592, and there captured several Portuguese
ships. He was forced to return to Ceylon and thence to
England by sickness among his crews. In 1596 the
first Dutch East India Company's fleet reached Sumatra
and Java, and traded at Batavia. On December 31,
1599, the British East India, Company's charter was

* He was knighted by Elizabeth afterwards (Knight's 'Dictionary
of Biography ').

( ->.5 )

granted, and the first English tieet sailed for the Far
East on February 16, 1600. Lancaster, who was in
command, reached Sumatra in June, 1600, and traded
there with Achin, and took some ricli Portuguese prizes.
He left a factor and ei"ht men at Bantam, and this was
the beginning of the East India Company's trade iii the
East.

In 1605 the Dutch took the Molucca Islands of
Amboyna and Tidor from the Portuguese, and in 1641
they took Malacca and became the leading European
nation in Malaya and the islands. In 16S2 the Dutch
drove the English out of Java, but they I'emained in
Sumatra, and in 1795 the English took Malacca and
retained it after the Treaty of Vienna in 1824, ex-
changing it for Bencoolen, in Sumatra. They thus
became established on the Ultrindian peninsula. In
1786 the English leased Penang, and in 1798 they
purchased the province Wellesley. In 1819 Sir Stam-
ford Raffles obtained the cession of Singa])ur from the
Sultan of Johor. In 1871 we ceded our rights in
Sumatra to the Dutch in return for their abandonment
of all rights in Malaya, and in 1874 we extended our
protection over all the native States of the Malay
Peninsula, south of the Siamese border, and thus
became possessed of all the southern part of Ultrindia.

I may say a few words about vSiam, as much of it is
now Indo-China. In 1634 a Dutch post was established
in Siam, and trade went on for many years till in 1740 the
Dutch finally withdrew. About 1650 the Greek, Falcon,
who had established himself at Bangkok, entered the
service of the Siamese Government, and in 1665 became
Prime Minister ; l)ut after introducing the Jesuits, he
was murdered with them some years later.

In 1821 John Crawford was sent by the English on

{ --^fi )

an embassy to Bangkok and to Hue, in Annam, and this
seems to have been our first intercourse with Indo-
China. Even then he found a Frenchman established at
Saigon, a M. Diard, and French influence was already
predominant at the Court of Annam at Hue, although
the French did not attempt to acquire territory till 1858.
Both the Dutch and the East India Companies estab-
lished factories in Indo-China soon after 1600, and in
1616 the English had a factory at Pulo Kondor, but it
was abandoned soon afterwards. In 1635 the Dutch
East India Company founded a factory in Cochin China,
and began the first exploration of the Mekong. In
1641 the Governors sent a factor up the Mekong to
Vien Chan, but the Dutch soon after abandoned their
settlements in Cochin China. After the Dutch left, the
Portuguese remained in Cochin China, and exercised a
good deal of influence till, in about 1700, they were all
murdered, and the Portuguese never returned. French
influence increased, and in about 1770 the Bishop Pigneau
de Behaine built a church at Saigon, and in 1787 took the
King's son to Paris, and a treaty with France was made.
It was on this treaty that the French afterwards based
their rights to Cochin China, though they did nothing
at the time, and the country was not ceded to them.
Many Frenchmen returned mth Behaine to Cochin
China, and they helped the King to conquer Annam and
Tongking. Behaine died in 1789, but the King retained
all three kingdoms for twenty years, and encouraged the
settlement of Frenchmen till his death in 1820. In 1824
his successor persecuted and expelled the French, and in
1851 a second massacre of missionaries took place. In
1857 Bishop Diaz was murdered, and Cocliin China was
invaded, and finally, in 1860, it was ceded to France, and
the modern history of Indo-China commenced.

( 27 )

In 1859 a French protectorate was estal)lislied over
Cambodia, and a few years later a rebellion broke out,
and the King Norodon was re-established on the throne
by French arms, since which time Cambodia has been
really a French province.

To turn to Tongking, the last of the present French
provinces. A Dutch factory existed thei-e from 1G37 to
1700, but was then abandoned. Tongking was conquered
by the Empire of Annam in 1788, and remained a part
of that Empire till after Dupuis' exploration of the Red
River, which led to the French interfering, and it was
annexed after a long struggle lasting from 1874 to
1888.

