_Mois_ or
"savages." Some of these tribes show traces of Malay ancestry. Of
greater historical interest are the Chams, who are to be found for the
most part in southern Annam and in Cambodia, and who, judging from the
numerous remains found there, appear to have been the masters of the
coast region of Cochin-China and Annam till they succumbed before the
pressure of the Khmers of Cambodia and the Annamese. They are taller,
more muscular, and more supple than the Annamese. Their language is
derived from Malay, and while some of the Chams are Mussulmans, the
dominant religion is Brahmanism, and more especially the worship of
Siva. Their women have a high reputation for virtue, which, combined
with the general bright and honest character of the whole people,
differentiates them from the surrounding nations.

Evidently derived from the Chinese, of which it appears to be a very
ancient dialect, the Annamese language is composed of monosyllables, of
slightly varied articulation, expressing different ideas according to
the tone in which they are pronounced. It is quite impossible to connect
with our musical system the utterance of the sounds of which the Chinese
and Annamese languages are composed. What is understood by a "tone" in
this language is distinguished in reality, not by the number of sonorous
vibrations which belong to it, but rather by a use of the vocal
apparatus special to each. Thus, the sense will to a native be
completely changed according as the sound is the result of an aspiration
or of a simple utterance of the voice. Thence the difficulty of
substituting our phonetic alphabet for the ideographic characters of the
Chinese, as well as for the ideophonetic writing partly borrowed by the
Annamese from the letters of the celestial empire. To the Jesuit
missionaries is due the introduction of an ingenious though very
complicated system, which has caused remarkable progress to be made in
the employment of phonetic characters. By means of six accents, one bar
and a crotchet it is possible to note with sufficient precision the
indications of tone without which the Annamese words have no sense for
the natives.

_Agriculture and other Industries._--The cultivation of rice, which is
grown mainly in the small deltas along the coast and in some districts
gives two crops annually, and fishing, together with fish-salting and
the preparation of nuoc-mam, a sauce made from decaying fish, constitute
the chief industries of