the advice of the astrologers of the court. The telegraph wire runs
near it, and so the old and the new age meet.

On my weary way I was overtaken by a young French artillery officer,
who walked with me until we came upon an empty gharrie, and was
eloquent upon the miseries of Saigon. It is a very important military
station, and a sort of depot for the convicts who are sent to the
(comparatively) adjacent settlement of New Caledonia. A large force of
infantry and artillery is always in barracks here, but it is a most
sickly station. At times 40 per cent. of this force is in hospital from
climatic diseases, and the number of men invalided home by every mail
steamer, and the frequent changes necessary, make Saigon a very costly
post. The French don't appear to be successful colonists. This Cochin
Chinese colony of theirs, which consists of the six ancient southern
provinces of the empire of Anam, was ceded to France in 1874, but its
European population is still under twelve thousand, exclusive of the
garrison and the Government officials. The Government consists of a
governor, aided by a privy council. The population of the colony is
under a million and a half, including eighty-two thousand Cambodians
and forty thousand Chinese. According to my various informants--this
young French officer, a French nun, and a trader of dubious
nationality, in whose shop I rested--France is doing its best to
promote the prosperity and secure the good-will of the natives. The
land-tax, which was very oppressive under the native princes, has been
lowered, municipal government has been secured to the native towns, and
corporate and personal rights have been respected. These persons
believe that the colony, far from being a source of profit to France,
is kept up at a heavy annual loss, and they regard the Chinese as the
only element in the population worth having. They think the Anamese
very superior to the Cambodians, from whom indeed they conquered these