This extensive kingdom is situated in the southern extremity of Asia, and forms part of the peninsula between China and Hindustan. It is not separated, however, by any distinct boundary from the neighbouring countries; and its limits have been greatly extended by conquest beyond those of Cochin China proper, which is merely a strip of land between the China Sea and the mountains, and is not above 60 or 70 miles broad. The empire of Cochin China, which took its present form in the beginning of this century, comprehends Cochin China proper, Tonquin, the principal part of Cambodia, and the little state of Chiampa. This state, as it has been aggrandized by conquest, extends from the point of Cambodia in about 8° 30' N. Lat., to the northern confines of Tonquin, which reach within a very few miles of the tropic of Cancer, and from the longitude of 102° to about 109° E. It is bounded on the N. by the Chinese Quangsi or Kiangsi and Yunnan; on the W. by the kingdoms of Laos and Siam; while the Gulfs of Siam, Tonquin, and the China Sea bound it on the S.W., E., and N.E. Its area is estimated at about 98,000 square miles; and its population at from 12,000,000 to 16,000,000. This great country is divided by long ranges of mountains, which run nearly N. and S., and in almost parallel chains, forming it into separate provinces, divided by physical boundaries, and inhabited by distinct tribes and nations, although subject to the same sovereign. By these mountainous ridges Tonquin and Cochin China proper are separated from Laetbo, Laos, and Cambodia. Another chain separates the three latter states from Siam and China, and gradually diminishes in height as it approaches the south, terminating at the southern extremity of Cambodia.

1. Tonquin is mountainous on the N., and of the same general character as the adjacent Chinese provinces. On the W., the chain which separates Cochin China proper from the interior of the peninsula constitutes the boundary towards the Laos country. The E. is nearly level, terminating towards the sea in an alluvial plain. On the southern frontier, towards Cochin China, a wall extends from the mountain to the sea; but the wall is now useless, as both countries are under one sovereign. Next to Korea and Japan, Tonquin has most completely maintained its exclusive system against foreigners; and after all that has been written on the country, it is still almost unknown. Towards the N., as far as the Song-ka, or Rankao river, Tonquin extends from 103° 50' E. Long. to about 109° 48' E. Long.; but from this latter point it is hemmed in by the great Yunnan ridge, which runs parallel with the sea; 17° 36' is its southern limit, and the northern is 22° 55'. It is generally fertile, and contains a large industrious population. Most of the rivers flow in a south-easterly direction. The largest is the great river Song-ka, formed by the union of the Le-tein, a stream which constitutes the boundary between China and the Laos country, and the Song-shai, which rises in the latter country, and passes through a mountain defile not far from the principal city in Tuyen-kwang district. The sand of these rivers contains many particles of gold, and thousands of people are engaged in collecting it. The river then runs S.E., having the capital of Tonquin—Kecho or Hanoi—on its right bank; it makes a sudden bend at Heïn, and then turning northward forms a delta, in which Domea, the port for foreign shipping in former times, is situated. It has three mouths, the northernmost of which has the deepest water; the southern is nearly inaccessible to vessels drawing above 10 feet on account of the banks and shallows. This river, by its periodical overflowing, fertilizes the rice-fields. It is not much larger than the Oder; but it has numerous tributaries, and several branches are joined together by canals, both for irrigation and commerce. South-east of the mouth of the Song-ka there are seven streams, all of which flow into the sea. The intervening country consists of swamps and a few rice-fields, and is frequently under water. It is the residence of numerous fishermen, who also hunt the alligator, which is used as food, the flesh being sold in the shambles. The produce of these fisheries is immense; it supplies the poorer classes in the interior who seldom taste any meat, and still leaves a large surplus for exportation to China.

2. Cochin China proper, a small strip of land, extends from the southern frontiers of Tonquin to about 12° S., where it borders on Tsiampa. This country is bounded on the west by naked mountains, which have only a scanty vegetation; and for ten miles inland it is a complete desert. The most important river is that on which the capital is situated; but the Sangre and Songdalang are larger. Having traversed the regions inhabited by the Annam race, the traveller comes to lofty mountains, which present a dreary waste. No European has yet visited them.

3. Chiampa, or Tsiampa, is a narrow strip of land extending to about 11° 35' N. Lat. It is inhabited by a peculiar race, more resembling the Malay than the Annam. It has one great river, the Song-luong. Since the incorporation of this country with Cochin China, the aborigines, at one time bold navigators of the Indian archipelago, have retired to the mountains, a forlorn and persecuted race, and a few thousand Cochin Chinese have taken possession of the coast.

