TONKIN is the cradle of the Cochin.China race, including under this name both Tonkinese and .Annamese. Six of its provinces have Saigon for their capital, and up to the year 1883 were designated French Cochin-China. The Tonkinese and Annainese are of the same race, and their original settlement was in Tonkin. They speak the same language, but the pronunciation, and to some extent the orthography, differ, and the same remark is applicable to their respective con nection with Chinese. The formation of all three languages is nearly identical, but Tunkinese, Annamese, and Chinese are inutually unintelli gible. Three races occupy the peninsula, viz. the Chinese, the Ctunbojan Malays, and the 3Iongoloid aborigines, comprising the Moi, Loi. the Laos, and others who are equally connected with the Siamese Slums and with the Nliao-tsze, Pai, Lo Lo, Sarin, and other bill tribes, to whom the Chinese have given fanciful and derogatory names.
When the Tonkinese moved southwards, they 1rove these aborigines from the plain country into the hills, and these are now in die ranges to the west and in the kingdom of Tsinin-pit in the S.E. part of the Peninsula, where they occupy the mountains of the province Binh-Timms which, in 1883, the French declared annexed. Before the 15th century, both Tonkin and Annum were parts of China ; but in the reign of Louis xvi. of France, the French acquired territory there, which has since been called French Cochin China. Through a prolonged period it was a dependency of the Chinese empire, sometimes as a tributary kingdom, at others as a province of the empire. Tonkin Gulf is an extensive bight
formed in the coast between the parallels of lat. 17° and 22° N., and which is rendered a deep inlet by the peninsula of Lui-ehew-ftt and the island of Hainan, which protect it, and in a great measure enclose it to the eastward. The entrance between Tigu Island and the south-west part of Hainan is about 110 miles wide. The Tonkin river, Thai Shilt, falls into the N.W. side of the gulf, the mouth of its western branch, called the Dornea (probably Saug-koi), being in lat. 20° 50' N., and long. 106° 39' E. Caelitto, the capital of Toilkin, is about 74 miles up the river. In the entrance of this river there is but one flood and ebb in 24 hours, as occurs at the island of Basselan, near Mindanao, and the other islands in the Eastern Archipelago. The Tonkinese men and women are well proportioned, of au olive complexion, very much admiring the whiteness of the Europeans. Their noses and faces are not so flat as those of the Chinese. They usually wear their black hair as long as it will grow, being very carefill in combing it. The common people plait it in tresses, and tie it like a great roll upon the top of their heads. But the nobility, men of law, and soldiers, tie their locks about their necks, that they may not flutter in their faces. They blacken their teeth and suffer their nails to grow, the longest being accounted the flnest.—Everard's Treatises, p. 17.