Agriculture among the Cham is limited to the cultivation of a few ricefields and the growth of tobacco, cotton and pea-nuts. Cattle-raising does not include that of cows and pigs, the flesh of which is forbidden by religion. Other industries are bee-keeping, the export of the wax for religious purposes, and the manufacture of torches of resin which find a ready market among the Annamites. I have already mentioned other specialities.
Agriculture, commerce and industry show not the least sign of expansion. The Cham is not ambitious, much less inventive and exhibits no trace of envy of his progressive Annamite conquerors, whose industrious activity is a vivid contrast to the proverbial lethargy of Orientals. Unhappily the indifference of the Cham to material prosperity is a recent development. In the great days of Empire they must have been a very active and intelligent race and even to-day we find relics of their inventive skill among their Medicine Men.
These specialists jealously guard the secret, which has been handed down by tradition, of certain medicines to which Europeans have had recourse on occasion. More than once during our expedition we were glad to invite the good offices of the native herbalists when, prostrated by dysentery, shivering with fever or weakened by anæmia, we had exhausted the resources of our own pharmaceutical arsenal. The native doctors are as skilful as the Chinese in utilizing various simples and are quite familiar with the medicinal properties of certain animal products.
We have known cases in which an unnameable brew, of which the principal constituents were the shells of beetles, the scales of snakes, and the parings of stags' antlers and bullocks' hooves, effected a quicker cure than all our European drugs, for all their scientific names. The pharmacopœia of the Cham is certainly an offshoot of that of the Chinese. It comprises a list of all manner of remedies for moral as well as physical disorders.
Camphor, a substance universally appreciated, appears also among the medicines of the Cham. They use a certain oil which, when impregnated with camphor, acts as an anæsthetic by evaporating and producing a freezing sensation. It forms a kind of liniment and is kept in a small, brightly coloured glass flask, which is stoppered with a cork of wax to prevent evaporation.
Wax is also used to make capsules, about the size of a pigeon's egg, to hold drugs and other medicinal substances which must be kept from contact with the air.
Cholera, which is endemic throughout this region, is treated by taking pills made up of a mixture of sandalwood, the bark of the mangostan, and eagle-wood. Eagle-wood, of which I shall have much to say later on, is well known as an excellent tonic. Popular superstition endows it with powers so remarkable that a single piece could effect an immediate cure.
Most of the brews or broths are prepared by decoction rather than by infusion and the operation should take place over a slow fire, which makes them more potent. Their effect is extremely violent, and in Europe we should unhesitatingly classify them with the group of remedies popularly known as "horse pills."
Among the most potent I might mention the gall of animals which is often used to produce the effect of an emetic.
At one time the Cham sorcerers used human bile as well as that of animals. This human bile was useless unless taken from a living subject, and consequently murders without number were committed for the purpose of obtaining it. Its reputation as a talisman was universal. It was said that any man who rubbed himself with it became invulnerable. Of course it was inevitable that a warrior should become invincible when he was certain that his victory, thanks to his supernatural protection, was a foregone conclusion. The King himself had no doubts as to the efficacy of this talisman and before going into battle ordered his elephants to be sprayed with it. His special emissaries, who enjoyed the name of Jalavoi ("Stealers of human bile"), drew their host of victims from every quarter, and even to-day the memories of their horrid activities evoke a shudder.