THE LOLOS OF KIENTCHANG, WESTERN CHINA LEGENDRE. 573 



The Lolo has the audacity of his vigorous physique, of his superb 

 vitality. Always in motion, always on the alert, ready to meet any 

 surprise, nothing troubles the mind of this fearless fighter. What he 

 loves most of all is to attack the hated Chinese. It is a wild guerilla 

 attack, brutal and frightful, which makes every door fly open, leav- 

 ing the enemy at his mercy without the shadow of a defense. 



In fights with men of his own race, warriors of his own stamp, he 

 shows a prudence equal to his courage. He displays all the astute- 

 ness, all the strategy, of the red man, which he resembles in many 

 respects. He habitually steals his silent march and falls at night 

 with the suddenness of lightning on the hostile clan. It is in a feud 

 above all that he thus fearlessly acquits himself. In these feuds of 

 tribe against tribe they often settle quarrels in pitched battle by 

 broad daylight at some place chosen in advance. 



What the Lolo lacks in being a perfect warrior is not certain; it is 

 not courage, nor ardor, for this race, says Father Martin, knows 

 neither flight nor hiding before an enemy. This they do lack — per- 

 severance-, that will-power, that persistency of the white warrior, 

 which leaves no respite to the enemy until he is overpowered. 



The Lolo is the same in peace as in war; he ignores continuity, 

 laying aside too readily the task he has begun. Like a child he is 

 changeable, fluctuating, a vagrant morally as well as physically. 

 For him life is a jest, hard sometimes, very often even bloody, but it 

 is always a play; he has no other conception of Ins destiny. Gen- 

 erous, even wasteful, when he can be, careless to our mind, nothing 

 seems to fix his 'thought beyond the present hour; nothing fixes it 

 unless it is his ardent hatred toward the son of Han. His other 

 enmities, personal or collective, although lively, even ferocious some- 

 times, as in a feud, do not have the same tenacity; for with the 

 clans he makes truces, some agreements leading even to recon- 

 ciliation. When fighting with the Chinese, however, there is no 

 truce; this is a fight to the bitter end, a chronic raid; nothing can 

 stop him. 



The Lolo in this kind of attack always acts by surprise with such 

 an astuteness and extreme swiftness that it is very difficult to ward 

 off the first effects. The beginning of these dramas is a conflagration, 

 a destructive fire lighted at all corners of the village at once by means 

 of pine torches fixed at the end of the great Lolo lances 13 to 16 feet 

 long. In a twinkling the miserable wooden and bamboo huts burst 

 into flame; cattle, horses, and sheep gallop wildly about, precipitat- 

 ing disorder and greatly obstructing the defense. Animals and men, 

 seeking to escape the fire, are driven back by the spears of the aggress- 

 ors and forced into the center of the village. The fighters of the 

 assailed clan may succeed by wild dashes in again meeting their ene- 



