262 Mr St John on the Mongols. 



nate citizens. The Malays, also, have the inner corner of 

 their eyes depressed, and the outer raised towards their 

 temples ; and Lesson observed the same peculiarity in some 

 of the islanders of the Indian Archipelago. 



Whilst on the subject of the eyes of the Mongols, I may 

 observe that they are deep-set and lively, — " inconstant" is 

 the expression of an old writer, — and that their iris is almost 

 always black, though said to be blue by Bory de St Vincent. 

 This incorrect writer asserts, moreover, that these people are 

 furnished with an ample growth of beard, especially on the 

 upper lip ; whereas all travellers who have visited Mongolia 

 concur in representing their faces as covered with a very 

 tardy and scanty crop of hair. They admire, however, and 

 envy this element of manly beauty ; and, when chance be- 

 stows it upon any of their countrymen, look upon him with 

 extreme veneration. A stranger, too, may be sure of respect 

 in exact proportion to the length of his beard. Whiskers, 

 which are more common, are less prized ; whilst the hair over 

 the forehead and temples, in obedience to the caprices of 

 fashion, is shaved, the rest being braided into a tail which 

 hangs down the back. Even the varieties of the toilette form 

 curious subjects of study for the ethnologist. This simple 

 method of disfiguring the countenance has succeeded another 

 far more complicated but no less effectual, which has been 

 described with greater minuteness than perspicuity by the old 

 travellers. We may gather, however, from their accounts, 

 that the period of the greatest political splendour of the Mon- 

 gols was coincident with their greatest elaborateness of dress ; 

 and that, like individuals, they have become more careless in 

 proportion as they have sunk in the scale of fortune. It is 

 well known, that after the task of conquering China had been 

 accomplished by the Manchus, they nearly forfeited their new 

 acquisition, by imposing their head-dress as well as their 

 laws upon the vanquished. They insisted on the adoption of 

 the fashion I have described. The empire was convulsed 

 from one end to the other. A general insurrection was for a 

 while expected, but the conquerors were firm ; and the 

 Chinese furnished the strongest possible testimony of their 

 Jiumiliation, by consenting to change their customs as well as 