We have now ti'aced, in brief, the earlier history of
all the States of the Ultrindian peninsula, and I now wish
to give you some account of the explorations of the three
great Frenchmen, Mouhot, Gamier, and Pavie, which
really led to the annexation by France of all Indo-China
and of the eastern portion of Siam, which had never
belonged to the Empire of Annam.

7. French Exploration and Conquest — Mouhot —
Garnier — Pavie.

Henri Mouhot's is the most pathetic story of the
three, for Garnier died fighting bravely in Tongking,
and Pavie survived to write his great book and to com-
pile the map which you see before you, while Mouhot
died of fever all alone at Luang Prabang, the capital of
Laos, with no friends near him except the faithful
servants, who preserved all his property and sent his
journals and specimens to Bangkok, whence Dr. Camp-
bell forwarded them to Jersey to his family.

Mouhot was born in Fi'ance in ]S2(), and was first a

( 28 )

teacher in Russia and France, and then took to plioto-
graphy as a livelihood and natural science as a hobby
(Mouhot, p. 20). On tiie outbreak of the Crimean
War in 1854 he returned to France, and travelled with
his brother in German}-, Italy, and Holland, always
photographing. In 1856, having married an English-
woman, he settled in Jersey as a professor ; but a book
on Siam excited his desire to explore, and he left
England on April 27, 1858, and arrived in Bangkok on
September 12. He first went up to Ayuthia, the old
capital of Siam, and into the mountains beyond, but he
had to return, and then started to explore Cambodia and
Cochin China. He went down the coast to Chentaban
and all through the islands to Kamput ; thence he
travelled up country to Pnom-penh, the capital of
Cambodia. He sailed through the whole length of the
great lake Tonle-Sap, and visited the great temples at
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thorn, which will be described
later on ; he then proceeded north of Battambang and
through the mountains to Bangkok. From Pnom-penh he
had visited the savage Stien tribes to the east, and lived
among them for some time on the borders of Annam.

After resting for a time at Bangkok, he started for
Laos and the north-central part of Indo- China. He
went bv Blount Phrabat and Korat (where the raihvav
now ends), and turning due north he traversed utterly
unknown and unexplored country, right through the
heart of Laos, up to Paklai, on the River Mekong.
Thence he went up the river to Luang Prabang, the
capital, and there died of fever, although he had never
suffei'ed from it in all the marshy countries of the south.
He died on November 10, 1861, and in three short years
he had explored the whole of Cambodia and Laos and a
great part of Cochin China and Siam. He was an

( 29 )

enthusiastic naturalist, and made great collections of
birds, insects, and shells. He died just when he might
have hoped to succeed in getting through to Tongking,
and so to complete the circle of his exploration
(Mouhot, p. 25).

The last three entries in his diary are : 'October IX.

■ — Halted at H '; ' October lU. — Attacked by fever ;'

' October 29. — Have pity on me, O my God . . .' and
then silence. His servants l^uried him in European
fashion, and carried all his ])roperty to Bangkok. His
journals were preserved and i)ublislied in 1864.

Francois Gahnier w^as a very different type of man.
Moidiot was a scholar, ])rofessor, and naturalist, exploring
only in order to obtain his ))eloved specimens ; but
Garnier was the tierv and ambitious explorer, adminis-
trator, and soldier, who explored in order to find new
countries for his beloved France to annex, and that he
might rise higher in her service himself. Garnier was
born in 1.S39, and was a naval officer. He began with
the most violent hatred of England, and in youth laid
plans for its total destruction through a league of young
men, which, of course, came to nothing. Later in life,
when he visited India, he changed his views completely,
and praised our administration enthusiastically. He
proved tlie truth of his conversion by marrying an
English wife.

Garnier went out to China in 1860. Saigon had been
captured in 1859, and when the war with China was over
Garnier ai*rived in Saigon with Admiral Charnier in
February, 1861. Charnier raised the siege of Saigon, and
took Maitho,and by October all Cochin China was subdued.

