a kingdom of India beyond the Ganges, extending from the twelfth to the eighteenth degrees of north latitude, and having Tonquin and Cochin-China on the east, Cambodia on the south, Siam on the west, and an unexplored region on the north. Of this extensive country all the knowledge which we possess is derived chiefly from Portuguese writers, and from the report of traders; and the accounts are frequently contradictory. All accounts agree, however, that the country is in general poorly cultivated, and thinly inhabited; the smaller villages consisting of collections of huts, and a great part of the population being merely erratic hordes, who live in a migratory state. These tribes are of very warlike habits, and wage almost constant war with each other. They are accustomed to the use of fire-arms. In their persons they resemble the southern Chinese, being of an olive complexion, and in their dispositions are frank and honest. This country carries on commerce with Tonquin and Cochin-China, to which it sends elephants, precious stones, gold, musk, ivory, wax, bamboos, and cotton; and in exchange receives salt, salt-fish, oil, silken stuffs, fire-arms, and gunpowder. This trade is chiefly carried on by the Chinese and Tonquinese merchants, and a caravan occasionally comes from Siam. The people of this country are only nominally subject to the Cochin-Chinese, their independence being secured partly by the insularity, and partly by the inaccessible nature, of their country. There is a tradition of a higher state of knowledge among the people in former times; and a considerable number of books is said to have been written in the Bali language. But there are no longer any traces of this high civilization. The people are ignorant and superstitious. The belief in magic is general; and the physician exercises the double profession of doctor and conjuror, and by the latter trade makes considerable gains.