PART I.

The Primary Varieties of the Human Species.

The questions connected with the Natural History of the Human Species are so thoroughly questions of descent, affiliation, or pedigree, that I have no hesitation in putting the names of the primary divisions in the form of Greek patronymics; the supposed ancestor (or eponymus) being, of course, no real individual, but an ethnological fiction.

To have used, instead, the words stock, race, tribe, or even the more scientific terms—order, class, sub-order, preceded by an adjective, and to have spoken of the Mongolian stock, race, tribe or order, &c., would, apparently, have been the correcter method. It is not, however, so convenient. Every word of the sort in question is either required for the expression of the minor divisions, or is objectionable on other grounds.

I am also aware that this use of the forms in -idæ to express the divisions of a species, rather than those of an order, is at variance with the nomenclature of the zoologists. Still, the terms are less embarrassed with inconveniences than any I have hit upon.

I. Mongolidæ.—Face broad and flat from either the development of the zygomata, or that of the parietal bones; often from the depression of the nasal bones. Frontal profile retiring, or depressed, rarely approaching the perpendicular. Maxillary profile, moderately prognathic or projecting, rarely orthognathic. Eyes often oblique. Skin rarely a true white; rarely a jet black. Irides generally dark. Hair straight, and lank, and black; rarely light-coloured; sometimes curly, rarely woolly.

Languages.—Aptotic, and agglutinate; rarely with a truly amalgamate inflection.

Distribution.—Asia, Polynesia, America.

Influence upon the history of the world.—Material rather than moral.

II. Atlantidæ.—Maxillary profile projecting, nasal generally flat, frontal retiring, cranium dolikhokephalic, the parietal diameter being generally narrow. Eyes rarely oblique. Skin often jet-black, very rarely approaching a pure white. Hair crisp, woolly, rarely straight, still more rarely light-coloured.

Languages.—With an agglutinate, rarely an amalgamate inflection.

Distribution.—Africa.

Influence on the history of the world.—Inconsiderable.

III. Iapetidæ.—Maxillary profile but little projecting, nasal often prominent, frontal sometimes nearly vertical. Face rarely very flat, moderately broad. Skull generally dolikhokephalic. Eyes rarely oblique. Skin white, or brunette. Hair never woolly, often light-coloured. Irides black, blue, grey.

Languages.—With amalgamate inflections, or else anaptotic; rarely agglutinate, never aptotic.

Distribution.—Europe.

Influence on the history of the world.—Greater than that of either the Mongolidæ or the Atlantidæ. Moral as well as material.

These characters have been framed to meet the typical, sub-typical, and quasi-transitional, but not the true transitional forms. The reason of this is clear. Where the transition is real, and where the affiliation in the way of descent coincides with similarity of conformation, the tribe thus situated belong to two divisions, rather than to any single one.

MONGOLIDÆ.
DIVISIONS.

A.
ALTAIC MONGOLIDÆ.

The term Altaic is taken from the Altai mountains in Central Asia, these being a convenient geographical centre for the different nations and tribes comprised in this division. It contains the following sub-divisions:—

1. The Seriform Stock.

2. The Turanian Stock.

I.
SERIFORM STOCK.

Physical conformation.—Mongol.

Languages.—Either wholly aptotic, or with only the rudiments of an inflection.

Area.—China, Tibet, and the Indo-Chinese, or Transgangetic, Peninsula, as far as Malaya; the Himalayan, and parts of the sub-Himalayan, range of mountains.

Chief Divisions.—1. The Chinese. 2. The Tibetans. 3. The Anamese. 4. The Siamese. 5. The Kambojians. 6. The Burmese. 7. The Môn. 8. Numerous unplaced tribes.

I have begun with the nations and tribes represented by the Chinese, Tibetans, and Indo-Chinese, on the strength of the primitive condition of their languages. This represents the earliest known stage of human speech; by which I mean, not that it was spoken earlier than the other tongues of the world, but only that it has changed, or grown, more slowly. I should also add, that over and above the fact of these languages being destitute of true inflection, the separate words generally consist of only a single syllable. Hence the class has been called monosyllabic. This latter character, however, has no essential connection with the aptotic form. A language of dissyllables or trisyllables may, for any thing known to the contrary, be as destitute of inflections as a monosyllabic one. Still, it must be admitted that no such tongue has yet been discovered.

THE CHINESE.

Locality.—China; bounded by the countries of the Koreans, Mantshu, Mongolians, Tibetans, and the hill tribes of the Transgangetic Peninsula and Assam.

Religion.—Modified Buddhism, or the religion of Fo.

Mode of Writing.—Rhæmatographic, i.e. the written signs represent whole words;[9] not merely the parts of words, single articulate sounds or syllables.

Physical Conformation.—Mongoliform. According to Prichard the maxillary profile projects. According to Retzius, the maxillary profile projects, and the cranial development is elongated, or occipito-frontal. That the jaw, in some degree, projects, and that the forehead also retires, is shown by a remark of Tradescant Lay's,—e.g.: that the Chinese profile slopes upwards from the chin to the beginning of the hairy scalp.

No country in the world of equal magnitude with China has so homogeneous or so dense a population. From the ocean to Tibet, from Korea to Cochin-China, the language is one, and the physiognomy is one; and it is only when we reach the mountain-ridges of the west and south, that we find, in the ruder and more imperfectly civilized tribes that inhabit them, any material variation from the general uniformity of the most populous empire in the world. This is the case whatever be the test that is applied. The language varies from the refined speech of the Mandarins to the comparative rudeness of certain provincial dialects; the complexion and contour of the face vary also; and the civilization is less characteristic in some districts than in others; but all these deviations lie within narrow limits.

In China, the steppe-land of High Asia slopes downwards to the North Pacific. Hence we have a sea-board of average proportion as compared with the inland area. It faces, however, one ocean only; and that the Pacific. Of this no island larger than Hainan is inhabited by a Chinese population; Formosa not being Chinese. No mountain-ranges are of sufficient magnitude to be compared with the systems of Tibet or those of the Transgangetic Peninsula. Still, there are three well-marked watersheds—that of the Hoang-ho on the north, that of the Canton River on the south, and that of Kiang-Ku between them: and there are the fertile alluvial valleys corresponding.

Upon the whole the physical geography of China is that of an agricultural and industrial population. This the Chinese are to a preeminent degree: and when we come to the Malay Archipelago we shall find that they are also traders. I am much more inclined to measure their civilization by this test, than by their pretensions to an indigenous literature of an almost unfathomable antiquity; a point which will be noticed in the sequel.

In physical conformation the Chinese have a yellow-brown complexion, a broad face, and a scanty beard, lank black hair, dark irides, and a stature below that of the European. This is what we expect, as part and parcel of the common Mongol characteristics. Harshness of feature they have in a less degree than the true Mongolians; a tendency to obesity in a greater. In this respect, they have been called Mongols softened down. This is what they really are. One point of physiognomy, however, is more peculiarly Chinese than aught else,—viz. the linear character, and oblique direction of the opening of the eyes. This is narrow, so that little of the eye is seen. It is also drawn upwards at its outer angle, and so becomes oblique in its position. Sometimes in addition to this the upper eyelid hangs heavy and tumid over the eyeball; and sometimes the skin forms a crescentic fold between the inner angle of the eye and the nose; as may be seen in individuals out of China, and which is not uncommon in England.

Now the peculiarity that I have just attempted to describe, is one of the minute points of difference between the Chinese and several other Mongol nations. The oblique eye will often be noticed in the following pages; sometimes from the fact of its presence, sometimes from that of its absence. It is not exclusively Chinese: but it is found in its most marked form in China.

THE TIBETANS.

Localities.—Tibet, Bután, Ladakh, Bultistan, or Little Tibet.

Political relations.—Tibet, subject to China, Ladakh a part of the Sikh empire, Bultistan and Bután, independent.

Divisions.—1. The Bhot of Tibet. 2. The Bhután Tibetans. 3. The Ladakh Tibetans. 4. The Bulti.

Conterminous.—Taking the family altogether, with the Chinese, Mongolians, Turks, Northern tribes and nations of Hindostan, North-Western tribes of the Burmese empire, and certain tribes akin to the Persians.

Religion.—Chiefly Buddhism. Brahminism on the Indian frontier. Shia Mahometanism in Little Tibet.

Language.—Dialects, in some cases, perhaps, independent languages, of the Tibetan.

Alphabet.—Derived from the Pali of India.

Physical appearance.—Mongol.

1.—The Bhot.—These are the inhabitants of Tibet Proper, and Tangut. They are all Buddhists in the more exaggerated form; and it is in the Tibetan monasteries where the greatest abundance of Buddhist literature is to be found. This is almost wholly religious, and in a great measure a translation from either the Sanskrit or the Pali. The first century after Christ is generally considered as the epoch at which the religion was introduced into Tibet: and this epoch is a likely one.

2.—The Tibetans of Bután.—Although Buddhists, the Tibetans of Bután have been modified by Hindu influences. Their government is that of a Rajah, and many of their outlying tribes are extended to the south of the Himalayan range.

3.—Ladakh Tibetans.—With the exception of the southern frontier of Bután, Ladakh is the portion of the Tibetan area which is best known, and where the proper Tibetan type is most subjected to foreign influences. Although the religion be the religion of Buddha, there was a short interval of Mahometanism. Originally dependent upon the Guru Lama of Hlassa, Ladakh subsequently became one of the extreme points of the Chinese empire, retaining its own princes. In the reign, however, of Aurungzeb, it was overrun by the Turks. These, however, Aurungzeb expelled at the request of the fugitive Rajah, who promised to become Mahometan in return; and kept his promise. It was broken, however, by his successor, so that the religion of Mahomet was professed for a time only. It was, however, tolerated afterwards. The last conquest of Ladakh was by the Sikhs under Runjeet Singh; and it now follows the fortunes of the Sikh dynasty. This has opened a door to the Indians of the Punjâb. To these elements of intermixture may be added, the presence of numerous settlers from Cashmir. Lastly, there is a settlement of Shia Mahometans from Little Tibet.

4.—The Bulti of Bultistan, or Little Tibet.—The most differential characteristic of the Bulti Tibetans, is that they are no Buddhists, but Mahometans, of the Shia persuasion, their conversion having come from Persia. It has been already stated that the Bulti enjoy a political independence.

Kunawer.(?) I have not examined how far the Kunawer tribes, located where the Sutlege breaks through the Himalayas, deserve to be classed as a separate division. At all events their language is monosyllabic (probably closely allied to the Ladakh), as may be seen in the Theburskud, Milchan, and Súmchú vocabularies of Gerard.[10]

The Polyandria of Tibet.—The current doctrine respecting the so-called Polyandria of Tibet, is that it is the common polygamy of the east reversed; i.e., that one woman marries several husbands, who may all be alive at the same time.

What is most certain upon this obscure point is that the surviving brother inherits the wife of the one that died.

It is not so certain, although highly probably, that the wife is the property of two or more brothers at the same time.

At any rate the marriage, if so it may be called, is confined to the circle of the brothers-in-law. Perhaps the truth is that every brother-in-law is a husband.

THE ANAMESE.

Locality.—Tunkín and Cochin-China.

Conterminous with the Chinese; and, except so far as they are partially separated by mountain-tribes, with the Kambojians and Siamese.

Religion.—Buddhism.

Language.—Different from, but allied to, the Chinese.

Physical Appearance.—Like that of the Chinese, except that the average height is somewhat less. Upper extremities long, lower, short and stout. Form of the skull more globular than square. Eyelids less turned than that of the Chinese. Mouth large; lips prominent, but not thick; moustache more abundant than beard; beard scanty, though encouraged. Colour more yellow than either brown or blackish. Clothing abundant.—Finlayson from Prichard.

THE SIAMESE.

Locality.—From the Gulf of Siam and the neck of the Malayan Peninsula to the frontiers of China. Part of Assam. Conterminous on the east, except so far as they are separated by mountain tribes, with the Anamese, and Kambojians; on the west, subject to the same limitation, with the Môn of Pegu, and the tribes of the Burmese empire. On the south with the Malays of the Malayan Peninsula.

Synonym.—T'hay, the native name.

Religion.—Buddhist.

Alphabets.—Of Indian origin, rounded forms of the Pali. Chief Divisions.—Laos, Shyán, (Ahom?) Khamti.

Physical Appearance.—Average height of twenty men, taken indiscriminately, five feet three inches, the tallest being five feet eight inches, the shortest, five feet two inches. Limbs and trunk robust. Complexion, light brown, lighter than the Malay, darker than the Chinese. Hair, black, lank, coarse and abundant. Hairy scalp descends low. Nose small, but not flattened; nostrils divergent. Sclerotica yellowish. Outer angles of the eye turned upwards. Cheek-bones broad and high. Lower jaw square, so as to look as if the parotid gland were swollen.—Crawford and Finlayson from Prichard.

In the history of the Siamese Tribes, the conquest of Assam is, perhaps, the most important event; and this is connected with their wide distribution.

In the lower part of the valley of Assam the language is Bengali, or nearly so; but only in the lower part. The upper half is peopled by different small mountain tribes, one of which is the Khamti.

The Khamti.—In the North Eastern corner of Assam, the Khamti are conterminous with the Singpho, Mishimi, and Miri, and are traditionally reported to have emigrated from the head-waters of the Irawaddi. In physical appearance they are middle-sized, more resembling the Chinese than any tribe on the frontier. Perhaps, a shade darker in complexion. Their alphabet is Siamese; and their language, far north as it is spoken, when compared with the Siamese of Bankok, closely resembles that dialect. In Brown's[11] Vocabularies the proportion of words, similar or identical, in Khamti and Siamese, is 92 per cent.

Still it is by no means certain that the Khamti represent the original conquerors. These were Ahoms; their alphabet was Ahom, and the language Ahom. The Ahom, however, was Siamese; and probably the Khamti was a dialect of it.

The Ahom literature, preserved in the books of the Assam priesthood, is said to be remarkable for the negative fact of there being in it no traces of the Hindu religion—either Buddhist or Brahminical. This speaks much either in favour of the antiquity of the conquest, or for the recent date of the Hindu influence.

In A.D. 1695, the Brahminical religion was established in Assam: how much earlier is uncertain.

THE KAMBOJIANS.

Locality.—Lower course of the Mekhong river. East of the Siamese, west of the Anamese, except so for as they may be separated by isolated mountain tribes, conterminous with these nations.

Our knowledge respecting the Kambojians is not sufficiently definite to enable us to say how far they differ, or how far they agree with certain tribes of the interior, which have been described separately. In Prichard I find that they were supposed by the Portuguese to have been derived from a warlike nation of the interior, called Kho, or Gueo; who are still represented as painting and tattooing their bodies.

Now these Kho, or Gueo, are probably the Ka described along with the Chong, as a separate people. If so we are enabled to dispose of three unplaced tribes; since, by Crawfurd's Ka and Chong vocabularies we can connect, perhaps identify, them with the Kambojians.

ENGLISH.KA.CHONG.KAMBOJIAN.
Suntangitańgitangai.
Moonkotkangke.
Stonetamoetamoktamo.
Waterdaktaktak.
Riverdak-tanitalletanle.
Fireunpleuplung.
Fishtremeltrai.
Onemoemoemoe.
Twobarbarpir.
Threepehpehbai.
Fourpuanponbuan.
Fivechangprampram.

Most of the Ka, and Chong words which are not Kambojian are either Anamitic or Môn.

Furthermore, in Crawfurd's Embassy to Siam, a vocabulary representing a fourth Kambojian dialect is given; the Khomen.

THE BURMESE.

Locality.—Valley of the Irawaddi. Conterminous, save so far as interrupted by mountain-tribes, with Assam, China, Siam, and Pegu.

Divisions.—1. The Myamma, or Burmese of Ava. 2. The Rhukheng, or people of Arakan.

Religion.—Buddhist.

Alphabet.—Of Indian origin, a rounded form of the Pali.

Physical appearance.—More beard, more prominent features, and darker complexions than the Siamese, Anamese, and Chinese. Beard also more abundant. The darkness of complexion increasing towards the confines of Bengal.

THE MÔN.

Locality.—The Delta of the Irawaddi; Pegu.

Alphabet.—Burmese.

The notices hitherto given have applied only to the great political divisions of the variety speaking monosyllabic languages; and have referred to nations of a known and similar degree of civilization. It would be an error, however, to suppose that they supply a complete enumeration. Hardly an empire mentioned will not exhibit some instance of a new series of phenomena standing over for investigation. The Chinese, the Burmese, and the Siamese, represent merely the dominant tribes of their several areas; those whereof the civilization and territorial power have given their possessors a certain degree of prominence in the history of the world. The intermixed tribes, sometimes imperfectly subdued, always imperfectly civilized, inhabiting barren tracts or mountain fastnesses, have a value in ethnology which they cannot command in history. In these we see the original substratum of the different national characters, as it may be supposed to have shown itself, before it was modified by foreign influences. In a more advanced stage of our knowledge, these tribes will probably be brought under one of the sub-divisions already noticed. At present, even when in some cases they may be so placed, it is best to take them in detail; premising that, the list does not pretend to be exhaustive, that, from the fluctuations of the geographical nomenclature, the same tribe may be mentioned twice over, and, lastly, that partly from imperfect knowledge, and partly from changes of locality, arising from migrations of the tribes themselves, the geographical position is, in many cases, difficult to fix.

