Ο

THE EMPEROR OF ANNAM

AND HIS CAPITAL.

NE fine autumn day, when I was travelling from Hong Kong to Hoihow, I got into conversation with a French gentleman named Deloncle, who was on his way from France to Tonquin. I do not think he was the well-known authority upon colonial questions who bears that name, but he held an official post which the famous interpellateur had, I believe, once also held, that of chef de cabinet at Hué. At any rate, he was a very amiable man, and he invited me to visit him at Hué; he said the best time to see that place was at the tet, or New Year's rejoicings, when I could assist at the Court functions. Tet is a Chinese word, adopted into Annamese ; it is the chich of Peking, the setsu of Japan, and the chel of Corea, and a very good etymological specimen of how words are borrowed from China, just as the different European nations borrow and mutilate, to suit their own idiom, Latin or Greek words. There are twenty-four fortnightly tet in the year, but the tet par excellence is that of the New Year.

I did not think more about M. Deloncle's invitation until the Chinese New Year was approaching, when it so happened that two British skippers got into a mess at Tourane and Haiphong, and I thought it a desirable thing to personally inquire into their respective difficulties. I therefore wrote to M. Deloncle, who meanwhile, with that rapidity which characterises French official movements, had once more been ordered home; but a colleague of his, the ViceResident at Kwang-nam, an old acquaintance of mine, was good enough to assure me of universal hospitality. As our vessel was starting from the bay a telegram was thrown on board by a steamer arriving from Hong Kong announcing the death of the Duke of Clarence, and I had just time to give orders for the flag to be halfmasted at the consulate.

I found Haiphong very much altered since my first visit in 1888. A malarious mud flat with a few dreary rain-sodden bungalows had become transformed into a neatly laid out town with boulevards, a

good hotel (for those parts), club, "docks" (the French for bonded warehouses), and of course innumerable barbers and cafés. Mr. Jack, a Scotch engineer, was even building a good-sized steamer. But for the present I will allow the description of Tonquin to stand over, and will at once transfer myself by the fortnightly French mail steamer to Tourane. Tourane had also improved since my first visit; but it was still far from fin-de-siècle in appearance. One of my fellow-passengers was a Saïgon editor named Ternisien, and as I met him strolling pensively along the "bund," he said: "Honteux! honteux !" (pointing to a number of groggy wooden lamp-posts about six feet high, "glazed" with paper). "Méthode d'éclairage dans la capitale d'Annam!" The sandy unpaved "bund," wretched hotel, and general shiftless aspect of everything certainly justified M. Ternisien's remarks if he had any just reason to expect a second Saïgon; but he was essentially a man of civilisation, and had neither seen Tourane as it originally was, nor done any roughing it in the East.

The French have, as a matter of fact, already done a great deal for Tourane. A handsome new residency had been built, there was the nucleus of a public garden in which M. Lemire, the Resident, had placed a number of Brahministic antiquities; the Frenchmen were all very hospitable, and ate well: the European troops had excellent new roomy barracks; and altogether things were not half so bad as the editorial "spleen" seemed to think.

My application for permission to visit the imperial capital of Hué was apparently rather a shock to the residential powers. The local Resident had first to consult the Resident-Superior at Hué, and the Resident-Superior had to obtain the permission of the GovernorGeneral at Hanoi ; it seemed to me strange that so much trouble should be taken concerning the movements of so insignificant a personage as myself; however, no Englishman had, at least within the memory of local men, ever been to Hué before, certainly no British official, least of all one of those much-suspected and dangerous individuals, a British Consul, openly bent on seeing the Emperor himself. But the French colonial authorities are everywhere as reasonable as they are hospitable, as I had already found in New Caledonia and elsewhere, so long as it is frankly explained to them what business a stranger is about; and after a couple of days' telegraphing (for all I know with the consent of the President himself, whose son, M. Carnot, happened to be in the Resident's drawingroom when I was there) I received permission to start in the following words: "Monsieur Parker est libre de visiter Hué quand cela lui

plaira." The preparations for our departure-a Swiss banker's son was my travelling companion-were superintended by the late Baron de Montaignac, the obliging commissioner of customs, who moreover rescued me from the miseries of the local hotel, and kindly offered me quarters in his own hospitable home. At ordinary times it is possible to get to Hué by water with comparative rapidity by way of Thuân-an, but this method of conveyance is severely dependent upon the state of the bar, the chances of crossing which safely are telegraphed to Tourane every day; but the wretched steam-launches which carry out this service are, like nearly all steamers in these French colonies with the exception of the ocean-going boats, managed by and overcrowded with Chinese; moreover they always run at night, so that you see nothing. Though the bar was declared maniable that day, an inspection of the steam launch at once caused me to decide for the land route, and accordingly, Annamese passports were obtained for us, enabling us to secure corvées, or posting coolies, at each station. As in China, dislocation and disorganisation are the rule in Annam at the New Year, and it was only after the local magistrate had been sent for and severely rated by the ViceResident of Kwang-nam that a very inferior lot of bearers for the first stage were hastily procured at exorbitant rates. Persons who may in the future desire to travel overland in Annam are strongly recommended to try the native hammock, in preference to the European arm-chairs slung on poles, as used by us. The hammock looks like a coffin: the passenger lies flat on his back upon a sort of canvas or net-work bed, suspended from a pole, and carried on the shoulders of two men. Of course this hammock can be made as comfortable as is desired with pillows and rugs; but even in winter it is so warm at Tourane that a bamboo rest for the head is all that a reasonable individual need require. Attached to the pole is a roof of glazed wood, like the top of a Noah's Ark, distant only about a foot from the traveller's face. This protects him completely from the sun, whilst there is ample light and air admitted below the "eaves"; apart from which the rapid movement of the coolies itself produces an agreeable current. I tried one of these later on with

success.

