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remarkable expedition will be examined in more detail in a later chapter in connection with the French mission of 1866, but it may be mentioned here that the party as- cended the Mekong as far as Vien Chan and resided there some months. This journey, however, was not repeated, and did not lead to the opening up of Laos, as in 1642 the Portuguese contrived to cause the Dutch factor, Jeremias de Wal, to be murdered while on a journey to Pnom Penh, and after that the Dutch factories in Cochin-China and Kambodia were abandoned. The Portuguese themselves never penetrated far into the in- terior, though an Italian missionary priest, named Leria, reached Vien Chan in 1642, and later travelled overland into Tongking. His example, however, found no imita- tors, and from his time until late in the last century Laos. was not visited by missionaries.

For a space after the departure of the Dutch the Portuguese who remained in possession excrcised con- siderable influence at the Court of Kambodia and in the delta of the Mekong, but towards the end of the seven- teenth century the native officials, instigated it is said by China, organised a general massacre of the white men, dealing a blow to the power of the Portuguese in this region from which it never again recovered.

From that time onward, the intercourse of Europeans with the lands of Indo-China was confined to the mission- aries and to a few visits from traders. Most of the mission- aries were Frenchmen, though a proportion came from Spain, and the latter half of the seventeenth century saw the growth of French influence in these regions. The