The notice, however, of the minor representatives, real or supposed, of the great division of the human race speaking monosyllabic languages now commences.

THE SI-FAN.

The word[12] Si means west, whilst Fan means stranger; so that Si-fan means western strangers. The term means one or more of the wilder tribes on the Tibetan or Mongolian frontier.

Nothing is less likely than that the Si-fan should differ in kind from the Chinese—unless it be that they are Turk, Mongol, or Tibetan.

THE MIAOU-TSE.

These are the so-called aborigines of China. It were, perhaps, more accurate to call them the Chinese in their most aboriginal form. The term means children of the soil. Their localities are the mountains of Southern and Central China. They seem to consist of a number of tribes rather than to constitute any particular people; so that it is possible that many varieties of the primitive Chinese may be comprised under the general appellation. Those of Ping-sha-hwang are divided into the white and black Miaou-tse; from the difference of their complexion. Both the Abbé Gosier and Tradescant Lay[13] speak to their indomitable courage, and to their spirit of independence, their subjection being still imperfect. Their weapons are the bow and cross-bow. Their employment agriculture. The following is an account of their religious rites from the author last named.

"Religious Rites.—When a man among the Miaou-tse who inhabit the Ping-sha-shih hills, marries, he sticks five small flags into a bundle of grass fastened together by about seven different bands. Before this strange pageant he kneels, while the rest of his friends fold their arms and bow; after this they make merry with music and dancing. At the death of father or mother, the eldest son remains at home for forty-nine days without washing his face; when this period has been completed, he sacrifices to a divinity which is called Fang-kwei, and seems to correspond in office with Mercury, who, according to the views of ancient mythology, conducted the spirits of the dead to the abodes of happiness. If the eldest son be poor, and cannot afford to lose the labour of so long a time, the grandson or some other descendant performs this duty in his stead. Among the mountaineers styled the Hea-king, when a man is sick, his friends offer the head of a tiger to the prince of divinities. The head is placed upon a charger, with a sword; three incense-sticks and two candles behind it, and three cups of wine in front. Before this curious oblation the worshippers fold their hands, or cross their arms and bow themselves. Another tribe, when they would propitiate the good-will of the powers which influence the weather, appoint ten companies of young men and women, who, after dressing themselves in robes made of felt, and binding their loins with an embroidered girdle, dance and play the organ with every suitable demonstration of joy and festivity. This gay ceremony is kept up for three days and three nights, at the end of which they sacrifice an ox, to obtain, says the Chinese writer, a plentiful year. A father among the same people, when his son is ten months old, offers a white tiger, and accompanies the oblation with such rites of merriment as his circumstances can afford. At this time a name is given to the child. This reminds us of a modern christening, when the solemnities of religion are straightway followed by the mirth, good cheer, and gaieties of a festival. When a tribe called the Chung-king mourn for their dead, they kill an ox, and place the head and feet upon an altar, with basins filled with food, lighted candles, and cups of wine by way of drink-offering. The altar resembles a table, and explains a phrase used in Isaiah, "Ye have prepared a table for that number." The bridal ceremonies with another tribe are attended by the sacrifice of a dog, at which the relatives of husband and wife are present.

"A people called the Western Miaou-tse, in the middle of autumn offer a sacrifice to the great ancestor or founder of their race. For this purpose, they select a male ox or buffalo which is well covered with hair, and has its horns quite perfect; that is, in other words, an animal without blemish. To put it in good condition, they feed it with grass and water till the rice or corn is ripe, when the animal is fat. They then distil a certain quantity of spirit from the grain, and slay the ox. Being thus provided for a feast, they invite all their relatives, who come and carouse with them amidst plays, singing, and the loud challenges of jolly companions. In the first-fruits which the Chinese present at the close of harvest, we have a representative of Cain's offering; but in the ceremony just described, there are some traces of that which Abel brought to the altar. The aboriginal Chinese retain the rite, but the object worshipped is disguised under an equivocal name,—equivocal, because the Creator has a claim to the title of original ancestor by way of eminence, as well as the common parent of mankind. When the mind of man was darkened, he confounded Adam with his Maker, and worshipped the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever.

"With the White Miaou-tse, a rite is observed somewhat in character like the last, but for a different purpose. These select an ox well-proportioned and carrying a perfect pair of horns. This animal they feed carefully to prepare it for sacrifice. Each cantonment keeps an ox in this way in readiness to be offered to the great ancestor, whenever, in any of their contests, victory shall declare in their favour. After the sacrifice has been performed by the master of the sacrifice, or priest, the relatives of the sacrificer join in a regular festivity of singing and drinking. A tribe commended for the purity of their disposition and their obedience to the magistrate, at the death of a person collect a large quantity of fuel together, and, I suppose, make a great burning for him. When a man is about to marry among a particular race of mountaineers, he allows two of his teeth to be knocked out with a hammer and hard chisel, to avert the mischiefs of matrimony. These, too, cut off the forelocks and spread the hair behind; they also, like the Chinese, bestow some attention upon the beauty of their eyebrows."

THE LOLOS.

Probably these belong more to Siam[14] than to China. Mutatis mutandis, they are on the southern frontier what the Si-fan are on the west.

They are so far civilized as to have taken their religion (Buddhism), and an alphabet from Ava or Pegu.

THE QUANTO.

The Quanto inhabit[14] the range of mountains between Anam and China. They represent the original civilization, or want of civilization, of Cochin-China and Tonkin,—i.e. of Cochin-China and Tonkin before the influence of China.

They are in possession of an alphabet.

THE TSHAMPA.

Inhabitants of the southernmost[14] coast of Cochin-China. Their language, of which I have not seen a specimen, is said to differ from both the Chinese and the Kambojian. They are a civilized people, and were so in the time of Marco Polo. According to Crawfurd, their civilization was, to a certain extent, due to Indian influences. At present there is a Malay settlement on their coast.

THE MOY.

The southern part of the mountains which form the watershed between Cochin-China and Kambojia is the residence of the Moy. According to Chapman, they are eminently dark-complexioned; an observation which will be found in the sequel to apply to several other of the minor tribes of the division in question.[14]

Sub-divisions of the Laos branch of the Siamese.—As laid down in the maps, the Laos fill up the whole area between China on the north, Siam on the south, Cochin-China and Kambojia on the east, and Ava on the west; of this area, however, little is known in detail.

One of the divisions of the Laos is called Lau[14]-pang-dun, or the Black Laos, from the darkness of their complexion.

Tribes, too, called Pa-y and Pa-pe,[15] are said to be Laos.

Lastly, the relations between the true Laos, and the Ahom, Khamti, and Shyán, have yet to be made out in a satisfactory manner.

KARIEN.

Distribution.—Irregular; from the eleventh to the twenty-third degree of north latitude; from the Mergui Province in Tenasserim to the borders of China, between the Burmese on the west and the Siamese on the east. On the river Salwin, are the so-called Red Karien.

Name.—Burmese. Called Kadun in Pegu.

The Kariens, unless they are Siamese, have next to that nation the greatest extension, north and south. Ground down by the oppression of the Burmese, they are, with the exception of the red Kariens, who still preserve an imperfect independence, a decreasing race. Of their language we have specimens[16] in more than one dialect, viz., the Passuko, Maplu, and Play. They are agricultural tribes, clearing the land for the cultivation of rice, and then leaving it to migrate elsewhere.—Arva in annos mutant, et superest ager.

SILONG.

Locality.—Islands of the Mergui Archipelago.

Numbers.—Said to be about one thousand.

Language.—Said to be peculiar.

Authority.—Dr. Helfer's Third Report on the Tenasserim Provinces.—Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. viii.

The details now forthcoming apply to the districts lying north of a line drawn from the southernmost point of Arakan to the Irawaddi; and they comprise the eastern extensions of the Arakan tribes, the parts about Manipur, and the complex, but important line of frontier between the Indo-Chinese kingdoms, and the Indian portions of Bengal and Assam.

The first tribes that will be noticed are those which are most closely related to the inhabitants of Arakan.

NAGAS.

Locality.—South-east Assam, in the north-eastern portion of the mountain range between Assam and the Burmese empire. Conterminous with the Singpho on the north-east.

KUKI.

Locality.—Mountains of Tipperah, Sylhet and Chittagong. A south-western prolongation of the Nagas.

Synonyms.—Lunctas, Koung-thias.(?)

KHUMIA (CHOOMEEAS).

Locality.—The same mountains as the Kuki, only on a lower level. The word means villagers, Khúm=village.

The Naga, Kuki, and Khumia, are tribes of one family. Their ethnographical position is certain. They have long been known to be part of Rhukheng division of the Burmese tribes, speaking the same language with the inhabitants of Arakan, and connecting themselves with that people in their traditions respecting their own origin.

I may also add that the similarity of manners between them and the Garo is very manifest.

KHYEN.

Locality.—The Yuma mountains between Ava and Arakan. Independent Pagans.

Name.—Burmese. Native name Koloun. Buchanan, in Asiatic Researches, vol. v.

Authority.—Lieutenant Trant in Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi.

The faces of the Khyen women are tattooed. That the following reason, however, for the practice is valid, is more than I will venture to vouch.

One of the forms of tribute to one of the conquerors of the Khyens, was the payment of a certain number of the most beautiful women of the country. In order to do away with the danger to which their unmutilated charms exposed them, the whole generation tattooed themselves; and their descendants have done so since.

MANIPUR.

Synonyms.—Kathi or Kassay, Moitay.

Locality.—Bounded on the east by the right branch of the Irawaddi, on the north and west by the Naga and Kachari countries, on the south by the Khyen.

An idea of the extent to which the language, for these parts varies within a small geographical area, may be collected from Captain Gordon's notices of the dialects spoken in the neighbourhood of Manipur.

Besides the Manipur proper, the following eleven dialects are illustrated by his vocabularies,[17] and are said to be spoken within the limits of a very inconsiderable circle, of which Manipur is the centre.

1. The Songpú. The most western. Per-centage of Manipur words, 21. Brown.

2. The Kapwi. A very small tribe. Ditto, 41. Brown.

3. The Koreng. Ditto, 18. Brown.

4. The Maram. Ditto, 25. Brown.

5. The Champhung. Thirty or forty families. Ditto, 28. Brown.

6. The Luhuppa. Ditto, 31. Brown.

7. The North Tankhul. Ditto, 28. Brown.Said to be mutually unintelligible.
8. The Central Tankhul. Ditto, 35. Brown.
9. The South Tankhul. Ditto, 33. Brown.

10. The Khoibú. Per-centage of Manipur words, 40. Brown.

11. The Maring. Ditto, 50. Brown.

KYO.

Locality.—Arakan, banks of the river Koladyng. A single village.

Religion.—Worship of Nats (Spirits).

Physical Appearance.—Contrasted with that of their neighbours, being so dark as to suggest the idea that they are of Bengal origin. No traditions, however, to that effect.

Language.—Monosyllabic, as ascertained by two vocabularies.—Lieut. Phayre's Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and Lieut. Latter, ditto.

KACHARI.

Locality.—Between the Kasia county, with which it is conterminous on the east, and Manipur.

KASIA.

Locality.—Southern border of Lower Assam. Conterminous with the Kachari on the east and the Garo on the west.

A better knowledge of the wild tribes in these parts than we possess, will, probably, enable us to ascertain the nature of the most primitive Indo-Chinese religion. It seems in these parts to be the worship of Nats or spirits.

In the Kasia country the occurrence of erect pillars, evidently objects of mysterious respect, if not of adoration, is frequent. These are explained by similar ones in the Khyen district. They are depicted by Lieutenant Latter—accurate magis quam verecunde—and are lingams.

Stout legs, thick lips, and angular eyes, are marked characters in the Kasia conformation. They burn their dead. Their ceremonies are few or none. Like the Garo, they drink no milk. Like the Garo, also, they are said to have no beast of burden. Like many of the tribes around them they chew pawn; and like many of the tribes around them they obtain, for drink, a liquor fermented from millet. Millet or rice are the usual sources for the stimulant beverages of this section of the Seriform tribes; and, it may be added, that the art of distillation as well as of simple fermentation is widely spread. I am not aware that the former is practised by the present tribe; it is common, however, in the Sub-Himalayan range.—Lieutenant Yule, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, xiii. 3.

SINGPHO.

Locality.—A tract of about one thousand four hundred square miles in the north-eastern corner of Assam. Conterminous with the Khamtis and Mishimis on the north. Bounded on the south and east by the Patkoe range; which divides Assam from the Burmese empire.

Population.—Calculated in 1838 at six thousand.

Government.—Clans under chiefs called Gaums.

Religion.—Imperfect Buddhism. Worship of dead chieftains.

Alphabet.—Shyán or Ahom.

Physical Appearance.—Body long, legs short, complexion tawny.

JILI.

Locality.—The Burmese side of the Patkoe range. Conterminous with the Singpho, by whom they have been nearly extinguished.

Language.—Seven-tenths of the Jili vocabulary is Singpho.

MISHIMI.

Locality.—North-east extremity of Assam. Conterminous with the Khamti on the south, and the Abors on the west. Mountaineers. Tibet on the north.

Mishimi Tribes.—The Chool Kutta=crop-haired, the Meahu, the Tairi, or Digaru. According to Brown, the Maí Mishimi, the Taron Mishimi, and the Maiye or Meme Mishimi.

Probable Population.—Four hundred and sixty.

Physical Appearance.—Stature short. Limbs small, but active, and well-knit.

The Mishimi country produces, and the Mishimi collect, a poison called the Bikh Mishimi. This is used both for the purposes of hunting and of war. So poisonous is it that a single wound is said to kill an elephant. The flesh, however, of the animal so killed is eaten with impunity.

BOR ABORS.

Locality.—The loftiest portion of the mountains to the north of Assam.

ABORS.

Locality.—The lower range of the mountains inhabited by the Bor Abors.

MIRI.

Locality.—The foot of the Abor and Bor Abor range. Speaking generally, the Bor Abors, Abors, and Miri are conterminous with the Khamti, and Mishimi on the north-east.

DUFLA.

Locality.—South-west of the Abors, on the same mountain range. No less than one hundred and eighty petty chiefs are said to rule over the numerous disunited Dufla tribes of the Char Dwán; and this is only one of their localities.

AKA.

Locality.—The south-western prolongation of the range inhabited by the Abors and Dufla. Conterminous with the latter.

Language.—Half the words in an Aka and Abor vocabulary are alike.

MUTTUCK.

Locality.—North-east Assam, south of the Burramputer. Conterminous with the Singhu, Khamti, and Miri.

Synonym.—Muamaria, or Moa Mareya.

Religion.—Imperfect Brahmanism.

The Muttuck persecution is one of the most important facts in the history of Assam. Prior to the Ahom invasion, said to have taken place 1224, A. D., the Muttucks had been converted to Hinduism; but to a form of it which denied the divinity of Durga, and would not admit the worship of her image. A violent persecution on this account, between A.D. 1714 and 1744, brought about a resistance which did much to weaken and disorganise the Assam empire.

GARO.

Locality.—The Garo hills, at the south-western entrance of the valley of Assam.

No tribe hitherto mentioned is of the ethnographical importance of the Garo.

If we call them Indian, they are the most northern tribe that has been described as having Negro elements in their physiognomy.

If we call them Tibetan, or Burmese, they are equally remarkable for this peculiarity.

Taking their physical appearance as a test, it is the Garo that seem the likeliest to exhibit a transition between the type already illustrated, and the type of the aborigines of Hindostan, supposing such a transition to exist.

Taking their language into consideration, something of the same intermediate character is, perhaps, to be found. It has been referred to each class; by some to the monosyllabic tongues of Tibet, or the Burmese empire; by others to the Indian group of dialects and languages.

The first description of the Garo is to be found in the Asiatic Researches. Here it is where they are described as approaching the Negro type. Endued with great physical strength, at least as compared with the Bengali, they are pagans and savages: their manners, as stated above, agreeing in many points with those of the Kukis.

It is, however, by their language that their ethnographical position will best be determined.

The present writer, who had not then seen Mr. Brown's Vocabularies, placed this, in 1844, in the Tibetan division; being satisfied of its monosyllabic character.

Mr. Brown's Vocabularies confirm this view (so far as it goes) of the monosyllabic character of the Garo; and I think that the following table—Mr. Brown's also—shewing the per-centage of words in any two languages, does the same.

