Passing through a village peopled by a barbarous race of Annamites, I ran great risk of being taken prisoner by them, and being sent to finish my researches in a dungeon. Last year the carriages belonging to a French missionary were completely rifled, and the men sent with ropes round their necks to Cochin China. I loaded all my guns, and gave one to each of my men: our firm appearance, no doubt, frightened them, for we were not attacked.
In spite of the heat, the fatigue, and privations inseparable from such a journey, I arrived among the Stiêns in perfectly good health as far as I was concerned, and here I found a settlement of Catholic missionaries from Cochin China. It would have been impossible to go further, for I could neither find means of transport nor provisions, for at this time of the year the poor savages have consumed all their rice, and have nothing to live upon but herbs, a little maize, and what they can catch in the chase. I therefore accepted the hospitality offered to me with much kindness by a good priest. In a few weeks the rainy season will be over, the nights will become cold, and for several months insects will be found, and after that will come the turn of the birds, with which I shall exclusively occupy myself.
My departure from here will depend upon circumstances; perhaps I shall myself be the bearer of this letter to Pinhalú, perhaps I may be detained here some months by the bad state of the roads and the impossibility of procuring vehicles during the rice-harvest.
If you ask who are this strange people, living retired on the table-lands and mountains of Cambodia, which they appear never to have quitted, and differing entirely in manners, language, and features from the Annamites, Cambodians, and Laotians, my answer is that I believe them to be the aborigines of the country, and that they have been driven into these districts by the repeated inroads of the Thibetians, from whom they evidently descend, as is proved by the resemblance of features, religion, and character.
The whole country from the eastern side of the mountains of Cochin China as far as 103° long., and from 11° lat. to Laos, is inhabited by savage tribes, all known under one name, which signifies "inhabitants of the heights." They have no attachment to the soil, and frequently change their abode; most of the villages are in a state of continual hostility with each other, but they do not attack in troops, but seek to surprise each other, and the prisoners are sold as slaves to the Laotians.