reached by about 4 p.m. This place is the first settlement of a tribe of aborigines whom the Chinese call "Pepohoan," or "foreigners of the plain." These people have a lively and warm recollection of their Dutch masters. They still cherish traditions of their kind-hearted, red-haired brothers, and for this reason they receive foreigners with a cordial welcome. Once, in the times of the Dutch, they lived down in those fertile plains which we had just been crossing ; but they have long ago been driven back out of the richer land by the advance of the ruthless Chinese. Higher up, in the mountain fastnesses, their hardy kinsmen have held their own, defying all the forces of the Imperial conqueror.
The natives came out in great numbers to meet and welcome the Doctor, whom they had not seen for a considerable time. They were a fine, simple-looking race and had a frank sincerity of manner which was refreshing after a long experience of the cunning Chinese. These Pepohoans had acquired the Chinese arts of husbandry and house-building. Their buildings were even superior to those of the Chinese squatters, and the people themselves were better dressed. It struck me, as I have noticed elsewhere, that they resembled the Laotians of Siam both in features and costume, while their old language bore undoubted traces of Malayan origin. '
I visited several of the houses at Poah-be and found them clean, well-arranged and comfortable. Their mode of construc- tion is as follows : — A bamboo framework is first set up ; this is then covered with a lathing or rather wattle-work of reeds or split bamboo, and the whole is afterwards plastered over with the clay that abounds in the neighbourhood, and finished when dry with an outer coating of the white lime made out of
- See Appendix.
