KAMBOJIA, a small territory lying between Siam and Cochin-China, containing about 500,000 people, of whom four-fifths are the native Kho. It contains the four provinces, Potisat, Kampong Suai, Kampong, and Kampot Son. Kambodia, Kamboja,Kaboja, or Cambodia was anciently called Kam-phu-cha ; its modern name is Khmer. Its commerce is in rice, ivory, silk, and cardamoms. The whole of the coast, from Kamm in Cambodia quite up to what is called by the Siamese Lem Sam-me-san, the Cape•Liant of Europeans, is an uninterrupted archipelago of beautiful islands. The only part of the continent of Asia, the Malay Peninsula excepted, in which the Malays have settled and to which their language has extended, is Cambodia. In that country they seem to have established a little independent principality called Champa, well known both in Malay and Javanese story.
The river Mei-kong of Cambodia is one of the largest in Asia, navigable for boats even befoie it enters the kingdom of Laos. It falls into the sea by three mouths ; the largest is said to have from 14 to 18 feet water on the bar at its mouth at high-water spring-tides. Besides the Annam
race, the inhabitants of the present dominions of Cochin-China consist of several other races. The principal of these are the Kambojans, whose name in their own language is Kammer or Khmer, but who are called by the Siamese, Karnmen ; by the Cochin-Chinese, Komen ; by the Chinese, Tang po-cha ; and by the Malays, Kamboja. The Kambojans speak a language distinct from those of all their neighbours ; but in physical form, manners, laws, religion, and state of civilisation, they bear a closer resemblance to the Siamese than to any other people.
In Cambodia is the great temple of Na-khon vat. It seems to have been built in the 10th century. It is 600 feet at the base, and in the centre 180 feet high. Every angle of the roof, every entablature, and every cornice, bears the seven-headed serpent. Ujong is the capital of Cambodia. — Crawfurd's Embassy ; Bowring's Siam; Lubbock's Origin of Civil. p.-243.