Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque, 149 



China was invaded by these conquerors. They besieged the 

 city of Bosphorus, at Lake Maeotis, subject to the Romans. 

 (Gibbon, ch. xlii.) About this period the northern parts of 

 China were entirely ruined, the Emperor turned bonza, and 

 by his weakness threw the country into the most terrible 

 anarchy. (See Du Halde, cycle, A.D. 484 to 544.) Tou-men, 

 chief of the Tou-Jiiue nation, entirely defeated the Kao-tche 

 Tartars, and carried off half a million of families. Embold- 

 ened by this success, he sent an embassy to China in the year 

 532. It is quite impossible to trace the persons or the geo- 

 graphy of these warriors, but it is evident that there are abun- 

 dant causes for flight and emigration. (See D'Herbelot, iv. 92.) 



With respect to the shape of the skulls, it has long been 

 the custom, in Asia, to shape the heads of infants according 

 to fancy or fashion. The midwives at Constantinople inquire 

 of the mother, after parturition, what form she wishes to be 

 given to the head of the child ? The Macrocephali, (a people 

 of Asia Minor,) or Long Heads, moulded the skull to as great 

 a length as possible. {Rees's Cyc. Cranium. Macrocephali.) 

 The Omaquas, in South America, press the head between 

 boards till it is nearly sharp at top, and flat before and behind. 

 Some of the Americans have flat heads, some protuberances 

 behind, a strange custom, at length become hereditary. The 

 Council of Lima, in 1585, ex^iressly prohibited these customs. 

 But the free negroes and Maroons, although Africans, have 

 adopted it since they have lived among the Caribs, in order 

 to distinguish the children which are born free. (Enc, Brit, 

 Macrophalus.) 



There appears to be some mistakes and erroneous notions 

 regarding the persons of the Calmucs*. '' The nose of the 

 Calmuc is ordinarily camus et ecrase vers le front |, the head 

 and visage very round. We are led to believe, from some tra- 

 vellers, that the Calmucs are ugly, and even hideous, but they 



* See Rees's " Cyclopedia," Cranium, Mongolian variety. 



f This line of beauty is accidental and does not generally apply. The writer of 

 these notes passed a night in the house of a family in Finland, whose noses were thus 

 deformed. The mother had a very young child lying upon her lap, and to free the 

 infant's nose from its dripping incumbrance, she pressed it hard with her thumb up- 

 >»ards the whole lenglh, and thus threw off' the nuisance with a jerk, by which the 

 child's nose was pressed flat, and the forehead, between the eyes, indented. She 

 said it was the custom, and that they had no handkerchiefs. Thus, the poor classes of 

 several northern tribes are disfisrured, 



