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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
This splendid MS. on red and blue satin is, in fact, the first that has reached Europe in the language and writing of the Lolos, almost unknown a few months ago; before the important Journey of Exploration in Western Sz'e chuen, by Mr. E. Colborne Baber, now Secretary of the Chinese Legation at Peking, noticed by him in a paper addressed to the Royal Geographical Society of this country. From this paper we learn that Mr. Baber displayed a remarkable diligence in procuring materials for the study of the language and writing of the Lolo population; his paper comprising a vocabulary, copy and tracing of three documents in the Lolo writing; but, till the arrival of this wonderful MS., it must be confessed that we had no other Lolo documents.
page 119 note 2 The only documents we had previously on the Lolos, besides the short Chinese notices, were the notes from Father Crabouillet, of the Missions Etrangères of Paris (missionary for ten years in Se-chuen) in 1873. These notes have been published in the numbers of February, 1873, of a weekly paper, Les Missions Catholiques, published at Lyons. The Lolos cover an area of 50 leagues in length, and 30 to 40 in width, in the south-western part of the Se-chuen province of China. A branch of the same people exists in Indo-China.
page 121 note 1 These vocabularies, however, taken on different spots, exhibit only slight differences; some are only due to phonetic decay.
page 122 note 1 A number of writings of that family may be enumerated in their geographical order, which in several cases is not due to their connection, derivation, and age, as follows: (a) India—Harapa seal, Indo-Pali, Vatteluttu; (b) Indo-China—Lolo, Laos; (c) Sumatra— Old Battak, Rejang, Lampung; (d) Celebes—Old Bugis, Macassar; (e) Philippines—Tagal (pre-Arabic Malay); and (f) Northern—Corean, Hifumi Japanese. The whole question is treated, with the necessary illustrations of characters, in my paper On the Eastern Alphabet and the Indo-Chinese Origin of the Indian Writing, which will soon appear in the Journal of the R.A.S.
page 123 note 1 See the Plate C.