144 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (March, 1913. 
as names for things of which they knew nothing until they met 
the Shans and were converted to Buddhism. The A-ch’ang 
language is thus shown to be very closely connected with 
Maru, and Lashi is still more remarkable, while with the 
dialect of the Hpon of the upper defile of the Irrawaddy, it has 
many pointsincommon Unfortunately Sir George Scott while 
considering the A-ch’ang a distinct race groups them with the 
Tarens, Tarengs or Turengs, who are said to be found on the 
western border of the Chinese-Shan State of Santa, and in 
Hkamti Long.! 
In a later work Sir George Scott has abandoned this defi- 
nite position and taken up an agnostic one. He now writes 
(1906), that the Maingthas should rather be called dragoman 
Shans than Burmese, ‘‘and that their speech should be called 
his industry suggests the Chinaman; and his features suggest 
intermarriage with the Chingpaw. He will probably come to 
e called a worthy mongrel.’’? We are not concerned 
here with what the Maingtha may, or may not, eventually 
become, but with what he originally was, believing that in 
spite of admixture of blood and general racial disintegration, 
ed 
Chinese or Chinese-Shan affinity eir home is said to lie for 
the most part near Hkamti-Long. Attempts have been made 
at different times to prove that the Tarengs ngs or 
. i 3 OF 
Shans), into Tairong, and finally into Turung. He relates that 
they are generally regarded as Shans in the neighbourhood of 
the Hkampti country, and this in spite of the fact that the 
ae i 
has fallen into the old, but unfortunately still prevalent, mis- 
take,—the classification of a partially absorbed Tibeto-Burman 
clan with a Tai race, owing to the consequent masking of their 
1 (7), 2 (8), p. 95. 3 (9), i‘ 78. ia % (10). 
