more manly than the Chinese, who would certainly regard fox-hunting and football as "savage." But they are not quite so satisfactory to us from a business point of view, because they prefer a rustic life and homespun clothes, and have not, generally, much taste for luxury.

This little festive scene from the pen of Consul Bourne will also be interesting, especially as the bamboo organ pipes must be like those in use among the Tai of the French Laos state of Indo-China:

At Ping-mei, a few miles from the Kweichow and Kwangsi border, while our boats were being tied up for the night, as the sun was setting, a procession filed over the mountain path, fringing the other bank of the river, on which our whole attention was quickly centered. In front about thirty girls were walking in single file stepping out briskly over the rocky path in black tunics, short petticoats and grass sandals; behind them also in single file, was a large party of men, and in the rear two musicians with things like organ pipes of bamboo, stretching three or four feet above their heads, through which they blew by means of a horizontal mouth piece: the music sounded fairly melodious and the general effect of the procession across the river in the sunset was quite suggestive of a Greek frieze. We learned that these festive people were Tung-Chia (Shans) of a neighboring village who had walked twelve miles into the hills to a bull fight that morning and were now returning. It seems this tribe breed water buffaloes to fight, and that the contests are often watched by several thousand people: they come off every spring, and are made the occasion of a kind of fair. The Chinese explained to us that the Tung-chia took all this trouble about bull fights because they feared that without them they would get no rice crop: but this sounds like the reasoning of sordid people to account for a sporting custom. The buffaloes fight together and the beaten one has to bolt: men take no part in the contest.

In 1915 a letter came into my hands from a missionary in Kweichow asking for help in acquiring the language of the tribes people, rather asking if our system of writing would help them to indicate the tones in the language he was trying to master.

I sent him what help I could, though as his work was among the Miao any thing in Tai would be of little use to him. They can best be reached through the Pollard script, though I did not know that at the time. His letter was addressed to the Manager of the Presbyterian Mission Press, Ban Taw, Siam. He said, "I do not know who you are and I cannot locate your place on any map I have at hand," which was not surprising.

I only mention this to show the importance of differentiating between the different mountain tribes of the Mon Ikemer and kindred families and the different branches of the Tai race. It also shows how far apart the two extremes of the Tai habitat are, and how little is known even by the missionaries of the northern. border of the missionaries and their work on the southern border, and vice versa. Exploration, correspondence, and the linking up of work are now drawing them ever closer together, to the benefit of the work as a whole, and we gladly welcome all such requests as the above to that end.

As a means of bringing remote peoples into closer relationship with each other, the main arteries and routes of travel are the most effective. After the pioneer who blazed the trail comes the iron horse next as a civilizing agency. I hope there is a promise of good yet to be fulfilled for the Tai people of Kweichow and adjacent provinces in the following item which appeared in the London Times in 1913:

The Chinese government has practically completed arrangements with Lord French, representing Messrs. Paulings, for the construction of a railway from Shasi, in Hupeh, to Singyifu, in Kweichow. . . . and connects with Yunnan and Hanoi by means of the line Yunnanfu-Singyifu-Nanning now being arranged by France. And in the next week's issue the statement was made that "The agreement with Messrs. Pauling for the construction of a railway between Shasi in Hupeh, and Singyifu, in Kweichow, was signed this evening.

There is no doubt that the cataclysm of the World War which worked ruin to all plans for world progress for the time, prevented the carrying out of this agreement. We can only hope that of the railways now being planned and projected in China, this may be among the first to be put through.

I need hardly point out what a revolutionizing thing this will

prove to the majority of all the Tai people of Kweichow (estimated as two millions or more), Kwangsi (not less than two millions more), and those of eastern Yünnan (about a million more), as well as to the Chinese and mountain tribes. It is the very region of these millions of Tai that will be traversed by this Yunnanfu-Singyifu-Nanning railroad.