Khamti,Siamese,A'ká,A'bor,Mishimi,Burmese,Karien,Singpho,Jili,Garo,Manipurí,Songpú,Kapwi,Koreng,Maram,Champhung,Luhuppa,N. Tángkhul,C. Tángkhul,S. Tángkhul,Khoibú,Maring,Anamese,
Khamti,92 1 1 5 8 8 310 3 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5
Siamese,92 0 0 3 6 8 310 1 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5
A'bor, 1 0472017121515 511 310 3 8 8 8 5 610 810 0
A'ká, 1 0472011101811 615 611 5 8 6 8 8 8101018 0
Mishimi, 5 32020101010131011 011 0 3 5 6 8 61310 8 1
Burmese, 8 61711102323261216 820 61111111013131616 1
Karien, 8 8121010231721 8151015 812 412 812121015 2
Singpho, 3 315181023177016251018111113151325132018 5
Jili,101015111326217022161021131111182020132020 3
Garo, 3 1 5 61012 8162210 5 6 5 8 5 81311 5 5 5 3
Manipurí, 3 311151116152516102141182528312835334050 6
Songpú, 1 1 3 6 0 8101010 5213550532023151513 815 6
Kapwi, 0 010111120151821 64135303320353040453840 5
Koreng, 1 1 3 5 0 6 81113 51850304118212020—1015 3
Maram, 0 0 8 8 311121111 82553334121282520162326 3
Champhung, 0 0 8 6 511 41311 52820201821402020161525 3
Luhuppa, 0 0 8 8 611121518 83123352128406355363340 5
N. Tángkhul, 0 0 5 8 810 81320132815302025206385303131 3
C. Tángkhul, 0 0 6 8 613122520113515402020205585414541 1
S. Tángkhul, 0 010101313121313 53313451116163630414343 5
Khoibú, 0 0 8101016102020 540 8381023153331454378 3
Maring, 0 01018 816151820 55015401526254031414378 3
Anamese, 5 5 0 0 1 1 2 5 3 3 6 6 5 3 3 3 5 3 1 5 3 3

In the face of this, however, the author writes that it "would be difficult to decide from the specimens before us, whether it is to be ranked with the monosyllabic or polysyllabic languages. It probably belongs to the latter."

Again—Mr. Hodgson connects the Garos with the Bodo, not, indeed, as a sub-division of that group, but as a class with a common origin; adding, that fifteen out of sixty words in Brown's Vocabulary are the same in Garo and Bodo.

This involves the position of the Garo with that of the Bodo; whilst, in respect to the Bodo, it is convenient to consider them along with the Dhimál.

We are now in that part of the Indian side of the Himalayan range, which lies between Assam on the east, and Sikkim on the west, and which is bounded on the north by Bhután. This is the area where the aboriginal Indian and the Tibetan most intermix.

DHIMÁL.

Locality.—Mixed with the Bodo, in their most westerly locality, i.e. between the Konki and Dhorla.

Numbers.—According to Mr. Hodgson, about 15,000.

Authority.—-Hodgson's Dissertation on the Kocch, Bodo, and Dhimál.

BODO.

Locality.—The forest belt (not the mountains) in a circle round the Valley of Assam, from Tipperah S. E. to Morung, N.W. Mixed, in their most westerly localities with the Dhimál.

Synonym.—Mécch.

Name.—Native; the Mécch call themselves Bodo, and so do the Kachari.

Authority.—Same as for the Dhimál.

The Bodo are the rudest division of the present group whereof we possess anything like a sufficient amount of detailed information; Mr. Hodgson's Dissertation being, perhaps, the best ethnological monograph existing. Hence, it is in the Bodo nation that, in the present state of our knowledge, we must study the general phenomena of the wilder Seriform tribes.

In respect to their social development the Bodo are good examples of a very peculiar form. They are tillers of the soil, and (as such) agriculturists rather than hunters, fishers, or feeders of flocks and herds. But their agriculture is imperfect, and quasi-nomadic; since they are not fixed but erratic or migratory cultivators. They have no name for a village, no sheep, no oxen, no fixed property in the soil. Like the ancient Germans, arva in annos mutant, et superest ager. They clear a jungle, crop it as long as it will yield an average produce, and then remove themselves elsewhere.

"They never cultivate the same field beyond the second year, or remain in the same village beyond the fourth to sixth year. After the lapse of four or five years, they frequently return to their old fields, and resume their cultivation, if in the interim the jungle has grown well, and they have not been anticipated by others, for there is no pretence of appropriation other than possessory, and if, therefore, another party have preceded them, or, if the slow growth of the jungle give no sufficient promise of a good stratum of ashes for the land when cleared by fire, they move on to another site new or old. If old, they resume the identical fields they tilled before, but never the old houses or site of the old village, that being deemed unlucky. In general, however, they prefer new land to old, and having still abundance of unbroken forest around them, they are in constant movement, more especially as, should they find a new spot prove unfertile, they decamp after the first harvest is got in."[18]

It is a fact of some importance that erratic agriculture, a rare and exceptional form of industrial development, is probably more general among the Seriform tribes than elsewhere. It has already been stated to be the habit of the Karien, and there is little doubt as to its being far more general than it has hitherto been described to be. Contrast with this imperfect form of agricultural industry the cultivation of the soil in China. The Bodo villages are small communities of from ten to forty huts. The head of these communities is called the Grá. It is the Grá who is responsible to the foreign government (British, Tibetan, or Nepalese), for the order of the community, and for the payment of its tribute. In cases of perplexity the Grás of three or four neighbouring communities meet in deliberation. Offenders against the customs of the community may be admonished, fined, or excommunicated.

This last term suggests a new series of ideas. The Bodo religious ordinances are apparently very simple; so that they form a remarkable contrast with the numerous details of Hinduism. The birth, the weaning, and the naming of children are all unattended with ceremonies requiring the presence of a priest. At funerals and marriages, however, the priest presides. This he does, not so much as a minister to the essential ceremony, as for the sake of the feast that accompanies it. No Bodo or Dhimál will touch flesh which has not been offered to the gods: and this offering a priest must make. Such being the case, notwithstanding the statement of Mr. Hodgson, who describes in somewhat flattering terms the negative merits of the simple Bodo creed, and who especially affirms that the priesthood is no hereditary office, I cannot but suspect that the influence of the spiritual power is greater than he admits. If not, the Bodo must have but few meals of meat.

Marriage is a contract rather than a rite. Polygamy or concubinage is rare: the adoption of children common. All the sons inherit equally; daughters not at all. A Bodo can only marry to one of his own people. Divorce, though practicable and easy, is rare; the wife and daughter have their due influence. No infanticide, no suttí. Children are named as soon as the mother comes abroad, which is generally four or five days after her confinement. The idea that the delivery involves a temporal impurity is recognised; so that all births (and deaths also) necessitate a temporary segregation and certain purificatory forms. The one, however, is short, and the other simple. The infant "is named immediately after birth, or as soon as the mother comes abroad, which is always four or five days after delivery. There are no family names, or names derived from the gods. Most Bodo and Dhimáls bear meaningless designations, or any passing event of the moment may suggest a significant term: thus a Bhótia chief arrives at the village, and the child is called Jinkhap; or a hill peasant arrives, and it is named Góngar, after the titular or general designation of the Bhótias. Children are not weaned so long as their mother can suckle them, which is always from two to three years—sometimes more—and two children, the last and penultimate, are occasionally seen at the breast together. The delayed period of weaning will account in part for the limited fecundity of the women. When a Bodo or Dhimál comes of age, the event is not solemnized by any rite or social usage whatever. Marriage takes place at maturity, the male being usually from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and the female, from fifteen to twenty. Courtship is not sanctioned: the parents or friends negotiate the wedlock."

In this the commercial element is predominant. A price—Jan—must be paid by the bridegroom elect for the intended bride. If the former have "no means of discharging this sum, he must go to the house of his father-in-law elect and there literally earn his wife by the sweat of his brow, labouring, more Judaico, upon mere diet for a term of years, varying from two as an average to five and even seven as the extreme period. This custom is named Gabóï by the Bodo—Ghárjyá by the Dhimáls."

When the preliminaries have been arranged, the bridegroom proceeds to the house of the bride, in procession with his friends. Two females attend him. The business of these is "to put red lead or oil on the bride elect's head, when the procession has reached her home. There a refection is prepared, after partaking of which, the procession returns, conducting the bride elect to the house of the groom's parents. So far the same rite is common to the Bodo and Dhimál—the rest is peculiar to each. Among the Dhimáls, the Déóshi now proceeds to propitiate the gods by offerings. Dáta and Bídata who preside over wedlock are invoked, and betel-leaf and red lead are presented to them. The bride and groom elect are next placed side by side, and each furnished with five pauns, with which they are required to feed each other, while the parents of the groom cover them with a sheet, upon which the Déóshi, by sprinkling holy water sanctifies and completes the nuptials. Among the Bodo the bride elect is anointed at her own home with oil; the elders or the Déóshi perform the sacred part of the ceremony, which consists in the sacrifice of a cock and a hen, in the respective names of the groom and bride, to the sun: and next, the groom, rising, makes salutation to the bride's parents, and the bride, similarly, attests her future duty of reverence and obedience towards her husband's parents; when the nuptials are complete. A feast follows both with Bodo and Dhimáls, but is less costly among the former than among the latter—as is said, because the higher price paid for his wife by the Bodo incapacitates him for giving so costly an entertainment. The marriage feast of the Dhimáls is alleged to cost thirty or forty rupees sometimes, the festivities being prolonged through two and even three days; whereas four to six—rarely ten rupees suffice for the nuptial banquet of a Bodo.

"The Bodo and Dhimáls both alike bury the dead, immediately after decease, with simple but decent reverence, though no fixed burial ground nor artificial tomb is in use to mark the last resting place of those most dear in life, because the migratory habits of the people would render such usages nugatory. The family and friends form a funeral procession, which bears the dead in silence to the grave. The body being interred, a few stones are piled loosely upon the grave to prevent disturbance by jackals and ratels, rather than to mark the spot, and some food and drink are laid upon the grave; when the ceremony is suspended, and the party disperses. Friends are purified by mere ablution in the next stream and at once resume their usual cares. The family are unclean for three days, after which, besides bathing and shaving, they need to be sprinkled with holy water by their elders or priest. They are then restored to purity and forthwith proceed to make preparations for a funeral banquet, by the sacrifice of a hog to Mainou or Timáng, of a cock to Báthó or Pochima, according to the nation. When the feast has been got ready and the friends are assembled, before sitting down they all repair, once again, to the grave, when the nearest of kin to the deceased, taking an individual's usual portion of food and drink, solemnly presents them to the dead with these words, 'Take and eat: heretofore you have eaten and drunk with us; you can do so no more; you were one of us; you can be so no longer: we come no more to you: come you not to us.' And thereupon the whole party break and cast on the grave a bracelet of thread priorly attached, to this end, to the wrist of each of them. Next the party proceed to the river and bathe, and having thus lustrated themselves, they repair to the banquet, and eat, drink, and make merry as though they were never to die! A funeral costs the Dhimáls from four to eight rupees—something more to the Bodo, who practise more formality on the occasion, and to whom is peculiar the singular leave-taking of the dead just described."

The details relating to the priesthood, and to the festivals of the Bodo tribes, will best indicate the nature of their religion. The list of the Bodo gods is very nearly the list of the Bodo rivers. Báthó, however, the chief god, is no river but a plant; one of the Euphorbeace. Mainon is Báthó's wife. All diseases are referred to preternatural influence. Oaths and ordeals are very general.

Rites and ceremonies.—The rites of the Bodo and Dhimál religions are entirely similar and "consist of offerings, sacrifices, and prayers. The prayers are few and simple, when stript of their mummery; and necessarily so, being committed solely to the memories of a non-hereditary and very trivially instructed and mutable priesthood. They consist of invocations of protection for the people and their crops and domestic animals; of deprecations of wrath when sickness, murrain, drought, blight, or the ravages of wild animals, prevail; and thanksgivings when the crops are safely housed, or recent troubles are passed. The offerings consist of milk, honey, parched rice, eggs, flowers, fruits, and red lead or cochineal: the sacrifices of hogs, goats, fowls, ducks, and pigeons—most commonly hogs and fowls. Sacrifices are deemed more worthy than offerings, so that all the higher deities, without reference to their supposed benevolence or malevolence of nature, receive sacrifices—all the lesser deities, offerings only. Libations of fermented liquor always accompany sacrifice—because, to confess the whole truth, sacrifice and feast are commutable words, and feasts need to be crowned by copious potations! Malevolence appears to be attributed to very few of the gods, though of course all will resent neglect; but, in general, their natures are deemed benevolent; and hence the absence of all savage or cruel rites. All diseases, however, are ascribed to supernatural agency. The sick man is supposed to be possessed by one of the deities, who racks him with pains, as a punishment for impiety or neglect of the god in question. Hence, not the mediciner, but the exorcist is summoned to the sick man's aid. The exorcist is called, both by the Bodo and Dhimáls, Ojhá, and he operates as follows. Thirteen leaves, each with a few grains of rice upon it, are placed by the exorcist in a segment of a circle before him to represent the deities. The Ojhá, squatting on his hams before the leaves causes a pendulum attached to his thumb by a string to vibrate before them, repeating invocations the while. The god who has possessed the sick man, is indicated by the exclusive vibration of the pendulum towards his representative leaf, which is then taken apart, and the god in question is asked, what sacrifice he requires? a buffalo, a hog, a fowl, or a duck to spare the sufferer. He answers (the Ojhá best knows how!) a hog; and it is forthwith vowed by the sick man and promised by the exorcist, but only paid when the former has recovered. On recovery the animal is sacrificed, and its blood offered to the offended deity. I witnessed the ceremony myself among the Dhimáls, on which occasion the thirteen deities invoked were Pochima or Waráng, Timai or Béráng, Lákhim, Konoksiri, Ménchi, Chímá, Danto, Chádúng, Aphóï, Biphóï, Andhéman (Aphún), Tátopátia (Báphún), and Shúti. A Bodo exorcist would proceed precisely in the same manner, the only difference in the ceremony being the invocation of the Bodo gods instead of the Dhimál ones.

"The great festivals of the year are three or four. The first is held in December-January, when the cotton crop is ready. It is called Shúrkhar by the Bodo, Haréjata by the Dhimáls. The second is held in February-March. It is named Wágalénó by the Bodo, who alone observe it. The Bodo name for the third, which is celebrated in July-August, when the rice comes into ear, is Phúlthépno. The Dhimáls call it Gávi púja. The fourth great festival is held in October, and is named Ai húnó by the Bodo—Pochima páká by the Dhimáls. The first three of these festivals are consecrated to the elemental gods and to the interests of agriculture. They are celebrated abroad, not at home (generally on the banks of a river), whence attendance on them is called Hagrou húdong or madai húdong, "going forth to worship" in contradistinction to the style of the fourth great festival, which is devoted to the household gods and is celebrated at home. The Wágalénó, or bamboo festival of the Bodo, I witnessed in the spring of this year, and will describe it as a sample of the whole. Proceeding from Siligori to Pankhabárí with Dr. Campbell, we came upon a party of Bodo in the bed of the river, within the Saul forest, or rather, were drawn off the road by the noise they made. It was a sort of chorus of a few syllables, solemnly and musically incanted, which, on reaching the spot was found to be uttered by thirteen Bodo men, who were drawn up in a circle facing inwards, and each carrying a lofty bamboo pole decked with several tiers of wearing apparel and crowned with a Chour or yak's tail. Within the circle were three men, one of whom with an instrument like this