4. The part of Cambodia which belongs to Cochin China presents a continued flat; a rich alluvial soil, full of navigable rivers, one of which the Mekom, or Cambodia, is among the largest rivers in Southern Asia. This river, which flows through a rich and varied valley, takes its rise in Yun-nan, on the frontiers of Sefan, in 27° 20' N. Lat., where at first it has the name of Lan-tsan; but towards the south, and before it enters the Laos country, it is called Kew-lung-keang, or Nine-dragon river. The volume of water which it receives in its course from the stupendous mountains through which it makes its way, renders it a mighty stream. In the Chinese territory it runs a considerable distance through a magnificent valley. In 16° N. Lat. it bends more to the E., and enters Cambodia, after having received a large tributary; it then drains the whole length of that country, and falls by three embouchures into the sea in about 9° 34' N. Lat. In many places the river is very deep; in others there are rocks and cataracts, shifting banks and shallows, all which impede the navigation. Like all great rivers, it has some outlets which are only accessible at high water. The river is navigable in Yun-nan, and there are many flourishing cities upon it. In Laos many thriving villages adorn the banks; and in Cambodia the principal population is near it. We may conceive what a mighty stream that must be which traverses 18 degrees of latitude, and forms at its mouth an alluvial deposit only second to that of the Yang-tsze and Hwangho. North-east of Pe-nompeng (Kalumpe), the present capital of Cambodia, is a large lake, the Bienho, in Cochin Chinese—in Cambodian, Tanle-sap (fresh-water lake); from which a broad stream flows into the Mekom. The Saigon river, which all our maps represent as only being 20 miles long, is nevertheless a very deep river, easy of access for ships of the greatest burthen, being six fathoms over the bar at the principal entrance, and ten deep in mid-channel. It is joined to the Mekom near its mouth by two channels; and probably it is really one of the outlets of that mighty stream. Cambodia is a land of rivers. The natural fertility of the soil is very great; but the inhabitants are still behind in Cochin agriculture. Cambodia is nevertheless the granary of Cochin China, and is rich in all kinds of productions.

The soil in Cochin China, especially in the low lands, is fertile, and its products are very valuable. Of these rice, as being the general food of the people, is the staple commodity; and after supplying the wants of the people, about 100,000 peculs remain annually for exportation. The cultivation of the sugar cane, as well as the preparation of sugar, has of late years much increased; and the annual exportation of sugar is considered to be not less than 70,000 peculs. Cotton of the best quality is produced on the coast; and of this probably about 60,000 peculs are exported. Though raw silk is produced, it is principally for home consumption. Cinnamon ranks high among its productions, and has always been celebrated in China. In the southern parts the cocoanut grows very luxuriantly, and hence there is a large exportation of oil. Pepper of a good quality, but in small quantity and of a high price, is produced in the central provinces of Cochin China; but the quantity is inadequate to the demand which the Chinese trade creates for its exportation. It grows among the central mountains of Cochin China, whence it is exported to Cambodia and Tonquin, but principally to China, where it is much more highly valued than any other quality of this aromatic. Another exclusive product of the central parts of the kingdom, which is extensively cultivated and sent to the neighbouring provinces, is tea, which is very coarse and only used by the poorer classes. The other productions of the country are gamboge, gum, cardamoms, eagle-wood, areca-palm, betel-nut, ivory, stick-lac; hides, consisting of deer-skins, buffalo, elephants, and rhinoceros' hides; peltry, consisting of tiger, leopard, otter, and cat skins; feathers, salt fish, horns and bones, dyewoods, and woods for ship-building and for domestic purposes. Valuable timber is only found in Cambodia, and a small quantity of teak wood is found in the forests; also ebony cedars, mimosas, walnuts, iron-wood, and poon, and most of the other trees found in the woods of India. The wood used for ship-building and for domestic purposes is strong and durable, and is carried to the capital in large quantities. There is a hard black wood extensively used in cabinet-work, and of large dimensions, which takes a fine polish, and might form an article of exportation. Cambodia also produces the Portuguese rosewood, which the Chinese export as they do from Siam; also sandal-wood and other scented woods. Among the products of Tonquin is a species of vegetable root, a cheap material, which forms the dead-weight of all the Chinese cargoes exported from Tonquin, and is used extensively both throughout Cochin China and the adjacent countries, and also in China, as the material of a red dye. Edible bird-nests, the sea-slug usually called biche-de-mer, or Sipunculus edulis, and various marine productions of a gelatinous quality, form standing articles of trade with China, and are always in demand.

The geological formation of Cochin China is primitive; the mountains are chiefly composed of granite and syenite. Mica slate and primary limestone here and there occur; while several hills consist of quartz rock. Among the mountains of Tonquin is the only portion of the Cochin Chinese empire which produces iron, gold, and silver. The iron received from these mines, which is as cheap as that from Siam, supplies the whole kingdom, with the exception of Saigon, which is furnished from the latter country. Gold dust is found in many of the rivers; and there are immense rocks of marble situated on the banks of the river Faifo, on a kind of sandy plain, of which large quantities have been exported. This remarkable range of limestone rocks rises almost perpendicularly from the low sand hills, to a height of from 300 to 400 feet, without a hill or mountain near them.

