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barracks, there are but few houses, and in the centre is a very peculiar tower on a raised base some 20 feet high, and on the top of the tower the national flag is hoisted.
The town of Hanoi is situated between the citadel and the river, and extending beyond the former in a westerly direction. The streets are wide and the houses good, and well built of brick in some of the principal streets, but there are numerous ones where the shops are merely mat erections in the usual Tonkinese style; with one exception—the main street from the river where the Chinese live—the streets are unpaved, and in wet weather almost impassable from the depth of the mud; but as shoes are an exception with the Annamites, this drawback to European comfort does not affect them. The sedan-chair of China, so convenient for locomotion, is unknown, the high authorities and those who can afford it being carried in a hammock of silk or hemp network suspended on a pole supported on the shoulders of two or four bearers, and enclosed in silk or cotton curtains. There is a great deal of stir and movement in the streets; the shops are well stocked with articles of native workmanship, especially bamboo work in all its varieties, silk and cotton piece goods, paper, pewter, and glass ware, boxes, drums of all sizes richly painted, lacquered and gilt, and coarse crockery and china ware. Fowls, ducks, geese, oxen, and pigs, are both plentiful and cheap, with abundance of fruit, bananas and vegetables, and fish. Rice is the staple food of the people, who look well-fed and healthy, and have a fair amount of muscular development. The women, however, appear to be the dominant class, for they work like the men as coolies and labourers, and preside in the shops. They are generally good-looking, carry themselves gracefully, and but for the practice of blacking their teeth, many might be called handsome.
The Tonquinese are evidently of the type of race which may be called "transitional," beginning in India, of which Burmah and Siam are offshoots; changing in the Malay peninsula and Annam, and again in the southern borders of China, and so with China proper, where it ends in the Mongol feature. The gradations are strongly marked and can be easily traced.
In manner the Tonquinese and Annamites are quiet and, owing probably to the arbitrary Government they are under, subdued and indolent. The population of Hanoi, the capital, is estimated at from 150,000 to 200,000 Tonquinese, and about 3,000 Chinese. The French speak of the rule of the Annamite Government as oppressive and arbitrary in the extreme, and that the Tonquinese would gladly throw it off if possible. It may be and probably is so, being the case generally with all independent Asiatic Governments, but as a strong feeling against the Government exists among the French officials in Tonquin, such an assertion must be accepted with reserve. Undoubtedly a feeling of great disappointment exists at the sudden and complete reversal of the policy of Lieutenant Français Garnier, which I will refer to more fully hereafter, and the surrender to the Annamite Government of what may be termed his territorial conquests in Tonquin. Indeed, the present obstructive attitude of the Court of Hué is attributed to this cause, but not justly so,
it is not to be expected that an independent but weak Government can look with equanimity upon the capture of their territory by a surprise, or accept the dictum of the captors that it is for their good and that of their people to preserve an armed neutrality and open the country to foreign trade under French supervision. However this may be viewed from a Western stand-point, certainly it finds no favour in the East, where the acts of the so-called civilized Powers are stripped of their garnish and reduced to the simple proportions of right or wrong, and if the latter, never forgotten or forgiven. Time and the passing away of generations may somewhat render the past into oblivion, but until that, to think what is gained by the sword can be held by the hand, is a mistake which the French are now seeing, and are chafing under the discovery.
I have, I fear, dwelt too long on this subject, but it is one which so nearly affects the position of the French in Tonquin, that I may be pardoned in having been a little diffuse; but I will now proceed to give a brief resume of the political history of the Annamite and Tonquin Kingdoms, and the events which led to the occupation of the former by the French.
Tonquin is divided into thirteen prefectures or tsan; Thauh-noi, Thanh-ngoai, Hung-hoa, Nam thoung, Nam ha, Haidong, Kinh bae, Sontai, Caobang, Lang bac or Lang-von, Thai nguyen, Tuyen quang, Quang-yen.
Both Tonquin and Annam have, from almost time immemorial, been the scene of rebellions, civil wars, and bloodshed. Passing over the rather obscure history of these events, it will be sufficient to date from the year 1740–1786.
At that date Canhung was King of Tonquin, or Ngan-nan as it was called,
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and Hien Vuong was King of Cochin China, or Annam, but was so disliked by his subjects, that the influential family of Tayson revolted and killed him. He left a nephew, Nguyên Auh, who fled to Saigon on the death of his uncle. The heads of the family of Tayson consisted of three brothers: the eldest, Yin-yae, was a wealthy merchant; the second, Long-niang, was a General Officer of high rank; and the third was a priest.
