In the year 1570, a chief of Tonquin, in charge of certain provinoos which the
Tonquinese had conquered from the kingdom of Champa, deolared his independence,
and thus founded the present kingdom of Cochin-China. From that
time to the year 1777, there reigned of this new dynasty, nine kings, when a formidable
rebellion broke out under the leadership of three brothers, called the Tai-son,
which lasted twenty-four years; ending only in 1801 by the re-establishment of the
legitimate monarch, the celebrated Gialong, on his throne. The restored king was
a man of firmness and talents, but chiefly owed his restoration to M. Pigneau, the
titular bishop qf Adran, and the able French officers who assisted him. These organised
for him a disciplined army, against which the rabble of the rebel brothers
could make no effectual resistance. The same army which put down the rebellion,
enabled the restored sovereign to effect the conqest of Tonquin in 1802, and eventually
of a considerable portion of Kamboja. Gialong died in 1819, and was succeeded
by his son, the prince who sat on the throne during my own visit to the country in
1822. He died in 1841, and was succeeded by his son, the reigning king. Reckoning
from the year 1570 to 1841, ten princes of the existing dynasty have reigned in
Cochin-China, which gives the large duration of twenty-seven years for each reign.
With the exception of a war with Siam in 1884, confined to the Kambojan frontier,
and without result, the kingdom of Cochin-China has enjoyed, up to the present time,
an uninterrupted peace of fifty-five years.
The partial introduction of Christianity into Cochin-China, forms at least in an
European view, an important part of its history. The first attempt was made by a
Spanish Franciscan friar, Bartholomew Ruis, in the year 1583. This missionary
obtained permission to reside in the country, but achieved no conversions. I t was
not until 1615, or two-and-thirty years later, that the work of conversion began
under some Spanish and Portuguese Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries. In 1658,
Louis XIV. appointed two French bishops, one for Tonquin, and one for Cochin-
China, these two countries forming at the time separate kingdoms. The first French
missionary reached Cochin-China in 1662, and Tonquin in 1666. Down to the year
1846, there have been in all seventeen French bishops in Cochin-China, and sixteen
in Tonquin. According to the statement of M. Lefevre, there are in Cochin-China
and Kamboja 80,000 Christians, and in Tonquin 360,000; making for the whole
kingdom 440,000.
During the reign of Gialong, Christianity and its European missionaries had been
not only tolerated, but even encouraged. He had sent his son and heir to France,
and the young prince is said to have embraced the Christian religion. This prince
dying, however, was succeeded by another son, a persecutor of the Christians. Under
him both lay and ecclesiastical Europeans were expelled from the kingdom, and an
edict published denouncing the punishment of death against the propagation of
Christianity,—a punishment in several cases carried into effect. This persecution is
admitted to have had its origin, not in religious jealousy, but the fear of European
invasion, and the apprehension that the followers of the new faith would adopt the
cause of hostile strangers. In consequence of this state of things, which has now
subsisted for above thirty years, Cochin-China may be considered as being as much
closed against Christianity as Japan itself.
COCHINEAL. This insect was introduced into Java a few years ago, as a
government experiment, and apparently with more success in its production thau
in British India, for as long ago as 1844 it was exported from Batavia to the estimated
value of 93,319 guilders.
COCK. One species of the genus Gallus is found in the wild state in the Malay
Peninsula, two in Sumatra, two in Java, and one in the Philippine Islands. I t is
remarkable, however, that no bird of the genus in the wild state is to be found in
Borneo, Celebes, or any island of the Molucca Sea. Several of these supposed species
are probably the same. The two of Java are distinct species; they will pair, but
the progeny is a mule, a beautiful bird kept by the wealthy Javanese as an ornament
of their poultry-yards, under the name, well known to them, of Pakiser. The wild
fowl of the Philippines is sometimes tamed, and by the courage it displays, shows
that it is of the true game breed, and probably identical with the domesticated bird.
