Page:Journal Of The Indian Archipelago And Eastern Asia Series.i, Vol.4 (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.107697).pdf/256

 protect them in case of attack. And they perhaps had some reason to fear; for the Anamite people, already so poor, could not view with a favorable eye those who now despoiled them of the little they had.

There has occurred this year another event in this country which has caused universal consternation; namely, the invasion of the cholera morbus. This cruel malaly has traversed all the provinces of the kingdom, and death which accompanies it has struck down numerous victims. In the month of September the plague com- menced its ravages in the royal province and it advanced rapidly towards the north. It was most terrible in the month of October ; since that time the malady has lost its intensity, but on certain days it breaks out again with a new vigour, and I cannot say when it is likely to cease. There are those who assert that the royal province alone has lost a hundred thousand inhabitants, but this number is evidently exaggerated and must be reduced to twenty thousand. Each of the other provinces has also lost perhaps ten or fifteen thousand inhabitants. All are agreed in saying that the Christians have been visibly protected. The number of deaths amongst them is, in proportion, infinitely smaller than amongst the pagans. During the epidemic every one could see, by evidence, the difference which there was between the idolaters and the Christians. For whilst the first, in spite of the respect which they outwardly profess for the dead, a respect which ap- proaches to idolatry, and has the force of religion with the greater number, abandoned the dead and the dying; the Christians, on the contrary, trusting in God, practised all the works which Christian charity prescribes. Some very horrible things have happened amongst the pagans; corpses were thrown into the rivers, and obstructed the windings; men attacked by sickness, bat still full of life, were very quickly cast out of the houses, and interred or thrown into the rivers; many are pointed out who had strength to save themselves and are still alive; infants some months old only were left near the corpse of their mothers, who had some- times been covered with a little earth, and have there perished after crying for a few hours. The Christians were able to save some of these poor creatures. It is thus that God visibly punishes this people who have contended against him in persecuting his Holy Religion, and in putting to death its ministers and faithful servants; and punishes in particular, perhaps, the edict which ap- peared last year, in which it was said that Christians took no care of their dead, and which condemned the European priests to be cast into the sea.

Disease has not been the only scourge which has afflicted this kingdom during the present year." Famine has also prevailed there. The heat and the drought have been dreadful. There was no rain for nearly six months, and the atmosphere was constantly heated from 36 to 40 degrees centigrade (96º to 104º fahr.) in the