Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. II.pdf/18

 stem of the pole was wreathed with withered flowers. The male idol reminded me of a child's bamboo chair, it too supported a skull, as well as one or two wine-cups used in making offerings. The house in which I saw these idols was close to a Christian chapel which the natives were erecting for themselves. There are now over i.ooo native Protestants in the south of the island, and they build their own chapels, and make them as nearly as possible self-supporting.

These aborigines possess no musical instruments, but they sing simple and plaintive native airs full of minor passages. Such melodies indeed as one would expect to find among the captive or oppressed.

No. 10 shows the mode of carrying children, and the coiffure adopted by Pepohoan women of the more inland tribes, and among the purely savage mountaineers.

No. 11 is a full-length type of a Baksa girl, and No. i 2 represents part of the village of Lalung, where we had hoped to fall in with a party of savages from the mountains. The son of our host, having lost his wife, had gone off" to the neighbouring mountains to secure another bride. He was hourly expected to return escorted by a party of her savage kinsmen whom the lady would command as an escort. Here, as indeed at most of the places visited, we were hospitably entertained.