but, on the contrary, indulge them in comparative
idleness, and even treat them with more respect
and kindness than their own countrymen.
There is no country in Asia in which the
scourge of intestine war, with the famine, disease,
and misery which accompany it, has produced
greater devastation than in Kamboja, Cochin
China, and Tonquin, the principal members
of the present Empire of Cochin China. The last
civil war lasted twenty-eight years, and was conducted
with great ferocity on both sides. The cultivation
of the country was suspended, and the intercourse
.between one province and another was interrupted
; so that the least fertile, which had depended
in all times upon the most productive for
food, were literally starved. Mr. Chapman, who
was an eye-witness, draws a frightful picture of
the condition to which the country yyas reduced
in the early period of this struggle.* The king*
He describes bis first intercourse with the natives at Cape
St. James’s as follows:—“ When \tfe reached the beach, I sent
the linguists on shore, keeping every body else in the boat; after
some time they came back, leading two or three of the most mi-
serable-looking objects I ever beheld, upon the very point of perishing
-with hunger and disease. The linguists telling us we
might land in safety, we did so. These poor wretches told me
they belonged to a village hard by, in which were left about
fifty more, much in the same condition with themselves; that a
fleet of Ignaacks, in its way to Donai, which it was now blockading,
had two months before paid them a visit, and plundered
them of the scanty remains left by a horrid famine, supposed
in the preceding year to have carried off more than one-half of
dom may now be said to have enjoyed an uninterrupted
tranquillity since the year 1802;
and it may be presumed, that its population, in
that time, must have increased very considerably.
The climate is generally salubrious, even for
strangers, and in time of tranquillity the country
does not appear to be liable to famines or destructive
epidemics. Under all the disadvantages of
bad government, the effectual price of labour is
comparatively high and fertile, and unoccupied
land is still abundant. The price of rice does
not fluctuate remarkably in ordinary seasons. At
Saigun, such as is consumed by the lower orders
may be stated as seldom falling under a quan and
a half the Chinese picul, (82-| cents of a Spanish
the whole inhabitants of Cochin China; and that they had nothing
to eat now but a root thrown up by the surf on the beach,
which caused them to break out in blotches all over their bodies ;
it was shaped something like a sweet potatoe, but longer. I
was now no longer at a loss to account for the indifference the
wretches I saw at Tringano showed to my offer of procuring
their release; they were not possessed of sufficient patriotism
to prefer liberty, with so scanty a fare in their own country,
to slavery, with a full belly, in a foreign one. There is no slavery
in Cochin China. On perceiving the mouths of two or
three rivers to the north-west, and asking their names, they told
me that one of them led to Donai. Several more of these objects
were now gathering round me : distressed at this scene of misery,
not in my power to relieve, I hastened on board my boat,
and took with me an old man, who appeared the most intelligent,
to inform our mandarin of all he knew, and to determine
what was next to be done.”—Account o f a Mission from the
Governor-general o f India to the King of Cochin China.