Chapter 46

_Geography._--Cochin-China consists chiefly of an immense plain, flat and monotonous, traversed by the Mekong and extending from Ha-Tien in the west to Baria in the east, and from Bien-Hoa in the north-east to the southern point of the peninsula of Ca-Mau in the south-west. The last spurs of the mountains of Annam, which come to an end at Cape St Jacques, extend over parts of the provinces of Tay-Ninh, Bien-Hoa and Baria in the north-east and east of the colony, but nowhere exceed 2900 ft. in height; low hills are found in the north-western province of Chau-Doc. Cochin-China is remarkable for the abundance of its waterways. The Mekong divides at Pnom-Penh in Cambodia into two arms, the Fleuve supérieur and the Fleuve inférieur, which, pursuing a course roughly parallel from north-west to south-east, empty into the China Sea by means of the numerous channels of its extensive delta. From June to October the inundations of the Mekong cover most of the country, portions of which, notably the Plaine des Joncs in the north and a large tract of the peninsula of Ca-Mau, are little else than marshes. Besides a great number of small coastal streams there are four other rivers of secondary importance, all of which water the east of the colony, viz. the Don-Nai, which rising in the Annamese mountains flows west, then abruptly south, reaching the sea to the west of Cape St Jacques; the Saigon river, which flowing from north-west to south-east passes Saigon, the capital of the colony, 12 m. below which it unites with the Don-Nai; and the two Vaicos, which join the Don-Nai close to its mouth. These rivers flow into the sea through numerous winding channels, forming a delta united by canals to that of the Mekong. The waterways of Cochin-China communicate by means of natural or artificial channels (_arroyos_), facilitating transport and aiding in the uniform distribution of the inundation to which the country owes its fertility. Canals from Chau-Doc to Ha-Tien and from Long Xuyen to Rach-Gia join the Mekong with the Gulf of Siam. East of Cape St Jacques the mountains of Annam come down close to the sea; west of that point, as far as the southern headland of Ca-Mau, the coast-line of Cochin-China runs north-east to south-west for about 160 m. in a straight line broken only by the mouths of the Don-Nai and Mekong. From Cape Ca-Mau to Rach-Gia it runs north for a distance of 120 m., then north-west as far as Ha-Tien, where the boundary line between it and Cambodia meets the sea.

_Climate and Fauna._--The climate of the country is warm, humid, and very trying to Europeans. The wet season, during which heavy rain falls almost daily, lasts from April to October, coinciding with the south-west monsoon. The hottest period lasts from the middle of April to the middle of June, the thermometer during that time often reaching 94° F., and never descending below 86°. The forest regions of Cochin-China harbour the tiger, panther, leopard, tiger-cat, ichneumon, wild boar, deer, buffalo, rhinoceros and elephant, as well as many varieties of monkeys and rats. Of birds some species of parrakeet, the "mandarin" blackbird, and the woodcock are not found in the rest of Indo-China. Duck, teal, cranes and other aquatic birds abound in the delta. Venomous reptiles are numerous, and the Mekong contains crocodiles.

_Agriculture and Industries._--The cultivation of the rice-fields, which cover large extents of the plains of Cochin-China, is by far the chief industry of the colony. Pepper is grown in considerable quantities in the districts of Ha-Tien and Bien-Hoa, and sugarcanes, coffee, cotton, tobacco and jute are also produced. The buffalo, used both for transport and in the rice-fields, and swine, the flesh of which forms an important element in the native diet, are the principal domestic animals. Oxen and cows are of secondary importance and the climate is unsuitable for sheep; horses of a small breed are used to some extent. The chief industrial establishments are those for the decortication of rice at Saigon and Cholon; they are in the hands of the Chinese, by whom most of the trade in the colony is conducted. Sugar-making, the distillation of rice-spirit, silk-weaving, fishing and the preparation of a fish-sauce (_nuoc-mam_) made from decayed fish, and the manufacture of salt from sea-water and of lime are carried on in many localities.