Garnier returned to France, but in June, 1863, he
went back to Cochin China, was appointed an Inspector
of Native Affairs, and was made District Officer of

( ^0 )

Saigon. Here he first definitely planned his explora-
tions, and became fired with tlie possibilities of the great
Mekong. He urged them strenuously, and at last, in
June, 1866, an expedition was sanctioned, but he, at
twenty-seven, was thought too junior to command it,
and Captain Doudart de la Gree, a post-captain, was
appointed the leader. Garnier was second in command,
and was the geographer and surveyor. Four other
French officers accompanied the expedition, and they
started in June, 1866. They went up the Mekong to
Pnom-penh, and up the great lake Tonle-Sap. They
landed and visited the famous ruins of Angkor Wat, and
went on to Siam-Rep.

In July the De la Gree expedition began its ascent
of the Mekong. ( )n the 9th they had to abandon their
gunboats. They soon reached the rapids of Sombor,
and Garnier saw that his hopes of the Mekong being
navigable right up to China were quite untenable. On
July 21 they reached Stung-treng, and thence ascended
the Mekong by degrees, exploring the streams which fell
into it. By September 11 they reached Bassak, on the
borders of Siam, and here they remained till Christmas ;
but Garnier made an excursion back to Stung-treng, and
found the whole country south of that in rebellion.
The trade from the Mekong only goes south to the
delta, and Saigon from as far up as Bassak. North of
that it goes west through Korat to Bangkok.

While the main expedition halted at Ubon, Garnier
made his famous exploration south by Sankea to Angkor
Wat, and he arrived at Siam-Reap on January 29, 1867,
and at Pnom-penh a week later. He got his mails and
instruments, and returned to Ubon on February 26, and
to Uten on March 10, whither the exjjedition had pro-
ceeded from Ubon. He explored 1,000 miles, twice

( -51 )

passed througli the rebel lines, fixed nianv landmarks,
and proved himself an explorer of the iirst rank.

On March 24 they reached Xong-kai. The ancient
capital of Laos, Vien-chau, was near this ; it Avas taken
and destroyed hy the Siamese in 1820.

The expedition followed the great bend of the
Mekong westwards, and reached Paklai in A])ril, 1867,
thus crossing ]\Iouhot's route. On April 29 they arrived
at Luang Prabang, the capital of Laos. There they found
the grave of Henri Mouhot, and erected a monument
over it. In 1836 General McLeod had penetrated to the
Mekong by Zimme and Kiang-tung, in lat. 21°, and he
reached a point higher up the ^lekong than Gamier did,
as the latter had to turn oft" to the east. McLeod tried
to penetrate to Yunnan, but failed, and returned through
the Shan States to Maulmain ; he was, however, the
first European to visit the Upper Mekong.

Gamier and his companions then went on up the
course of the Mekong. They spent all July, August,
and September pushing slowly up the river, and crossed
the border into Chinese territory. Thei-e, on October 8,
they left the Mekong finally, to their great regret. At
last, after eighteen months of the most arduous exertion,
and exposed to perils of all kinds, they reached the first
Chinese city of Szemao in Yunnan, and, as Gamier him-
self says, they were the first Europeans ever to enter
China from the south and from Indo-China. They
reached Yunnan city in December, and were well treated
there. The Governor gave them 5,000 francs, but
refused to allow them to proceed to Talifu, as they
wished to do, in order to trace the Mekong to its source.
They left Yunnan on January 8, 1868, and almost at
once De la Gree fell ill of fever, and sent off Garnier to
try to reach Talifu. Garnier crossed the southern

( 32 )

branch of the Yano-tsc-Kiano;, and in March he entered
Talifii ; but the Governor ordered him back at once,
and he left in two days. Talifu was the capital of the
Muhammadan rebels, who were then supreme in North
Yunnan.