Cochin was then divided into three parts: the north had been conquered by the Tonquinese; Hué was occupied by the second brother, Long-niang; and lower Cochin was governed by Yin-yae; whilst the third brother was religious chief of the whole Empire.
Nguyên-Auh, the nephew of Hien Vuong, who had fled to Saigon, determined to recover his kingdom from the three brothers of the Tayson family. At the time when Hien Vuong was killed there was a Catholic Bishop named Pigneaux de Béhaine, called Adran after his see, and he it was who saved the nephew Nguyên-Auh, and took him to Saigon, and henceforth devoted himself to replacing him on the Tonquinese throne.
Long-niang, the second brother, then attacked the Tonquinese, and after expelling them from North Cochin, entered Tonquin in 1786, obliging Chin-long, the then King, to fly into China, where he ended his life at Peking, in exile.
Bishop Adran then took the eldest son of Nguyên-Auh with him to Paris, to obtain assistance from Louis XVI of France, and a Treaty of Alliance was signed on the 28th November, 1787, and Bishop Adran returned.
In 1791 Long-niang died, leaving a son twelve years old; and Nguyên-Auh, with the help of some French officers, brought from Europe by Bishop Adran, captured Yin-yae's fleet in 1793. In the same year Yin-yae died, and was succeeded by his son. Nguyên-Auh attacked and defeated the latter in 1796, and conquered what territory remained under the government of the son of Long-niang, and thus Cochin (Annam) was once more in possession of its lawful sovereign.
The conquest of Cochin being finished in 1811, Nguyên-Auh then turned his attention to Tonquin, the then King of which, Cauh-thiuh, the son of Quan-hung, he defeated in 1802, and being then sole sovereign of Annam, he assumed the title of Hwang-te, and the surname of Gia-long, by which he is best known, and since then Tonquin has been a province of the Annamite kingdom.
It may be observed that as far back as 1541 the Li family, the founder of the second dynasty, of which was Li-ki-mao or Li-by, were the recognized heirs to the throne of Tonquin, and although they were displaced by usurpers, they are still considered so, and some of its representatives are said to exist.
Since the death of Gialong three monarchs have reigned in Cochin (Annam)—Minh Mang, 1820-1841; Thieu-tri, 1841-1847; and Tu-Duc, the present King; but although they owe their kingdom to the exertions of Bishop Adran, they have unremittingly persecuted Christians, For instance, Father Fernandez was beheaded on the 24th July, Bishop Henaris on the 25th June, and Bishop Delgado died in prison on 12th July, 1838. Finally, in consequence of the execution of Bishop José Maria Diaz, on the 20th July, 1857, and for other outrages, war broke out between Annam, Spain, and France, and this was followed by the victories of Admirals Rigault de Genouilly at Turon, on the 1st September, 1858; and Saigon, on the 17th February, 1859; Chasner at Kihoa, on the 25th February, 1861; Page at Mytho, on the 12th April, 1861; and Bonard at Bien-hoa, on the 9th December, 1861; ending with the Treaty of Saigon, of the 5th of June, 1862, by which the Provinces of Gia-dinh (Saigon), Dinh-tuong (Mytho), and Bien-hoa and the Island of Poulo Condor, in Lower Cochin, were ceded to France, and to these, on the grounds of intrigues and bad faith on the part of the Annamite Government, Vice-Admiral de la Grandière in June 1867 annexed the three western Provinces of Vinh-long, Chaudoc,
and Hatien.
I have thus as briefly as possible endeavoured to show how Tonquin became annexed to Annam, and Saigon came into possession of the French, and I will now proceed to give a résumé of the events which led to French occupation of Lower Tonquin.
The principal river in Tonquin, called the Ho-ti-kiang, but better known now as the Hung Keang in Chinese, and the Song Koi, or Red River, in Annamese, has its rise in Thibet, and is navigable from Manhao, the last city in the Chinese Province of Yunnan, and so down to the sea, a distance of 414 miles. Manhao is the entrepôt where goods are shipped to and from Tonquin and Annam, the mart being a more northern city, called Mongtsze, situated also on the banks of Song Koi, or Red
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