222 



Chinese Clay Figures 



roughly dated in the time of the Siberian iron age, and is surely coeval 

 with the period of Chinese-Turkish relations in the epoch of the Han. 



In fact, the Turkish tribes who fought the Chinese at that time had 

 undergone a similar development from the primitive and crude warfare 

 of mounted archers to the principle of organized cavalry, like their 

 Iranian neighbors; and the Turks, on their part, were duly seconded in 

 this respect by the Chinese. We know surely enough that the pri- 



Mounted Lancer Clad with Plate Mail, Rock-Carving on the Yenisei, Siberia (from Inscriptions 



de l'lenissei, Helsingfors, 1889). 



meval Chinese did not possess cavalry, and that their battles were fought 

 by soldiers on foot or in war-chariots (p. 185). We know, further, that 

 the tactics of mounted infantry archers, in imitation of Turkish practice, 

 were first organized in China by King Wu-ling (b.c. 325-299) of Chao; 

 that he introduced the narrow-waisted and tight-fitting barbaric 

 costume among his subjects, and taught them shooting with the bow 

 while on horseback. 1 Regular cavalry, we see, came up in China from 

 under the Anterior Han, and this was still less a truly Chinese idea 

 than the mounted infantry. It was adopted from the Huns; and the 

 Huns, I venture to assert, — though this impression cannot be supported 

 at present by a literary document, — had learned this lesson from Ira- 

 nians. There is no escape from the conclusion that historical contact 

 and derivation must have been in operation, for it would be against all 



1 See the writer's Chinese Pottery, p. 216. 



