The small remnant of the ancient kingdom of Cambodia forms a rough parallelogram, consisting in large part of an alluvial plain lying athwart the Mekong, uncomfortably wedged in between Siam, Anam and the French delta, with a very short west coast-line.
It would appear from Chinese annals that at an early period the Cambodians were an exceedingly warlike race, and that their authority extended over many of the Laos and even Siam. But for centuries Cambodian influence in Indo-China has been on the decline. It has little more than the name of an independent government at present, being under a joint protectorate of Siam and France, and tributary to both.
The Cambodians differ from the Siamese in language, but in habits and religion resemble them, with the usual Indo-Chinese type of government. There are Roman Catholic, but no Protestant, missionaries in Cambodia or Cochin-China, though several years ago strong reasons were urged for the establishment by the American Presbyterian Mission of an out-station at one of the principal Cambodian towns.
Panompen, the present capital, is connected by a small steamer, which makes regular trips, with Saigon. Below Panompen the river divides into two streams, which flow south about fifteen miles apart, and empty themselves into the China Sea. There is a labyrinth of intersecting branches, creeks and canals across the delta, and the low shores are mostly grown wild with jungle.
Saigon, on an offshoot narrow, tortuous, but navigable for vessels of the heaviest tonnage, is situated about twenty-five miles inland. The French governor resides here, and is assisted in the control of the province by a legislative and executive council. Extensive parks surround the palace; macadamized roads run through the city. There is a public promenade along the river, and botanical gardens, where foreign plants have been introduced with the intent of their propagation. The spacious harbor with its floating dock contains a fleet of iron-clad steamers, and flags of the different consulates are floating from the line of mercantile and government offices along the bank. Telegraph lines connect Saigon with all parts of the peninsula, and submarine cables with the outside world.
IV. THE FOURTH BASIN—TONQUIN.
Tonquin, the north-east corner of Indo-China, is a province of Anam. It is separated by mountains from Laos and Siam and also from the Chinese empire. The Songkoi, or Red River, dominates the whole fluvial system, several streams from the north and west uniting, and then dividing and diverging, so as to form a triangle or delta. Upon these streams are situated the important towns. This Tonquinese river connects Yunnan with the sea, forming an important trade-route. Its port is Hanoi, at some little distance up the river, just as Bangkok is in regard to the Menam. For the acquirement and control of this waterway French enterprise seems to have taken the satirical counsel of Horace, “Si possis recte; si non, quocunque modo.”
The French colonial government covers an empire in Indo-China similar to that of Great Britain in India, and would like to annex not only Anam, but Cambodia and Eastern Siam. Early in this century, at the instigation of Roman Catholic missionaries, who have played an important part in the political complications, the French assisted Gialong, an Anamese aspirant to the throne, making their services the basis of a treaty which virtually gave them the protectorate of the whole eastern coast. This claim, being disputed by the successors of the prince, was the pretext for further encroachments. The court of Hué, too weak to resist, again and again memorialized the Chinese government, and each time a strong protest was made by China, who naturally objected to a foreign power holding the trade-keys of some of her richest provinces. These remonstrances have been ignored, and the frank statement of Dr. Hammand, the French civil commissioner in Tonquin, is not calculated to commend Christian ethics to the Buddhists of Southern Asia. “When a European nation,” he affirms, “comes in contact with a barbarous people, and has begun to spread around its civilizing influences, there comes a time when it becomes ipso facto a necessity to extend its boundaries. There is no country more favorable to our development than the kingdom of Anam. The Anamese recognize that we are incontestably their superiors. It is necessary to force Anam to accept our rule.” This has been done.
An able writer in the London Quarterly (October, 1883) says: “The railroad route from Maulmein across the Chino-Shan frontier being assured, an upland cross-road of some seventy or eighty miles north-east would lead to Yuan-Kiang on the main stream of the Songkoi, whence a road would lie open to the capital, Yunnan-fu, or south to the mart of Manhao, which is the head wharf of the Songkoi River navigation within the province of Yunnan, and thence to the Gulf of Tonquin.… Siam, the Laos provinces tributary and independent, Yunnan and Tonquin can thus be brought into the closest and most profitable connection with Burmah, all on one line, at once the easiest and most expeditious across the peninsula, and thus a short direct line for goods-transit be provided from the Gulf of Tonquin to the Bay of Bengal.… This, then, is the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx of the Far East, this the true solution of the Indo-Chinese overland route problem; by this the long-sought goal will be obtained, and the highest benefits conferred, not on Burmah and Yunnan only, but on India and China; on Siam and the Laos country, and Tonquin; on British and European enterprise throughout the China Sea and Indian Ocean alike—the vision of Marco Polo and his gallant successors realized.”
This northern province is more closely connected with China in government, literature and sympathy than with the rest of Anam. The Tonquinese use the Chinese characters for the written language, and near the frontier the Anamese tongue is hardly spoken; their laws and customs are modeled on those of China; the internal trade is in Chinese hands; the merchant quarter of Hanoi, with its shops and well-paved streets, is purely Chinese; the external trade-centre is at Hong Kong. Chinamen marry the women of the country, and all around the fringe of the delta Chinese and half-breeds form the dominant race. It is even hard to say just where Tonquin ends and China begins, for there is a belt of debatable land along the frontier, narrow in the north, but widening to over one hundred miles in the hills, and in some of the border fortresses Chinese and Anamese exercise joint control.