_Commerce._--Rice is the chief article of export, dried or salted fish, pepper and cotton ranking next in order of value. Imports include woven goods, metals, ironware, machinery, tea, wines and spirits, mineral oils, opium, paper, and arms and powder. The ports of Saigon and Mytho are accessible to the largest vessels, and are connected by a railway (see Indo-China, French). The roadsteads of Rach-Gia, Ca-Mau, and Ha-Tien can accommodate only vessels of low tonnage. In 1905 exports reached a value of £3,816,000, and imports a value of £4,834,000 (not including treasure and transit trade).

_Government and Administration._--Cochin-China is administered by a lieutenant-governor under the authority of the governor-general of Indo-China. He is assisted by the _conseil colonial_ numbering sixteen members, six of whom are French citizens elected by the French, six natives elected by the natives, the other four being members of the chamber of commerce of Saigon and the _conseil privé_. The _conseil colonial_, besides its advisory functions, discusses and votes the budget, determines the nature of the taxes, has supreme control over the tariffs, and extensive powers in the administration of colonial domains. The _conseil privé_ is a deliberative body under the presidency of the lieutenant-governor, composed of colonial officials together with two native members. The colony is divided into four circumscriptions (Saigon, My-Tho, Vinh-Long, Bassac), at the head of each of which is an inspector of native affairs. These are subdivided into twenty provinces, each administered by an administrator of native affairs by whose side is the provincial council consisting of natives and occupied with the discussion of ways and means and questions of public works. The provinces are divided into cantons and subdivided into communes. The commune forms the basis of the native social system. Its assembly of notables or municipal council forms a sort of oligarchy, the members of which themselves elect individuals from among the more prominent inhabitants to fill vacancies. The notables elect the provincial councillors in the proportion, usually, of one to every canton, and their delegates elect the chief of the canton, who voices the wishes of the natives to the government. Local administration, e.g. supervision of markets, policing, land-transfer, &c., are carried on by a mayor and two assistants, to whom the municipal council delegates its powers. The same body draws up the list of males liable to the poll-tax and of the lands liable to land-tax, these being the chief sources of revenue. There are French tribunals of first instance in nine of the chief towns of the colony, and in four of these there are criminal courts. These administer justice in accordance both with French law and, in the case of natives, with Annamese law, which has been codified for the purpose. Saigon has two chambers of the court of appeal of French Indo-China and a tribunal of commerce. Primary instruction is given in some six hundred schools. Cochin-China is represented in the French chamber by a deputy. The capital is Saigon (q.v.); of the other towns, Cholon (q.v.), My-Tho, Vinh-Long and Chau-Doc are of importance.

In 1904 the budget receipts amounted to £495,241 (as compared with £474,545 in 1899). To this sum the land and poll-tax and other direct taxes contributed £374,630. The main heads of expenditure, of which the total was £467,328, were as follows:--

Government £87,271 Administration 62,725 Public Works 40,454 Transport 38,173 Public Instruction 36,009 Topography and Surveying 32,036

_History._--The Khmer kingdom (see CAMBODIA), at its zenith from the 9th to the 12th centuries, included a large portion of the modern colony of Cochin-China, the coastal portion and perhaps the eastern region being under the dominion of the empire of Champa, which broke up during the 15th century. This eastern region was occupied in the 17th century by the Annamese, who in the 18th century absorbed the western provinces. From this period the history of Cochin-China follows that of Annam (q.v.) till 1867, when it was entirely occupied by the French and became a French colony. In 1887 it was united with Cambodia, Annam and Tongking to form the Indo-Chinese Union (see INDO-CHINA, FRENCH).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See also INDO-CHINA, FRENCH; and ANNAM.