in his hands danced to the music, waving his weapon downwards on one side and so over the head, and then downwards on the other side and again over the head. He moved round the margin of the circle in the centre of which stood two others, one a Déóshi or priest, and the other an attendant or servitor called Phantwál. The priest, clothed in red cotton but not tonsured or otherwise distinguished from the rest of the party, muttered an invocation, whereof the burden or chorus was taken up by the thirteen forming the ring above noticed. The servitor had a water-pot in one hand and a brush in the other, and from time to time, as the rite proceeded, this person moved out of the circle to sprinkle with the holy water another actor in this strange ceremony and a principal one too. This is the Déódá, or the possessed, who when filled with the god answers by inspiration to the questions of the priests as to the prospects of the coming season. When we first discerned him, he was sitting on the ground panting, and rolling his eyes so significantly that I at once conjectured his function. Shortly afterwards, the rite still proceeding, the Déódá got up, entered the circle and commenced dancing with the rest, but more wildly. He held a short staff in his hand, with which, from time to time, he struck the bedizened poles, one by one, and lowering it as he struck. The chief dancer with the odd-shaped instrument waxed more and more vehement in his dance; the inspired grew more and more maniacal; the music more and more rapid; the incantation more and more solemn and earnest; till at last, amid a general lowering of the heads of the decked bamboo poles, so that they met and formed a canopy over him, the Déódá went off in an affected fit, and the ceremony closed without any revelation—a circumstance which must be ascribed to the presence of the sceptical strangers; for it is faith alone that worketh miracles and only among and for the faithful. This ceremony is performed annually by the Rajah of Sikim's orders, or rather with his sanction of the usages of his subjects; is addressed to the sun, the moon, the elemental gods, and, above all, to the rivers; and is designed to ensure health and plenty in the coming year, as well as to ascertain, beforehand, its promise or prospect through the revelations of the Déódá. With regard to the festival sacred to the national or homebred (noöni) gods, called Aihuno[19] by the Bodo, and Pochima páká by the Dhimáls, it is to be observed that the rite, like the separate class of deities adored thereby, is more distinctively Bodo than Dhimál. With both people the pre-eminence of water among the elements is conspicuous; but whereas the river gods of the Dhimáls have nearly absorbed all the rest, elementary or other, the household gods of the Bodo stand conspicuously distinguished from the fluviatile deities. The Pochima and Timáng of the Dhimáls are one or both rivers: the Bátho and Mainang of the Bodo are neither of them rivers, and their interparietal rites are as clearly distinguished from the rites performed abroad to the fluviatile and other elemental gods. However, the rites of Báthó and Mainou are participated by deities of elementary and watery nature, and, on the other hand, the Dhimáls assert that Pochima and Timai have a twofold character, one of river gods (Dhorla and Tishta), and one of supreme gods; and they that are adored, separately, in these two characters, the Pochima páká, or home-rite of October, being appropriated to them in the latter capacity of that of supreme gods. I have not witnessed the Pochima páká, and therefore speak with hesitation. The Ai húnó is performed as follows. The friends and family being assembled, including as many persons as the master of the house can afford to feast, the Déóshi or priest enters the enclosure or yard of the house, in the centre of which is invariably planted a Sij or Euphorbia, as the representative of Bátho who is the family as well as national god of the Bodo. The Báthó, thus represented, the Déóshi offers prayers, and sacrifices a cock. He then proceeds into the house, adores Mainou, and sacrifices to her a hog. Next, the priest, the family, and all the friends proceed to some convenient and pleasant spot in the vicinity, previously selected, and at which a little temporary shed has been erected as an altar, and there, with due ceremonies, another hog is sacrificed to Agráng, a he-goat to Manásho and to Búli, and a fowl, duck, or pigeon (black, red, or white, according to the special and well known taste of each god) to each of the remaining nine of the Noöni madai. The blood of the sacrifice belongs to the gods—the flesh to his worshippers, and these now hold a high feast, at which beer and tobacco are freely used to animate the joyous conclave, but not spirits, nor opium, nor hemp. The goddess Mainou is represented in the interior of each house, by a bamboo post, about three feet high, fixed in the ground, and surmounted by a small earthen cup filled with rice. Before this symbol is the great annual sacrifice of the hog above noted, performed; and before this, the females of the family once a month, make offerings of eggs. For the males, due attention to the four annual festivals is deemed sufficient in prosperous and healthful seasons. But sickness or scarcity always begets special rites and ceremonies, suited to the circumstances of the calamity, and addressed more particularly to the elemental gods, if the calamity be drought, or blight, or devastations of wild animals—to the household gods, if it be sickness. Hunters, likewise, and fishers, when they go forth to the chase, sacrifice a fowl to the Sylvan gods, to promote their success; and lastly, those who have a petition to prefer to their superiors, conceive that a similar propitiation of Jishim and Mishim, or of the Chiris, will tend to the fulfilment of their requests. And this, I think, is nearly the whole amount of rites and ceremonies, which their religion prescribes to the Bodo and Dhimáls. And anxious as I am fully to illustrate the topic, I will not try the patience of my readers by describing all that variety of black victims and white, of red victims and blue, which each particular deity is alleged to prefer; first, because the subject is intrinsically trifling; and second because the diverse statements of my informants lead me to suspect, that the matter is optional or discretionary with each individual priest prescribing these minutiæ. I have mentioned the rude symbols proper to Báthó and Mainou. None of the other gods seem to have any at all, though a low line of kneaded clay attached to the Thalí that surrounds the sacred Euphorbia in the yards of the Bodo is said to stand for the rest of the divinities who, as I have already said, are wont to be worshipped collectively rather than individually; and thus the sun, the moon, and the earth, though adored by Bodo and by Dhimál, have no separate rites, but are included in those appropriated to the elemental gods. Witchcraft is universally dreaded by both Bodo and Dhimál. The names of the craft and of its professors, male and female, will be found in the vocabulary. Witches (Dain and Mháï) are supposed to owe their noxious power to their own wicked studies, or to the aid of preternatural beings. When any person is afflicted, the elders assemble and summon three Ojhás or exorcists, with whose aid and that of a cane freely used, the elders endeavour to extort from the witch a confession of the fact and the motives. By dint of questioning and of beating, the witch is generally brought to confession, when he or she is asked to remove the spell, and to heal the sufferer, means of propitiating preternatural allies (if their agency be alleged) being at the same time tendered to the witch, who is, however, forthwith expelled the district, and put across the next river, with the concurrence of the local authorities. No other sorcery or black art save that of witches is known; nor palmistry, augury, astrology, nor, in a word, any other supposed command of the future than that described in the 'Wa galéno' as the attribute (for the nonce) of the Déódá or vates. The evil eye causes some alarm to Bodo and to Dhimál who call it mogon nángo and mí nójó respectively, and who cautiously avoid the evil-eyed person, but cannot eject him from the community. The influence of the evil eye is sought to be neutralised by offerings of parched millet and eggs to Khoja Kajah and Mansha Rajah—Dii minores who find no place in my catalogue, ample as it is. Moïsh madai, I am told, likewise claims a place in the Bodo Pantheon, and a distinguished place, too, as the protector of this forest-dwelling people from beasts of prey, and especially the tiger.

"Priesthood.—The priesthood of the Bodo and Dhimáls is entirely the same, even to the nomenclature, which with both people expresses the three sorts of clergy by the terms Déóshi, Dhámi and Ojhá. The Dhámi (seniores priores!) is the district priest. The Déóshi the village priest; and the Ojhá the village exorcist. The Déóshi has under him one servitor called Phantwál. There is a Déóshi in nearly every village. Over a small circle of villages one Dhámi presides and possesses a vaguely defined but universally recognised control over the Déóshis of his district. The general constitutions and functions of the clerical body have already been fully explained. Priests are subject to no peculiar restraints, nor marked by any external sign of diverse dress or other. The connexion between pastor and flock is full of liberty for the latter, who collectively can eject their priest if they disapprove him, or individually can desert him for another if they please. He marries and cultivates like his flock, and all that he can claim from them for his services is, first, a share of every animal sacrificed by him, and second, three days' help from each of his flock (the grown males) per annum, towards the clearing and cultivation of the land, he holds on the same terms with them, and which have already been explained. Whoever thinks fit to learn the forms of offering, sacrifice, and accompanying invocation, can be a priest; and if he get tired of the profession, he can throw it up when he will. Ojhás stand not on the same footing with Dhámis and Déóshis: they are remunerated solely by fees; but into either office—priests or exorcists—the form of induction is similar, consisting merely of an introduction by the priests or exorcists of the neophyte to the gods, the first time he officiates. One Dhámi and two Déóshis usually induct a Déóshi—three Ojhás, an Ojhá; and the formula is literally that of an introduction—'this is so and so, who proposes, O ye gods! to dedicate himself to your service: mark how he performs the rites, and, if correctly, accept them at his hands.'"

These remarks will conclude with the notice of an ethnological question of primary importance, but not yet laid before the reader, viz.: the extent to which certain varieties of the human species can live and thrive in localities which are either deleterious or deadly to others. Some rough facts of the kind in question are generally known; such, for instance, as the tolerance on the part of the Negro of the heat and malaria of the tropical climates. A similar tolerance of climatologic influences otherwise deleterious is shewn by the Bodo, and its allied tribes. According to Mr. Hodgson, none but themselves can live in their own localities; since "the Saul forest everywhere, but especially to the east of the Kósi, is malarious to an extent which no human beings can endure, save the remarkable races, which for ages have made it their dwelling-place. To all others, European or native, it is deadly from April to November. Yet the Dhimál, the Bodo, the Kíchak, the Tharú, the Dénwár, not only live but thrive in it, exhibiting no symptoms whatever of that dreadful stricken aspect of countenance and form which marks the victim of malaria."

The converse of this position, or the incapacity of the Bodo, &c., for living elsewhere, is also mentioned by Mr. Hodgson, but with an expression of doubt as to its accuracy. "The Bodo and Dhimáls, whom I communicated with, alleged that they cannot endure the climate of the open plains, where the heat gives them fevers. This is a mere excuse for their known aversion to quit the forest; for their eastern brethren dwell and till like natives in the open plains of Assam, just as the Kóls of south Bihár (Dhángars) do now in every part of the plains of Bihár and Bengal, in various sites abroad, and lastly in the lofty sub-Himálayas."

The Bodo tribes will again be brought prominently forward when the ethnology of the peninsula of India is discussed.

THE TRIBES OF SIKKIM AND NEPAL SPEAKING MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGES.

Each of these countries, although south of the Himalayas, and although to a great extent Hindu in religion, government, and language, must be looked upon as countries of which the aboriginal population is an extension of that of Tibet. The tribes of Sikkim and Nepal are Cis-Himalayan Tibetans; the word Tibetan being used in its general sense.

1. The Magars.—Imperfectly Braminical in their religion, with a separate monosyllabic language, and remains of their old Paganism. Their priests were called Damis.[20]

2. The Gurungs.—Adherents to Buddhism. Inhabitants of the same localities with the Magars; only higher in the mountains.

3. The Jariyas.—Indianized.

4. The Newars.—Probably the oldest inhabitants of Nepal. Adherents to Buddhism; alphabet derived from the Devanagari.

5. The Murmis.—Buddhist. Language like, but different from, that of the Newars.

6. The Kirata.—Eastern Nepal; Buddhist.

7. Limbu.—Same localities as the Kirata: differing in language.

8. The Lepchas.—Inhabitants of Sikkim. Have a tradition that they lately migrated from Tibet, crossing the mountains; also that they then had a native alphabet, since lost.

CHÉPÁNG.

Locality.—Forests of Nepaul, west of the Great Valley.

Tribes.—Chépáng, Kusunda, and Haiyu.

Vocabularies.—One only known, i.e. that of the Chépáng.

Authority.—B. H. Hodgson, Journal of the Asiatic Society, Dec. 1848, No. CXCVIII.

Respecting the, ethnology of these tribes (or rather of the Chépáng, the one best known), Mr. Hodgson's observations are as follows:—

1. That their form and colour is the form and colour of the aborigines of India.

2. That their language is closely allied to the language of Bhután.

The Garo, the Bodo, the Dhimál, and Chépáng, will come under consideration again; these being the tribes which will supply the chief facts connected with the question as to the affinity or non-affinity between the great Tibetan and Indian families. At present it is sufficient to draw attention to the state of opinion upon this point. With few exceptions amongst the English (Dr. Bird and Mr. Hodgson being the most decided), both philologists and physiologists consider the line of demarcation to be an exceedingly broad one.

Tribes supposed to be essentially monosyllabic, although speaking a language admitted to be Indian.—These are the Assamese of the Lower part of the valley, and the Raibansi Kooch.

1. Assam.—That the languages of Upper Assam are those of a variety of rude tribes, speaking a monosyllabic tongue, has already been seen. The Lower Assam language is Bengali. Were the Bengali the aborigines of Lower Assam? I believe that no one holds this doctrine. Is the present language that of Bengalis, who have displaced an aboriginal monosyllabic population? Perhaps. Or has an original monosyllabic population adopted the Bengali? No person is better capable of forming an opinion on this point than Mr. Hodgson; and his opinion is for the last of these views.

2. The converted Kooch.—Residents, in contact with the Bodo and Dhimál, of the Sub-Himalayan range, between the north-west corner of Assam and Sikkim. The higher class of the converted Kooch are Brahminists: the lower Mahometans. Both call themselves Raibansi. The notice of the Kooch kingdom of Hájo, explains this term.

Towards the close of the fifteenth century, Hájo founded a Kooch empire, which extended beyond the limits of the Assam valley, into Morung and Bengal. His daughter, for he left no sons, was married to a Bodo chief, the Bodos being Pagans. These two divisions of the aborigines held their own against the Moslem and Hindus equally; but only for a while. Visva Sinh, the conqueror's grandson, became a convert to Hinduism, the majority of his subjects to the religion of Mahomet; renouncing, at the same time, their original name. A portion, however, remained unconverted, and remain so; and these agree with the Bodo in appearance, manners, and customs, and are said to do so in language also.

If so, and if the Raibansi Kooch be so closely allied to them as they are described to be, they must, although speaking a dialect closely allied to the Assam Bengali, be monosyllabic in origin.

The whole details, however, of the Kooch may be found in Mr. Hodgson's Dissertation.

The Chinese civilization must be taken as the measure of the moral development of the monosyllabic nations; a form to which the non-culture of the tribes represented by the Bodo and Garo, stands in prominent contrast. I do not think it necessary to tell the reader what Chinese civilization is. It is sufficiently known in itself; its affinity with that of the Indo-Chinese nations is known also; and equally well-known is its distinct character, as compared with the other civilizations of the world—Asiatic as well as European.

A point of more ethnographical importance, is the question as to its antiquity; since this involves the higher question still—as to the extent to which it is a self-developed phenomenon, or one effected by influences from without. I am prepared to admit without much criticism, the statements of travellers as to the possession, on the part of the Chinese, of several of the most important arts and discoveries belonging to the civilization of Europe—of the art of printing, of paper-money, of a certain amount of astronomical knowledge, of the mariner's compass, and even of gunpowder. There is no reason why the Chinese, when once civilized, should not have worked out an average amount of discovery in the way of detail. The point upon which I doubt is the antiquity of that civilization, and still more the self-evolution of it; a necessary consequence of such antiquity.

Within the historical period, three civilizing influences have, at different times, been introduced into China, and each has had time to do its work in.

I begin with the latest, the European.

1. The Portuguese, Dutch, English, and American.—This may be disposed of briefly. It has not changed the Chinese cultivation in anything essential.

2. The Nestorian Christians.—Date between 600 and 1200 A.D. The extent of the influence of these early missionaries will be examined in the section upon the Syrians. It is the second of the great external civilizing influences that have acted upon China. Without carrying my scepticism so far as to limit the antiquity of the Chinese history to the epoch of the Nestorians, I cannot but put a high importance on the introduction of Syrian literature, Syrian theology, and Syrian science.

3. The Buddhism of India.—This is generally believed to have been introduced into China in the first century after Christ. I have not seen the translation of the Annals of the Han Dynasty by the Archimandrite Hyacinth; so that I cannot say at what period they profess to represent cotemporary events. Whatever, however, that period may be, it is the extreme date of Chinese history: now this cannot be earlier than B.C. 200; that being the epoch when the Han dynasty began to reign.

Viewed in respect to our reasons for concluding that such or such a fact took place, there are five grounds of belief:—

1. Historical grounds.—Here the facts are believed on testimony; the testimony of men who had means of knowing them. That such witnesses should have lived at the time when the facts in question took place, is the great and essential condition of their credibility.

2. The belief ex necessitate.—A fact which, at the time of its first announcement could only have been known from having been witnessed by a cotemporary, but which at some later period is shown from other facts to have been real, is to be admitted unreservedly; the evidence in its favour being of the highest kind. Of this sort are such astronomical facts as, in the present state of our knowledge, can be ascertained independently of experience, but which, when first notified, could only have been ascertained by experience.

3. Traditional Grounds.—Here the immediate authority to the person who is informed of a real or supposed fact, is some one who had not the possibility of knowing the facts in question from being contemporary with them; but who heard it from some one who was so contemporary—or else heard it from some one who heard it from some one, &c., ad infinitum. Here the statements are possible or impossible, probable or improbable. If possible, they may be true; if probable, they are likely to be so. In neither case, however, are they historical facts; that is, there is no testimony founded upon a knowledge of the event.

4. The true elements in unreasonable traditions.—A series of necessary and connected antecedents to a given effect, inductively obtained is an ethnological ground of belief, or an ethnological fact; and it is based on inductive reasoning. A series of unnecessary and unconnected antecedents, derived from the imagination, is a false ground of belief, and in most cases this takes the form of mythological tradition. It does not, however, necessarily follow, that, because a body of tradition may, on the whole, be unreasonable, or even impossible, it is therefore wholly deficient in grounds of belief. The doctrine ex nihilo nihil may here apply. It may fairly be argued, that, absolute invention is so difficult, that in all error there is some truth. Granted. It may, then, be argued, that a criticism analytical enough to evolve the residuum is a scientific (or literary) possibility. Granted. But who is the critic? I fear that his appearance is optandum magis quam sperandum.

5. The inductive method consists in the assumption of certain causes as the necessary antecedents of a known event; and they are good or bad according to their scientific or unscientific character. To take as the first fact in the history of Greece, the existence of a poem like the Iliad in the ninth century B.C., to ascertain the state of society that it implies, and to appreciate the civilization involved therein, is an ethnological argument; whilst, to assume a certain amount of time for such to have grown up in, is an argument from effect to cause, and is good or bad, according as it assumes no more than is absolutely necessary.

Now, if we ask upon which of these five principles we believe in the antiquity of the Chinese civilization, it will certainly not be the first.

