sides La-ka,
Li-su, and many other tribes with which we have no concern at the
present moment.

So that it may be seen that from Yuen-nan-fu, the capital, in areas on
either side of the main road leading up to the bifurcation of the
Yangtze below Sui-fu, in a long, narrow neck running between the River
of Golden Sand and the Kwei-chow border, Miao are met with constantly.
And then, of course, over the river, in Szech'wan, they are met with
again, and in Kwei-chow, farther west, we have their real home.

It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
from the pens of men who have not.

In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:--

(i) The Hua Miao--The Flowery (or White) Miao.

(ii) The Heh Miao--The Black Miao.

(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)

The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's _Kwei-chow and
Yuen-nan Provinces_, Prince Henri d'Orleans' _Du Tonkin aux Indes_, and
Mr. Baber's works. Major Davies also gives some new information
concerning this hill people, and is generally correct in what he says;
but in his, as in all the books which touch upon the subject, the
language tests vary considerably. In Chao-t'ong and the surrounding
districts, for instance, the traveler would be unable to make any
progress with the vocabulary which the Major has compiled. I was unable
to make it tally with the spoken language of the people, and append a
table showing the differences in the phonetic--and I do it with all
respect to Major Davies. I ought to add that this is the language of the
north-east corner of Yuen-nan; that of Major Davies is taken from page
339 of his book. He says that t