COCHINEAL, a natural dye-stuff used for the production of scarlet, crimson, orange and other tints, and for the preparation of lake and carmine. It consists of the females of _Coccus cacti_, an insect of the family _Coccidae_ of the order _Hemiptera_, which feeds upon various species of the _Cactaceae_, more especially the nopal plant, _Opuntia coccinellifera_, a native of Mexico and Peru. The dye was introduced into Europe from Mexico, where it had been in use long before the entrance of the Spaniards in the year 1518, and where it formed one of the staple tributes to the crown for certain districts. In 1523 Cortes received instructions from the Spanish court to procure it in as large quantities as possible. It appears not to have been known in Italy so late as the year 1548, though the art of dyeing then flourished there. Cornelius van Drebbel, at Alkmaar, first employed cochineal for the production of scarlet in 1650. Until about 1725 the belief was very prevalent that cochineal was the seed of a plant, but Dr Martin Lister in 1672 conjectured it to be a kind of kermes, and in 1703 Antony van Leeuwenhoek ascertained its true nature by aid of the microscope. Since its introduction cochineal has supplanted kermes (_Coccus ilicis_) over the greater part of Europe.

The male of the cochineal insect is half the size of the female, and, unlike it, is devoid of nutritive apparatus; it has long white wings, and a body of a deep red colour, terminated by two diverging setae. The female is apterous, and has a dark-brown plano-convex body; it is found in the proportion of 150 to 200 to one of the male insect. The dead body of the mother insect serves as a protection for the eggs until they are hatched. Cochineal is now furnished not only by Mexico and Peru, but also by Algiers and southern Spain. It is collected thrice in the seven months of the season. The insects are carefully brushed from the branches of the cactus into bags, and are then killed by immersion in hot water, or by exposure to the sun, steam, or the heat of an oven--much of the variety of appearance in the commercial article being caused by the mode of treatment. The dried insect has the form of irregular, fluted and concave grains, of which about 70,000 go to a pound. Cochineal has a musty and bitterish taste. There are two principal varieties--_silver cochineal_, which has a greyish-red colour, and the furrows of the body covered with a white bloom or fine down; and _black cochineal_, which is of a dark reddish brown, and destitute of bloom. _Granilla_ is an inferior kind, gathered from uncultivated plants. The best crop is the first of the season, which consists of the unimpregnated females; the later crops contain an admixture of young insects and skins, which contain proportionally little colouring matter.

The black variety of cochineal is sometimes sold for silver cochineal by shaking it with powdered talc or heavy-spar; but these adulterations can be readily detected by means of a lens. The duty in the United Kingdom on imported cochineal was repealed in 1845.

Cochineal owes its tinctorial power to the presence of a substance termed cochinealin or carminic acid, C17H18O10, which may be prepared from the aqueous decoction of cochineal. Cochineal also contains a fat and wax; cochineal wax or coccerin, C30H60(C31H61O3)2, may be extracted by benzene, the fat is a glyceryl myristate C3H5(C14H27O2)3.

COCHLAEUS, JOHANN (1479-1552), German humanist and controversialist, whose family name was Dobneck, was born of poor parents in 1479 at Wendelstein (near Nuremberg), whence his friends gave him the punning surname Cochlaeus (spiral), for which he occasionally substituted Wendelstinus. Having received some education at Nuremberg from the humanist Heinrich Grieninger, he entered (1504) the university of Cologne. In 1507 he graduated, and published under the name of Wendelstein his first piece, _In musicam exhortatorium_. He left Cologne (May 1510) to become schoolmaster at Nuremberg, where he brought out several school manuals. In 1515 he was at Bologna, hearing (with disgust) Eck's famous disputation against usury, and associating with Ulrich von Hutten and humanists. He took his doctor's degree at Ferrara (1517), and spent some time in Rome, where he was ordained priest. In 1520 he became dean of the Liebfrauenkirche at Frankfort, where he first entered the lists as a controversialist against the party of Luther, developing that bitter hatred to the Reformation which animated his forceful but shallow ascription of the movement to the meanest motives, due to a quarrel between the Dominicans and Augustinians. Luther would not meet him in discussion at Mainz in 1521. He was present at the diets of Worms, Regensburg, Spires and Augsburg. The peasants' war drove him from Frankfort; he obtained (1526) a canonry at Mainz; in 1529 he became secretary to Duke George of Saxony, at Dresden and Meissen. The death of his patron (1539) compelled him to take flight. He became canon (September 1539) at Breslau, where he died on the 10th of January 1552. He was a prolific writer, largely of overgrown pamphlets, harsh and furious. His more serious efforts retain no permanent value. With humanist convictions, he had little of the humanist spirit. We owe to him one of the few contemporary notices of the young Servetus.

