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of such enormities: it is less curious that before the end of the sixteenth century the name of the white man had been made to stink in the nostrils of Asiatics.

The verdict passed by Pinto upon Indo-China is worth repeating. After describing its wealth from information derived from native sources, he says,

"Whereby it may be gathered that if the Country could be taken, it would without so much labour or loss of blood, be of greater profit and less charge than the Indies," an opinion which its present possessors, the countrymen of Dupleix would, I conceive, be little likely to echo, however much they might desire to be able to give it their endorsement.

After Pinto's day the Portuguese appear to have settled in Kambodia, much as they settled in Burma, at their own risk and without receiving much active support from their Government. The Dominican Gaspar de Cruz visited the country in 1590, as also did Christoval de Jaques between 1592 and 1598. According to the latter the Lake of Tonle Sap and the Khmer ruins at Angkor had been discovered by the Portuguese in 1570, and this would seem to indicate that the intercourse between the rulers of Kambodia, whose capital was at or near Pnom Penh, and the Portuguese traders had increased considerably during the half century immediately following the famous voyage of Antonio de Faria. In about the year 1580 a Frenchman named Louvet visited the delta of the Mekong, and was thus the first of his race to set foot in the region which was destined to become at a later date the great Asiatic colony of France. Five years later an-