The peoples belonging to this ethnologic branch exhibit the characteristics of the Yellow Race in the most prominent manner. They are fond of a nomadic life, and have at different periods made wide conquests; but they have, as a rule, become absorbed in the races they have overcome. The Mongols are still, however, the rulers of the Chinese Empire. They belong either to the Buddhist or to the Mahometan faith.
This branch is divided into three great families, analogous with the differences in their language: the Mongols, the Tunguses, and the Turks. We may add to them a fourth family, the Yakuts, for these latter possess the physical characteristics of the Yellow Race, and speak a Turkish dialect.
The Mongol Family.
The most decided features of the Yellow Race are particularly prominent in the Mongol family. Its members have a larger head, a flatter face and nose, and smaller eyes than those of the other families. They have a broad chest, a very short neck, round shoulders, strong thick-set limbs, short bow-legs, and a brownish-yellow complexion. The most nomadic of the Mongol family live under the rule of the Russian and the Chinese Empires.
[Fig. 99] represents a Mongol Tartar.
Three principal nations are to be found in this family: the Kalmuks, the Mongols proper, and the Burïats.
Kalmuks.—M. Vereschaguine, in his “Journey in the Caucasian Provinces,” has described the nomadic Kalmuks whom he met with on the frontier separating the Caucasus from the district of the Cossacks of the Don. Travelling villages are found on these dreary and monotonous steppes. The habitations of which these villages are composed consist of tattered tents. These contain, mixed up in an incredible confusion, boxes, cases, lassoes, saddles, and heaps of rags. A hearth is the only sign of a fireplace. During the heat of summer, the children of both sexes, up to the age of ten, run about almost entirely naked. In winter, in the midst of their terrible snowstorms, and when the thermometer is below zero, they remain for days together huddled up in their tents beneath heaps of their clothing.
