99.—A MONGOL TARTAR.
A Kalmuk’s dress consists of a shirt, of a bechmet, of a wide pair of trousers, of red leather boots, and of a square cloth cap with a broad border of sheepskin fur, generally ornamented with an immense knob on the top. The more wealthy wear into the bargain an ample and lengthy dressing-gown. The women do not, like the men, wear a belt round their shirt; their hair falls from beneath their cap in several plaits tied up with ribbons of different colours.
Cunning, trickery, fraud, and theft, are the staple occupations of these nomadic tribes. The mother supports her child without the father troubling himself about it, and it grows up in a state of neglect.
The food of the Kalmuks is extremely primitive. Boiled flour, diluted with water and cooked up with pieces of horseflesh, forms the staple of their culinary art. They are fond of tea, and drink a great deal of it, but they season it so highly as to entirely lose its flavour. They are downright drunkards into the bargain, and in this respect the women and the children are not a whit behind the men. They sometimes spend whole days in gambling with greasy and ill-assorted cards.
The Kalmuks are capital horsemen. They also breed and break-in camels, which they sell in the Tiflis market.
Mongols proper.—The Mongols proper, or the Eastern Mongols, wander in the steppes of Mongolia. They are divided into numerous tribes, of which the most important have received the name of Khalkas.
Mongolia may be divided into two parts, as distinct by their political proclivities as by the nature and produce of their soil.
The southern part, an arid district, is only inhabited in the vicinity of the Chinese frontier, where numerous tribes of Mongol origin, direct tributaries of the Chinese Empire, are to be found. The northern division, entirely populated by Khalkas tribes, is fertile.
The Khalkas are subdivided into two castes: the Buddhist priests, and the black men who allow their hair to grow. The latter possess an aristocracy, leading like the rest a pastoral life, from whom are selected the chiefs of the tribes, chosen by election. The Khalkas could bring into the field at least fifty thousand horsemen; but they are wretchedly armed with worthless Chinese double-edged sabres. These are notched or spiral-shaped. Their other weapons are short spears, arrows, matchlocks with queer-shaped breeches, shields stuffed with sheets of leather, and coats of wire mail.