See C. Otto, _Johannes Cochlaeus, der Humanist_ (1874); Haas, in I. Goschler's _Dict. encydopéd. de la théol. cath._ (1858); Brecher, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_ (1876); T. Kolde, in A. Hauck's _Realencyklopädie für prot. Theol. u. Kirche_ (1898). (A. Go.*)

COCK, EDWARD (1805-1802), British surgeon, was born in 1805. He was a nephew of Sir Astley Cooper, and through him became at an early age a member of the staff of the Borough hospital in London, where he worked in the dissecting room for thirteen years. Afterwards he became in 1838 assistant surgeon at Guy's, where from 1849 to 1871 he was surgeon, and from 1871 to 1892 consulting surgeon. He rose to be president of the College of Surgeons in 1869. He was an excellent anatomist, a bold operator, and a clear and incisive writer, and though in lecturing he was afflicted with a stutter, he frequently utilized it with humorous effect and emphasis. From 1843 to 1849 he was editor of _Guy's Hospital Reports_, which contain many of his papers, particularly on stricture of the urethra, puncture of the bladder, injuries to the head, and hernia. He was the first English surgeon to perform pharyngotomy with success, and also one of the first to succeed in trephining for middle meningeal haemorrhage; but the operation by which his name is known is that of opening the urethra through the perinaeum (see _Guy's Hospital Reports_, 1866). He died at Kingston in 1892.

COCKADE (Fr. _cocarde_, in 16th century _coquarde_, from _coq_, in allusion probably to the cock's comb), a knot of ribbons or a rosette worn as a badge, particularly now as part of the livery of servants. The cockade was at first the button and loop or clasp which "cocked" up the side of an ordinary slouch hat. The word first appears in this sense in Rabelais in the phrase "_bonnet à la coquarde_," which is explained by Cotgrave (1611) as a "Spanish cap or fashion of bonnet used by substantial men of yore ... worne proudly or peartly on th' one side." The bunch of ribbons as a party badge developed from this entirely utilitarian button and loop. The Stuarts' badge was a white rose, and the resulting white cockade figured in Jacobite songs after the downfall of the dynasty. William III.'s cockade was of yellow, and the House of Hanover introduced theirs of black, which in its present spiked or circular form of leather is worn in England to-day by the royal coachmen and grooms, and the servants of all officials or members of the services. At the battle of Sheriffmuir in the reign of George I. the English soldiers wore a black rosette in their hats, and in a contemporary song are called "the red-coat lads wi' black cockades." At the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, cockades of green ribbon were adopted. These afterwards gave place to the tricolour cockade, which is said to have been a mixture of the traditional colours of Paris (red and blue) with the white of the Bourbons, the early Revolutionists being still Royalists. The French army wore the tricolour cockade until the Restoration. To-day each foreign nation has its special coloured cockade. Thus the Austrian is black and yellow, the Bavarian light blue and white, the Belgian black, yellow and red, French the tricolour, Prussian black and white, Russian green and white, and so on, following usually the national colours. Originally the wearing of a cockade, as soon as it had developed into a badge, was restricted to soldiers, as "to mount a cockade" was "to become a soldier." There is still a trace of the cockade as a badge in certain military headgears in England and elsewhere. Otherwise it has become entirely the mark of domestic service. The military cocked hat, the lineal descendant of the _bonnet à la coquarde_, became the fashion in France during the reign of Louis XV.

See _Genealogical Magazine_, vols. i.-iii. (London, 1897-1899); Racinet, _La Costume historique_ (6 vols., Paris, 1888).