THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF KWEICHOW 



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side and a charming, laughing group of Miao boys and girls, 

 dressed in red, white and blue came running down the path 

 to welcome us. A greater contrast to the sullen-looking 

 tribes people we had seen elsewhere it would be hard to 

 imagine. But these were converts, and friends therefore 

 of the missionaries' friends, and we felt rather like Darwin, 

 who was relieved to find the missionaries had preceded him 

 among the savage natives of the islands in the Pacific. 

 Certainly these Ta Wha Miao were quite attractive, with 

 their smiling faces, gay picturesque clothes, and cleanliness 

 of appearance; they did vast credit to their teachers. They 

 are called Great Flowery Miao, because the designs of their 

 embroidered clothes are rather large — especially so in contrast 

 to the designs of the Little Flowery Miao, whose embroidery 



is of the finest and most perfect kind imaginable, and 

 remarkably beautiful both in design and in colour, with subtly 

 introduced touches of spring green into a quiet harmony of 

 brown, black, white and yellow. In a quarter of a square 

 inch of cross-stitch you have nine rows, and they are as 

 exactly accurate as if ruled. They use also chain stitch and 

 other kinds of stitches. To heighten the values of the deli- 

 oate design there are long rows of different-coloured super- 

 imposed pieces of material, sometimes as many as eight, in 

 the following order, orange, red, white — or orange, green, 

 red, bright blue, indigo, orange, red, white. Especially 

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