affinities are with the Oceanic populations. But in 218 B.C., Lu-kiang having been reduced and incorporated with China proper, a large number of Chinese emigrants settled in the country, and gradually merged with the Giao-shi in a single nationality, whose twofold descent is still reflected in the Annamese physical and mental characters. This term Annam[465], however, did not come into use till the seventh century, when it was officially applied to the frontier river between China and Tonking, and afterwards extended to the whole of Tonking and Cochin-China. Tonking itself, meaning the "Eastern Court[466]," was originally the name only of the city of Ha-noi when it was a royal residence, but was later extended to the whole of the northern kingdom, whose true name is _Yueeh-nan_. To this corresponded the southern Kwe-Chen-Ching, "Kingdom of Chen-Ching," which was so named in the ninth century from its capital Chen-Ching, and of which our Cochin-China appears to be a corrupt form. But, amid all this troublesome political nomenclature, the dominant Annamese nation has faithfully preserved its homogeneous character, spreading, like the Siamese Shans, steadily southwards, and gradually absorbing the whole of the Champa domain to the southern extremity of the peninsula, as well as a large part of the ancient kingdom of Camboja about the Mekhong delta. They thus form at present the almost exclusive ethnical element throughout all the lowland and cultivated parts of Tonking, upper and lower Cochin-China and south Camboja, with a total population in 1898 of about twenty millions. The Annamese are described in a semi-official report[467] as characterised by a high broad forehead, high cheek-bones, small crushed nose, rather thick lips, black hair, scant beard, mean height, coppery complexion, deceitful (_rusee_) expression, and rude or insolent bearing. The head is round (index 83 to 84) and the features are in general flat and coarse, while to an ungainly exterior corresponds a harsh unsympathetic temperament. The Abbe Gagelin, who lived years in their midst, frankly declares that they are at once arrogant and dishonest, and dead to all the finer feelings of human nature, so that after years of absence the nearest akin will meet without any outward sign of pleasure or affection. Others go further, and J. G. Scott summed it all up by declaring that "the fewer Annamese there are, the less taint there is on the human race." No doubt Lord Curzon gives a more favourable picture, but this traveller spent only a short time in the country, and even he allows that they are "tricky and deceitful, disposed to thieve when they get the chance, mendacious, and incurable gamblers[468]."