In .\.pril he got a letter informing him of the death
of De la Gree, who had died on March 12. On April 5
he disinteri'ed De la Gree's body, and carried it with him
northwards till he reached Su-chau on the Yang-tse, and
thence took boat down it to Hankau on May 27. Thus
ended one of the most adventurous explorations which
has ever been made, and the first which not only
traversed Indo-China from south to north, but pene-
trated Yunnan right up to the Yaug-tse, and returned by
that river to Shanghai. They reached Saigon ou June 28,
after two years and one month's absence. The greater
part of the credit is due to Garnier — the idea was his, and
he did nearly all the mapping and surveying, besides
being alone in the dangerous expedition to Talifu ; but
De la Gree's tact and conciliatory ways smoothed the
path of the mission. Garnier returned to Europe, and
wrote an elaborate account of his mission, which was
published just before his death. He then went back to
Tono-kina,-, and the next we hear of him is that he died
fighting bravely at Hanoi which he had seized. Garnier
was sent to Hanoi, in November to arrange the disputes
of Dupuis, a French trader and adventurer, with the
mandarins. Dupuis had crossed Yunnan from the
Yang-tse to Tongking, and was trying to carry back a
cargo of salt to Yiuinan city ; the mandarins refused to
allow Dupuis to proceed. Garnier declared the Red
River open to all, and war was declared. Garnier seized
the citadel of Hanoi on November 20, and gradually got
possession of all Lower Tongking, but the Tongkingese

( •J.-J )

called in the help of the Black Flags from China, and
Gamier was killed in a sortie from Hanoi on Decendier
21, LS73.

I now come to the third of our great explorers,
AuGUSTE Pa VIE ; and afterwards I must say a word
about Prince Henri d'Orleans, who was the first man to
cross from Yunnan into Annam. Pavie began in the
Siamese service and surveyed the telegraph line from
Bangkok to Battambang. At the end of 1885 Pavie
proceeded to Luang Prabang, the capital of Laos ; in

1887 he made a journey from there into Tongking, and in

1888 was joined by two Frenchmen, Captain Cupet and
Lieutenant Nicolin. In 1888-1889 Cupet surveyed the
whole country south and east of the Mekong, right down
to Cambodia, and across the Mekong to the Menani.
In 1893 he was appointed to edit M. Pavie's great map,
which is before you. Captain de Malglaive, M.
Harmand, and Captain Riviere all worked at surveys of
Laos and Tongking under or with Pavie from 1888 to
1894, and their labours formed the groundwork of
M. Pavie's great work, ' Mission Pavie Indo-Chine,' in
five volumes quarto (1902), and of the large scale maj)
of Indo-China, which you see before you, and which is
a monument of industry.

Pkin'Ce Henki d'Orleans, after exploring a great
part of Central Asia and Tibet, started in January, 189.T,
to cross from Tongking through Yunnan to Assam. He
went up the Red River to Lao-kai, the frontier town ;
he then crossed the frontier to Manhao, and kept along
the Red River through Yunnan to Isa, where he turned
west to the city of Szemao, and reached the Mekong
River at Dayaken. He ascended the Mekong to Chun-
niug city, and thence diverged to tlie city of Talifu.
He then returned to the Mekong, and went straight up

( '^i )

it to lat. 2^° at Tse-kon, on the l)()rders of Tibet.
There he turned west, crossed the Sal win, the other
great river, and then the Trawadi River, and, passing
through the Khiimti tribes, he reached the Mishmi
country, and was rescued by friendly natives when at the
last stage of exhaustion and distress. He finally reached
the Assam station of Sadiya, where he was welcomed
by the English in December, and he then descended
the Bramaputra to Calcutta ('Tonkin to India,' p. 351).

8. The Khmers and their Monuments, Angkor Wat
AND Angkor Thom.

In the depth of Cambodia, near the great lake Tonle-
Sap, are the immense and wonderful ruins of Angkor
Wat and Angkor Thom. The tirst account of these
which I saw was in Mr. E. Candler's ' Vagabond in
Asia,' and I was astounded at his description of these
niagnilicent ruins. Dr. J. Macgregor also gives an
account of his visit to them in his book ' Through the
Buffer States,' and gives the same descriptions of miles
of stately edifices covered with carvings of the most
delicate and elaborate description, and retaining to a
great extent their beauty and strength, although they
are sunk in tropical forests, overgrown, deserted and
abandoned of man. Accounts of these ruins are also
given in Hugh Clifford's ' Further India,' and in Paul
Doumer's ' L'Indo- Chine Franc^aise ' ; and they have
also been described in J. Thomson's ' Antiquities of
Cambodia ' and in Frank Vincent's ' Land of the White
Elephant.' I may also refer you to Henri Mouhot's
' Travels,'* as he was the first European to describe them
in modern times, although the Portuguese knew them so
long ago as 15G4. In all these works you will find the
* 'Travels in Indo-China,' p. 278.

