Note {3} — Chapter LXXX

Note 3.—These particulars as to a race of painted or tattooed caterans accused of cannibalism apparently apply to some aboriginal tribe which still maintained its ground in the mountains between Fo-kien and Che-kiang or Kiang-si. Davis, alluding to the Upper part of the Province of Canton, says: “The Chinese History speaks of the aborigines of this wild region under the name of Mân (Barbarians), who within a comparatively recent period were subdued and incorporated into the Middle Nation. Many persons have remarked a decidedly Malay cast in the features of the natives of this province; and it is highly probable that the Canton and Fo-kien people were originally the same race as the tribes which still remain unreclaimed on the east side of Formosa.”[1] (Supply. Vol. p. 260.) Indeed Martini tells us that even in the 17th century this very range of mountains, farther to the south, in the Ting-chau department of Fo-kien, contained a race of uncivilised people, who were enabled by the inaccessible character of the country to maintain their independence of the Chinese Government (p. 114; see also Semedo, p. 19).