aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

CHAPTER XI.
COCHIN CHINA TO SINGAPORE.
Aboard " The Irrawaddy," a magnificent French steamer,
the sea calm and smooth as polished glass, richly did I enjoy
sailing down .the coast of Cochin China to Anam.
THE ANAAnTES.
Though the French are wretched colonists, they have made
a success at Saigon, Anam, the southern part of Cochin
China. The city, numbering several thousand inhabitants,
has a naval station,
situated up the lazy, serpentine Saigon
River, some fifty miles from the beautiful bay.
Three miles from this French town, where we land facing
bristling soldiery, is the old China city itself, claiming from
seventy to a hundred thousand. During the latter part of
the Bourbon reign, the Jesuit missionaries from France had
difficulty with the Anamites in this portion of Cochin China,
whose king resides up the River Hue, in an old walled city.
France, in accordance with her usual policy, sided w'ith
priests, sending a fleet to adjust a settlement, and enforce
claims. The king was frightened. Demands were made,
and a fine slice of territory was ceded to the French. This
occurred during the reign of Louis XVI., noblest of all the
Bourbon rulers.
The Anamites— evidently a mixture, afar in the past, of
Malays and Chinese — are small in' stature, and slovenly in
appiearance :
178
the
chewing the betel-nut, which colors their lips,