The ancestral tablet is made on the second day after the funeral and erected in the central room of the house on the ninth day, with an appropriate ritual. It is worshipped on certain dates and on all important occasions in life. It is called I-pu (= ancestor). It consists of a structure of wooden pieces, made out of the Pieris tree, the log of which was the ark of the Lolo deluge. A transverse bundle of grass is made of the same grass as is used for thatch. Two pieces of bamboo root represent the deceased father and mother, one having nine, the other seven joints. The inscription reads: “The dwelling place of so-and-so (giving the name), the pair, man and woman, our ancestors.” It is written by the priest with ink, the water of which is brought by the son of the house from a secret spring in the forest, from a locality only known to the family of the deceased.” My three soul-carriers contain the souls of the men of three generations—son, father, grandfather. The Lolos have a Book of the Dead which Dr. Henry considers to be not unlike that of the ancient Egyptians. There are a great many Lolo tribes, and the one which we came in contact with at Ta-ting is of great antiquity, showing virile and intellectual qualities that promise well for future development, should they leave their old isolation and get drawn into the stream of present-day Chinese progress. They are tall and well built, quite unlike the Chinese in appearance and carriage. Naturally the open-air life of all these tribesmen gives them a freer gait, and the absence of etiquette and formality shows itself in all their movements. The shape of their faces is oval, unlike the broad Miao type; their eyes are large and level; their cheekbones prominent and the contour of the face rounded; their noses long, arched and rather broad; their chins pointed. Their faces are apt to grow very wrinkled. The poise of the head of all these men struck me as indicative of an independent spirit. All the tribes are practically autonomous, although nominally under Chinese rule: they have their own rulers, but these are responsible to, and many of them nominated by, the Chinese authorities. They frequently rent lands from them for cultivation, and law suits are very common among the I-chia about land and about daughters-in-law. Since the recrudescence of opium-poppy growing they have been compelled to use a certain proportion of land for its cultivation. They are not addicted to opium-smoking, and the Christians object to it on moral grounds: they have in consequence suffered considerable persecution and have even been evicted from the lands they had previously cultivated. They are terribly poor, and when the crops fail many of them die of starvation; this has happened during the last two years, which has been a period of great scarcity.