Page:Further India; (IA furtherindia00clif).pdf/265

act. It shows us, however, that at this period the King- dom whose capital was Vien Chan was one of considera- ble power and importance: that it reckoned itself, and was reckoned by its neighbours, to stand on an equal footing with Siam, with Kambodia and with Tongking; that it was rich and prosperous; and that it was distin- guished then, as now, by the religious zeal of its people which manifests itself in the number and the beauty of the temples, pagodas and pyramids scattered through the country, and in the immense influence exerted over them by the innumerable bonzes who make it their business to live by the gospel and upon the faithful.

On December 14th, Wusthof's comrades, left behind at Vien Chan, did not receive their permission to depart until August 11th, nearly nine months after their first audience with the King, a characteristically inaccessible Oriental monarch of whom they do not appear to have sub- sequently seen anything.

The Dutchmen reached Bassak on the 17th, Septem- ber, at which point their narrative ends.

The Dutch merchants also mention that during their stay at Vien Chan a "Portuguese" priest named Leria visited the capital and tried unsuccessfully to obtain per- mission to preach Christianity to the pagan population. This man was not in truth a Portuguese, being a native of Piedmont. He was a Jesuit, and his full name was Giovanni Maria Leria. To him belongs the distinction of being, not only the first, but up to the latter half of the nineteenth century, the only Christian priest who had endeavoured to spread his religion through the Laos