( .•5-'5 )

.saiHc expressions of astonishment and wonder at the
discovery of these immense and spk'ndid ruins, far
from any great city or river, abandont'd l)ut not de-
stroyed, covered with the most ehiborate ornamentation,
and still resisting in their solid strength the attacks of
time and the encroachments of the forests and jnngles
with which they are snrronnded. It is impossible for
me at this late hour to give you any but the most
cursory details of these magnificent ruins ; but I refer
you to the books I have just quoted above, and particu-
larly to the illustrations given by Thomson, Clitt'ord,
Fournereau, and Vincent. Mouhot says tliat these ruins
have not their equal anywhere on the earth, Candler
says, ' My wildest dreams of Angkor Wat were more
than realized. I will not attempt to describe what I saw
— it would not be believed.'

Ano-kor Wat is an immense buildins:, desie-ned as a
temple and monastery, and is three miles in circumfer-
ence within the ditches ; Angkor Thorn is a ruined city ;
and besides these two there are scattered about in
Cambodia, Laos, and Siam, temples and ruins which
indicate a high state of civilization at the time they were
constructed. What this civilization M^as we know not ;
whence it came, how it progressed, and how it fell
into decay are secrets which history will, perhaps, never
divulge.

The people are called Khmers or Kumers ; but we
really know hardly anything about them. Of their
history oidy this much is known, that they inhabited
Cambodia and the valley of Mekong from a very early
time ; and that they must have reached a very iiigh
state of civilization and organization in thv early
centuries after Christ. The city of Angkor T1i()1h is
supposed to have existed before the Christian era, and

( 36 )

the temples of Angkor Wat were certainly finished by
the fifth or sixth century. From the main gateway to
the main entrance of the temple is 1,000 feet, and the
main building is 796 feet long and 588 feet broad ; the
central pagoda is 250 feet high, and it is calculated that
there are more than 100,000 separate sculptured figures
on the outer walls of the temple. The whole of the
stone was brought from 30 miles away, and some of the
blocks weigh 8 tons. Almost every stone is carved,
some with Hindu and some with Buddhist figures.
Angkor Thom, the ruined city, covers 24 square miles.
The two Angkors are first mentioned in 1296 bv a
Chinese emissary sent to Cambodia in the time of the
great Kublai Khan ; and the first mention of them by
Europeans is in 1570.

The Chinese visit shows that the Khmer Empire
was already decaying about a.d. 1.300 ; for it was
partially subject to China. Nothing is known of why
the city and temples were abandoned as they were by
1550, but it is conjectured that earthquake and not
pestilence was the cause. The Khmers were probably
of Hindu origin, and not Mongolian, and their empire
is supposed to have lasted from about a.d. 200 to 1500 ;
but nothing is really known.

1 had hoped to say a few words about the relations
of France with Siam, of their long contest and its
results ; and also to speak of the positions of France
and England in Ultrindia, and of the possibilities of the
future ; but time does not jjermit, and I must conclude.

Those of us who have served in tropical countries,
and know the difficulties and drawbacks of administra-
tion and control in tropical lands and with tropical
peoples, will be the first to sympathize with our French

( 87 )

friends — may I say allies ? — in tlic splenilid efforts wliicli
they have made during the last ten years to introthue
order and civilization among peoples accustomed for
centuries to live amid rapine and violence, and to wish
them every success in their gallant endeavours, which
have already cost them the lives of so many of the best
and bravest of their explorers and ofHcials.

I have tried, ladies and gentlemen, to describe to
you the divisions of this great country, and to sketch
its physical geography — its political administration and
its communications. I have endeavoured to give you a
short account of its history and ex])loration up to
modern times, and then of the devoted and successful
efforts of the French explorers ; and lastly, I have tried
to bring to your notice the wonderful relics of the
Khmer civilization of which we know so little, and of
which we should wish to know so much. The study of
this great country — its history and physical characters
and geography — grows on one as one learns more ; and if
I shall have induced even two or three of you to study
some of the many able works which have appeared on
this subject, and to feel a deeper interest in Ultrindia
than you have hitherto felt, I shall have been amply
rewarded for what has been to me a labour of love.