The foreign trade of the Cochin Chinese is almost exclusively with China; the trade carried on with Siam being in- considerable, and that with European nations still smaller. But there is no indisposition to trade, though among the European nations the notion has been propagated by travellers that the resort of European traders is in a great measure interdicted in this kingdom, on the same principle as in Japan and China. In 1818, a new tariff was imposed on foreign vessels, by which the high duties imposed on all foreign vessels prior to 1818 were repealed, and equal duties substituted in their stead. By this regulation all vessels pay a rated measurement duty, moderate in its amount; and are exempted from all import duties payable previous to 1818. Vessels that are driven into the ports of Cochin China by stress of weather, or that visit them for the purpose of commercial inquiries, are free from all charges. Besides the exports above mentioned are cardamoms, betel-nut, eagle-wood, dye-woods, stick-lac, gamboge, ivory, elephants' hides and bones, and rhinoceros' bones. The imports are silk goods of various kinds, the coarser kinds of teas, coarse chinaware, paper, cotton and woollen stuffs, iron, opium, cutlery, &c. Of the internal trade of the country, though considerable, little is known. The trade with China is chiefly conducted with Cachao in Tonquin, Saigun in Cambodia, and Faifo and Hué in Cochin China. There is also some inconsiderable intercourse with other parts of the empire.

Cochin China, from its central situation, its navigable rivers, and its many excellent harbours, possesses extraordinary advantages for commerce. Few countries are so amply provided with harbours, there being within the 64 degrees of latitude which intervene between Cape St James and the Bay of Turon, no less than nine of the finest harbours in the world, accessible in every wind, quite safe to approach, and affording the most complete protection. The Bay of Turon, situated in Lat. 16.7° N., is equalled by few in the eastern world, and surpassed by none for the security and convenience which it affords.

The principal town is Hué, the capital, situated 70 or 80 miles N.W. of Turon, on a river navigable for vessels of moderate burden. It is fortified; and in the arsenal everything is in a style of neatness, magnitude, and perfection, which denotes a bold and warlike people. The other towns are Cachao in Tonquin; Saigun in Cambodia, a mercantile town of considerable size, on a branch of the Saigun river; and Faifo or Faifo, situated about 15 miles from the entrance of the river, and now in ruins; Turon also, formerly the chief mart of trade between China and Japan, now surrounded with marks of ruin.

Cochin China, until within a few centuries after the Christian era, formed a part of the Chinese empire; and in the general features of the natives, many of their customs, their written language, and their religious opinions and ceremonies, it is easy to trace their Chinese origin. The Cochin Chinese, for example, resemble, according to Barrow, their Chinese progenitors in the ceremonies and processions observed at marriages and funerals, in the greater part of their religious superstitions, in the offerings presented to idols, in the consultation of oracles, and in the universal desire of inquiring into futurity by the casting of lots; in charming away diseases, in their diet and cookery, in their public entertainments, in their instruments of music, in games of chance, in cock-fighting, quail-fighting, and the devices of their fire-works. Their language, however, though originally Chinese, has now deviated so much from its standard as to be wholly unintelligible to a Chinese. But the Cochin Chinese have effectually preserved the written character of the Chinese language; and when the country was visited by Barrow he found no difficulty in communicating with them by means of the Chinese priests who accompanied him.

Cambodia enjoys a delightful temperature, although the weather throughout the rainy season (May to September) is often very sultry: the dry monsoon during the remaining part of the year is clear and the heat very moderate, seldom exceeding 90°, and ordinarily being only about 80°. Cochin China presents the very reverse of the seasons to Tonquin and Cambodia, on account of the ridge of mountains which breaks the clouds. From October up to January the weather is very boisterous, and typhoons are by no means uncommon—when in the former the wet seasons reign, the latter is dry, and vice versa. The thermometer never rises there above 103°, nor sinks below 53°, and the climate throughout is healthy and agreeable. Tonquin in this respect resembles Bengal, but participates likewise in the oppressive heat and very disagreeable cold of China.