I am not prepared to wholly exclude the second; indeed, I have not the means of forming an independent one on the subject. At the same time I know that, in respect to the Chinese astronomical calculations many good judges are incredulous, and many of those who are not so are at variance in their opinions.

The third is essentially admissible for a limited period only.

The fifth remains open for consideration.

In the application of what may be called the doctrine of necessary antecedents, I believe, for my own part, that we must take the China as described by Marco Polo in the fifteenth century; and if we put the development there exhibited on a level with that of the China of the present century, we are giving to the advocate of antiquity full as much, perhaps more, than he can fairly demand. I submit that the time necessary for the growth of such a phenomenon need not exceed a few centuries.

The residuum, then, of truth that is capable of being evolved out of unreasonable tradition, is all that the present writer can leave to the advocates of a Chinese antiquity. He would willingly, however, find that their astronomy and history will bear a more severe criticism than he imagines they are likely to do.

At present, he believes that whatever is older than their religion, is reasonable tradition for a limited period (say a century), and unreasonable tradition beyond it.

In confining the growth of Chinese civilization to the last eighteen hundred years, and in expressing my dissent from the doctrine that it was an indigenous, self-developed phenomenon, I by no means underrate the import of certain undoubted facts. The archæology of their alphabet is too little known to enable us to connect it with any foreign one; as well as too scanty to exhibit its evolution as a home growth. Still it is a remarkable phenomenon. Still more so is the phenomenon of their government and political organization. To deny to China a great influence upon the history of the world, simply because its civilization has been confined to its own immediate sphere, and its movements have been limited to the pale of its own dominions, is erroneous. China alone is a great section of the world. Hence the circle, though limited, is large; and the simple, single fact of so much sameness over so large a country, is a great one. How is this to be accounted for? Was the original area occupied by the first possessors of China so great, whilst the changes that have set in since the time of possession have been so small? or has the uniformity been purchased by the assimilation of a multiplicity of small and distinct tribes? Or has it been by their annihilation?

Whatever may be the answer to these questions supplied by future researches, the Chinese are one of the great historical influences, and, if we contrast the peaceful habits of an agricultural population with the unsettled condition of a nation of nomads, and the security of a large consolidated government with the slave-dealing warfares that exist between thickly congregated petty tribes, we must allow that influence to have been a beneficial one.

II.
TURANIAN STOCK.

Physical conformation.—Mongol.

Languages.—Not monosyllabic.

Distribution.—Continental.

Area.—From Kamskatka to Norway, and from the Arctic Ocean to the frontiers of Tibet and Persia—nearly but not wholly continuous.

Countries included.—The northern parts of the Chinese empire, greater part of Siberia, Mongolia, Tartary, Eastern Turkestan, Asia Minor, Turkey, Hungary, Finland, Esthonia, Lapland.

DIVISIONS.

The reader is now asked to prepare himself for the transition from languages of a monosyllabic type, to languages other than monosyllabic; and from aptotic tongues to tongues where the inflections are numerous.

He is also asked to prepare himself for a transition, in the way of physical conformation, from a structure approaching the Mongol type, to one essentially and typically Mongol.

In the former case the change is greater than in the latter.

Why is this? Why do not the changes go pari passu, so that the two tests should coincide, and so that it should be a matter of indifference which of the two we started with?

We get at the answer to this by remembering that physical changes and philological changes, may go on at different rates.

A thousand years may pass over two nations undoubtedly of the same origin; and which were, at the beginning of those thousand years, of the same complexion, form, and language.

At the end of those thousand years there shall be a difference. With one the language shall have changed rapidly, the physical structure slowly.

With the other the physical conformation shall have been modified by a quick succession of external influences, whilst the language shall have stayed as it was.

With an assumed or proved original identity on each side, the difference in the rate of action on the part of the different influences, is the key to all discrepancies between the two tests. The language may remain in statu quo, whilst the hair, complexion, and bones change; or the hair, complexion, and osteology may remain in statu quo, whilst the language changes.

Apparently this leaves matters in an unsatisfactory condition; in a way which allows the ethnologist any amount of assumption he chooses. Apparently it does so; but it does so in appearance only. In reality we have ways and means of determining which of the two changes is the likelier.

We know what modifies form. Change of latitude, climate, sea-level, conditions of subsistence, conditions of clothing, &c., do this; all (or nearly all) such changes being physical.

We know, too, (though in a less degree) what modifies language. New wants gratified by objects with new names, new ideas requiring new terms, increased intercourse between man and man, tribe and tribe, nation and nation, &c. do this; all (or nearly all) such changes being of a moral nature.

Hence in some cases we can ascertain upon which of the two elements of our classification, the physical or the moral, the greatest amount of influences has been at work.

It is necessary to remark upon these points because it is only physically that the tribes of the present division are nearest akin to those of the previous ones. Had similarity of language been the test, a different and a more distant class of nations would have formed the subject of the present section.

THE MONGOLIAN BRANCH OF THE TURANIAN STOCK.

Distribution.—High Asia. East and West, from the Altai Mountains to the Wall of China; North and South, from the Tungús boundary to Tibet; conterminous with the Turks, southern Samöeids, Tungús, Chinese, and Tibetans.—The Volga, by migration.

Political Relations.—Subject to, a. China; b. Russia.

Religion. Chiefly Buddhism.

Particular Divisions. Mongols Proper, Buriats, Olot of Dzungaria; the Kalmuks of Russia; the Eimak of Persia.

MONGOLIANS.

Localities.—1. Buriats. Parts about the lake Baikal, chiefly in the Russian territory, conterminous with the Samöeids, and Manchus.

2. Olot, Dzungarian, or Kalmuk Mongolians. a. The most western of the family, conterminous with the Turks of Yarkend, and Independent Tartary. b. Kalmuks of the tribes Dürbet and Torgod, who in 1662 crossed the Yaik, and settled on the Volga. The majority of them returned to Mongolia in 1770. These belonged to the Olots.

3. Mongolians Proper, of the Desert of Shamo, and the Kalkas. Conterminous with China.

4. Eimaks, Northern Persia; isolated tribes.

The extent to which the Mongolian physiognomy is the type and sample of one of the most remarkable divisions of the human race, is one of the facts which gives this division prominence.

The extent to which its tribes are the type and sample of a pastoral and nomadic race, is another.

Their part in the history of the world is a third. This alone will be enlarged upon. The two other points are merely indicated.

The great part played by the Mongolians, as devastating conquerors, begins and ends with Zingiz-Khan and his immediate successors. It begins with him; because although fragmentary and obscure notices of their Mongolian neighbours are said to be found in the Chinese annals, it is only in the thirteenth century that we find definite and cotemporaneous historical evidence. It ends with his successors in the fourth or fifth generation, notwithstanding the appearance which it takes of being continued further; inasmuch as the conquests of Tamerlane are Turk rather than Mongolian, and the Great Mogul empire of India was Turk rather than Mongolian also.

To this confusion between the share taken by the two great pastoral nations of Central Asia, in spilling the blood of their kind, and in devastating the world, the indefinite use of the term Tartar has done much to contribute. Few writers when they heard of Tartar victories, asked whether the particular warriors were akin to the Mongolians who conquered China under Kublai-Khan, or to the Turks, who terrified Europe under Suliman. Yet such is the difference between these two divisions of the great Turanian stock. For the sake of avoiding any such further ambiguities, I have forbidden myself the use of the word Tartar from this time forwards, throughout the present work.

Other probable reasons for the confusion are of a real character. I believe that, in some cases, the soldiers were Turk, whilst the captains were Mongolian; and that, sometimes, descent from the high blood of Zingiz-Khan was claimed by Turk chieftains of another stock and pedigree. At any rate, the careful examiner of any history of this people—excepting for the times of Zingiz-Khan, and his immediate successors—will find it very difficult to disengage the Mongolian exploits from the Turk; and will, probably after some trouble, come to the conclusion that the greater share belongs to the latter.

I shall let an eye-witness, Marco Polo, describe the Mongols of the fourteenth century, in the third generation from Zingiz-Khan, and before they had taken up the Buddhist religion of their conquered subjects.

1. Translation by Marsden,—Chapters XLV-XLVIII.

"It has been an invariable custom, that all the grand kans, and chiefs of the race of Chingis-kan, should be carried for interment to a certain lofty mountain, named Altai; and in whatever place they may happen to die, although it should be at the distance of a hundred days' journey, they are, nevertheless, conveyed thither. It is likewise the custom, during the progress of removing the bodies of these princes, for those who form the escort to sacrifice such persons as they chance to meet on the road, saying to them, 'Depart for the next world, and there attend upon your deceased master!' being impressed with the belief that all whom they thus slay do actually become his servants in the next life. They do the same also with respect to horses, killing the best of the stud, in order that he may have the use of them. When the corpse of Mongù was transported to this mountain, the horsemen who accompanied it, having this blind and horrible persuasion, slew upwards of ten thousand persons who fell in their way.

"The Tartars never remain fixed, but, as the winter approaches, remove to the plains of a warmer region, in order to find sufficient pasture for their cattle; and in summer they frequent cold situations in the mountains, where there is water and verdure, and their cattle are free from the annoyance of horse-flies and other biting insects. During two or three months they progressively ascend higher ground, and seek fresh pasture; the grass not being adequate in any one place to feed the multitudes of which their herds and flocks consist. Their huts or tents are formed of rods covered with felt, and being exactly round, and nicely put together, they can gather them into one bundle, and make them up as packages, which they carry along with them in their migrations, upon a sort of car with four wheels. When they have occasion to set them up again, they always make the entrance front to the south. Besides these cars, they have a superior kind of vehicle, upon two wheels, covered likewise with felt, and so effectually as to protect those within it from wet, during a whole day of rain. These are drawn by oxen and camels, and serve to convey their wives and children, their utensils, and such provisions as they require. The women it is who attend to their trading concerns, who buy and sell, and provide every thing necessary for their husbands and their families; the time of the men being entirely devoted to the employment of hunting and hawking, and matters that relate to the military life. They have the best falcons in the world, and also the best dogs. They subsist entirely upon flesh and milk, eating the produce of their sport, and a certain small animal, not unlike a rabbit, called by our people Pharaoh's mice, which, during the summer season, are found in great abundance in the plains. But they likewise eat flesh of every description, horses, camels, and even dogs, provided they are fat. They drink mares' milk, which they prepare in such a manner that it has the qualities and flavour of white wine. They term it in their language kemurs.

"Their women are not excelled in the world for chastity and decency of conduct, nor for love and duty to their husbands. Infidelity to the marriage bed is regarded by them as a vice not merely dishonourable, but of the most infamous nature; whilst on the other hand it is admirable to observe the loyalty of the husbands towards their wives, amongst whom, although there are perhaps ten or twenty, there prevails a degree of quiet and union that is highly laudable. No offensive language is ever heard, their attention being fully occupied with their traffic (as already mentioned), and their several domestic employments, such as the provision of necessary food for the family, the management of the servants, and the care of the children, which are amongst them a common concern. And the more praiseworthy are the virtues of modesty and chastity in their wives, because the men are allowed the indulgence of taking as many as they choose. Their expense to the husband is not great, and on the other hand the benefit he derives from their trading, and from the occupations in which they are constantly engaged, is considerable; on which account it is, that when he receives a young woman in marriage, he pays a dower to her parent. The wife who is the first espoused has the privilege of superior attention, and is held to be the most legitimate, which extends also to the children borne by her. In consequence of this unlimited number of wives, the offspring is more numerous than amongst any other people. Upon the death of the father, the son may take to himself the wives he leaves behind, with the exception of his own mother. They cannot take their sisters to wife, but upon the death of their brothers they can marry their sisters-in-law. Every marriage is solemnized with great ceremony.

"The doctrine and faith of the Tartars are these. They believe in a Deity whose nature is sublime and heavenly. To him they burn incense in censers, and offer up prayers for the enjoyment of intellectual and bodily health. They worship another likewise, named Natigay, whose image, covered with felt or other cloth, every individual preserves in his house. To this deity they associate a wife and children, placing the former on his left side, and the latter before him, in a posture of reverential salutation. Him they consider as the divinity who presides over their terrestrial concerns, protects their children, and guards their cattle and their grain. They show him great respect, and at their meals they never omit to take a fat morsel of the flesh, and with it to grease the mouth of the idol, and at the same time the mouths of its wife and children. They then throw out of the door some of the liquor in which the meat has been dressed, as an offering to the other spirits. This being done, they consider that their deity and his family have had their proper share, and proceed to eat and drink without further ceremony. The rich amongst these people dress in cloth of gold and silks, with skins of the sable, the ermin, and other animals. All their accoutrements are of an expensive kind.

"Their arms are bows, iron maces, and in some instances spears; but the first is the weapon at which they are the most expert, being accustomed from children to employ it in their sports. They wear defensive armour made of the thick hides of buffaloes and other beasts, dried by the fire, and thus rendered extremely hard and strong. They are brave in battle, almost to desperation, setting little value upon their lives, and exposing themselves without hesitation to all manner of danger. Their disposition is cruel. They are capable of supporting every kind of privation; and, when there is a necessity for it, can live for a month on the milk of their mares, and upon such wild animals as they may chance to catch. Their horses are fed upon grass alone, and do not require barley or other grain. The men are habituated to remain on horseback during two days and two nights without dismounting, sleeping in that situation whilst their horses graze. No people upon earth can surpass them in fortitude under difficulties, nor show greater patience under wants of every kind. They are perfectly obedient to their chiefs, and are maintained at small expense. From these qualities, so essential to the formation of soldiers, it is that they are fitted to subdue the world, as, in fact, they have done in regard to a considerable portion of it.

"When one of the great Tartar chiefs proceeds on an expedition, he puts himself at the head of an army of a hundred thousand horse, and organises them in the following manner:—He appoints an officer to the command of every ten men, and others to command a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand men respectively. Thus, ten of the officers commanding ten men take their orders from him who commands a hundred; of these, each ten from him who commands a thousand; and each ten of these latter from him who commands ten thousand. By this arrangement, each officer has only to attend to the management of ten men, or ten bodies of men; and when the commander of these hundred thousand men has occasion to make a detachment for any particular service, he issues his orders to the commanders of ten thousand to furnish him with a thousand men each; and these, in like manner, to the commanders of a thousand, who give their orders to those commanding a hundred, until the order reaches those commanding ten, by whom the number required is immediately supplied to their superior officers. A hundred men are in this manner delivered to every officer commanding a thousand, and a thousand men to every officer commanding ten thousand. The drafting takes place without delay, and all are implicitly obedient to their respective superiors. Every company of a hundred men is denominated a tuc, and ten of these constitute a toman.

"When the army proceeds on service, a body of men is sent two days' march in advance, and parties are stationed upon each flank and in the rear, in order to prevent its being attacked by surprise. When the service is distant, they carry but little with them, and that, chiefly, what is requisite for their encampment, and utensils for cooking. They subsist for the most part upon milk, as has been said. Each man has, on an average, eighteen horses and mares, and when that which they ride is fatigued, they change it for another. They are provided with small tents made of felt, under which they shelter themselves against rain. Should circumstances render it necessary, in the execution of a duty that requires dispatch, they can march for ten days together without dressing victuals: during which time they subsist upon the blood drawn from their horses, each man opening a vein and drinking from his own cattle. They make provision also of milk, thickened and dried to the state of a hard paste (or curd), which is prepared in the following manner. They boil the milk, and skimming off the rich or creamy part, as it rises to the top, put it into a separate vessel, as butter; for so long as that remains in the milk, it will not become hard. The latter is then exposed to the sun until it dries. Upon going on service, they carry with them about ten pounds for each man, and of this, half a pound is put, every morning, into a leathern bottle or small outre, with as much water as is thought necessary. By their motion in riding, the contents are violently shaken, and a thin porridge is produced, upon which they make their dinner.

"When these Tartars come to engage in battle, they never mix with the enemy, but keep hovering about him, discharging their arrows first from one side and then from the other, occasionally pretending to fly, and during their flight, shooting arrows backwards at their pursuers, killing men and horses, as if they were combating face to face. In this sort of warfare the adversary imagines he has gained a victory, when in fact he has lost the battle; for the Tartars, observing the mischief they have done him, wheel about, and renewing the fight, overpower his remaining troops, and make them prisoners in spite of their utmost exertions.

"Their horses are so well broken-in to quick changes of movement, that upon the signal given they instantly turn in every direction; and by these rapid manœuvres many victories have been obtained. All that has been here related is spoken of the original manners of the Tartar chiefs; but at the present day they are much corrupted. Those who dwell at Ukaka, forsaking their own laws, have adopted the customs of the people who worship idols, and those who inhabit the eastern provinces have adopted the manners of the Saracens."

It may now be well to examine the term conquerors of the world, and to limit it. By following Gibbon,[21] we may ascertain what the true Mongolians did conquer, and what they did not.

