[380] Thus Risley's Tibetan measurements were all of subjects from Sikkim and Nepal (Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Calcutta, 1896, passim). In the East, however, Desgodins and other French missionaries have had better opportunities of studying true Tibetans amongst the Si-fan ("Western Strangers"), as the frontier populations are called by the Chinese.
[381] Op. cit. p. 319.
[382] Op. cit. p. 327. Here we are reminded that, though the Sacae are called "Scythians" by Herodotus and other ancient writers, under this vague expression were comprised a multitude of heterogeneous peoples, amongst whom were types corresponding to all the main varieties of Mongolian, western Asiatic, and eastern European peoples. "Aujourd'hui l'ancien type sace, adouci parmi les mélanges, reparaît et constitue le type si caractéristique, si complexe et si différent de ses voisins que nous appelons le type balti" (p. 328).
[383] W. W. Rockhill, our best living authority, accepts none of the current explanations of the widely diffused term bod (bhót, bhot), which appears to form the second element in the word Tibet (Stod-Bod, pronounced Teu-Beu, "Upper Bod," i.e. the central and western parts in contradistinction to Män-Bod, "Lower Bod," the eastern provinces). Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet, Washington, 1895, p. 669. This writer finds the first mention of Tibet in the form Tobbat (there are many variants) in the Arab Istakhri's works, about 590 A.H., while T. de Lacouperie would connect it with the Tatar kingdom of Tu-bat (397-475 A.D.). This name might easily have been extended by the Chinese from the Tatars of Kansu to the neighbouring Tanguts, and thus to all Tibetans.
[384] Hbrog-pa, Drok-pa, pronounced Dru-pa.
[385] The Mongols apply the name Tangut to Tibet and call all Tibetans Tangutu, "which should be discarded as useless and misleading, as the people inhabiting this section of the country are pure Tibetans" (Rockhill, p. 670). It is curious to note that the Mongol Tangutu is balanced by the Tibetan Sok-pa, often applied to all Mongolians.
[386] Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet, 1895, p. 675; see also S. Chandra Das, Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet, 1904; F. Grenard, Tibet: the Country and its Inhabitants, 1904; G. Sandberg, Tibet and the Tibetans, 1906; and L. A. Waddell, Lhasa and its Mysteries, with a record of the Expedition of 1903-1904, 1905.
[387] Isvestia, XXI. 3.
[388] Ethnology, p. 305.
[389] Abor, i.e. "independent," is the name applied by the Assamese to the East Himalayan hill tribes, the Minyong, Padam and Hrasso, who are the Slo of the Tibetans. These are all affiliated by Desgodins to the Lho-pa of Bhutan (Bul. Soc. Géogr., October, 1877, p. 431), and are to be distinguished from the Bori (i.e. "dependent") tribes of the plains, all more or less Hinduized Bhotiyas (Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 22 sq.). See A. Hamilton, In Abor Jungles, 1912.