The Mekon is a vast melancholy-looking river, three miles broad, covered with islands, and flowing with the rapidity of a torrent. Its shores are covered with aquatic birds, but its waters are almost deserted by canoes.[14] A plain covered with coarse herbage separates it from the forest by which Cambodia is overspread, and which can rarely be traversed except by cutting a way. That forest is exceedingly unhealthy. [14] The war in Cochin China has prevented many of the Annamite fishermen from coming down the Mekon to fish in the great lake, which is one cause of its desertion. M. Mouhot reached Brelum, a village in lat. 11° 58′, long. 107° 12′, inhabited by a secluded race of wild people, whose customs are minutely described, differing in features from the Cambodian and Laos tribes, and forming one of a series of similar groups widely distributed in the less accessible parts of Cochin China, Cambodia, and Burmah. They are believed by M. Mouhot to be the aborigines of the land. Two Catholic missionaries were resident at Brelum. Subsequently the author visited the large Buddhist ruins of Ongcor, of which he has brought back numerous sketches. He speaks of the mineral wealth of Cambodia--its iron, gold, lead, and copper. In the islands of Phu-Quoc or Koh Tron, belonging to Cochin China and near to Komput, there are rich mines of coal, similar to our Cannel coal, from which ornaments are made. Several extinct volcanoes exist in Pechaburi, of heights not exceeding 2000 feet above the sea-level, and there are two active ones in an island called Ko-man, lat. 12° 30′, long. 101° 50′, in the Gulf of Siam.