I profit by a favourable opportunity which has just presented itself to write you a few hasty lines to let you know that I am alive. For the last two months I have been living with the savage Stiêns amidst their immense forests, the latitude being precisely as I have stated above, and here I have passed the season most favourable for collecting insects and land shells. In spite of the letter given to me by the King of Cambodia, ordering all the chiefs of the Srok Khmer, or Cambodian villages, to furnish me with the means of transport on my journey, I experienced much difficulty, as frequently neither buffaloes nor carts were to be found in the hamlets through which I passed. My journey took me a month to accomplish, which is about three times as long as it would have taken me on foot.
On the 21st July, after having descended the great arm of the Mekon from Pinhalú, a village about nine miles from the capital, and in lat. 11° 46′ 30″ N. and long. 103° 3 W. merid. of Paris, as far as Penom Peuh, a commercial town filled with Chinese, and situated at the conflux of two streams, I ascended the great Cambodian River, the water of which is still low, as all through the country the rainy season is two months later than usual. The Mekon is studded with islands, of which many are eight or nine miles long and more than a mile broad; such is the large and beautiful island of Ko-Sutin, where I arrived after five days’ journey. I estimate the width of the river to be about three miles. Pelicans are found on its waters, often in flocks of more than fifty, and storks, sea swallows, and other aquatic birds, abound in the shallow parts of the river. The general aspect of this mighty river is, however, rather sombre than gay, although doubtless there is something imposing in the rapidity of its waters, which run like a torrent. Few boats are to be seen on it, and its banks are almost barren (the forests being more than a mile distant), and, being constantly undermined by the water, fall down at the least shock, and this is generally all that you can see or hear. The Menam is much more gay and animated.
The rapids and cataracts commence about thirty or forty leagues north of Ko-Sutin, on the confines of Laos, and it is there necessary to leave the large boats and take to canoes, which as well as the luggage are often obliged to be carried on men’s backs.
The current of the Mekon is so strong that at certain times of the year you can go little more than a league a day, and the rowers often seek for fire in the evening at the very place where they cooked their rice in the morning. I ascended it in a small boat with three rowers, but at every bend of the river we had the greatest trouble to make any progress, and were frequently obliged to hold on by the rushes to prevent our being carried away by the current. Eight days after leaving Pinhalú I reached Pemptiélan, a large Cambodian village, where I found it necessary to take to land travelling.
There still remained 150 miles to travel in carts, all in an easterly direction. I was well received by the mandarin at the head of affairs in this part of the country, and was able to set out again in two days.
The first day our conveyances upset, and I feared that we should be unable to proceed; there were continually dreadful bogs, quagmires, and marshes, in which the carts sank up to the axletrees and the buffaloes to their bellies. Fortunately on the following day the road improved, but for three weeks all that was visible was a few scattered rice-fields round the villages, and we had to make our way through a marshy plain, covered with thick and dark woods, which reminded one of the enchanted forest of Tasso, and it is easy to understand that the imagination of a pagan race peoples these gloomy solitudes with evil spirits. Twenty times in an hour the men who accompanied us were obliged to raise the large branches and cut down the trunks which obstructed our passage, and sometimes we had to make a new path for ourselves.
The Cambodians were all much surprised at seeing us journeying towards the Stiêns at the worst time of the year, for in that country the rainy season had commenced, and even those who live nearest dare not venture there; and had I not brought with me from Siam my two young servants, I could not for any money have found a single individual to accompany me. Even they felt great repugnance to proceed—for in Siam, Cambodia bears a terrible reputation for unhealthiness, and unhappily both for them and for myself they were attacked with fever in the forests, since which, instead of receiving any help from them, I have had two patients to nurse.
Passing through a village peopled by a barbarous race of Annamites, I ran great risk of being taken prisoner by them, and being sent to finish my researches in a dungeon. Last year the carriages belonging to a French missionary were completely rifled, and the men sent with ropes round their necks to Cochin China. I loaded all my guns, and gave one to each of my men: our firm appearance, no doubt, frightened them, for we were not attacked.
In spite of the heat, the fatigue, and privations inseparable from such a journey, I arrived among the Stiêns in perfectly good health as far as I was concerned, and here I found a settlement of Catholic missionaries from Cochin China. It would have been impossible to go further, for I could neither find means of transport nor provisions, for at this time of the year the poor savages have consumed all their rice, and have nothing to live upon but herbs, a little maize, and what they can catch in the chase. I therefore accepted the hospitality offered to me with much kindness by a good priest. In a few weeks the rainy season will be over, the nights will become cold, and for several months insects will be found, and after that will come the turn of the birds, with which I shall exclusively occupy myself.
My departure from here will depend upon circumstances; perhaps I shall myself be the bearer of this letter to Pinhalú, perhaps I may be detained here some months by the bad state of the roads and the impossibility of procuring vehicles during the rice-harvest.