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prior to the arrival of de Faria, but Pinto expressly adds that he and his fellows were the first Europeans whom the natives had ever seen. Near the mouth of the river there was a village called Taquilleu, and at some distance in the interior, the Portuguese learned, there was a town called Pilaucacem, where the king of the country had his residence. I conceive that the wanderers were still among the mouths of the Mekong, and it seems probable that Pilaucacem was Pnom Penh, as it is described as be- ing the centre of an extensive trade with the "Lauhos, Pasuaas, and Gueos—very rich people," namely the na- tives of Laos and the wild tribes, so called, of the interior. The river of Tinacoreu, Pinto further tells us," extends to Moncalor, a mountain distant from thence some four score leagues," and that further up it was far broader, but not so deep. The Portuguese also learned of the exist- ence "in the midst of the continent" of a great lake called "Cunebetea" by its nearest neighbours, and Chiammay by others in which the river took its source. This belief in a great central lake in which all the large rivers of the Indo-Chinese peninsula took their rise was very persistent, and in writing of Burma, it will be re- called, Pinto declares that he had himself seen it—which is manifestly untrue. The great lake of Kambodia may have been the origin of this tradition, a lake at the head of the main branch of the Mekong being inferred by analogy with the more accessible branch which joins the parent stream near Pnom Penh, but it is obvious that the coast natives did not know that the river ran through a portion of China, and that it was never regarded by them