“To what race do the Bannavs belong? That is the first question I asked myself on arriving here, and I must confess that I cannot yet answer it; all I can say is, that in all points they differ from the Annamites and Chinese; neither do they resemble the Laotians or Cambodians, but appear to have a common origin with the Cédans, Halangs, Reungao, and Giaraïe, their neighbours. Their countenances, costumes, and belief are nearly the same; and the language, although it differs in each tribe, has yet many words common to all; the construction, moreover, is perfectly identical. I have not visited the various tribes of the south, but from all I have heard I conclude that these observations apply to them also, and that all the savages inhabiting the vast country lying between Cochin China, Laos, and Cambodia belong to the same great branch of the human family. “The language spoken by the Bannavs has nothing in common with that of the Annamites. Very simple in its construction, it is soft, flowing, and easy. “These people manufacture the saucepans in which they cook their rice and wild herbs, the hatchets, pickaxes, and pruning-bills, which comprise all their agricultural instruments, the sabres which serve them as weapons, and the long-handled knives used for various kinds of work in which they excel. Their clay calumets, tastefully ornamented with leaves or other devices, are the production of the most skilful among the tribe. The women weave pieces of white or black cloth, which they use for coverings, and which, coarse as they are, form the principal article of commerce between the Bannavs and the Cédans. “The villagers who live on the banks of the river Bla make light canoes, which are both solid and graceful, out of the trunks of trees. Such are the principal articles produced by the Bannavs, who are more backward than any of the other tribes, having little inventive genius. “The Giaraïe, their neighbours on the south, show much taste and aptness in all they do; their clothes are of a finer texture than those spun by the Bannavs, and are sometimes embellished with designs which would be admired even in Europe. The iron which they forge is also wrought into more elegant forms, and is more finely tempered; and they manufacture some articles in copper. Very superior to the Reungao, they do not perhaps surpass the Halangs. “The Cédans are a tribe of iron-workers, their country abounding in mines of this metal. The inhabitants of more than seventy villages, when their agricultural labours are over, busy themselves in extracting and working the ore, which they afterwards dispose of in the shape of hatchets, pickaxes, lances, and sabres.