Mr St John on the Mongols. 255 



and as Captain Blanckley has added, that the spot where he 

 exhumed them is at a considerable distance from the lake 

 Titicaca, it is fair to presume that his discovery refers to some 

 locality nearer the sea ; an opinion which I should consider to 

 be correct, as he was only a casual explorer, not able to ven- 

 ture far from the ship of which he had the command. 



*' Dr de Tschudi considers that I have been ' too hasty in 

 determining the race of the nation to which the skull belonged/ 

 All I have said upon that question is as follows : — * This pecu- 

 liar race were in all probability the aborigines of the country, 

 and it is probable that these mummies may be the relics of 

 some of the last of the Titicacans ;' so that it must be observed 

 that I have not determined — I have but suggested, and the 

 question is left entirely open for the more competent to argue. 



" In the last place, Dr de Tschudi alludes to the mixed race, 

 recently from the intermixture of the aborigines with the fol- 

 lowers of Manco Capac, as if I had referred the mummies to 

 them or their descendants. In this he has completely mis- 

 understood me, as will be apparent from what I have just 

 stated, and from this which i now quote from my original 

 papers : — ' I would suggest that the adult skulls of Titicacans, 

 in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, are of this 

 kind, the one possessing all the peculiarities of the race in its 

 unalloyed form — the true Titicacan ; and the other being of a 

 spurious character, resulting from the union of the indigeae 

 with the settlers of Asiatic origin, the companions of Manco 

 Capac of traditionary fame.' " 



The Mongols. By Bayle St John, Esq.* 



(Communicated by the Ethnological Society.) 



The Mongols belong to that vast family of nations which 

 inhabits the eastern, central, and perhaps northern, divisions 

 of Asia. But they are most intimately connected with the 

 Tatars — so intimately, indeed, that it would often be difficult 

 to distinguish the descriptions given by travellers of the two 



* Read before the Ethnological Society, 24th January 1844. 



VOL. XXXVII. NO. LXXIV. OCTOBER 1844. R 