In external appearance the Cochin Chinese are the most diminutive of the Mogul race. They are short and squat. They want the broad face of the Malay, the cylindrical cranium and expanded lower jaw remarked in the Siamese, and the oblique eyes of the Chinese. Their heads and countenances are round; and they possess, according to Mr Finlayson, an expression of sprightliness, intelligence, and good humour, not to be found either in the Chinese or Siamese. Morals in Cochin China, as in every part of Asia, are at a very low ebb; and the women especially are in a very degraded state, and are permitted to indulge in every species of licentiousness. Neither parents nor husbands in any rank scruple for a moment to prostitute for gain either their wives or daughters. The females in general have but slender pretensions to beauty; yet this want is compensated by a lively and cheerful temper, totally different from the morose character of the Chinese. They are doomed by the men to labour from morning to night in the most toilsome occupations. All the labours and the various employments connected with agriculture fall to their share; and in some places they superintend all the details of commerce. They even assist in constructing and keeping in repair their mud-built cottages; they manufacture coarse earthenware vessels; navigate boats on rivers and in harbours; bear articles to market; draw the cotton-wool from the pod, spin it and weave it into cloth, dye it, and make it up into dresses for their families. By the system of the government, every male belongs to the king, and must either enlist in the army or work one-third if not one-half of the year for the sovereign without pay; by which the people are taken away from agricultural and mechanical pursuits, and initiated into idle and unprofitable habits. When not so employed they engage occasionally in fishing, in collecting swallows' nests and sea-sling in the neighbouring islands, and in various other occupations. But they have always leisure for their amusements; while the women are condemned to unremitting toil, being considered by the lower classes much in the light of beasts of burden fitted for use, and by the higher classes as the slaves of their pleasures. These latter are arrogant in the extreme, and offensively coarse in their manners; while their inferiors are described as mild and inoffensive, lively and good humoured, affable and polite to strangers, but, under this exterior, as cunning, deceitful, impudent, conceited, and tyrannical, where they can be so with impunity. These vices are traced to the nature of the government, which is completely despotic, the sovereign being the supreme disposer both of the lives and properties of his subjects. "The bamboo," says a traveller, "which is perpetually at work, is the universal reformer of manners throughout Cochin China;" and the moral character of the people corresponds entirely to this illiberal and despotic system under which it has been formed. It is owing to the same cause, namely the insecurity of property, which prevails all over Asia, that the arts and manufactures make no progressive improvement, and that agriculture also is in such a backward state. The country exhibits nowhere the marks of industrious cultivation; and the inhabitants are generally poor, and living in miserable cottages, with little furniture. The only branch of the arts in which they particularly excel is naval architecture; for which, however, they are not a little indebted to the size and quality of the timber employed for that purpose. Their row-galleys for pleasure are remarkably fine vessels, being from fifty to eighty feet in length, and composed of fine single planks, each extending from one extremity to the other. They employ various descriptions of vessels in the coasting trade, in fishing, and in collecting the biche-de-mer or sea-slug, and the swallows' nests among the cluster of islands called the Paroecles. Many of them are covered with sheds of matting, under which a whole family constantly reside; and others resemble the common proues of the Malays, both in their hulls and rigging. Their foreign traders are built on the plan of the Chinese junks.

The religion of the Cochin Chinese is a modification of the widely extended system of Buddha, to whom they offer the firstlings of their flocks and the first fruits of their fields. They have temples filled with the idolatrous images of this deity, and the natives are extremely superstitious. Besides voluntary offerings, which are made by individuals, a yearly contribution is levied by the government, in order to support a certain number of monasteries, in which the priests invoke the deity for the public welfare.

The ancient history of Cochin China, like that of most of the other eastern countries, is very little known; and it is only from the year 1774 that there are any authentic accounts. The reigning family was at that time expelled from Quinong, the capital, by three brothers, who divided the country among them. At the time the revolt took place, the young prince Caung Shung, with the queen and his family, escaped by the assistance of a French missionary named Adran, into a forest; whence the king was compelled to fly, first to Putoiwa, a desert island in the Gulf of Siam, and afterwards to Siam, which he was obliged to quit. The son was carried by Adran to France, where he endeavoured to procure assistance; but the revolution breaking out, all these schemes were frustrated. Caung Shung, after remaining in the woods, sustaining many hardships, landed in his own country in 1790, and succeeded in expelling the successors of the usurpers; and in 1802 he effected the conquest of Tonquin, and established an extensive empire on a solid basis, which has flourished ever since that time. He was greatly aided by the missionary Adran, who had acquired the most perfect mastery over the language, and compiled a code of laws and a book of instructions for the government of the country. The king, after his death, evinced his gratitude for his services by erecting a monument to his memory, with an inscription in gold characters—an honour confined to the royal family.

Several attempts have been made to open an amicable intercourse with the Cochin Chinese; one in 1778 by Mr Hastings, and one in 1804 by an envoy from Canton; but both proved unsuccessful, through the intrigues of Frenchmen, by whom the sovereign Caung Shung was completely surrounded. In 1822 Mr Crawford was sent by the East India Company as an envoy to Siam and Cochin China. He was not well received at the Cochin Chinese court, and does not appear to have obtained any peculiar advantages for commerce. It is to him that we are indebted for the best description of the country.