This is what the authors of the Spanish Geographical Dictionary say of it in their
introduction :—“ In the woods there are beautiful wild cocks. These are very brave
in the combat, and always come off victors with the large but cowardly cocks of China,
and not with these alone, for they will contend with the famous gallant band of the
Laguna.”
Nearly everywhere, even among the rudest tribes, the common fowl is found in
the domestic state, and in this condition bears a close resemblance to the species
called by naturalists Gallus bankiva, which is one of those found wild in Sumatra and
Java, and the sole one of the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. Most likely then
this is the origin of the domestic bird of the Asia tic Archipelago. The names by
which it is known in the native languages are the only clue to the history of its
introduction and dissemination. In Malay it is called ayam, and in Javanese
manuk, pitik, and pâksi. The word pitik alone is the specific name of the domestic
poultry, the others being generic terms, equivalent to our own word “ fowl ” but
specially applied to the domestic bird when used without an epithet Thé wild
bird is expressed by adding the Malay word utan, or the Javanese alas, meanSil
‘forest. All the names are native, except pâksi, which belongs to the ceremonial
language of Java, and is Sanscrit. From the mere names, then, there is no ground
for supposing that the domestic fowl is of foreign introduction. Among the nations
of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo, the Malay word ayam prevails but
every where else, even among the Philippine nations, who have a wild fowl of
them own, called in the Tagala labuyu, the Javanese word for the domestic fowL
manuk, is universal. It may, perhaps, be argued from this that the bird was first
domesticated by the Malays and Javanese, and by them conveyed to the other
nations and tnbes of the Asiatic Archipelago.
The Malay domestic cock is of the true game breed, full of courage, but inferior in
size to the game cock of Continental India, which is larger than oui own, and more
powerful. Indeed, among the Malayan nations, there is no distinction, As with us,
into game and dunghill fowls, all being of the first description. It, moreover as té
tbe°ArrWh? . us* The dwarf variety, which we the Archipelago, the Bantam, is no exception. There is no suchh abvreee-rde cieni vBedt rffraomm
but our Indian traders of the beginning of the 17th centurv /fbnnH ;+ ft, S
country, brought there by the ju n ¿ of Zapan S M M M X f r U h t t í
w n Archipelago, and they gave them the name of the only country in
winch they saw them. They are still occasionally imported by the Dutch shins
into Batavia, where I have seen them. y ù stuPa
The Gallus bankiva, or the imagined variety of it called the Malay gigantic cock
£ supposed by M. Temminck, who is followed by other naturalists, to b fS e s om c é
from which our European poultry are derived. This Malay gigaétie cock I W e
never seen, nor do I believe that any such native variety e x W ^ e h h e r doesTit
seem to me reasonable to fancy that our poultry is derived from any Malay breed
s ® « ! * ® i a g g 1 1 — - ; - b i
ascertained is, that it never existed in the • dP ** 13 P-retty wel1
°n c lu d i^V eML l a ^ t StheW^ d ° f o K ^ g f n e S l ^ S s t r i b u t ^ ^ d Í
the north-western provinces, there exists bTéh T the nearest parts of it,
if no, identical mirÆra es m »SiFllifS*
Sixty degrees beyond it The G rw l ckmate from th e equator to
? » s S t s |B §
. 4 ° . ' ^ s r s , c ei,“ i ° Æ d* — a » a p i
Bali, Lornboc, Celebes and all th e P v r W t includes the people of
being the J . ^ \ , the S e r i a l exception
of the Malays. Thus th e r e i fT ^ e c fie % ^ 18 “ 5 « « e d on the very I a n ™
spur of the cock, and another for khe t CQok'%htihg, one for the natural
the crow, two for a c o c k p t and o ie V * , fw t t e eomb- &ree for
nowhere carried further { M ? Z « ^ fighter. T! passion fe
au m hpawsh dominions in the Fti%»ae& There,