328 Mr. Ranking on the Origin 



taken from among the brutes. The Arcansas gave us guides, 

 who conducted us down the Mississippi, and to the Taensas*, a 

 people who give place to none in America for their force, or 

 for the beauty of their climate. The village is on the side of a 

 lake eight leagues in circumference. The grandeur of the vil- 

 lage, the cottages, in rows, built of earth and covered with cane, 

 surprised us. The prince's palace and the temple were each 

 forty feet square, the walls ten feet high and two feet thick ; 

 the roof, in form of a cupola, was covered with mat of divers 

 colours. Before the palace stood twelve men, armed with half 

 pikes. An old man led me by the hand into a great square 

 hall, the floor and sides of which were covered with very fine 

 mat. At the end, opposite the entrance, was a very handsome 

 bed with curtains of fine stuff woven with the bark of mulberry- 

 trees. The prince was upon this bed, as a throne, encom- 

 passed by four handsome women -j-, and sixty old men armed 

 with bows and arrows. They were clothed in very fine white 

 garments ; that of the prince was adorned with tufts of dif- 

 ferent colours ; he wore upon his head a diadem, curiously 

 woven with rushes, enriched with large pearls and a plume of 

 feathers. The women were similarly dressed, and all had neck- 

 laces and fine ear-pendants of pearl, bracelets of woven hair, 

 and jewels upon their attire. They were brown ; their visages 

 rather flat ; their eyes pretty large, black, and sparkling ; their 

 shape was fine and free ; and they had a smiling and very plea- 

 sant air|. I addressed the venerable prince relating to the 



♦ Near Mobile. 



t The Emperor of China, when he gave audience in 1419, had four handsome 

 women, with great pearls in their ears, attending his throne. — Wars and Sports, 

 p. 175. 



X Pallas's description of the Calmucs (see this Journal, No. V. 149,) corresponds 

 with this. The tribes are numerous. Dr. Clarke, in the Cossack countiy, met with 

 a tribe, ugly and nearly black ; they ate dogs, cats, rats, and marmots, dried in the 

 sun. Some had handsome features, with single-braided hair, if a virgin ; two braids, 

 if married ; and wore shells, or pearls, or something like them, in their large ears. In 

 their spacious tents they had handsome carpets, mats, very good beds and domestic 

 utensils. Tiiey are giants, when compared with Laplanders, and their manner of living 

 is much superior. They have a complete aversion to living in houses or towns. They 

 intermarry with Cossacks, and the union produces, sometimes, women of very great 

 beauty, though nothing is more hideous than a Calmuc— Part I., Cliap. xii. Thus 

 it appears that there are very different people in colour and features who are named 

 Calmucs. They intermarry with Turcomans {Pallas, i. 575,) and probably with 

 many other tribes, not improbably with Indians in Tangut. The idol, with six arms, 

 of which Dr. C. has given an engraving, he says, is Diva triformis — Luna, Diana et 

 Hecate. There is a very elegant engraving of the same idol in Chappe D'Auteroche, 



