Kachek, Jan. 5.
Hainan, though an island very considerable size, contains a population of about as varied a make-up as possible, drawing upon many parts of China for representatives. Among the most interesting of all of Hainan's peoples are the Loi aborigines. They live in the interior of Hainan all about the Five Finger Mountains,—so named from their resemblance to man's hand—to which the following legend is attached. In the early years of the Christian era a little boy began earch for knowledge by attending the village school, and each day as he crossed the brook and made his way to the little house where the old student conned over the classics, or explained the deep things of the Chinese language to the village boys, he was met and helped across the brook by an old Loi man who asked of his work and tain that the government specially excepts the Loi country, in issuing passports to the missionaries in Hainan. The Chinese have tried military force in controlling them, but any expedition has returned defeated by hunger or ial fever or by both. The have also tried education, opening Loi schools at several of the district cities in the south, but these have gradually closed for lack of funds or for lack of pupils.
In Lengtui District are two Loi brothers named Wang who were educated in government schools and who have the interests of their Loi brethren at heart. They have opened two primary schools, of a hundred pupils each, right in the heart of the Loi country. The older of these brothers has been given official control of all the Lois, - numbering about 8,000 in Lengtui district. He is their ruler and judge and Mas power of capital punishment. The younger brother is in charge of the schools and has large plans for their development. For the Lois are exceedingly backward. They are fever-stricken, uneducated and poor and out of touch with the main stream of Chinese life. progress in learning. Each day the old student explained to the boy some passage talien from the books of the ancients, bringing out the beauties of the philosophy of him who said, "Rectify the heart and the whole life will become pure and true." Day after day, month after month, and year after year went by and the child became man learned in the lore of the ancients.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.