Their diet is simple, the sole articles being rice, fish and vegetables. Their usual beverage is a kind of tea that differs from the Chinese variety. They mingle sugar derived from a certain tree with their drinking water which thus acquires a pleasant taste and odour. They have a few wines, but prefer strong liquors to wine which they nevertheless use in moderation at marriages and other solemn festivals, which are the only occasions of excess. Although dependent on neighbouring nations, they allow their hair to grow long as a sign of their freedom. Their grandees keep up splendid establishments and wear robes embroidered with pearls which they prefer to diamonds. The women are veiled, but uncover their faces in salutation. Their medical men are dressed in black and wear a mitre shaped headdress. They trim neither their beard nor their nails as a sign that they are less desirous to please than to instruct. They know that respectability is well assured by the adaptation of strange habits. Their houses have no other ornamentations than paintings and gilded sculptures. Marriage ceremonies, funeral rites and festivals are similar to those of the Chinese from whom they are descended, but in this, their new country, they have extinguished the torch of the liberal arts which illumined the land of their origin. It is not that they are without seats of learning, but such as they have are schools of error in which under the pretext of studying astronomy, they devote themselves to all the lies of astrology in order to seek for revelations of the future. They predict eclipses without being able to calculate their exact time, extent and duration and, regarding them as omens of serious evil, employ thousands of weird methods to counteract their supposed malign influence. The King and all the chief officers of state as well as the learned, follow the doctrines of Confucius, which they have received from their ancestors. They have neither temples nor priests, but all pay deep respect to the great god Tien. The common people, plunged in the depths of the darkest idolatry, give themselves up to the most vulgar superstitions. They have bonzes who are divided into several classes. Some of them live on the produce of the land and waters assigned to them; others, subservient to a chief, live on the alms of the people; a more certain source than the hard won produce of the ground. If we can judge by the filthy state of their temples, most of which are in ruins, it seems that the priests and their devotees are the only persons who are attached to their religion. The foreign missionaries have made great conquests for the faith in these parts and it merely needs a greater number of workers to gather in an abundant harvest.