Natural-History Collectors. 7039 



lice, so large and fat that they consider them most delightful. Last 

 year the chariots belonging to the French missionaries were com- 

 pletely robbed, and the men who conducted them seized, and with 

 ropes round their necks conducted to Cochin China. 1 approached 

 them, defying them to attack me, loading all my arms before them ; 

 they were enraged in their hearts, but stood in awe ; and the two fol- 

 lowing days, as I expected continually to be seized upon by surprise, 

 I advanced with a pistol in my hand and my finger even upon the 

 trigger; however, a little audaciousness had sufficed to keep them off, 

 as I passed through without being molested. Notwithstanding the 

 fatigue, the heat and the privations unavoidable in such a journey, I 

 arrived safe and sound, for my own part, among the Stiengs, on the 

 20th August, at a part called Brelum, where I found a station 

 of Catholic missionaries from the Mission of Cochin China, and at 

 some miles from its frontiers. To have proceeded further would have 

 been impossible, as we could not have found the means of transport 

 or provisions at this season of the year: the poor savages have con- 

 sumed all their rice, and they have nothing to subsist upon but herbs, 

 a little maize, and a little game which they procure in hunting. 

 T accepted then the hospitality which was offered to me by a good 

 missionary in his establishment, which happily was pretty well 

 furnished. 



In a week or two the rainy season will have finished and 

 the nights will become cold, so that there will be no insects to 

 be found for several months ; I shall then be occupied with birds exclu- 

 sively. My departure from this will depend upon circumstances ; 

 perhaps I shall carry this letter to Panhalu myself; it is also probable 

 that I may be detained some months in this locality, on account 

 of the bad state of the roads and the impossibility of procuring 

 vehicles during the rice harvest. Perhaps you would wish to know 

 what this strange people are — supposed to be living alone on the plains 

 and mountains of Cambodia, which they appear never to have left, 

 and differing totally in manners, language and features, from the 

 Cambodians, Laotians and Annamites, — all I can tell you is that I 

 am led to believe that they are the aborigines of the country, 

 and that they have been chased into these parts by the repeated 

 migrations of the Thibetians, from whom evidently the Siamese 

 descend, as well as also the people I have been speaking of. They 

 appear to have had the same origin, if we may judge from their 

 resemblance to each other, their religion, their character, their man- 

 ners, &c. 