Death of Zingiz-Khan, A.D. 1227.—The work done by the great founder of the Mongolian empire, was, in the first instance, the consolidation of separate, and previously disunited, tribes. As a conqueror, he rather overran countries and showed the ease with which victories might be gained than established permanent empires. In this way he ravaged and subdued:—

1. Northern China.—The southern empire was first subdued by his grandson.

2. Bokhara, Persia, Kharizmia (the parts between Balk and the Caspian).—I think it likely that, considering the great number of Turkish tribes that lay between Mongolia and Persia, the natural hostility they bore to the last-named country, and the easy terms on which they offered their swords and valour, there was a considerable Turk element in the Mongolian army of Persia. Still, I have nothing beyond the mere probability to allege.

The greatest and widest conquests were effected in the generation after Zingis: by the nephews of his sons, i.e., Zingis's grandsons.

Southern China.—Conquered, and permanently conquered, by Kublai-Khan. The effect of China upon its subjugators was that which the Romans attributed to the conquest of Greece upon themselves. The victors were moulded to the fashion of the vanquished. The religion, the dress, and the luxury of China, were adopted by the Mongolians even during the lifetime of Kublai-Khan; to whom Korea, Anam, Pegu, Tibet, and Bengal were tributary.

Persia.—By Persia, is meant the half-restored empire of the Kalifs, so that it includes the whole country from Bokhara to Arabia, from Samarcand to Bagdad. Holagou is the grandson identified with this series of conquests; which embrace Syria, Asia Minor, and Armenia, and do not embrace Ægypt. There the Mongolian was met and repulsed by the Mameluke.

Siberia.—Compared with the foregoing one, this was an ignoble conquest. Still it was made; and in 1242, the Samöeids were tributary to the Mongolians.

Tartary, Russia, Poland, Hungary.—The extreme point westward reached in this, the most distant of the invasions and conducted by Batoum, was Silesia. Here also I imagine that some portion of the interjacent Turks easily lent their help to the conqueror, and joined with him against such common enemies as the Slavonians. Still I have no historic evidence to this effect.

To conclude—one hundred and forty years after the death of Zingis, a revolt of the Chinese expelled the Mongolian dynasty. Previous to this, the conquerors of Tartary, Russia, Bokhara, and Persia had become Tartars, Russians, Bokharians, and Persians; in other words they had renounced or forgotten their original ancestors of Mongolia.

The Mongol religion is Buddhist; yet their alphabet is not of either Chinese or Indian origin. The earliest Mongol conquerors understood the value of literature, and soon after the death of Zingiz-Khan the language was reduced to writing; the alphabet, which was subsequently extended to the language of the Mantshu nation, having been adopted from that of the Uighur Turks. Amongst the Uighur Turks it was introduced by the Nestorian Christians, an influence of which the importance in these parts has yet to be duly appreciated. As such, its original source is the Syriac. Of the Syriac alphabets it is most like the Palmyrene.

THE TONGUS BRANCH OF THE TURANIAN STOCK.

Distribution.—East and west, from the sea of Okhotsk, and the peninsula of Kamskatka to the Yenisey. North and South (South-East), from the coast of the Icy Sea, between the Yenisey and Lena, to the Yellow Sea. Conterminous with the Samöeids, Ostiaks, Yakuts, Turks, Mongols, Chinese, Koreans, Aino, Koriaks, and Yukahiri.

Political relations.—Subject to a, China, b, Russia.

Religion.—Buddhism, Imperfect Christianity, Paganism.

Particular divisions.—The Tshapojirs on the Lena, the Lamuts on the Sea of Okhotsk, the Mantshu rulers of China.

Dialects known by vocabularies.—a, Western—Yeniseian, Tshapojirs, Mangaseiesk, Orotong; b, Southern—Nerchinsk, Barguzin, Upper Angara, Yakutsk; c, Eastern—Okhotsk, Lamut; d, The Mantshu. Add to these the Niuji, an ancient dialect known from a Chinese vocabulary, and closely allied to the Mantshu.

Alphabet.—Mongolian; applied to the Mantshu dialect only.

General name.—None. Some particular tribes call themselves beye=men; some, donki=people.

Authority.—Klaproth's Asia Polyglotta and Sprachatlas.

A more northern position, a greater range of climate, an approach in some cases to the hunter and fisher, rather than to the pastoral states, a more partial abandonment of the original Shamanistic Paganism, and a later literature are the chief points which differentiate the Tungús tribes from the Mongol. Add to this, that the influence of the Tungús upon the history of the world is limited to the conquest of China by the present Mantshu dynasty. In other matters—indeed in these—the difference between the two branches is a difference of degree rather than of kind. I limit my remarks upon the Tungús tribes—whose civilization is represented by that of the Mantshus—for the sake of leaving time and space for a more important branch of the Turanian stock—the Turk.

Some of the Tungús tribes—e.g. the Tshapojirs—tattoo their faces.

THE TURK BRANCH OF THE TURANIAN STOCK.

Distribution.—1. As a continuous population—East and west—from the neighbourhood of the lake Baikal, 110° E. L. to the eastern boundaries of the Greek and Slavonic countries of Europe, about 21° E. L. North and south; from the northern frontiers of Tibet, and Persia, about 34° N. L., to the country north of Tobolsk about 59° N. L.

2. As an isolated population—Along the lower course of the Lena, and the shores of the White Sea, chiefly within the Arctic Circle. These are the Yakut Turks. They are wholly disconnected from the other Turkish tribes; and surrounded by Tungús and Yukahiri tribes.

3. As portions of a mixed population—In China?, Tibet?, Mongolia?, Persia, Armenia, the Caucasian countries, Syria, Ægypt, Barbary, Greece, Albania, and the Slavonic portion of Turkey in Europe. Turk blood in most of the royal families of the East.

Religion.—Preeminently, though not exclusively, Mahometan; generally of the Sunnite doctrine. Shamanism amongst the Yakuts. Buddhism amongst the Turks of the Chinese Empire, Christianity amongst those of Siberia.

Language.—Spoken with remarkable uniformity over the whole area; so much so that the Yakut of the Icy Sea is said to be intelligible to the Turks of Central Asia, and even of Constantinople.

Physical Conformation.—In some cases almost identical with that of the Mongolians, in others almost European. Generally speaking, it partakes of the character of the non-Turkish natives of the numerous countries with which the Turk area is in contact.

In Turkey, Ægypt, and the Persian frontier much intermixture.

As the Mongol character departs, the face becomes oval rather than square, the features prominent rather than flat, the beard develops itself, and the complexion becomes brunette rather than swarthy.

Conterminous.—1. Beginning at the most north-eastern point, and going round from north to south—with the Tungús. 2. Mongols 3. Tibetans. 4. Iranians (i. e. Persian tribes, and tribes allied to them). 5. Armenians. 6. Dioscurians (i. e. the tribes of Caucasus). 7. Arabians. 8. Greeks. 9. Slavonians. 10. Finns. 11. Yeniseians. 12. Samöeids.

Chief particular Divisions—taking the round as before—

1. Uighurs.—-On the Mongol frontier. Belonging to China. The Uighurs were the first Turks that used an alphabet. Little known.

2. Turks of the Sandy Desert.—Conterminous with Mongolia and Tibet. Do. Do.

3. Turks of Khoten, Kashgar, and Yarkend. Do. Do.

4. Kirghis.—Independent Tartary. The Kirghis form a portion of the population of the highest table-land in Asia—perhaps in the world—Pamer, and the source of the Oxus.

5. Uzbeks.—The Turks of Bokhara.

6. Turkomans.—The Persian frontier of Independent Tartary from Balk to the Caspian. Pastoral robbers.

7. Ottoman or Osmanli.—The Turks of the Turkish Empire.

8. Nogays.—The Turks of the parts between the Black Sea and the Caspian, north of Caucasus.

9. Turks of the Russian Empire.—Bashkirs(?), Teptyars, Baraba, &c. With all these, although the language is Turk, there is good reason to believe that the original substratum is Finn. With the Bashkirs this is generally considered to be the case.

10. The isolated Yakuts of the Lena.

Such is the great Turk area, the extent of which is, in itself, an ethnological study; equally remarkable for its positive and its negative peculiarities.

Laying aside the Yakuts as isolated, and the Turks of Asia-Minor and Thrace as recent settlers, we have in Turkish Asia an enormous steppe, mountains of all but first-rate magnitude, the head-waters of many rivers, but the embouchures of none, a salt-water lake but no communication with the ocean. Yet, given the central point of a large continent, this is what we expect à priori. If any influence that shall affect the fate of the world at large is to be developed in such an area, it must, surely, be an influence strongly and typically contrasted with the influence which such relations of land and water as the Mediterranean supplies to Greece, and in a less degree to every country that abuts on it, are calculated to develop. The dispersion of the Turkish race is essentially the dispersion of a race over a continent. I do not know who first used the illustration, but the manner in which Othman's all-conquering host was arrested by the Hellespont, has been well compared to the check that a running brook puts to the Scotch witches and wizards. What Leander and Lord Byron swam across, the conqueror of Asia was checked by.

The relations to the pole on one side and the equator on the other, are remarkably parallel between the two great conquering nations of the world—the Turks of Asia, and the Goths of Europe. The latitudes 47—55 enclose, the nations who, on the one side, displaced the aborigines of Asia Minor and Thrace, on the other, those of Keltic Britain and of North America.

One condition necessary for a race that thus spread themselves abroad, occurs in a remarkable degree with the Turk. In the Yakut country we find the most intense cold known in Asia; in Pamer, the greatest elevation above the sea-level; in the south of Ægypt, an intertropical degree of heat. Yet, in all these countries we find the Turk. In their physiognomy the Turks have in many instances departed from the Mongol type; and, hence, the agreement between the two cognate families is less manifest in their physical conformation than in their languages. The nature and extent of this deviation is well worth more investigation than it has met with; and next in importance to the fact itself, is the reason that may be assigned for it.

Whether it may be from the Osmanli Turk of Constantinople, with his un-Mongolian length of beard, his regularly formed eye, and his other European points of physiognomy, being the standard by which we measure the other divisions of the family, or whether we have unnecessarily restricted the term Mongol to the inhabitants of Mongolia, it is certain that a great majority of travellers are in the habit of describing a Mongol cast of countenance when found in a Turk, as an exceptional phenomenon; just as if the Turk had one character and the Mongol another, and as if a deviation either way was an anomaly.

Now, the notice of all differences, however small, between the tribes of the Turk, and those of any other division of the human kind, is so far from being exceptionable, that it is particularly desirable.

Neither is the assumption of the Turk in his most European form as a standard of comparison, rather than that of the more Mongoliform Turks, objectionable. One writer is as fully at liberty to treat all deviations from the type of a Constantinopolitan Osmanli as anomalous, as another is to apply a Mongol standard. Provided that facts are accumulated, ethnology is the gainer.

It is only when the idea of the Turk type being one thing, and the Mongol another, has so far taken possession of a writer, as to make him overvalue the import of such differences, that evil arises. Then a fact which should even be expected à priori, becomes an anomaly; and the assumption of some extraordinary cause—generally the mixture of race—is assumed. I say assumed, because in many cases it is taken for granted, simply and solely because it will explain the phenomena. Where this is not the fact, where there are other grounds for believing that intermixture has occurred, it is not only legitimate, but it is necessary to admit it.

Rule.—Intermixture of race solely for the sake of accounting for varieties of physical conformation is not to be assumed, except in extreme cases.

Practically I consider that the Mongoliform physiognomy is the rule with the Turk rather than the exception, and that the Turk of Turkey exhibits the exceptional character of his family. Both these facts are what we should expect. Ethnological affinity, as proved by language, exists in a very close degree between the Turks and the Mongolians. Common conditions of climate exist also. Either implies similarity of physical conformation. On the other hand, where the Turk is least like the Mongol, we know that intermixture has taken place; intermixture like that of the Circassian and Georgian blood in Europe, and that of the Persian in Asia. Hence, if I allowed myself to assume at all, I would assume an intermixture to account for the difference between the Turk and Mongol—not to account for the similarity.

Extract from Burnes's description of the Uzbek chief of Kunduz.—"Moorad Beg is about fifty years of age, his stature is tall, and his features are those of a genuine Uzbek; his eyes are small to a deformity; his forehead broad and frowning; and his whole cast of countenance most repulsive."—Vol. ii. 358.

Extract from Khamikoff respecting the Uzbeks of Bokhara.—"The exterior of the Uzbeks reminds us strongly of the Moghul race, except that they have larger eyes and are somewhat handsomer; they are generally middle-sized men; the colour of their beards varies between a shade of red and dark auburn, whilst few are found with black hair."—Translation by the Baron de Bode.

Statements of this kind might be multiplied, particularly in respect to the Uzbeks.

Descent of certain portions of the Turk Branch—Epoch of its present extension.—The Turk Branch of the Turanian stock introduces a series of ethnological questions, which have, as yet, presented themselves only in a rudimentary form. Few of the tribes hitherto described, were known to the ancients sufficiently to make the question of descent between the present nations and their real or supposed representatives in classical antiquity, a matter of much—although, of course, it is always of some—importance. With the Turk nations it is otherwise: a large, perhaps a very large, portion of the ancient Scythia must have been Turk; and, if so, it is amongst the Turks that we must look for some of the widest and fiercest of ancient conquerors.

At what time did the present enormous diffusion of Turk tribes take place? The answer to this question is the answer to many others. By knowing this we know also the probable ethnological position of such famous peoples as the Kimmerii, Sakæ, Massagetæ, Alans, Avars, Huns, Nephthalites, Bulgarians, and others—peoples whereof the records are written in the annals not only of Rome and Greece, but of Lydia, Media, and Assyria.

At what epoch did the diffusion of the Turk tribes take place? If at a period anterior to history, their frontier must have been the same in the time of Herodotus as at present; and, consequently, their geographical relations to Persia and Europe, the same.

At what time, then, did it take place? For two areas the question is answered at once; for European Turkey and for Asia Minor it has certainly taken place within the historical period. With these two exceptions, I believe, that, at the beginning of the historical period, the great Turk area was much the same as at present; less, perhaps, by a degree or two, on this frontier or that; but still essentially the same in kind. By in kind I mean ethnographically, i. e. that (subject to the aforesaid exceptions) the Turk tribes were conterminous with the same non-Turk tribes as at present. Let us apply this view in detail.

Siberian Frontier.—From Kasan to the Lake Baikal, the frontier is Finnish, Yeniseian, and Samöeid. I admit that the southern limits of all these families are likely to have been curtailed;—indeed I would argue that such has been the case. This, however, is a mere difference of degree.

There is no proof of any nations other than those belonging to the Finn, Yeniseian, and Samöeid divisions having ever been in contact with the Northern Turks, and vice versâ.

Mongolian and Tibetan frontier.—There is not the shadow of historical evidence, nor even a tradition, which should induce us to believe that these two nations were ever less conterminous with each other, and with the Turk, than they are at present.

Persian frontier.—Reasons for supposing that tribes other than those of the Turk division ravaged Persia as early as the time of Cyrus, would lie in the incompatibility of any accounts of such invaders with the known facts concerning the Turks. I am not aware, however, that any such incompatibility exists. The names are different. No Sakæ or Massagetæ are known, under such denominations, as Turk tribes. Yet this scarcely constitutes even the shadow of an objection; since native names, and names by which tribes are known to nations other than their own, oftener differ than coincide.

The Caucasian frontier—the frontier of the Don.—Here the reasoning becomes more difficult. An invasion of Persia along the frontier from Bokhara to the Caspian, is an invasion which no existing nation could claim, except the Turk; since it is a rule in ethnological reasoning to consider every nation as indigenous to the country where it is first found, unless reason be shown to the contrary.

For the parts, however, between the Volga, Caucasus, and the Don (or even Dnieper), there is no such present unity of nation as between the Caspian and Bokhara; and an invasion that burst upon Persia from the north-west, or upon Greece from the north-east, might well be claimed for no less than four great ethnological sections.—1. The Turk. 2. The Slavonic. 3. The Circassian. 4. The Hungarian.

I will apply general principles to get at the different probabilities here involved.

1. The nation that invades both Persia and Europe is most probably the nation most intermediate to the two. This is in favour of the Cimmerians having come from the present country of the Nogays, rather than from the Ukraine, or from the Bashkir country, i.e., in favour of their being Turk rather than Slavonic or Hungarian.

2. A nation that, within the historical period, has always encroached upon others is more likely to be the invader, in a given instance, than a nation which has not been known so to be in the habit of extending itself. This is in favour of the Cimmerians having been Turks from the Nogay country, rather than Circassians.

This is the geographical view. Another method is to take the names of certain invading tribes mentioned in history, and to consider how far they belong to the Turk division, or are to be distributed elsewhere. Here the ethnological method is to begin with the most recent:—

Uzi, Petchenekhi, and Komani of the later Byzantine Empire, Turk.—From A.D. 1050 to about 1500.—It is believed that the term Cumani is only a fresh name for the Uzi (Οὐζοι), who disappear from history as the Cumani appear. There is the special evidence of the Empress Anna Comnena that the Cumani and the Petchenekhi spoke the same language. Their first attack upon the Slavonian tribes was A.D. 1058; and the name by which the Slavonians speak of them is Polowci=inhabitants of the plains. This the Germans, in speaking of them, translate; so that they call the Cumani Falawa, Valui, Valwen. Hence comes the present name of one of the Cumanian European localities—Volhynia.

