Chapter I: Prologue

Those of us who had the good fortune to take part in that great adventure known as the World War can scarcely have failed to notice, among the many kinds of French colonial troops, some little men in khaki and brass-topped mushroom hats, most of them with black teeth. It was not until five years after the Comedy of Versailles that my perpetual wandering over the face of the globe brought me to the land from which they came—Annam, “Kingdom of the Eminent South.” There was not only the motive of satisfying, by seeing them at home, the curiosity raised by these little brown men in the French army; as far back as I can remember I had felt inquisitive toward that strangely shaped spot on the map, that slender country which drips like a stalactite of candle-grease down from the southeast corner of China.

Besides, during all my two years of roving about the once Celestial Empire I heard frequently of the wonders of the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia. So one day in early January, a propitious season, I dropped down to Saïgon, visited those astounding remnants of the past, and returned overland all the way to Canton. Later, toward the end of April, I brought my family to Hanoï for a month of Parisian change on the way to Yünnanfu, and took advantage of the opportunity to journey through Laos, largest, most interesting, and least known of the five divisions of France’s Indo-Chinese empire. So in the end I traveled not merely the length and breadth of Annam but saw all five parts of that dumb-bell-shaped land east of Siam which the French consider their most important colony in the Far East.

So unusual was my luck during those travels that only my overwhelming modesty has kept me from entitling this unpretentious tale of them “Hobnobbing with Kings”; and so very interesting a trip was it to me personally that in the face of my hard-earned knowledge that our ever more herd-minded general public is as fearful of the unknown and the unfamiliar as the most superstitious of wild tribes, and would much rather read of the deeply tourist-trodden streets of Rome and Paris, I have insisted on performing this unassuming task.

Those two well separated months were more than a mere vacation from Chinese travel. To jaunt through French Indo-China is to see a sample of what China itself would probably be under European control, white-man rule—were any nation powerful enough to accomplish that many times larger task—as Formosa suggests what it might be under the Japanese. I hope I have at least made it clear that Indo-China is not in any sense China, but the living line of division between two ancient and very different masses of Oriental civilization, even as its name signifies.

HARRY A. FRANCK.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I EQUATORWARD 3
II ON INTO CAMBODIA 28
III THE JUNGLE-GUARDED RUINS OF ANGKOR 46
IV THE CAMBODIANS AT HOME 74
V NORTHWARD FROM SAÏGON 86
VI THROUGH ANNAM TO ITS CAPITAL 103
VII MAROONED IN HUÉ 124
VIII AN IMPERIAL HAPPY NEW YEAR 147
IX THE PEOPLE OF THE EMINENT SOUTH 166
X HURRYING ON TO THE NORTHERN CAPITAL 185
XI HANOÏ AND THE TONKIN 201
XII THE FRENCH IN INDO-CHINA 219
XIII OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO LAOS 244
XIV EN PANNE! 260
XV DOWN-STREAM TO LUANG PRABANG 278
XVI KNIGHTED IN THE KINGDOM OF THE DIVINE BUDDHA 296
XVII SPEEDING SOUTHWARD 323
XVIII VIENTIANE AND BACK TO HANOÏ 347

