Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/90

* CAMBODIA. 68 CAMBODIA. latterly a Frenc^h possession, constituting one of the divisions of the general government of Indo- China (Map: Siam, K 8). Two of its provinces, however, have become annexed t« Siam, its neighbor on the nortliwest. Cambodia is bounded by Annam on the east and by Cochin-China and the Gulf of Siam on the south. The parallel of 12° N. crosses it about tlic middle. Its area is about 37,.50O square miles, divided among 57 na- tive provinces. The country has scarcely been explored, and there is comparatively little known about it. It is generally level. The western, northwestern, and eastern portions, however, are more or less broken with wooded liills and I)lateaus, reaching a height of al)out 4000 feet in I)arts. The great waterway is the navigable Mekong River, which annually overflows and riclily fertilizes a wide territory. An arm con- nects the Jlekong with an extensive lake on the borders of Siam, called Tonle Sap, which, accord- ing to the alternations of low and high water, at one time discharges its surplus waters into that river and at another is rei^lenished by the waters sent forth by the Mekong. Despite the fact that Cambodia is in the tor- rid zone and on the whole a low-lying region, its climate is not as intolerably hot as might be ex- pected, the heavy rains moderating the tempera- ture. The main climatic features are determined by the monsoons. There are two seasons, the wet and the dry. The flora and fauna are character- istic of the' Indo-Chinese region. Tigers, leopards, and elei>hants are found in many sections. Gold, silver-bearing lead, copper, iron, and lime exist, but only the last two are ])rofltably available. The fisheries form a notable industry, both along the islands of the coast and on the Tonle Sap (q.v.). Agriculture is the leading occupation. The well-populated river plains and islands pro- duce rice, the main food of the country. Cot- ton, tobacco, pepper, cardamom, beans, sugar- cane, maize, indigo, the nnilberry, coffee, cacao, and vanilla are grown. Cattle-raising is quite general. Some eighty kinds of valuable wood are found, such as ebony, rose, sapan, and pine. The gathering of these woods, together with palm-sugar, wa.x, and gum, forms a noteworthy branch of industry. Silk-weaving is a large do- mestic occupation. There are considerable fac- tories for shelling cottonseeds near the capital, Pnom-Penh 'q.v.), a city of about ."jO-OOO people, situated in the heart of the country. Cambodia has no seaport of commercial importance, Kam- pot having merely a local or inland trade. Gen- erally speaking, however, easy cominunication is had, both by land and by water, with tlu' in- terior. Telegraph lines connect the principal towns with each other, aiid with Burma. Hut there are no railways, no modernized facilities for transporting articles of commerce. The ex- port and import trade is through Saigon, the capital of Cochin-China. The exports include chiefly rice, and salted fish (about Ki.OOO tons annually). Cotton, tobacco, gum, and wood are exported. The imports embrace silk stnfl's. salt, wine, opiu7n, textiles, and arms. The total an- nual value of the commerce, including both im- ports and ex])orts, as given by French authori- ties, is about .$,'5,000,000. Cambodia has been under the protection of France since 18(53. The government is a mon- archy. The King has five ministers. In 1884, under the new treaty signed with King Norodom, the administration was practically handed over to France, the native fimctionaries being ap- pointed by •the King with the api)roval of the local French oflicials, who are under the direc- tion of the Governor-General of French Indo- China, who is represented by a resident. The budget of Cambodia for lilOl "was fixed at 1.951,- 487 piastres. The inhabitants are estimated at 1.500.000. nearly four-fifths of whom live in the river regions. Outside of recent Annamite and Chinese im- migrants and a considerable body of Malays, the l)opulation of Cambodia consists mainly of the Cambodians proper, or KhnuMs, formerly wide- spread over nuicli of Indo-China, to whose half civilization belong the wonderful architectural remains of Angkor (now in Siamese territory), etc. ; the Penong, or 'savages,' of the eastern table-lands and mountains, belonging, with the Mois of the adjacent regions, to a primitive ele- ment of the population ; the Khois, or Kuis, an- other aboriginal group in the nortliwest ; and lastly, the Tsiam, or Chiam, in the south, who seem to be the survivors of the extinct eni|)ire of Champa, once dominant over all eastern Indo- China. All these peojdes are now considerably mixed, the Khmers most, the mountain aborigines least, with Aryan (Hindu), Dravidian, Malay, and Tibeto-Chinese blood and with the Hindu influence (the alphabet of the Cambodians and the sacerdotal vocabulary are of Pali origin) predominating in religion, art, and literature among the more civilized sections. The Penong are rather short, dolichocephalic, much lighter- skinned than the surrounding peoples: the Khois, darker-skinned, taller, and inclined to be short- headed; the Tsiam, dark-skinned and rather handsome in form and features, with some negroid suggestion in hair, etc. The Khmers are taller and less Mongoloid in appearance than the Annamese, Siamese, and closely related peo- ples. In speech the Penong and Khois probably represent a primitive variety of Indo-Chinese stock. The Khmer language differs in certain marked respects from the latter, and. like that of Tsiam, is said to have -Malayan allinities, but this is not clearly made out, and the s|ieech of the Khmers is largely siii (jeneris. Buddhism is the prevailing religion. Some of the Tsiam profess Islam. Christianity and education have scarcely made a beginning. The Khmers are ]ieaceful and teachable, but phlegmatic. Polyg- amy is practiced, but not more tluui three wives are permitted. The dwellings are mostly along the river-banks. Slavery has almost disajipearcd, having been abolished by the French in 1S84. That Cambodia was once an extensive and jKiwerful State and imdcr a much higher grade of civilization than at present is shown by the superb architectural remains, the ruins of. gkor being especially noticeable. The early history of Cambodia, like that of Siam and Annam, with whose fortunes its own were often closely eon- iiected. is extremely obscure; but legend would seem to point to India as the source of the ear- liest migrations into the country. From Chi- nese notices it is known that a kingdom of Cam- bodia was already in existence not very long after the beginning of the Christian Kra, and that, after a short period of submission to China, in the Sixth or Seventh Centurj', it attained to a high degree of .splendor. With the beginning