Note 451 — Chapter VI

This omission, however, is partly supplied by T. de Lacouperie, who gives us an account of a wonderful Lolo MS. on satin, red on one side, blue on the other, containing nearly 5750 words written in black, "apparently with the Chinese brush." The MS. was obtained by E. Colborne Baber from a Lolo chief, forwarded to Europe in 1881, and described by de Lacouperie, Journ. R. As. Soc. Vol. XIV. Part I. "The writing runs in lines from top to bottom and from left to right, as in Chinese" (p. 1), and this authority regards it as the link that was wanting to connect the various members of a widely diffused family radiating from India (Harapa seal, Indo-Pali, Vatteluttu) to Malaysia (Batta, Rejang, Lampong, Bugis, Makassar, Tagal), to Indo-China (Lao, Siamese, Lolo), Korea and Japan, and also including the Siao-chuen Chinese system "in use a few centuries B.C." (p. 5). It would be premature to say that all these connections are established.