Although situated in the tropics, it enjoys a climate of perpetual spring, and the air which by rights should be burning hot is cooled by the South and North winds which blow alternately for 6 months each in the year. The rainy season begins in April and lasts until August. At this season the leafy trees have their branches weighed down by masses of fruit, the countryside luxuriates in vegetation and promises a rich harvest of rice. There is neither corn nor grapes, but nature supplies their lack by other products. It is true that at times the land is stricken with sterility. The floods destroy the young crops and the drought changes the fertile earth into arid dust.
A range of inaccessible mountains seems to act as a line of defence against foreign invasion. These mountains are clothed with forests containing many fruit trees and inhabited by tigers, deer, and elephants. The interior of the country is occupied by rising ground. The plains are watered by numerous rivers and canals form cheap and facile means of communication. Although the country has so many products of commercial value, the inhabitants give all their attention to fishing.
Kankao is the chief town, and many travellers have compared it favourably with the most populous cities of Asia. There are no imposing edifices with the exception of the royal palace and the arsenal, in other respects it is a confused collection of wooden huts. The foreign trading establishments are the only brick buildings. The ruins of an ancient palace, destroyed during the civil wars, are still visible and the relics point to the pristine glories of the city. The arsenal is a building that would command admiration in Europe. It is furnished with artillery, ammunition and all kinds of warlike stores.
Here the physicist would be struck by the phenomenon of the tides, as the sea ebbs and flows only once in the 24 hours and is only appreciable at the first and last quarters of the moon.
The products are similar to those of other countries of the Indies, but the fruits are finer and more delicious than those of any other Asiatic country. The oranges are large and luscious, but the use of the citron is unsafe as it supplies the mordant used in the dyeing of cotton.
Cultivated fruits include sweet potatoes yams, bananas, mangos, limes, cocoanuts and pineapples. The elephants are the largest and most active of those found in Asia. Temperance is a national virtue and their staple articles of diet are merely rice, vegetables, roots, and salt fish. They observe festivals at which game of all sorts is eaten and especially at weddings and funerals they indulge in all manner of good cheer. They devour horseflesh buffalo and goat meat, dogs, rabbits, rats, frogs, shell fish and all kinds of fish. For dessert they have the most excellent fruits, the odour and colour and taste of which are pleasing to all the senses. Cleanliness is noticeable in all their dishes. The tables and crockery as well as they themselves are perfumed. In formal feasts the guests keep profound silence, and speech before the conclusion of the repast would be considered impolite. This restraint during their meals might be attributed to their voracious appetites. Their usual beverage is a kind of tea with which on festal occasions they mingle arrack. They manufacture strong drink from rice and other vegetables.
The Tonkinese have flat oval faces. Their teeth, naturally white, are blackened so as to avoid the reproach that they resemble those of dogs or elephants. Though of a swarthy complexion they are fairer than the other inhabitants of the Indies. They have long thick black hair. They are active and cunning and seem adapted by nature to be an accomplished race; but idleness, the vice of the climate is a check to industry and renders them poverty stricken. Their insensate passion for gambling reduces the wealthiest to beggary. Having lost all their money, jewels and other possessions, they will wager their wives and children and even their horses to which they are greatly attached.
The dress of the Tonkinese consists of a long robe reaching to the heels. The grandees are dressed in silk or English cloth. The populace and soldiery wear robes of cotton stuff reaching to the knees. Fishermen and workmen, who are obliged to spend their time out of doors, wear hats made of straw or leaves. The King is the only person permitted by law to wear shoes. The common people go bare-foot but this is no discomfort in a land where the soil is sandy. This custom is in vogue in Abyssinior and in all warm countries and only foreigners find that it is distasteful. They however wear sandals as do the officials and the learned men affect the same fashion. The latter allow their nails to grow long as a sign of their rank. Men and women used to be obliged to wear their hair bound up, as a mark of their vassalage, during the time when this kingdom was a dependent state of China, but at the present time they wear it loose over their shoulders. The nation has borrowed its arts, science and etiquette from the Chinese. Their language which is monosyllabic, greatly resembles Chinese, and inflexions of the voice determine the signification of the syllables. The Tonkinese have many guttural and dental consonants which are very difficult to be pronounced by foreigners. Their writing is in vertical columns, they make use of similar writing implements to those of China and they use silk or the bark of trees instead of paper. They have no taste whatever for art and science. It is true they have poets and musicians who are fairly successful in imaginative works. They have also made a certain amount of progress in morality for which they have adapted the maxims in the books of Confucius. They have teachers for all branches of accomplishments but no school for scientific knowledge, and they have only a very slight acquaintance with mathematics.
The healing art is very imperfectly understood in Tonkin, experience is their only guide, and the doctors combine their profession with those of surgeon and apothecary. Their medical books on the preparation of drugs are most vague in their principles. Cupping glasses and caustics are used in obstinate cases only. The usual medicaments are made from gums, roots and herbs. They cure fever, eruptions, jaundice and small-pox by dieting and infusions. Certain diseases are attributed to fogs and exhalations. Astrology bars the way to medical progress, certain days are supposed to be unlucky, and on these days the patient is allowed to suffer rather than that medicines should be administered. Their skill in the arts is shown by their articles of lacquer ware, porcelain, and in the smelting of metals.
The rivers and canals by which the country is intersected are favourable to internal trade. Each town has its fairs and markets to which many foreigners are attracted. But there is very little maritime commerce, for the reason that their ships are too small to brave the dangers of the stormy seas. Foreign imports are saltpetre, sulphur, cloth, all sorts of woollen goods, spices, lead and guns. Foreign currency only is used and no race is more skilful in the art of money changing, as they are able to appreciate or depreciate the exchange values at their pleasure.