Kankao is the chief town, and many travellers have compared it favourably with the most populous cities of Asia. There are no imposing edifices with the exception of the royal palace and the arsenal, in other respects it is a confused collection of wooden huts. The foreign trading establishments are the only brick buildings. The ruins of an ancient palace, destroyed during the civil wars, are still visible and the relics point to the pristine glories of the city. The arsenal is a building that would command admiration in Europe. It is furnished with artillery, ammunition and all kinds of warlike stores. Here the physicist would be struck by the phenomenon of the tides, as the sea ebbs and flows only once in the 24 hours and is only appreciable at the first and last quarters of the moon. The products are similar to those of other countries of the Indies, but the fruits are finer and more delicious than those of any other Asiatic country. The oranges are large and luscious, but the use of the citron is unsafe as it supplies the mordant used in the dyeing of cotton. Cultivated fruits include sweet potatoes yams, bananas, mangos, limes, cocoanuts and pineapples. The elephants are the largest and most active of those found in Asia. Temperance is a national virtue and their staple articles of diet are merely rice, vegetables, roots, and salt fish. They observe festivals at which game of all sorts is eaten and especially at weddings and funerals they indulge in all manner of good cheer. They devour horseflesh buffalo and goat meat, dogs, rabbits, rats, frogs, shell fish and all kinds of fish. For dessert they have the most excellent fruits, the odour and colour and taste of which are pleasing to all the senses. Cleanliness is noticeable in all their dishes. The tables and crockery as well as they themselves are perfumed. In formal feasts the guests keep profound silence, and speech before the conclusion of the repast would be considered impolite. This restraint during their meals might be attributed to their voracious appetites. Their usual beverage is a kind of tea with which on festal occasions they mingle arrack. They manufacture strong drink from rice and other vegetables. The Tonkinese have flat oval faces. Their teeth, naturally white, are blackened so as to avoid the reproach that they resemble those of dogs or elephants. Though of a swarthy complexion they are fairer than the other inhabitants of the Indies. They have long thick black hair. They are active and cunning and seem adapted by nature to be an accomplished race; but idleness, the vice of the climate is a check to industry and renders them poverty stricken. Their insensate passion for gambling reduces the wealthiest to beggary. Having lost all their money, jewels and other possessions, they will wager their wives and children and even their horses to which they are greatly attached.