274 Mr. H. Warington Smyth [Feb. 16, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 16, 1900. 



Sir Frederick Bramwell, Bart., D.C.L. LL.D. F.E.S., Honorary 

 Secretary and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



H. Warington Smyth, Esq., M.A. LL.M. F.R.G.S. 



Life in Indo-China. 



The lecturer said that no apology was needed for directing attention 

 to the conditions which affect human life in one of the most important 

 portions of Asia — the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. Situated midway 

 between the two great Empires India and China, which in geographical 

 extent, in population and wealth, as well as intellectual achievement, 

 had, notwithstanding their want of political cohesion, been amongst 

 the greatest that the world has seen ; this great peninsula has drawn 

 its civilisation first from one and then from the other ; so much is 

 this the case that wherever one travels in it, the best that it has is 

 invariably traceable to the influence of Indian or Chinese modes of 

 thought. It has of itself produced nothing of importance or of ori- 

 ginality to the world. Its intellectual and moral life has come from 

 without. Cut off by tracts of mountainous forest country in the far 

 north-west and north-east, but little communication was ever able 

 to take place directly overland with either empire ; thus the sea has 

 ever been the front door of Indo-China. The causes underlying the 

 distinctiveness of the Indo-Chinese races become but gradually appa- 

 rent to the traveller. In few portions of the world is he so impressed 

 with the sense of the predomination of the physical forces of nature. 

 Mr. Warington Smyth then proceeded to speak of the wonderful rivers 

 of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, describing their features and scenery 

 up to the mountains. He then went on to refer to the other means of 

 transport which are available to the inhabitants who live either back 

 in the great plains away from navigable rivers, by streams which for 

 the greater part of the year are navigable, or up in the mountains and 

 in the torrent valleys of the highlands. The animal most utilised in 

 the low country, where for half the year the tracts are under water, 

 is the water buffalo, which is well known in India and elsewhere. 

 Mr. Smyth mentioned as an interesting fact their deep-rooted aversion 

 to the white man whom they scent afar off. On one occasion, when 

 riding with a dozen Shan dignitaries, who had come out to meet him 

 on entering the town, they had to gallop for their lives before a herd 

 of so-called tame buffaloes who had discovered his presence at half a 

 mile distant. A respected and dignified friend of his spent ten hours 

 on the hottest day of the year on the not very commodious summit of 