DISCUSSION

Sir Thojias Holdich : I think I shall only be expressing the
opinion of the meeting generally if I say I am very sorry Dr.
Tupp has brought his paper to a conclusion so soon. We could
have listened with very great interest to a good deal more of it,
especially as regards the relationships between France and
England in respect to the Far Eastern country of which he has
spoken. I regret that I have no practical acquaintance with
that part of the world myself. It would have been to me an
unending joy to see such ruins as those we have heard de-
scribed. I cannot help thinking that they must to a certain
extent surpass those marvellous ruins in the central forests of
Ceylon at Anuradhapura ; and it seems pretty certain, from the
account the lecturer has given us, that they are chiefly of Hindu,
and not Buddhist origin.

Sir Frederic Fryer, in responding to an invitation fi'om
the President to speak, said : When I was in Burma we had a
good deal of correspondence with the French on the subject of
boundary demarcation. At one time it was intended to form a
buffer State between Indo-China and Burma, and a Commission
was actually appointed for the purpose of delimiting the
boundaries of the j)roposed buffer State, but finally the idea was
abandoned as impracticable. The only possession which Burma
had on the eastern side of the Mekong was the Shan State of
Mongsin. This was claimed by the French, but there was no
particular justification for the claim so far as we could discover,
and it was decided to occupy Mongsin with troops. Accordingly
we sent a wing of a Goorka regiment there, and they remained
for three or four years. Then came the treaty of 189(5 with
France, under which the Mekong was made the boundary be-
tween the British and the French spheres. Thus Mongsin was
ceded to France and our troops marched out. I believe that the
Sawbwa of Mongsin was much delighted when this happened,

38

( 3^' )

because he thought he would have more independence and exercise
greater authority under the suzerainty of the French than of
the English. But he very soon had occasion to change his
mind, and he would have been very much delighted if Burma
would have taken him back again, but of course that was im-
possible. We never had any serious disputes with Siam on
boundary questions. About 189'2 we sent an expedition to
occupy the Eastern Karenni country, whose inhabitants had
revolted against King Thibaw before we took over Upper Burma.
The Siamese authorities very kindly asked to be allowed to send
a force to assist us. In due course the Karennis were brought
to reason, but the Siamese force still remained there, and wo
were engaged for some years in diplomatic efforts to induce them
to return to their own country, for they had no business what-
ever in Karenni. In the end, as negotiations were futile, a force
was sent up and the Siamese troops were expelled. But in the
meantime they had cut down several very valuable teak forests
and carried away the teak. England still has a claim against
Siam for damage done to the teak forests, but I do not think there
is any present intention to press the claim. There is not very
much intercourse between our ofdcers and the French officers in
Indo-China, but in the border province of Kengtung the French
do occasionally come across our officers. We have a postal line
established between Kengtung and the nearest French post, and
as the French sometimes come backwards and forwards by that
route, it may be said that regular communication is kept up be-
tween the two countries. At present our relations with France
in Burma are entirely friendly, and I see no reason why they
should not remain so, particularly now that the English people
are such excellent friends with the French.

Sir Thomas Holdich : Major Molesworth Sykes, who is with
us to-day, has a more intimate acquaintance with the travels of
Marco Polo than anyone 1 know. Perhaps he can tell us whether
Marco Polo's writings throw much light on the subject of
Indo-China.

Major Molesworth Sykes : I am afraid my studies of Marco
Polo have been chiefly directed to his ti'avels in Persia, but I may
perhaps say a few words on the reason why he undertook the
journey to China. As you know, it was as a boy of sixteen that
he accompanied his father and uncle in the extraordinary journey
which they took, lasting about three years, right across Asia from

( -Kt )

