ANNUAL REGATTA AT PNOM PE;nH 
The racing boats, or pirogues, resemble those shown in the bas-reliefs at Angkor, and 
are propelled, not by means of oars, but by vessels held in the hands of the rowers resembling 
shallow wash-bowls. 
you realize the difference at once, and 
you look into those faces again, half ex- 
pecting them to look familiar — but they 
don't. 
No ; these people are at the meeting- 
place of the Aryan and Mongolian civili- 
zations. Their language, religion, their 
entire civilization, is derived from the 
Hindu ; but what races they themselves 
are derived from it would probably take 
a long time to enumerate, if one knew 
them. 
At Pnom Penh we leave the Mekong 
and continue up one of its tributaries. 
It is really a tributary now, for the water 
is pouring down in a swift current from 
the lake, Tonle Sap, though a few months 
later it will be pouring the other way. 
Soon the scenery changes ; the stream 
hroadens, hills begin to appear on the 
horizon. We reach the village of Kom- 
pong Chnang. 
We are told that Kompong signifies 
anchorage, and, looking at the map, we 
see that most of the villages are so desig- 
nated. What does this mean? Why, it 
means that the villages are anchored, to 
be sure ; for look at this one. Kompong 
Chnang is a floating village ; not a lot of 
sampans fastened together and moving 
about, as they do at Canton, but houses — 
rather substantial looking, too — built, 
some of them, in European fashion and 
mounted on piles of bamboo laid fiat in 
the water. The bamboo is a series of 
water-tight compartments joined end to 
end, and it floats like a straw. Over yon- 
der is what appears to be a bridge, begin- 
ning somewhere right in the midst of the 
water and running off into the distance, 
probably searching for solid ground, 
which is pretty hard to find in this re- 
gion. 
Meanwhile the houses are all nodding 
and bowing to each other in pleasant, 
neighborly fashion, for all the world like 
the citizens of Saigon when driving on 
the Tour d'Inspection ; and so we leave 
them. 
Night descends as we enter the lake 
and steer toward the opposite end. Its 
waters are rapidly receding, and in a few 
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