Tourane is an outlying place, and not on the high road between Hué and Kwang-nam, which is at all times supplied with tram bearers. Tram is the romanised Annamese pronunciation according to Portuguese ears of the Chinese word chan or tsan, "postingstation"; but it is only a makeshift, and really sounds like the word charm in English. As soon as ever you get on to the royal road,

VOL. CCLXXXII.

NO. 1994.

K

there are stations every ten miles, much better served than the corresponding stations in China. Our first station was Nam-ou, or "South Docks," and the seven-mile journey thither from Tourane along the sea-shore was both fatiguing and uninteresting. At Nam-ou, which looked like an oasis in the desert, things assumed a more cheerful aspect. The tram house was cool and clean, in appearance not unlike a Japanese country inn. Being able through long practice to write Chinese with some facility, I had no difficulty in making my wants understood, although I could not speak a single word of Annamese. Like the Coreans and Japanese, the Annamese use the Chinese character collaterally with their own vulgar script, which, in all three cases, is based upon corrupted Chinese; just as the Egyptian demotic and the cuneiform are based upon the corrupt hieroglyphs of Egypt and Accad. So also with the three vernaculars, which, just as Russian and English have enriched themselves with borrowed Greek and Latin words, have eked out their own slender resources with abstract Chinese ideas. During the ten minutes we spent in smoking a cigarette and drinking a bottle of beer, the tram superintendent had had an altercation on our behalf with the out-going and in-coming beareis; had got the latter "harnessed," ready to start; and had prepared for me a written statement of expenditure. Prices are so absurdly low in Annam that unlimited extortion only means an extra sixpence or shilling, so that I always discouraged the banking instincts of my Swiss friend when he attempted to waste time in arguing and bargaining. We had to get out of our chairs again in a few minutes, and embark in a couple of very leaky wicker-boats; this operation was repeated before we reached the village of Ku-de, or "All Low." The eight miles from Tourane northwards to Ku-de skirted the circumference of a semicircular bay. A bold headland juts out eastwards from this point, and the gradual ascent begins at the village of Lyn-tiu, of "Lily Pond." The walk in the evening shade to the pass of Nam-hwa, or "Southern Harmony," was very refreshing after sweltering for hours in the sun in a cramped position. As we went up we obtained splendid views of the bay and harbour of Tourane, Monkey Island on the south side, the river, the Marble Caves to the west on the way to Kwang-nam, and the ocean to the east. We only passed one wretched hamlet between Lyn-tiu and Nam-hwa; it was called Hwa-viang, or "Harmonious Clouds," and consisted chiefly of a little tca shop. The Annamese tea is more like the Burmese than the Chinese, but unlike the former it is not damped and sold in a mass similar to date-cake; it is pounded dry with a pestle as required, and

drunk in huge bowls like a "black draught." I found it refreshing, but it is not exactly a drink that is likely to displace Bass's beer in the hearts of Britons.

The accommodation in the Annamese inn was of the most wretched description. We had to sleep on a sort of wattle frame, covered with a ragged old mat in lieu of mattress, and we had no coverlets beyond our own clothes. The room was filled with a dense smoke, caused by the fresh branches of trees used as fuel. This disagreeable arrangement had at least the advantage of driving some of the mosquitoes away, while the draughtiness of the illbuilt house saved us from actual suffocation. As a rule, rice, pork, fish, and nuoc-nam (a sort of soy, like the Burmese nga-pi, made out of decayed fish) can be obtained in Annamese inns, but here nothing whatever was obtainable beyond coarse unleavened cakes of inferior flour. After a restless and miserable night, we were partly rewarded for our sufferings by getting an exceptionally fine morning view of the surrounding country. We descended the cañon by a very wet and rough mountain-path to Thua-phuc, or "Enjoyment of Bliss," whence the road winds over a number of minor passes along the sea-coast to the mouth of an enormous lagoon. Here we took a very shaky and overcrowded ferryboat to K'e-ngang, or "Brook Heights," and after crossing one more picturesque mountain pass struck the royal highway to Hué. This road is lined with tall trees on both sides, and runs for many miles in a perfectly straight line across a dead level, past Thua-liu and Nuoc-ngok to Kau-hai. It was laid out nearly a century ago by the Emperor Gia-long, when he had completed the conquest of the modern empire of Annam, or Vietnam, which embraces the ancient Ciampa, Cochin-China, part of Cambodia, and Tonquin. The Thuân-an gap and bar are at the northern end of the great lagoon. We had the choice of continuing along the highway from Kau-hai to Hué, by way of Thua-noung, or of taking a passenger boat along the lagoon to the mouth of an arroyo, or half river, half canal, which connects it with the capital. As the shades of evening were falling, and the boats looked very comfortable, we elected for the water route, and emerged early the next morning at the old Christian village of Phu-cam, a couple of miles from Hué.

The word Hué is the corrupted Annamese form of the Chinese word Hoa, "Civilisation," the official name of the metropolis being Shun-hwa Fu, or, in local idiom, Phu Thuân-hoa. It lies on the left bank of the Thua-t'ien River, and, viewed from the French Residency on the right bank, presents an appearance not unlike Mandalay, the