They found some parts of Saigon so much Chinese in character that they seemed to be carried back to Canton or Shanghai. Chinese signs abounded; Chinese shops were open, and the men doing business both behind and before the counters were Chinese. Chinese eyes were upon them, and frequently Chinese peddlers approached them with articles for sale. Chinese were at worship in the temples, walking, talking, trading, and pursuing their ordinary avocations, and for every foreigner the boys encountered they met a hundred inhabitants of the Flowery Kingdom. The roads were dry and dusty, and after a walk of a couple of hours our friends returned to the hotel. Late in the afternoon they went out again to hear one of the military bands play, and to see the people on their daily promenade. The band plays at a stand on the street parallel to the river, and everybody who can come out to see and be seen is sure to be there. Frank found the crowd so variegated that he suggested to Fred that it was like looking through a kaleidoscope. There were Frenchmen, Germans, Englishmen, Spaniards, and Portuguese among the foreigners; while the Asiatics included Chinese, Anamese, Cambodians, Malays, Siamese, and a variety of other nationalities the boys were unable to determine. In fact, they would not have been able to recognize all the people mentioned above if it had not been for the assistance of the Doctor, who was skilled in the study of faces and the sound of languages. Fred thought that the confusion of tongues was enough to give one a faint idea of what the Tower of Babel must have been at the time the builders suspended work. [Illustration: PLANTS IN THE BOTANICAL GARDEN.] They finished their explorations of the day with a visit to the botanical garden, just as the sun was sinking in the west. The garden contains a good variety of the tropical plants peculiar to the country, and also some that the French have imported, with a view to distributing them through the province in case the cultivation should prove advantageous. There are also some wild animals carefully kept in cages, with the exception of the elephants, which have no greater restriction than being fastened with chains. The most interesting of these animals, in the eyes of the boys, were some tigers which came from the upper regions of the Mekong River, and were larger than any they had ever seen in America. [Illustration: A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.] The evening was devoted to a study of the geography and history of the country they were in, and before the boys went to bed they had a pretty clear idea of Cochin China and the regions that surround it. In the morning they complained of numerous visits from the mosquitoes that abound in Saigon the entire year, and are as attentive as the mosquitoes of the United States or any other country. [Illustration: A MOSQUITO OF SAIGON.] CHAPTER III. HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.--FIRST SIGHTS AND SCENES IN ANAM.