Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/347

 ago the official returns for a few counties gave over 20,000 as the number of executions following on the actual suppression of a local rising. This dearth of population has made a field for immigration, about 30 per cent apparently of the passengers in steamers alone from Kwangtung remaining in the province, amounting to about 40,000 per annum. In the northern prefectures a large immigration of Hunanese continually goes on, tens of thousands of them being found in Kweilin city alone.

For this, if for no other reason, the attempt to recruit for the South African mines was foredoomed to the failure it turned out to be. In this respect is in marked contrast to Kwangtung, with its surplus population flowing out to the ends of the earth.

Though reckoned among the poor provinces of China, its poverty is not the result of overcrowding as elsewhere, but may, in fact, be due to this very want of population, coupled, of course, with the chronic unrest and the absence of easy means of communication apart from the rivers. As is natural under the circumstances, a large proportion of the population is found in the navigable river valleys.

Aboriginal Tribes. — That numerous aboriginal tribes exist is an undoubted fact, particularly in the north-west, but to acquire facts about them is another matter. They are separated into tribes under chiefs, who render some sort of homage to the Chinese officials. The names of some of these tribes are Miao, Tao, Tong, Chuang, Chong, and Lolo. In speech as in custom, etc., they are quite distinct from the Chinese, but some are akin to the Burmans and others to the Tibetans. Some tribes are believed to have a rudimentary form of writing, but others use, if necessary, Chinese characters. The French Roman Catholic missionaries have reduced one or two of their languages to writing. No other Mission work has been attempted among them, although they seem peaceable and friendly people. Their chief industry is cutting timber in the mountains and floating it down to the main rivers. In point of numbers they are quite in a minority among the general population.