But will the iron horse work good or ill to these quiet pastoral people in Kweichow? Civilization alone cannot lead a people out of the wilderness and fit them to take a place among the great nations of the earth. Christianity is the power that makes a people or an individual truly great. Only the Gospel of Christ can make a nation a power for good or fit its people for the Kingdom of heaven.

Let the messengers of Christ follow closely in the wake of the steamers, the daily press, and the railways, lest we find conditions crystallizing rapidly and this simple hearted people filled with the things of this world, the "lust of the eye, and the pride of life," and the "one thing needful" shut out.

CHAPTER III

THE YANGTZE TAI OF YUNNAN

On June 6, 1913, an S. O. S. eall was sent out by Mr. Gladstone Porteous, from Wutingchow, Yünnan. It was addressed to "The Presbyterian Laos Mission, Bangkok, Siam," and in due time it came to me. His letter enclosed a printed clipping which stated that the Laos literature reached not only the Laos of Siam, "but those of Northern Annam and the related Tai people of the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Kweichow, and Kwangsi."

However this came to be published, it was of course largely prophetic. At all events it inspired Mr. Porteous to write to us for help. His letter told of a number of villages of Tai people in his district, up on the Yangtze, some of whom had "recently shown an interest in the Gospel and would like some Christian literature in their own language." He spoke of their use of the Pollard script in their work among the mountain tribes but they did not find it usable for the Tai. He asked for a few samples of our literature with a key to its pronunciation and enclosed a list of words gathered from the Tai people there so that we might know if the language was the same as spoken by our Tai people in the south. Of the thirty-seven words in the list only four were foreign to our Yun Tai!

If the letter had been found in a bottle washed up from the depths of the ocean from some unknown island, we could hardly have been more astonished and interested. We had never imagined there were Tai people on the Yangtze, and never before heard of the C. I. M. workers of that region. Nor could we have felt more helpless to give aid in response to their call. It was nearly a two months' journey from Chiengmai to Wuting and in the minds of our Tai helpers, a journey to the moon would have been almost as feasible; especially as our people did not know Chinese, which would be necessary in order to make the journey. A correspondence ensued between Mr. Porteous and myself, and Arthur G. Nicholls when Mr. Porteous was absent on furlo. This correspondence extended over a period of about five years

before it resulted in any thing of direct benefit to the Yangtze Tai people.

Great interest was aroused among the members of our mission. when these letters were read at annual meeting in Chiengmai in 1914. To hear that these people so far away were praying in the language of our Chiengmai people and begging for the Gospel in their own tongue, went to our hearts. As Dr. Briggs said after reading them, "Those letters from Yünnan must make your blood run a race to keep up." Mr. Nicholls' letters informed us of the existence of a whole valley full of Tai to the north of his station. This valley is that of a tributary of the Yangtze, and contains several thousand households of Tai. At last accounts some seventeen households had accepted Christ. They are illiterate in Tai but some of them can read Chinese. He asked if we could spare them a Tai Christian worker, and if we could introduce our Tai literature among the Tai of northern Yünnan. I invited him to meet us at Szemao; but he replied that he could not leave his station on account of building and other work, much as he should have been delighted to do so.

In order that you may have the situation more in detail, and that it may appeal to your hearts, as it has to ours, I will quote at some length from letters received:

First of all, the people call themselves Tai, or rather ChinTai... As far as I can sec, quite a few can read the Chinese character,... but those who read are but indifferent readers. ... They do not wish to be taught the Gospel in Chinese or worship in any other tongue but their own.

There are thirty families in this village, and seventeen. believe. At worship they sing hymns in Chinese. I spent a Sabbath with them. I taught them the lesson in Chinese and they spoke in Tai. They also prayed in their own tongue. There is no interest in any other village, though I have heard that if we had hymnbooks in Tai they would join. . . . These Tai will have nothing to do with the Gospel by means of the Chinese character, that is only a few will whose hearts have been touched; but they would be thankful for hymn book and gospel in their own, and maybe village after village would join, who knows.

The Tai here are a different race and would not for a moment claim to be Chinese.... You will have gathered that