west to east to visit Kublai Kaan,* to whom reference has been
made this afternoon. Kublai Kaan took special notice of Marco,
who, being very observant, was able to gratify the Kaan's delight in
a good story, a delight shared by so many Orientals. Whenever
Marco was sent on an expedition, upon his return he retailed
vividly to the Kaan the things he had seen and heard, so much
so that the Kaan refused to think of allowing the Polos to leave
his Court. Twenty years went by in this manner. Marco's father
and uncle were getting old, and he had reached middle age himself.
An embassy came from the Court of Persia asking Kublai to send
one of his grand-daughters to marry the Khan of that country —
for they were not called Shahs in those days. Marco made up to
the envoys, and said he knew the best way for them to travel
home, and was willing to conduct them thither. So they
petitioned Kublai Kaan to allow the three Europeans to guide
them back to Persia, and he gave his consent. They started off
with a large retinue 700 strong, but on arrival at Bandar Abbas
only eight or nine remained, all the others having died on the
road. So I think we may come to the conclusion that the
climate in that particular part of the world is not very suitable
for sanatoriums. The lady was one of the few survivors, and on
reaching the capital, she found the potentate she was to marry
had been dead some years. She settled the question quite
amicably, however, by marrying his son ; and Marco Polo, his
uncle and his father then went safely back to Venice. The
journey to which I have referred was taken by sea, and it is to be
remembered that communication between China and Persia by
sea was known as far back as the fourth century a.d. Chinese
junks were reported in the Shat-ul-Arab, somewhere near the
Busra of to-day, by Masudi. In the tenth century they went to
Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Such journeys must
have been paid when progressive dynasties were reigning, and
we cannot but I'egard the traffic as extraordinary. When the
Portuguese appeared in the Gulf there were only legends of the
traffic to attest its existence. That such a traffic did exist was
denied by a professor of Chinese at one of our universities to
whom I wi'ote when I was hunting up the subject. But the fact
is brought out by Sir Henry Yule in his ' Cathay and the Way
Thither' — the way thither being very much 1 imagine, the
Ultrindia of JJr. Tupp.

* Kaan signifies Khan of Khans.

( n )

Dr. CoTTERELii Trpp : There is but little tor mo to say in
reply to the discussion. With regard to the ruins of Ankor Thorn,
the extraordinary thing is that they are mixed Hindu and
Buddhist remains, and they appear to have been decorated
with absolute indifference as to which religion they repi'esented.
On the same panel of sculpturing you will see both Buddhist
and Hindu figures — n, mixture not to be seen anywhere else
I believe. As regards the boundary of the Shan States, I
understood Sir Frederick Fryer to say that the Mekong was
agreed upon as the dividing-line ; but 1 believe the French
claim some part of the country to the west of the Mekong.
M. Doumer certainly does so.

Sir Frederick Fryer : 1 don't think so. I tliink it is
finally settled that the Mekong is the boundary.

Sir Thomas Holdich : Is there not a neutral zone ?

Dr. Tupp : The question is still being argued, I believe. A
large part of the Laos province is to the west of the Mekong,
and I am not at all sure that further north the Mekong is made
the strict dividing-line.

A vote of thanks to Dr. Tupp for his paper concluded the
proceedings.

[p.T.o.

BOOKS ON INDO-CHINA REFERRED TO

1. Further India, by Hugh Chfford, C.M.G. 8vo., 1904.

7s. 6d. Lawrence and Bullen.

2. L'Indo-Chine Fi'an(;aise, par Paul Doumer (late Governor-

General of Indo-China). Fcap., 1905. 10s. Paris :
Vuibert et Noni.

3. Travels in Indo-China, by Henri Mouhot. 2 vols, 8vo.,

1864. 18s. J. Murray.

4. From Tonkin to India, by Prince Henri d'0rl6ans.

Large 8vo., 1898. 16s. Methuen. Translated by
Hamley Bent.

5. A Vagabond in Asia, by E. Chandler. 8vo., 1900. 7s. 6d.

Greening.

6. Far Cathay and Farther India, by General A. Euxton

MacMahon. 8vo., 1893. 12s. 6d. Hurst and
Blackett.

7. The Far-Eastern Tropics, by Alleyne Ireland. Bvo.,

1905. 78. 6d. net. Constable.

8. Across Chryse, by Archibald Colquhoun. 2 vols., 8vo.,

1883. 32s. Sampson Low.

9. Through the Buffer State (Siam) and Cambodia, by

Surgeon-Major J. Macgregor, M.D. 8vo., 1896.
7s. 6d. F. White and Co.

10. The Far East, by H. Norman, M.P. 8vo., 1895. 18s.

Third edition. T. F. Unwin.

11. The Colonization of Indo-China, by Jos. ChaillyBert.

8vo., 1894. 7s. 6d. A. Constable and Co.

12. F. Gamier : Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine en

1866-1868. 2 vols., 4to. Paris, 1873.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

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