idea, no knowledge
of the natural sciences, and neglects even the most rudimentary
instruction conveyed in a European education. The complications of
Chinese writing greatly hamper education. The Annamese mandarin must be
acquainted with Chinese, since he writes in Chinese characters. But the
character being ideographic, the words which express them are dissimilar
in the two languages, and official text is read in Chinese by a Chinese,
in Annamese by an Annamese.

The chief towns of Annam are Hue (pop. about 42,000), seat both of the
French and native governments, Tourane (pop. about 4000), Phan-Thiet
(pop. about 20,000) in the extreme south, Qui-Nhon, and Fai-Fo, a
commercial centre to the south of Tourane. A road following the coast
from Cochin-China to Tongking, and known as the "Mandarin road," passes
through or near the chief towns of the provinces and forms the chief
artery of communication in the country apart from the railways (see
INDO-CHINA, FRENCH).

_History._--The ancient tribe of the Giao-chi, who dwelt on the confines
of S. China, and in what is now Tongking and northern Annam, are
regarded by the Annamese as their ancestors, and tradition ascribes to
their first rulers descent from the Chinese imperial family. These
sovereigns were succeeded by another dynasty, under which, at the end of
the 3rd century B.C., the Chinese invaded the country, and eventually
established there a supremacy destined to last, with little
intermission, till the 10th century A.D. In 968 Dinh-Bo-Lanh succeeded
in ousting the Chinese and founded an independent dynasty of Dinh. Till
this period the greater part of Annam had been occupied by the Chams, a
nation of Hindu civilization, which has left many monuments to testify
to its greatness, but the encroachment of the Annamese during the next
six centuries at last left to it only a small territory in the south of
the country. Three lines of sovereigns followed that of Dinh, under the
last of which, about 1407, Annam again fell under the Chinese yoke. In
1428 an Annamese general Le-Loi succeeded in freeing the country once
more, and founded a dynasty which lasted till the end of the 18th
century. During the greater part of this period, however, the titular
sovereigns were mere puppets, the reality of power being in the hands of
the family of Trinh in Tongking and that of Nguyen in southern Annam,
which in 1568 became a separate principality under the name of
Cochin-China. Towards