7040 Natural-History Collectors. 



All the country from the eastern side of the mountains of Cochin 

 China to 105° long, and 11° lat. to Lao is inhabited by savage tribes, 

 known by a name (' the inhabitants of the heights '), which signifies 

 they do not become attached to their country, and change their 

 abode frequently. Most of the villagers are in continual hostilities 

 with each other, but they do not attack in troops ; they try to take 

 each other by surprise, and the prisoners are sold to the Laotians as 

 slaves ; their only vreapon is the crossbow, which they use with an ex- 

 traordinary dexterity, but rarely at a greater distance than twenty 

 feet; they only employ the poisoned arrows for hunting the large 

 animals, such as elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes and wild oxen. 

 The smallest wound is sufficient to cause death, and when the poison 

 is fresh it is seldom that the strongest animal can make fifty steps 

 before he falls ; they then cut out the wounded part, then shghlly 

 roast the animal without skinning or cutting it up, so that it may be 

 the better preserved ; then all the village is called by the sound of a 

 trumpet (which is heard at a great distance) to have a share : equality 

 and fraternity in its most perfect state exists in these little commu- 

 nities : and our gentlemen commonists would be surprised to find all 

 their theories put into practice, but engendering nothing but misery. 



The strongest European could not use the bow and arrow which 

 the weakest and smallest of the Stiengs string with ease, the effect 

 of habit. Nor are they altogether unacquainted with agriculture ; 

 they sow rice, plant gourds, water-melons, bananas and other fruit 

 trees ; their rice fields are kept with the greatest care, but most of the 

 hard work is done by the women ; during the rainy season the men 

 seldom go out, principally on account of the leeches which swarm 

 in the woods in such a manner as to render them inaccessible ; they 

 therefore keep to their fields, where they construct small huts of bam- 

 boo, but as soon as their harvest is over and the healthy season 

 returned, they are continually either fishing or hunting ; they never 

 go out without their bows and a large blade of a knife with a bamboo 

 handle, a basket on their back and another on their head. They 

 forge nearly all their instruments with a mineral they get from 

 Anuam or Cambodia. Though they understand how to make 

 earthern vessels, they generally cook their rice, their herbs, and even 

 their meat in bamboos. Their clothing consists only of a band 

 of cloth about the width of the hand, which, attached as a bandage, 

 conceals more or less their nakedness. It is also the women 

 who weave those kind of scarfs, which are long and sometime pretty. 

 They are very fond of ornaments, and especially the women, who 



