WITH CHRIST IN INDOCHINA - IndoChina1911

The soil of Cambodia is for the most part rich and
fertile. Its territory consists largely of the wellwatered
plain on both banks of the great Mekong
River, which flows through the entire country from
north to south. Much of it is now uncultivated and
has reverted to tropical jungle. The climate of
Cambodia is hot. Its people are mostly peasants.
They do not congregate in large cities, but usually
live in small villages, or in lonely farmhouses among
the rice fields. They build their houses high up
from the ground on piles, to protect themselves from
the floods which occur annually when the Mekong
overflows its banks. Until 1922 there was not a single
Protestant missionary in Cambodia.
The people of Laos belong to the Thai race, as do
the Siamese, who, though thus related to the Laosians,
have been their worst enemies. The ancient
capital of Laos was Vieng-chan, now Vientiane. In
the seventeenth century the kingdom was united,
and perhaps wealthy and powerful. But civil wars
and invasions from China and Siam destroyed its
power until today only one of its eight provinces has
a native ruler. He, the King of Luang Prabang, is
a protege of France. The rest of the country is a
French colony. Before the advent of the French,
Luang Prabang had become a separate kingdom, and
the Siamese had destroyed Vientiane, taking many
thousands of Laosian captives across the Mekong to
populate the four provinces of East Siam.