270 Mr St John on the Mongols. 



whose excellent meat is spoken of by Martini with the relish 

 of a connoisseur, are white, with long black ears and very 

 large tails, like those mentioned by Herodotus and ^Elian. 

 They belong to the second class enumerated by these writers, 

 and are not those which, from the length of their tails, re- 

 quired a little carriage to prevent them from dragging on 

 the earth, — the peculiarity consisting rather in extreme 

 breadth. The Mongolian horses are small, but vigorous 

 and spirited. Their head is remarkably short : their hoof 

 narrow. 



Were any accident to deprive this people of either of the 

 three species of animals I have described, a great revolution 

 would necessarily be effected in their mode of life, and con- 

 siderable influence exerted on their habits and physical or- 

 ganisation. The gradual destruction of the rein-deer in Si- 

 beria, within these last two or three centuries, has brought 

 many changes into the manners of that country, besides in- 

 troducing the use of dogs ; but the loss of the buffaloes, the 

 sheep, or the horses, would be far more influential on the for- 

 tunes of the Mongols. That the contingency which I have 

 supposed is by no means an improbable one, is shewn by the 

 parallel case of the rein-deer in the country immediately to 

 the north ; and about twenty-five years ago, the whole steppe 

 of Kobi was visited by such a mortality among the domestic 

 animals, that some proprietors of five hundred horses had not 

 above twenty left, and others who possessed two hundred, 

 had saved only four. It seems, certainly, at first sight, by 

 no means likely that the breed of horses should be destroyed 

 in Mongolia. Still, admitting even the possibility of such 

 an occurrence, we are at liberty to speculate on its conse- 

 quences. 



In Siberia, it has been observed that those tribes which 

 have lost their rein-deer have sensibly deteriorated, and afford 

 a striking contrast, by their humility and weakness of cha- 

 racter, to the martial disposition and proud bearing of the 

 more fortunate people. I have no doubt that the Yakoutes, 

 before they were reduced by Russia, and had begun to em- 

 ploy dogs instead of rein-deer, offered far more points of re- 

 semblance with the Tchuktchis than at present. A similar re- 



