220 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Yu-kung their original home lay in the south-western part of 

 Eastern Turkestan, whence they first migrated east to the oases 

 north of the Nan-Shan range, and then, in the fourth millennium 

 before the new era, to the fertile valleys of the Hoang-ho and its 

 Hoei-ho tributary. Thence they spread slowly along the other 

 great river valleys, partly expelling, partly intermingling with the 

 aborigines, but so late as the 7th century B.C. were 



Absorption J 



of the still mainly confined to the region between the 



Pei'-ho and the lower Yang-tse-kiang. Even here 

 several indigenous groups, such as the Hoei, whose name sur- 

 vives in that of the Hoei' river, and the Lai of the Shantong 

 Peninsula, long held their ground, but all were ultimately absorbed 

 or assimilated throughout the northern lands as far south as the 

 left bank of the Yang-tse-kiang. 



Beyond this river many were also merged in the dominant 

 people continually advancing southwards \ but 

 others, collectively or vaguely known as Sifans, 

 Mans, Miao-tse, Pa-i, Tho, Y-jen 1 , Lolo, etc., were 

 driven to the south-western highlands which they 

 still occupy. Even some of the populations in the settled districts, 

 such as the Hok-los^ and ffakkas 3 of Kwang-tung, and the Pun-ti^ 

 of the Canton district, are scarcely yet thoroughly assimilated. 

 They differ greatly in temperament, usages, appearance, and speech 

 from the typical Chinese of the Central and Northern provinces, 

 whom in fact they look upon as "foreigners," and with whom they 



1 This term Y-jen ( Yi-jen) meaning much the same as Jlfan, Man-tse, 

 savage, rude, untameable, has acquired a sort of diplomatic distinction. In the 

 treaty of Tien-tsin (1858) it was stipulated that it should no longer, as hereto- 

 fore, be applied in official documents to the English or to any subjects of the 

 Queen. 



2 See Rev. J. Edkins, China's Place in Philology, p. 117. The Hok-los 

 were originally from Fo-kien, whence their alternative name, Fo-lo. The lo 

 appears to be the same word as in the reduplicated Lo-lo, meaning something 

 like the Greek and Latin Bar-bar, stammerers, rude, uncultured. 



3 The Hakkas, i.e. " strangers," speak a well-marked dialect current on the 

 uplands between Kwang-tung, Kiang-si, and Fo-kien (Dyer Ball, Easy Lessons 

 in the Hakka Dialect, 1884). 



4 Numerous in the western parts of Kwang-tung and in the Canton district 

 (Dyer Ball, Cantonese Made Easy, Hongkong, 1884). 



