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being effected by pigment rather than by "hot irons," which would seem to imply a process of branding. Linschoten, however had had opportunities of ascertaining from the best Portuguese authorities all the facts within their knowledge, and his book probably represented the best information concerning the peoples of the Hinterland of Indo-China that was then at the disposal of Europeans in the East.

Late in the sixteenth, or early in the seventeenth century, the Portuguese established regular trading-posts in Cochin-China and Kambodia, the most advanced of these being at Pnom Penh. Beyond this and the district of Siam-reap at the north of the Lake of Tonle Sap, they do not appear to have penetrated, and the first organised attempt to explore the interior of Indo-China by the Mekong route was made, not by them, but by the Dutch East India Company. With this we shall have to deal in a later chapter, but the explorations of the Portuguese in south-eastern Asia, which began with the fall of Malacca in 1511, may be said to have ended early in the following century. When the other nations of Europe began to flock eastward the Portuguese found the task of defending their own position sufficiently arduous, and thereafter they ceased to push their discoveries into new lands. During the hour of their prosperity they scattered themselves broadcast with a quite extraordinary rapidity, but they were content for the most part with the exploitation of the coasts and easily accessible places at no great distance from the sea, and the heavier work of discovery fell to the lot of other white nations. Yet the traces of the