There are three districts in Europe where the descent is, in part, Cumanian but the language not Cumanian.

1. Volhynia.

2. Between the Dnieper and Volga.—Here Cumani were found by Carpin and Rubriquis.

3. Hungary.—The proof of the Cumanian habitation of part of Hungary, is a matter of some literary interest. The last Cumanian[22] who knew even a few words of his original tongue, was an old man of Karczag, named Varro, who died A.D. 1770; and an incomplete Paternoster, preserved by Dugorics and Thunmann, is all that remains of this dialect. Of the Cumanian of Asia, we have a remarkable vocabulary, from a MS. belonging to the library of the celebrated Petrarch. This is the Turk of the parts between the Caspian and Aral.

The Avars.—A.D. 465 to about 900. In A.D. 465, the Saraguri,[23] the Onoguri, and the Urugi sent an embassy to Constantinople, to complain of the inroads of the Avars. We may guess beforehand the locality, and we may guess beforehand the cause. In the countries between the Mæotis and the Caspian, the Sabiri are pressed upon by the Abares, the Abares being pressed upon by some tribe from behind, and the primum mobile being probably in the centre of Asia. Such is the general history of these movements. We then learn from Gibbon,[24] how, in A.D. 558, these Avars themselves appear as suppliants to the Alani, requesting their good services at the Byzantine Court; and we learn, also, how they afterwards appeared before Justinian, more as sturdy beggars than as suppliants, requesting aid against the Turks; and how that monarch played fast and loose between the runaway slaves and the indignant masters. He turned them upon his enemies in the west; the Slavonians, and the Germans. And these they overran until checked on the Elbe, by a bloody victory gained over them by Sigisbert. The next victory, however, was the Avars', and peace followed. But the Avars remained like locusts in the land. This they had exhausted, or helped to exhaust; when either the intrigues of the King of the Lombards, or the pressure of famine, induced them to agree with Sigisbert upon the terms of their departure. These were a supply of meal and meat for their expedition. To the King of the Lombards, Alboin, whom they then turned eastwards to join, they proffered their assistance against the Gepidæ, on condition of Pannonia, if evacuated, being ceded to them. The destruction of the Gepidæ of Pannonia was followed by the bright period of Avar history, the reign of Baian. The pride of this barbarian inflamed the anger of the Emperor Maurice, who broke his power by the arms of his general Priscus,—broke, but not annihilated. On the 29th of June, A.D. 626, thirty thousand of the vanguard of the Avars insulted the patricians of Constantinople under their own walls, strong in their own barbarian valour, and strong in an even-handed alliance, against the common enemy, with the great king, Chosroes, then at war with Heraclius. "You see," was his answer to the standing patricians, "the proofs of my perfect union with the great king; and his lieutenant is ready to send into my camp a select band of three thousand warriors. Presume no longer to tempt your master with a partial and inadequate ransom; your wealth and your city are the only presents worthy of my acceptance. For yourself, I shall permit you to depart, each with an under-garment, and a shirt, and, at my entreaty, my friend Sarbar will not refuse a passage through his lines. Your absent prince, even now a captive or a fugitive, has left Constantinople to its fate; nor can you escape the arms of the Avars and Persians, unless you could soar into air like birds, or unless like fishes you could dive into the waves."

Fortunately for the empire of the east the crown was worn by Heraclius; and in the eleventh hour, the Avars and the Persians were repulsed. The next century was a century of internal quarrels, whilst their enemies—and this means every tribe of European origin—became stronger. The baptism of one of the Avar kings, took place in A.D. 795; the conquest of Hungary by Charlemagne the year following. What the great German left half done, the Slavonians of the parts around consummated,—and when the first Russian historian composed the annals of his nation, the expression, they have been cut off, son and father, like the Avars, was the bye-word most expressive of utter annihilation.

Now the whole history of the Avars, as well as their locality and alliances, is Turk; and their ruler is regularly spoken of as the Khaghan, or Khan, of the Avars.

The Turk affinity of the Avars has never been doubted.

The Alani.—The locality, the history, and all à priori evidence make the Alans Turkish;—two facts only, that I know of, militate, even in the smallest way, against their being so.

1. The well-known alliance between the Alani and Vandals; a fact of value only in the eyes of him who believes that none but ethnologically related tribes enter into offensive and defensive alliances.

2. The accredited identity between the Alani and the Oseti of Caucasus; a tribe undoubtedly not Turkish. Let us analyze the grounds of this belief. The Oseti name themselves Irôn, but are named by the Turks and Georgians, Osi; by the Russians, Yassy; by the Arabians, As. This is the first fact.

The second is a pair of quotations from Carpin and Barbaro:—

a. Alains ou Asses.—Carpin.

b. La Alania è derivata da populo delli Alani, liquali nella lor lingua si chiamano As.—Barbaro.

Now the most that this proves is, that the same name which the Alans gave to themselves, the Georgians, &c. gave to the Irôn; a fact which is by no means conclusive. On the other hand, it shows that the two indigenous names, As and Irôn, were different. This subject will be noticed again when speaking of the Oseti. At present it is not unnecessary to add, that the name Uz (Οὐζ) has already been mentioned as a name of a tribe in this locality; and that, possibly, it may=As. If so, the Alans, Uzi, and Cumani, are the same people at different times. Nothing is more likely than this, especially as we know that Alani was not a native name, and have good reasons for thinking the same of the term Cumani.

Again, the Oseti, a limited mountain tribe of the Middle Caucasus, with all its supposed affinities in Media and Persia—since the same writers who identify the Alans with Oseti, identify the Oseti with the Medes—could never have passed as Scythians. Now the Alans did so pass, as is shown by a remarkable passage in Lucian:—"so said Makentæs, being the same in dress and the same in language as the Alani (ὁμόσκευος καὶ ὁμόγλωττος τοῖς Ἀλανοῖς ὤν); since these things are common to the Alani and the Skythæ; except that the Alani are not altogether so long-haired as the Skythæ. In this respect, however, Makentæs was like a Skythian, inasmuch as he had shaved himself to the extent to which an Alan head of hair falls short of a Skythian one."[25]

The Khazars and Huns.—The evidence derived from the use of the term Khaghan, or Khan, so diagnostic of the Turk and Mongol families, is wanting in respect to the Huns of Attila. Neither he nor his brother is anywhere so designated.

On the other hand, it is erroneous to suppose that the Huns of Attila are the only Huns of history. The Byzantine historians—even writers who say little or nothing about Attila,—deal with the name Hun, as a well-known and recognised geographical or ethnological term, applied to the tribes between the Don and Volga. Hence they speak of sections of the Hun nation.

The most satisfactory of these is the identification of the Akatir with the Huns—Ἀκατίροις Οὔννοις—Priscus.

Now the Akatir are, undoubtedly, the Khazars, since the intermediate form Ἀκαζίροι occurs; the Greek form of Khazars being Χάζαροι.

Hence, the reasoning runs thus—that the Huns of Attila were what the Huns of Priscus were;—that one of these Hun tribes was the Khazar tribe. What were the Khazars? The Khazars were Turks from the East. Τούρκοι ἀπὸ τῆς ἑώας, οὓς Χαζάρας ὀνομάζουσι, Theophanes, the first author who names them, denoting them thus. In respect to their history, the Khazars appear as the Avars wane in importance. It was by an alliance with the Khazars, indeed, that Heraclius, as stated above, freed himself from those formidable enemies. From A.D. 626, until the tenth century, the Khazars and Petchinakhi (Πατζινακῖται) are the most formidable enemies to the Goths of the Crimea, and to the Russians of the Dnieper.

If these affiliations be correct, the Turks are one of the oldest material influences that have acted on the history of the world, as well as one of the greatest; the Turk division being the probable ethnological position for the Massagetæ, Sakæ, Cimmerii, Alani, Huns, and Avars, and other less important conquerors. To distribute the still older tribes of Scythia is a matter of minute ethnology, for which the present work will not allow room. The usual notices, however, of the Turk nations, taken from the Chinese records, should not be omitted.

The Hiong-nou.—Under this name a conquering nation, conterminous with China, and against which the Chinese wall had been built, appears in the annals of the dynasty of Han; between B.C. 163 and A.D. 196. These are the Hiong-nou of De Guignes and Gibbon.

The Hiun-yu.—Under the dynasty of Shang, which is supposed to have reigned from B.C. 1766 to B.C. 1234, Klaproth finds notice of a people thus denominated. He considers that they were ancestors of the Hiong-nou.

I give these two names for what they have been believed by better judges than myself to denote—not for what I believe myself. The only fact which to me seems incontestible is that, at an early period in the Chinese history, a non-Chinese nation was known under the name of Hiong-nu.

If these be the Huns of the Classics, the evidence as to their being Turk rather than Hungarian, is nearly conclusive; the Turk division being the only one which is, at one and the same time, conterminous with Europe, and almost conterminous with China.

Moreover, if the Hiong-nou be the Huns, we may infer that the name Hun was a native name, in the way that Deutsche is the native name of what we call the Germans; since it is not likely that the Greeks and Chinese would use the same appellation, unless it were also the indigenous appellation of the people to which it was applied.[26]

The Thú-kiú.—These are the proper Turks of the Altai mountains under a Chinese name. They are mentioned as being powerful about A.D. 545.

1. If the word Thú-kiú be the Chinese form of Turk, we learn that the name was native.

2. If the Hiong-nu and Thú-kiú be the same people, we fix the former as Turk rather than aught else.

Now, both these suppositions are highly probable. Several Thú-kiú glosses have been collected by Klaproth from Chinese writings, and they are all Turk, more especially the Turk of Central Asia; whilst, on the other hand, the Chinese writer, Ma-túan-in, derives the Thiú-kiú from the Hiong-nou.

Such of my readers as know that Niebuhr considered the Huns to be Mongols, and that Humboldt insists upon their Finnic origin will excuse the length to which these remarks on their ethnographical position have been extended.

Additions to the Turk area made within the historical period.—This means Asia Minor (Anatolia), and Turkey in Europe; additions of a true ethnological character; additions whereby the Turk division came in contact with other divisions of our species wholly new, e.g., the Greek, the Arabian, and the Armenian. The points to be considered are—the direction, the date, the rate, the completeness or incompleteness of the ethnological change effected.

a. The direction.—From south-east toward north-west; i.e., from Persia; and the parts south of the Caspian and Caucasus, rather than from the parts between the northern Caspian and the Black Sea; so as to be a prolongation of the Turcoman and Uzbek frontier, rather than of the Nogay.

b. Date.—From A.D. 1038 to A.D. 1063, the reign of Togrul Beg, grandson of Seljuk; a Turk of either Turcomania or Bokhara—The Arabian kingdom of Persia is now disorganized; chiefly by Turks, who have raised themselves from the governors of provinces to the founders of empires, e.g., Mahmúd of Ghizni. The power of the Kalif of Bagdad, at best but nominal, is reduced still more by Togrul. The Seljukian Turks (or rather Turkomans), are the sultans of Persia, now become a consolidated empire.

Togrul's successor conquers Armenia and Georgia. Here, however, the ethnological effects of the Turk were, and have continued to be, limited.

About the same time the Arabian princes of Aleppo and Damascus are expelled. Here, also, the ethnological effects were, and have been, limited.

A.D. 1074. Now began the conquest of Asia Minor by Seljukian Turks, a conquest by which one ethnological division of the human species has been replaced by another. It ended in the establishment of the kingdom of Roum; won from the degenerate Romans of Constantinople.

In its due turn the kingdom of Roum breaks up; partly from internal disorganization, partly from attacks from without, the chief of these being those under the leaders of the house of Zingiz. There was also a partial re-conquest by the Romans. Hence in A.D. 1229 there is room for the ambition of Othman. Othman and his successors reconsolidate the kingdom of Roum, Anatolia, or Asia Minor, now Turk.

In A.D. 1360 the Turks of Asia begin to become the Turks of Europe under Amurath I.; during whose reign Anatolia was a great centre of conquest, of which the Asiatic extension was limited by the parallel centre of conquest—Bokhara under Tamerlane. On the side of Europe, however, all was free. A.D. 1453, is the date of the taking of Constantinople. Since then the Turk area in Europe has been formed.

Rate, completeness or incompleteness of the ethnological change effected.—These two questions are connected. We can scarcely tell how long it took to transform the non-Turk countries like Asia Minor and Thrace, into the Turk countries of Roum, unless we also know how far the transformation is real or apparent. Now upon this point we want information. No man can say how many ethnological elements other than Turk may be present amongst the Anatolian and Rumelian speakers of the Ottoman language. Still the conquest of the two areas is spread over a period of not less than three hundred and seventy nine years; beginning with the invasion of Asia Minor, by Togrul's successor, and ending with the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II.

Turk elements of intermixture in families other than the Turk.—These must be noticed briefly. The facts connected with the question falling under the three following heads:—

1. Turk blood in the ruling families of the East.—The Ghiznivide and Seljukian dynasties of Persia, the Uzbek rulers of Bokhara, the Pasha of Ægypt, the Great Mogul, &c.

2. Turks living in separate communities in countries beyond the Turk area.—Turks of Persia, Armenia, Bokhara, &c.

3. Localities where the Turkish language has been spoken and become extinct.—Parts of Hungary, for which see the notice of the Cumani. Other localities, of which by far the most important is Bulgaria. At present the Bulgarian language is Slavonic; and, such being the case, the primâ facie evidence is in favour of the people being Slavonic also. Reasons, however, for the contrary will be found in the notice of the Slavonians.

By adding, to all this, the statement that at least one nation, the Bashkirs, although speaking Turk, are supposed to be Finnic, and, by recollecting at the same time, the great extent of Turk conquests, like some of those of Tamerlane, less permanent than those enumerated, as well as the effects of the trade in female slaves (preeminently supported by Turk nations), we may arrive at a valuation of the importance of the Turk family as a physical influence in the way of intermixture.

The influences of the Turk family have been material rather than moral.—No portion of the Turk division has ever passed for one of the preeminently intellectual sections of mankind. The steady monotheism, however, of the Koran, they have taken up so generally, that Turk and Mahometan are almost as synonymous as Arab and Mahometan. Their literature is founded on that of Persia. No great idea has ever originated from them, and none but those of the simpler and more straightforward kind been adopted. At the same time the Syriac alphabet of the Nestorian Christians was introduced amongst the Uighur Turks, earlier than in any other quarter equally remote; and fragmentary forms of ancient Turk poetry, anterior to the influences of the Persian, and Arabic, are to be found in Von Hammer.

The verbal truthfulness of the Turk has been praised by most who have had the means of observation. Lying is the vice of the weak; and no nations have so little been slaves, and so much been masters, as the Turk.

The Yakuts.—The isolated Turks, or Yakuts, still stand over for notice. Their centre is the river Lena, whereon they extend at least as far southward as the Aldan. Eastward they are found on the[27] Kolyma, and westward as far as the Yenisey. Here the Yakut tribe is that of the Dolganen, an outlying portion of the section first noticed by Von Middendorf.[28]

That the Yakut are Turk, is placed beyond reasonable doubt; although the only test has been that of language. Respecting this the two most extreme statements which I have met with are the following:—

1st. That it is intelligible at Constantinople.

2nd. That not less than one-third of the words (and some of them the names of very simple ideas) are other than Turk.[29]

The truth will probably be known when the recent researches of Von Middendorf are published. In either case, however, the language is Turk.

Fig. 5.

With the evidence of language, the evidence of physical confirmation is said to disagree. The Yakuts are essentially Mongolian in physiognomy. The value of the fact must be determined by what has been already said upon the subject.

The locality of the Yakuts is remarkable. It is that of a weak section of the human race, pressed into an inhospitable climate by a stronger one. Yet the Turks have ever been the people to displace others, rather than to be displaced themselves. On the other hand, the traditions of the country speak expressly to a southern origin.

In respect to the social development of the Yakut, Von Middendorf's distinctions are the most suggestive as well as the most critical. The southernmost Yakuts have the horse, the middlemost the rein-deer, the northernmost the dog. The manners of the southern ones are best known; and these are essentially pastoral. Besides the breeding of herds of horses, the Russian fur-trade has developed an industrial form of the hunter-state; so that, amongst the Yakuts, property accumulates, and we have a higher civilization than will be found elsewhere in the same latitude; Finland and Norway alone being excepted.

Other circumstances make the Yakuts an ethnological study. They are not only Turks who are not Mahometan, but their Christianity is still imperfect: hence they represent the Shamanism of the Turk before he became Moslemized. The details of the Yakut creed, sufficiently numerous to form, along with those of the still pagan Ugrians and Samöeids, an elaborate picture of an old religion, which, in its essential characters, was common to all the families of High Asia and Siberia, may be best found in Ermann.[30] The simple fact of its representing an early religion, is all that can here be noticed.

THE UGRIAN BRANCH OF THE TURANIAN STOCK.

1. Present distribution—continuous.—West and East—From Norway to the Yenisey. North and South (South-East)—From the North Cape to the Russian governments of Simbirsk, Saratof, and Astrakhan. The Volga south of its confluence with the Kama.

