sort of terra incognita, reported to be thickly settled except along the regions contiguous to the Tonquin Mountains, where the villages are exposed to sudden raids from the wild tribes known as "inhabitants of the heights," who sometimes strike hands with the Chinese refugees in making a foray over the border, carrying off the peasants as slaves and driving away cattle, with whatever in the shape of plunder can be moved. The caravans of pack-traders from Ssumao on the Yunnan frontier bring back large loads of the celebrated so-called Puekr tea and cotton; whence it is inferred this plain must be fertile and extensively cultivated.
Tal[=a] Sap (Sweet-water Lake), the great lake of Cambodia, forms a sort of back-water to the river Mekong, with which its lower end connects by the Udong. It belongs partly to Siam and partly to Cambodia. It is one of those sheets of water called in Bengal jhéts—viz. a shallow depression in an alluvial plain, retaining part of the annual overflow throughout the entire year, hence subject to great variations of extent and depth. In the dry season the average depth is four feet, and the highest floods entirely submerge even the forests on its banks. It takes about five days to traverse the lake when full.
Extensive fishing-villages, erected on piles, stud the lake, reminding Mr. Thomson of "the pre-historic lake-dwellings of Switzerland." The
