Note 148 — XV.

In the figures of the Chinese original, which represents the Lo-háu-miáu or Buddhist aboriginal, Buddha is represented in a cavity of a rock. Two burning lamps are standing beside him, one on each side, and in front are two worshippers in devotional attitudes, while at a short distance one perceives a woman with a little child, who is approaching the divinity. The men wear fox-tails as ornaments to the head, and their long locks hang loose and dishevelled, far below the shoulders. Every year on the third day of the third moon, our Chinese traveller goes on to state, old and young, man, woman, and child, bring offerings of fruit to Buddha, and for that and the three next succeeding days, they sing and dance, and at the same time make offerings of all manner of cooked food. From their custom of wearing a fox-tail on their heads, which was also common among the ancestors of the present Mantchoos, and that these wild tribes reverence the image of Buddha, Dr. Bridgman is disposed to class them amongst foreign nations.