MEKONG, Mekiiong, or Makong, less frequently Nam-Kong, the Da-Kio of the Tibetans, the Lantsang-Kiang or Lankiang of the Chinese, and the Son-Kong of the Anamese, sometimes also called the Cambodia or Camboja, is one of the largest and most remarkable rivers of southern Asia. As it rises in Tibet, probably about 34° N. lat. and 94° E. long., and reaches the China Sea about 10° N. lat., after a somewhat devious course through Yunnan, Burmah, Siam, Cambodia, and Cochin-China, its total course may be safely stated at 2000 miles. In spite, however, of this great length, the Mekong must be regarded as little more than a mountain torrent on an unusually large scale. It certainly forms a very extensive delta (see Cochin-China, vol. vi. pp. 93, 94), and is navigable for steamboats as far up as Cratieh (about 280 miles from the river mouth), but navigation soon becomes difficult, not through want of water, but from the great irregularity of the bed. At Stung-Streng the river measures about 2 leagues from bank to bank, and its current is strong even to violence; it “twists into the sharpest eddies, and drives against the banks with fury.” A little higher up are the great cataracts of Kong. Beyond these the channel again becomes navigable as far as Bassac, when it is still about 6500 feet in width; but before long the banks close in and the river, narrowed to about 900 feet, pours along a current of extraordinary depth. Above Khemarat the rapids again begin. At Paklay, Mouhot describes the Mekong as larger than the Menam at Bangkok, forcing its way between the lofty mountains with a noise like the roaring of the sea. About 130 miles farther up, at Luang-Prabang, it has again an unobstructed channel about 3000 feet wide; above Sien-kong the river winds through a magnificent ...