Similarity of their Customs ivith those of the Mantchoos. 463 



Buddha in their festivals.* Some of these however seem to 

 be more or less crossed with Chinese blood, as, for example, the 

 Tsche-Tsai-Miau, in the district of Kutschan, whither the rebel 

 Ma-san-pai formerly fled with 600 of his followers, when his 

 attempt, under his feudal leader, Mu-san-Kwei, to overthrow 

 the reigning dynasty, failed of success. Many of these fugi- 

 tives formed connections with the native women, and their 

 descendants are now known by the name of the six hundred 

 savage Miau families. 



Adjoining Dr. Bridgman's residence, is a school maintained 

 at the expense of the mission, in which twenty-four Chinese 

 girls are during five years instructed in reading and writing 

 their mother tongue, in arithmetic, and in the rudiments of 

 Christianity, after which they are provided with a small 

 portion and married to Chinese Christians of good character. 

 Selected under the idea that very favourable results may be 

 anticipated, if the various subjects in which the scholars are 



* In the figures of the Chinese original, which represents the Lo-hau-miau or 

 Buddhist aboriginal, Buddlia is represented in a cavity of a rock. Two burning lamps 

 are standing beside him, one on each side, and in front are two worshippers in devo- 

 tional attitudes, while at a short distance one perceives a woman with a little child, 

 who is approaching the divinity. The men wear fox-tails as ornaments to the head, 

 and their long locks hang loose and dishevelled, far below the shoulders. Every 

 year on the third day of the third moon, our Chinese traveller goes on to state, old 

 and young, man, woman, and child, bring offerings of fruit to Buddha, and for that and 

 the three next succeeding days, they sing and dance, and at the same time make offerings 

 of aU manner of cooked food. From their custom of wearing a fox-tail on their heads, 

 which was also common among the ancestors of the present Mantchoos, and that these 

 wld tribes reverence the image of Buddha, Dr. Bridgman is disposed to class them 

 amongst foreign nations. 



