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AX AM. JW3
Our chief guides in the topographical description of
such parts of the empire as have been visited by modern
travellers, will be Mr. Barrow, who visited Cochin
China in 1793; Lieut. White, of the United
States navy, who made a voyage to Saigon in 1819;
and Mr. Finlayson, who attended Mr. Crawfurd in
his mission to the court of Hue* in 1822.
VOYAGE UP THE DON-NAI RIVER.
THE reader has already been conducted from the
Gulf of Siam to the mouth of the Don-nai or Saigon
river, which appears to bear in fact the same relation
to the Mei-kong or Cambodia river, that the Rangoon
river does to the Irrawaddy.* Including its meander-
ings, it is a distance of nearly sixty miles from Cape
St. James to the city of Sai-gon. After passing Dai-
jang point and the opposite village of Canjeo, the
river gradually contracts to the breadth of half a mile,
till, at about nine miles up, it expands into a large
sheet of water, bearing the appearance of a capacious
estuary, its surface rippled by the conflicting currents
of the numerous streams which here flow into the
Don-nai. This is Nga-bay, called by the Portuguese
* The river of Cambodia (by the Malays written Camboetsja,
and pronounced Cambootja) " falls into the sea by three mouths ;
that of Sai-gong, which, according to the missionaries, is more
particularly called the river of Cambodia ; one called the Japanese
river, from being frequented by the junks of Japan ; (the proper
name is the Bassak ;) and a third, the Mat-siam, which the Dutch
have called the Onbequame, or the'Inconvenient. The tides extend
a great way up this river; and it is said that a great lake or inland
sea is connected with these mouths. The inundations take place
in June. The beds of the two western channels are full of low
islands and sand-banks, which render them unfit for being navi-
gated by large vessels." MALTE BRUN, vol. iii. p. 381. Lieut.
\Vhite says, that the Anamese call Cambodia Cou-maigne.