Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia and Laos

Philologist, self-taught photographer and naturalist Henri Alexandre Mouhot (15 May 1826, Montbeliard, France ‑10 Nov. 1861, Naphan, Laos) started exploring South East Asia in 1857 with the support of the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London. French authorities never supported his journeys aimed at natural sciences research.

Mouhot´s connection with Great Britain was also personal since he married in 1856 the granddaughter (or niece?) of famous Scottish explorer Mungo Park (1771−1806), Annette Park (18??, Berwick-on-Tweed — 1894), and lived with her in Jersey. His brother Charles, who traveled with him across Europe and Russia, married another of Park´s relative, Jane Elizabeth Mary Park.

Also, it has been said that John Bowring´s book published in 1857, The Kingdom and People of Siam, gave him the idea of visiting South East India. Last but not least, his travelogue around South East Asia was first published in London in an edition collated by Charles Mouhot in 1862.

His Journal and letters, later collated in the book Voyage dans les Royaumes de Siam, de Cambodge et de Laos (1868) for the French public, became a sensation for his description of Angkor, which he reached from the South in January 1860 (chapters 18, 19, 20). If he was not the first Westerner to access the Angkorian site, his relation was so vivid, detailed and well-written that ït gave him (posthumously) the reputation of being the first ​“Angkor rediscoverer”. [in 1874, Hachette Publishers included Mouhot’s book in its popular ​“Pink Library”, 3^d series (“For teenagers, possibly in a library for young girls aged 14 to 18 years).] 

Henri Mouhot, was had studied Greek and Latin and taught Greek at a Saint-Petersburg gymnasium during the twelve years he stayed in Russia, took some epigraphic notes on Khmer and Lao languages that are kept at the British Library (collection Or.4736) and can be viewed here. They are parts of Mouhot’s documents and notes which were brought to London by Dr. James Campbell and given to his widow, Anne Mouhot. She gave these papers to the British Museum in 1894, over 30 years after her husband’s death, and the originally loose-leaf papers (most of them dated 1860 and 1861) were recently bound together in book form by the British Museum. 

Henri Mouhot died of malaria fever (called ​“fievre des bois” among the French explorers of Indochina) on Nov 10, 1861, in the vicinity of Luang Prabang, the southernmost Royal city of Laos. His grave, erected in 1867, has been rediscovered in 1989.

According to American Protestant missionary Daniel McGilvary, who visited the area in 1876 – 1877 (in A Half Century Among the Siamese and The Lao, An Autobiography, Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, 1912), ​“no doubt the real spirits are the malarial germs or the poisonous gas which later we found to be the chief danger of the Chieng Dāo cave. It was in this cave that M. Mouhot, a noted French scientist, contracted the fever from which he died. The natives believed that his death was caused by his rashness in trespassing upon the domain of the spirits who preside over the cave.”

As a naturalist in Laos, Mouhot is credited of numerous discoveries of numerous specimens of insects and shells that were not previously known to Western zoologists, including an impressive black beetle that was later named Mouhotia gloriosa, and an extraordinarily shaped spider now known as Cyphagogus Mouhotii. 

Charles Mouhot (1828 — 1904) was a younger brother of Henri Alexandre Mouhot, the famous French explorer who gave a vivid description of Angkor in 1859.

Just a year after Henri’s death in Laos in 1861, Charles Mouhot completed the English translation of his brother’s travelogue, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-china (Siam), Cambodia and Laos, based on Henri’s personal notes and his letters to Charles as well as to Henri’s wife, Anne (Annette) Mouhot née Park. Dedicated to ​“the learned Societies of England”, this edition carried a presentation(“Memoir of Henri Mouhot”) by J.J. Belinfante.

Charles Mouhot’s own wife, Jane Elizabeth Mary (Jenny) Mouhot née Park (1831, London — ?), was a cousin of Annette, and both were related to illustrious Scottish explorer Mungo Park, a celebrated explorer of Western Africa.

J.J. (Joseph Justus Zaddik) Belinfante (11 March 1821, Amsterdam — 2 Dec. 1882, Den Haag — The Hague) was a Dutch publicist, self-taught historian and journalist who contributed to the English publication of Henri Mouhot​’s notes, journal and letters related to Southeast Asia and Angkor.

Born in an illustrious Jewish family who had emigrated from succesively Turkey, Portugal and Italy from the 17^th century, son of Jacob and nephew of Mozes ben-Zaddik Ha-Cohen Belinfante, publicist brothers who had founded the first Jewish publication in the Netherlands, Joseph Justus started his career as a proofreader, both in French and Dutch languages. 

He contributed to the Algemeen Handelsblad -- in particular in ​‘Mengelingen. Verovering van Algerië. zeventienjarige strijd’ (Miscelleaneous on the Conquest of Algeria, a Seventeen-Year Campaign, 1847), to La Revue des Deux-Mondes –through wich he correspondent with Henri and Charles Mouhot –, to te Moniteur des Indes Orientales et Occidentales — founded in 1846 by the baron Melvill van Carnbee — , to Les Archives Israelites, and co-founded the review Weekblad van het Regt.

Married in 1837 to Bilha Lobato (1804−1880), he remained childless but was close to his several nephews and cousins, who affectionately called him Oom Joost, Uncle Justus. His Life of Michiel Adriaenzoon de Ruyter (Amsterdam, 1844 – 1852, 2 vols.) remains a reference biography of the Dutch admiral (1607−1676) who became a ​“folk hero” for his prowesses during the Anglo-Dutch Wars and the operations against pirates along the Barbary Coast (North Africa).

Photo: The Amsterdam Esnoga (Portuguese-Jewish Synagogue), of which JJ Belinfante’s grandfather Zaddik was the chief-rabbi; coll. Jewish Portuguese Community