2. Isolated portion.—Hungary.

3. Ancient distribution.—Further southwards along the whole frontier, i.e., in Scandinavia, Russia, and Siberia. The Eastward extension probably less than at present.

4. As portions of a mixed population beyond their proper area—In Sweden and Norway.

Religion.—Lutheranism, Romanism, Greek Church, Imperfect Christianity, Shamanism.

Physical conformation.—Chief departure from the Mongol type, the frequency of blue eyes, and light (red) hair.

Conterminous with.—1. Goths of the Scandinavian group in Norway and Sweden; 2. Slavonians in Russia; 3. Lithuanians in Esthonia; 4, 5, 6. Turks, Yeniseians, and Tungús in Siberia. In Europe, in contact with the North Sea. East of Archangel, separated therefrom by the Samöeids.

1.
THE VOGULS.

Locality.—The northern part of the Uralian range, and the country to the east as far as the Irtish, and Tobol, and as far north as the Soswa a feeder of the Obi. Tradition says that they extended as far westward as the Dwina. Probability that they extended further south.

Name.—The Voguls call themselves and the Ostiaks Mansi. They are called by the Siranians Yograyess, and Vagol.

Conterminous with.—The Siranians on the west, the Obi Ostiaks on the east, the Bashkirs on the south.

Dialects.—The northern Vogul of the Sosva, the southern of the Tura, a tributary of the Tobol.

Population.—According to Schubert, one hundred thousand.

Religion.—Shamanism, or imperfect Christianity.

Physical appearance.—Stature small, complexion light, face broad and round, beard scanty, hair long, black, or brown, sometimes red. The Kalmuk (i.e. Mongolian) character of the Vogul physiognomy is noticed by Pallas.

The Voguls are very nearly on the low level of a tribe of fishers and hunters. Except towards the south, where they are partially Russianized, and where they have also partially adopted the manners of the Bashkirs, there is but little pasturage, and no agriculture. The horse is not in use amongst them—the rein-deer being the nearest approach to a domestic animal. Their tribute is paid in its skins.

THE OSTIAKS.

Locality.—Valley of the Obi—Eastwards to the Yenisey.

Name.—Russian, probably originally Bashkir. The native name—Kondycho, Tyakum, or Asyakh. Called by the Samöeids, Thahe; by the Voguls, Mansi.

Conterminous with.—The Voguls on the west, the Samöeids on the north, the Barabinsky and other Turkish tribes, and (probably) with the Yeniseians on the south.

Numbers.—About one hundred thousand.

Dialects.—Numerous.—The Southern mixed with the Vogul, the Northern with the Samöeid.

Physical appearance.—Stature short, bones small, muscular strength little; face flat, hair red, or reddish.

Religion.—Shamanism in the north, imperfect Christianity in the south.

The Ostiaks are almost wholly a nation of fishers.

That their limits originally extended farther south than at present is highly probable. A tradition concerning their migration from the west will be noticed in the section upon the Samöeids.

Notwithstanding the close affinity between the Ostiaks and the Voguls, the two nations were, at the time of the Russian conquest, in continual warfare against each other: the Ostiaks being under the government of petty hereditary chiefs.

In the pagan parts of the Ostiak country polygamy is the custom.

2.
THE PERMIANS.

Locality.—The government of Perm; of which they form less than a quarter, the rest being Russians or Russianized Finns.

Name.—-Russian, probably taken from the Scandinavian term Bjarma. The native term is Komi-uter, or Komi-murt.

Population.—According to Schubert, about thirty-five thousand.

THE SIRANIANS.

Locality.—North of the Permians, about the head-waters of the R. Kama, and R. Vytchegda, a feeder of the Dwina.

Native name.—Same as the Permian.

Population.—According to Schubert, thirty thousand.

Dialects.—Four. The Siranian, itself, however, is rather a dialect of the Permian than a substantive language.

THE VOTIAKS.

Locality.—The R. Viatka.

Religion.—Imperfect Christianity. Probably some remains of Shamanism.

Of all the Finnic tribes the Votiaks are the most like the Finlanders of Finland; indeed Müller states that there is a tradition among them to the effect that their original country was Finland, and that they are immigrants from thence.

On the other hand, the extent to which they differ from their south-western neighbours, the Tcheremiss, is said to be remarkable.

In respect to the physical conformation of the Votiaks, the evidence of Ermann is favorable, that of Pallas less so. The latter describes them as slight and undersized: the former as strongly built. In no Finnic tribe—perhaps in no other tribe in the world,—is fiery red hair so common as amongst the Votiaks.

They are an agricultural population, not fishers and hunters.

They are also, most probably, an unmixed population; since none of their neighbours live so exclusively to themselves, (i.e. not in mixed villages, half Russian, or half Bashkir,) as the Votiaks.

The government under petty chiefs, or the heads of tribes, still continues; and it is a privilege of the Votiaks to elect their own village judges or arbiters.

Their population seems on the increase. At the end of the last century it was forty thousand: in 1837 it was one hundred thousand.

3.
THE TCHEREMISS.

Locality.—The left bank of the Middle Volga; fewer on the right. Governments of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov. Recently, settlements in the Government of Astrakan, Conterminous with the Votiaks.

Name.—Russian. Native name, Mari=men.

Numbers.—According to Schubert, two hundred thousand.

Religion.—Imperfect Christianity. Greek Church.

Physical appearance.—Stature, middle; hair, light; beard, scanty; face, flat.

Habitations.—Small villages, smaller than those of the Votiaks, and Tchuvatch. Habits, agricultural; lately nomadic.

THE MORDUINS.

Locality.—The most South-Western of the Finnic tribes, on the right-bank of the Volga, between the R. Sura and R. Oka.

Name.—Native.

Divisions.—The Morduins of the Oka, are called Ersad; the Morduins of the Sura, Mokshad. A third division, called Karatai, inhabits the neighbourhood of Kasan.

Numbers.—In 1837, ninety-two thousand.

Dialects.—Two or more—the Ersad and the Mokshad.

Religion.—Imperfect Christianity; Greek Church; Shamanism.

Physical appearance.—Hair, brown and straight; beard, thin. More Slavonic than any other Finnic tribe. The Ersad oftener red-haired than the Mokshad.

THE TCHUVATCH.

Locality.—Right bank of the Volga, opposite the Tcheremiss, in the neighbourhood of Kasan, in the Government of Simbirsk and Saratov. Recent settlements in the Government of Astrakan.

Native Name.—Vereyal, and Khirdiyal, and Vyress:

Numbers.—According to Schubert, three hundred and seventy thousand.

Religion.—Imperfect Christianity. Greek Church. Remains of Shamanism.

Physical Appearance.—Height, middle; complexion, light; face, flat; beard, thin; hair, black, and somewhat curled; eyes, grey; eyelids, narrow.

Habitations.—Like those of the Turk tribes in their neighbourhood.

Dialects.—Two: a. of the Vereyal of the Gornaya; b. of the Khirdiyal of the Lugovaya.

4.
FINLANDERS OF FINLAND.

Localities.—Finland; settlers in Sweden and Norway.

Native Name.—Suomolaiset.

Swedish.—Finn.

Norwegian.—Qwæn.

Dialects.—a. Finlandic Proper; b. Savolax, spoken in Savolax, and Carelia.

Religion.—Lutheranism.

Finnish words.—Kanguri=weaver, seppa=smith, wapa=freeman, orya, palvelya=slave, myyda, ostaa=buy and sell, yuoma=ale, kalya=beer, kandele, youhe-kandele=musical instruments, keria=book, raamattu=writing.

ENGLISH.FINLANDIC.SWEDISH.
King,Kunengas,Konung.
Prince,Ruhtinas,Thruhtin.
Judge,Duomari,Dömare.
Cheese,Yuusto,Ost.
Wine,Saxan wiina,[31]Viin.[31]
Rye,Ruis,Rug.
Oats,Havra,Haver.

Two lists, one of Finlandic, and one of Swedish, words have been placed at the head of the present section, for the sake of serving as an introduction to some of the questions contained in it. They are all taken from Rühs' work on Finland and its inhabitants, where the analysis of the language serves instead of historical testimony. By observing what terms are native, and what are Swedish, we separate the early native civilization of Finland, from the civilization introduced from Sweden. Thus, on looking over the preceding glosses, we find that the only terms applicable to a social or political constitution, are those for slave and freeman; king, ruler, judge, &c., being expressed by Swedish words. So also with the industrial trades; weaving was Finnic from the beginning, and so was smith's-work; but the carpenter, the builder, the ship-builder, are importations, and so on. There are native terms for buying and selling, for ale and beer, and for more than two musical instruments; but there are no native terms for wine, and none for dancing.

For the metals, and agriculture, the terms are almost always native. Cheese, however, on the one side, and gold, tin, and lead, on the other, have Swedish names. So have oats and rye.

Music, and songs, and a mythology belonged to the early Finlanders; the second being always accompanied by the first, and the three illustrating each other.

The great foreign influence that has affected the Finlanders of Finland, is the Swedish, and this may be considered to have been in steady and continuous operation, from the reign of Eric the Holy, in the A.D. 1156. This king, bent upon conquest and conversion, landed in South Finland, and founded what was then a new mission or colony, in the present province of Nyland (Newland). From this point, the power of Sweden gradually spread towards the inner portions of the country; northwards and eastwards: not unopposed, but opposed ineffectually, by the heathens of Tawastaland and Carelia.

5.
ESTHONIAN FINS.

Locality.—South of the Baltic, in Esthonia, Livonia, and part of Courland. Conterminous with the Russians, and the Courland Lithuanians.

Dialects.—Two: the common Esthonian, and the Esthonian of Dorpat.

Native Name.—Rahwas; of the country Marahwas.

6.
THE LAPLANDERS.

Habits.—Nomadic.

Religion.—Imperfect Christianity of the Greek Church with the Russian; imperfect Protestantism with the Swedish and Norwegian Laplanders.

Native Name.—Same, Sabome.

7.
HUNGARIANS.

Locality.—Hungary; mixed with German, Slavonic, and Wallachian tribes.

Native Name.—Majiar.

The Majiars are Ugrian, the country from which they descended being that of the Bashkirs, conterminous with the southern limits of the present Ugrian area, of which it was once a part. The date of their migration is about A.D. 900.

From extending farther than Hungary they were prevented by the two great victories of Henry the Fowler in 935 A.D.

Those who would connect the present Hungarians with the Huns of Attila, must also make the Huns Ugrian; since no fact is more undeniable than the Ugrian character of the Majiars. The reasons against this have been given already. They are, undoubtedly, scanty. Still they preponderate over those of the other view; which consist only in inferences from the term Hungary.

Lest these be over-rated, two facts should be remembered:—

1st.—That the name is Russian and not native.

2nd.—That the -n- is no original part of the word; the older Slavonic forms being Ugri, Uhri, and only in the later dialects, Ungri.

The Majiars must necessarily be a very mixed race; their country having been that of the old Pannonian population (probably Slavonic); of the Romans of both the eastern and western empire; of the Goths, the Huns, the Avars, the Gepidæ, and the Comanians.

This is what history suggests. To have assumed an intermixture, for the sake of accounting for the physical and moral difference between such extreme Ugrian forms as the Majiar and Laplander, would have been illegitimate.

In reality, however, the difference between the Majiar and Lap, is less remarkable than that between the Lap and Finlander; since, in this latter case, the contrast is nearly as great, whilst the climatologic conditions are less dissimilar.

The Majiar is the only member of the Ugrian family, which has effected, within the historical period, a permanent conquest over any portion of the Iapetidæ.

The Ugrians supply a good example of what may be called a receding frontier. Their area has at one time been greater than at present. Southwards and westwards it was once prolonged. Hence, the Ugrian has been displaced, or encroached upon by others. It is well to note this. It is better still to take it in conjunction (or contrast) with the Turk area. There the frontier has encroached. At an earlier period it was less extensive than at present.

In one quarter, perhaps in others, the Ugrian frontier has encroached, i.e. on that of the Majiars.

In one quarter, perhaps in others, the Turk frontier has receded, i.e. the Comani have become either extinct or a mixed breed in Hungary.

Nevertheless, as a rule, the Turks frontier has encroached; the Ugrian receded. The practical application of this distinction is wide. When we know whether a given family habitually extends, or habitually contracts its area, we know what will be the probable distribution of the unfixed ancient tribes on the frontier.

In the critical ethnology of the classical writers many problems must be worked in this way; the inferences in the two alternatives being diametrically the reverse of each other.

1. In a people with an habitually encroaching frontier, no tribe described by earlier writers as lying beyond its present geographical area, is to be considered as having formed part of it (i.e. the family with an encroaching frontier).

2. In a people with an habitually receding frontier, many tribes described by earlier writers as lying beyond its present geographical area may (and often must) be considered as so doing.

Hence, in the present pair of instances, many localities once other than Turk are now Turk;[32] whilst, on the other hand, many localities once Ugrian are now other than Ugrian.[33]

What, then, was the maximum extension southward of the Ugrian area before its frontier receded under the triple encroachments of the Turks of Russian Asia, the Russians of Russia, and the Norwegians and Swedes of Scandinavia? Possibly over the whole Scandinavian peninsula, possibly as far as the lower Don, Volga, and Dnieper. These, however, are geographical frontiers; frontiers less important, and less capable of solution than the ethnological ones. Were the Ugrians ever conterminous with other divisions of the human race than those which they come in contact with at present? There is no evidence that they were.

What ancient nations were Ugrian? Omitting, for the present, the tribes of Scythia, we may answer that the following were certainly so.

1. The Æstii.—Modern Esthonians.

2. The Finni and Skrithifinni.

3. The Sitones.—The Ugrians of the Baltic were known to the classical writers through the Germans. The names prove this. The Æstii were the people east of those who described them. The term Finn is known to no Ugrian, but to their Gothic neighbours only. The notice of Tacitus as to the Sitones is similarly capable of explanation.

The Finland word kainu=a low country. A portion of the Finlanders call themselves Kainulainen (Singular), Kainulaiset (plural).

Now this sectional name in Finland is the general name in Scandinavia; so that the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians call the Finlanders Kwæn. In Scandinavian, however, Qvinde=women. Hence, Tacitus was persuaded by his direct or indirect German informants that the Sitones were subject to female government.—"Suionibus Sitonum gentes continuantur. Cætera similes, uno differunt, quod fœmina dominatur."[34] Lest any doubt should remain as to Tacitus having been told of a country of women, I may add that—

a. Alfred[35] speaks of a Cvenaland=land of Kwæns.

b. The Norse[35] Sagas of a Kænugard=home of Kwæns.

c. Adam[35] of Bremen of terra fœminarum, and Amazons.

The first two facts prove the name, the second the false interpretation of it.

Far more full, however, than the classical writers are the old Norse Sagas in respect to the Ugrians. Of these the Beormas, or Permians, were wealthy and commercial; men sometimes to be dealt with, sometimes to be robbed. The Laps, on the other hand, were feared as magicians, or as men skilled in metallurgy; and, according to those who have studied the philosophy of mythologies, they have supplied many supernatural elements in the way of dwarfs and goblins.

In the ethnology of Scandinavia—in the skilful and industrious hands of Retzius, Eschricht, Nilson, Kaiser, and others—Ugrian archæology, and Ugrian craniology, are preeminently prominent. The numerous barrows of Scandinavia are attentively studied; and observation has shown that the older the tomb, and the greater the proportion of instruments found within it not made of iron (but of greater antiquity than the art of forging that metal) the less dolikhokephalic, and the more brakhykephalic, (or Ugrian,) is the skull. Hence comes the inference that the southward extension of barrows, containing remains of the sort in question, is a measure of the southward extension of the Ugrian family.

Two other matters are of importance in Ugrian ethnology—the remains of their ancient Shamanism, and the Finland Runot.

In respect to the former, the Ugrians are the first people wherein we find the original Paganism in more tribes than one; so that it can be studied in its minute differences, as well as in its general character. Its essential identity, however, is remarkable. The Supreme Deity is Yumel, Yubmel, Yumala, or some slightly modified name; and that from the Morduin country to Lapland. Except this notice of the extent to which similarity of creed, as well as similarity of language, connects the Ugrians, no further remarks will be made at present.

The Runot is the name for the popular poems of Finlanders. In few nations are they more numerous. In none more carefully collected. I believe that the chief one partakes of the nature of an epic, and relates the wars between the Laps and Finlanders. Others are short, lyrical, and adapted to music. The term Runot (the plural form) is suspiciously similar to the Scandinavian word, Runa, with a not dissimilar meaning (furrow, carving, letter, spell, verse, poem). Finland archæologists, however, repudiate this, and claim it as an indigenous word, on the strength of certain derivative forms, like runionecka=poet. This is not conclusive. Nor is it necessary for the main fact, which is the existence of a home-grown poetical literature of more than average merit, and implying musical taste for the Finlandic portion of the Ugrian branch—of the Turanian group—of the Altaic Mongolidæ.