[442] Much unexpected light has been thrown upon the early history of these Ahoms by E. Gait, who has discovered and described in the _Journ. As. Soc. Bengal_, 1894, a large number of _puthis_, or MSS. (28 in the Sibsagar district alone), in the now almost extinct Ahom language, some of which give a continuous history of the Ahom rajas from 568 to 1795 A.D. Most of the others appear to be treatises on religious mysticism or divination, such as "a book on the calculation of future events by examining the leg of a fowl" (_ib._). [443] _Op. cit._ p. 309. [444] A. R. Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, 1885, Introduction, p. lv. [445] _Op. cit._ p. 328. [446] _Temples and Elephants_, p. 320. [447] "Der Gesichtsausdruck ueberhaupt naehert sich der kaukasischen Race" (_Im fernen Osten_, p. 959). [448] Low's _Siamese Grammar_, p. 14. [449] R. G. Woodthorpe, "The Shans and Hill Tribes of the Mekong," in _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1897, p. 16. [450] _Op. cit._ p. 55. [451] This omission, however, is partly supplied by T. de Lacouperie, who gives us an account of a wonderful Lolo MS. on satin, red on one side, blue on the other, containing nearly 5750 words written in black, "apparently with the Chinese brush." The MS. was obtained by E. Colborne Baber from a Lolo chief, forwarded to Europe in 1881, and described by de Lacouperie, _Journ. R. As. Soc._ Vol. XIV. Part I. "The writing runs in lines from top to bottom and from left to right, as in Chinese" (p. 1), and this authority regards it as the link that was wanting to connect the various members of a widely diffused family radiating from India (Harapa seal, Indo-Pali, Vatteluttu) to Malaysia (Batta, Rejang, Lampong, Bugis, Makassar, Tagal), to Indo-China (Lao, Siamese, Lolo), Korea and Japan, and also including the Siao-chuen Chinese system "in use a few centuries B.C." (p. 5). It would be premature to say that all these connections are established. [452] _Op. cit._ p. 193. [453] _Beginnings of Writing in Central and Eastern Asia, passim._ For the Lolos see A. F. Legendre, "Les Lolos. Etude ethnologique et anthropologique," _T'oung Pao II._ Vol. X. 1909. [454] "Quelques-uns de ces Kiou-tses me rappellent des Europeens que je connais." (_Op. cit._ p. 252). [455] _Deux Ans dans le Haut-Tonkin_, etc., Paris, 1896.