COCHIN-CHINA COCK. 



289 



m:tke considerable changes in combining them. 

 Their manners are lively and cheerful ; their charac- 

 ter mild and docile. There are two classes, the 

 commonalty and nobility or mandarins. The go- 

 vernment is despotic ; the chief instrument is the 

 rod, which is freely administered. The general ad- 

 ministration is conducted by a supreme council and 

 six ministers of state. Besides these, there are three 

 other superior officers, called kun the viceroys of 

 Tonquin and Kamboja, and the minister of elephants, 

 who is properly prime minister, and minister for fo- 

 reign affairs. Every male inhabitant, between eigh- 

 teen and sixty years of age, is at the disposal of the 

 state ; and, in Cochin-China, every third man on the 

 rolls performs actual service during every other tliree 

 years. These conscripts are called soldiers, and 

 wear uniforms, but are, in reality, engaged as la- 

 bourers on the public works and in the menial ser- 

 'vice of the public officers. The royal guard of 

 30,000 men is always stationed near the person of 

 the king. The ordinary force consists of about 

 360/XXHroops and 800 elephants, cavalry not being 

 at all used. The effective force, regularly armed 

 and disciplined, is not more than 50,000. They are 

 armed partly with muskets and partly with spears. 

 There is no established religion in Annam. The 

 ministers of religion are few and little respected ; 

 the temples mean and little frequented. The lower 

 orders, in general, follow the worship of Buddha or 

 Fo. Persons of rank are of the sect of Confucius ; 

 but the only part of the religious belief which as- 

 sumes a systematic form, is the worship of the dead. 

 Polygamy is permitted to any extent, as the wife is a 

 mere chattel purchased by the husband. Marriages, 

 however, are indissoluble, except by mutual consent. 

 The population has been estimated, by some writers, 

 at 22,000,000, but does not, probably, exceed 

 10,000,000, perhaps not 6,000,000. The direct com- 

 mercial intercourse between Cochin-China and Eu- 

 rope and America, has been very inconsiderable, but 

 is now on the increase. The foreign trade, by sea, 

 is principally with China, Siam, and the British ports 

 within the straits of Malacca. The principal places 

 from which it is conducted are Saigon in Kamboja, 

 Hue, the capital of the empire, in Cochin-China, and 

 Cachao in Tonquin. The exports are cinnamon, 

 pepper, areca, raw silk, sugar, dye-woods, carda- 

 moms, ivory, elephants' and rhinoceros' hides, &c. 



According to the Chinese annals, Annam was con- 

 quered by China, B. C. 214, and colonized by nume- 

 rous bodies of Chinese. After various revolutions, in 

 which the Chinese yoke was thrown off, and Tonquin, 

 and Cochin-China were alternately conquerors, the 

 present order of things was established by events 

 which took place at the end of the 18th century. 

 The Taysons, three brothers from the lowest ranks 

 of the people, had rendered themselves so powerful 

 as to obtain possession of nearly the whole country ; 

 the king had perished in the war against them. His 

 young son, Gialong, having been intrusted to the 

 care of the bishop of Adran, a French missionary, 

 obtained, through his influence, the assistance of 

 some Europeans, by whose means he formed a navy, 

 disciplined his troops, and constructed fortifications 

 in the European manner. He succeeded, after a 

 struggle of twelve years, in subduing the Taysons, 

 conquered Tonquin in 1802, Kamboja hi 1809, and 

 left the empire, on his death, in 1819, to his present 

 majesty, Meng-meng, his illegitimate son, who, in 

 1821, was regularly invested with the government of 

 Annam by the court of China. See La Bissachere's 

 Etat actuel du Tunquin, de la Cochinchine, &c., 

 Paris, 1812 ; White's Voyage to the China Sea, Bos- 

 f.on, 1823 ; and particularly Crawfurd's Embassy to 

 Stain and Cochtn-China,London, 1S28. 



COCHINEAL. See Coccus. 



COCHRANE, CAPTAIN JOHN DONDAS, a noted 

 pedestrian, was a nephew of Lord Cochrane, now 

 earl of Dundonald. He travelled on foot through 

 France, Spain, and Portugal, then through Russia 

 to Kamtschatka, see Narrative of a Pedestrian Jour- 

 ney through Russia, &c., 1820 23, London, 1834,and 

 died in 1825, in Colombia, whether he had gone with 

 a view of travelling through South America on foot. 



COCK (phasianus gallus, L.) ; the well-known 

 chieftain of the poultry-yard, and rural announcer of 

 the passage of time ; whose shrill clarion, heard in 

 the still watches of the night, inspires the invalid with 

 cheering hopes of the coming dawn, and informs the 

 way-worn traveller of his approach to the habita- 

 tions of his kind ; the appropriate emblem of vigi- 

 lance, virility, warlike daring, and gallantry : domes- 

 ticated, but not subdued, he marches at the head of 

 his train of wives and offspring, with a port of proud 

 defiance, not less ready to punish aggression against 

 his dependents than to assert his superiority upon the 

 challenge of any rival. At what time this valuable 

 species of pheasant was brought under the immediate 

 control of man, it is now impossible to determine ; 

 but, as the forests of many parts of India still abound 

 with several varieties of the cock in the wild or 

 natural condition, it is quite reasonable to conclude 

 that the race was first domesticated in the Eastern 

 countries, and gradually extended thence to the 

 rest of the world. It is stated that the cock was 

 first introduced into Europe from Persia ; and Aris- 

 tophanes speaks of it as the Persian bird. Never- 

 theless, it has been so long established throughout 

 the western regions, as to render it impossible to trace 

 its progress from its native wilds. 



The cock has his head surmounted by a notched, 

 crimson, fleshy substance, called comb : two pendu- 

 lous fleshy bodies of the same colour, termed wattles, 

 hang under his throat. The hen has also a similar, 

 but not so large nor so vividly coloured excrescence 

 on her head. The cock is provided with a sharp 

 horn or spur on the outside of his tarsus, with which 

 he inflicts severe wounds ; the hen, instead of a spur, 

 has a mere knot or tubercle. There is, in both 

 sexes, below the ear, an oblong spot, the anterior 

 edge of which is reddish, and the remainder wliite. 

 The feathers arise, in pairs, from each sheath, touch- 

 ing by their points within the skin, but diverging in 

 their course outwards. On the neck, they are long, 

 narrow, and floating ; on the rump, they are of the 

 same form, but drooping laterally over the extremity 

 of the wings, which are quite short, and terminate 

 at the origin of the tail, the plumes of which are 

 vertical. In the centre of the cock's tail are two 

 long feathers, which fall backwards in a graceful 

 arch, and add great beauty to the whole aspect of the 

 fowl. It is in vain to offer any description of the 

 colour of the plumage, as it is infinitely varied, being 

 in some breeds of the greatest richness and elegance, 

 and in others of the simplest and plainest hue. Ex- 

 cept in the pure white breeds, the plumage of the 

 cock is always more splendid than that of the hen. 

 We cannot contemplate the cock, when in good 

 health and full plumage, without being struck with 

 his apparent consciousness of personal beauty and 

 courage. His movements and gestures seem all to 

 be influenced by such feelings, and his stately march 

 and frequent triumphant crowing express confidence 

 in his strength and bravery. The salacity of the 

 cock is excessive, and one is known to be quite suffi- 

 cient for the fecundation of ten or fifteen hens. His 

 sexual powers are matured when he is about six 

 months old, and his full vigour lasts for about tliree 

 years, varying in earliness of maturity and duration 

 with his size and the climate. 