ILLUSTRATIONS

There was a young lady of Laos _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Cholon architecture is neither exactly French nor
Chinese 18
A funeral procession in Cholon, Chinese suburb of Saïgon 18
A decreasing form of conveyance in Cochinchina 19
Unlike China proper, great sections of Indo-China are
covered with magnificent virgin jungle-forests 19
One may still crawl about Angkor by elephant, though
Fords are much more à la mode 82
Buddhist priests took their saffron-clad ease in the
shade along the great moat of Angkor-Vat, beyond the
tourist bungalows in the background 82
A rural Cambodian family at home 83
Motor-buses link together the railways of Indo-China,
crossing broad sandy river-banks on strips of woven
bamboo splints 98
In Annam prisoners working in the streets wear a light
remnant of the old neck-torturing Chinese _canque_ 98
In the “Marble Mountains” are many grottoes, some of
them elaborately fitted up as temples 99
An Annamese summoning a ferry from across one of the
many rivers which still offer no bridges to
automobiles 99
An Annamese girl, chaperoned by her small brother, sells
her wares in the market-place of Hué 114
When it rains in Annam, as it does on every provocation,
a simple straw raincoat covers either sex among the
masses 114
Like the southern Chinese the Annamese are expert
boatmen because they learn their calling long before
they reach the dignity of clothing 115
Swinging in the village squares is a favorite diversion
of the Annamese populace during the lunar New Year’s
season 115
Overlooking, from his flagpole, the palaces of the
emperor of Annam 130
China itself cannot outdo the old bronze urns before the
main palace of the Annamese emperor 130
The throne-room of the emperor of Annam, on the
afternoon before the New Year’s ceremony 131
The waterfront of Hué, capital of Annam, offers a
contrast between its native craft and the French
bridge 146
Once a visitor surreptitiously snapped this glimpse of
the mandarins of Annam kowtowing before their emperor
on New Year’s Day 146
The scores of homes of mandarins within the “citadel” of
Hué were all richly decorated for the lunar New Year 147
Inside the “citadel” and near the sumptuous palaces of
the emperor of Annam are the perhaps more comfortable
homes of his humble subjects 147
An Annamese mandarin all dressed up for his New Year’s
honors to his emperor; his servant behind 162
Servants of the mandarins carry home after the ceremony
the ancient Ming accoutrements of their masters 162
Emperor Khai-dinh of Annam on his French-supported
throne 163
Some of the most effective of Annamese tombs are covered
with pictures and designs made of broken porcelain
dishes set in cement 163
With each new year the Annamese clear of vegetation the
graves of their ancestors, back to remote generations 194
I asked a living caretaker to fill the place of one of
these of stone which guard the entrance to a royal
tomb of Annam 194
In the heart of Hanoï, northern capital of French
Indo-China, stands a delightfully picturesque lake of
goodly dimensions 195
Annamese girls hold Sunday morning flower-market at this
corner of the city-girdled lake of Hanoï 195
The ladies of Annam lose any claim they have to beauty
when they open their mouths on black-enameled teeth 210
Thi-ba, who did her best as guardian of our children,
was equally set against bobbed hair and skirts 210
For days one may steam in and out among the fantastic
rock islands of the Bay of Along 211
Tropical vegetation sometimes commandeers sustenance on
the rock peaks 211
The women of Tonkin combine hat, sunshade, and umbrella
in one unwieldy contraption 258
The Muong women wear little above the waist, except the
loads they carry 258
The guard turned out to greet my companion, the
_résident_ of Vinh, at the first village on the way to
Laos 259
The Muong chief of our noonday village came in state,
bringing eggs and native fire-water 259
The chief sport of the mountain-dwelling Miao of Laos is
the making of assorted neck-rings of silver dollars
that might better be spent for shirting 274
The Miao woman of Laos take no back seat for their men 275
A Kha woman of the semi-wild tribe that is said to be
the aboriginal race of mountainous Laos 275
Wind-sieved rice is the principal food of the rural
inhabitants of Luang Prabang 306
With a silk scarf worn loosely over a shoulder the women
of Luang Prabang capital are more coquettish than
their waistless sisters of the country districts 306
The palace of the king of Luang Prabang sits placidly on
the bank of the upper Mekong 307
The king turned out his chief dancing-girls and masked
male entertainers for my approval 307
Knighted in the Kingdom of the Divine Buddha 322
Two royal elephants saw me off from the palace, the
youngster showing a desire to make me depart on the
run 323
A Miao woman on her travels carries bed and food 323
A Kha home in the mountains of Luang Prabang 338
Grandfather and grandmother of the primitive Khas tend
the children while the intermediate generation seeks
the family livelihood in the hills 338
Wherever his habitat, the water-buffalo is happiest when
immersed to the nostrils in a mud-hole 339
One group of the many Laosian carriers who bore my few
belongings across Luang Prabang 339
This ancient monument in Vientiane, French capital of
Laos, is the most curious remnant of its regal days 354
A door of a ruined palace or temple of Vientiane 354
Within the ruined temple the Buddhas sit, in the
infinitely patient attitude of the East, crumbling
away under the rains and disappearing beneath the
encroaching jungle 355
Though the French have brought automobiles to Vientiane,
this ancient form of conveyance still predominates 355

EAST OF SIAM