[450] Op. cit. p. 55.
[451] This omission, however, is partly supplied by T. de Lacouperie, who gives us an account of a wonderful Lolo MS. on satin, red on one side, blue on the other, containing nearly 5750 words written in black, "apparently with the Chinese brush." The MS. was obtained by E. Colborne Baber from a Lolo chief, forwarded to Europe in 1881, and described by de Lacouperie, Journ. R. As. Soc. Vol. XIV. Part I. "The writing runs in lines from top to bottom and from left to right, as in Chinese" (p. 1), and this authority regards it as the link that was wanting to connect the various members of a widely diffused family radiating from India (Harapa seal, Indo-Pali, Vatteluttu) to Malaysia (Batta, Rejang, Lampong, Bugis, Makassar, Tagal), to Indo-China (Lao, Siamese, Lolo), Korea and Japan, and also including the Siao-chuen Chinese system "in use a few centuries B.C." (p. 5). It would be premature to say that all these connections are established.
[452] Op. cit. p. 193.
[453] Beginnings of Writing in Central and Eastern Asia, passim. For the Lolos see A. F. Legendre, "Les Lolos. Étude ethnologique et anthropologique," T'oung Pao II. Vol. X. 1909.
[454] "Quelques-uns de ces Kiou-tsés me rappellent des Européens que je connais." (Op. cit. p. 252).
[455] Deux Ans dans le Haut-Tonkin, etc., Paris, 1896.
[456] With regard to Man (Man-tse) it should be explained that in Chinese it means "untameable worms," that is, wild or barbarous, and we are warned by Desgodins that "il ne faut pas prendre ces mots comme des noms propres de tribus" (Bul. Soc. Géogr. XII. p. 410). In 1877 Capt. W. Gill visited a large nation of Man-tse with 18 tribal divisions, reaching from West Yunnan to the extreme north of Sechuen, a sort of federacy recognising a king, with Chinese habits and dress, but speaking a language resembling Sanskrit (?). These were the Sumu, or "White Man-tse," apparently the same as those visited in 1896 by Mrs Bishop, and by her described as semi-independent, ruled by their own chiefs, and in appearance "quite Caucasian, both men and women being very handsome," strict Buddhists, friendly and hospitable, and living in large stone houses (Letter to Times, Aug. 18, 1896).
[457] "Des paysannes nóngs dont les cheveux étaient blonds, quelquefois même roux." Op. cit.
[458] L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 602 sq.
[459] "On the Relations of the Indo-Chinese and Inter-Oceanic Races and Languages." Paper read at the Meeting of the Brit. Association, Sheffield, 1879, and printed in the Journ. Anthr. Inst., February, 1880.