Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/252

 of last century, are all the principal villages in the valley above the Khon rapids.

Using Kamarat as his base, de Lagrée undertook a short journey of exploration into the valley of the Se Bang-Ilien, a left bank tributary of the Mekong which falls into the latter river opposite to Kamarat. He was absent eight days, and during that period travelled on elephants to Lahanam, where he found the Se Bang-Hien measuring 900 yards across. Thence he proceeded up the valley to Muong San Kon, below the mouth of the Som Phon, and so across marshy country, to Phong; then east and north to Ban Najo and Lomnu; and so south to Kamarat via Ban Tang Sum and Laha Kok. From Ban Najo the country traversed was populous, and the short trip served to fill in a small blank upon the map. Its interest, however, was mainly ethnological, de Lagrée making the acquaintance of three remarkable tribes, the Sue, the Phu Tai and the Khas Denong. These "sav- ages," and especially the Sue, are comparatively civilised, and the last named, it is worthy of note, practise a form of ancestor worship, while their dialect is apparently a variant of Kambodian.

During this journey de Lagrée also succeeded in estab- lishing the fact that up to 1831 Annam had exercised con- trol over the whole of the country situated on the left bank of the Mekong between the sixteenth and seventeenth parallels of latitude; this region had paid tribute regularly to the Court of Hue. The information was of political im- portance in view of the position which France has since acquired in the Kingdom of Annam. De Lagrée ascer-