CoH A&R ACC TIE. R 6. 
Customs and Manners of the Tartar 
Inhabitants of the Crimea, from 
second Vol. of Professor Pallas’ 
Travels. 
HE Tartar inhabitants of the 
Crimea may be divided into 
three classes. ‘I'he first includes the 
Nagays, of whom | have spoken in 
the preceding volume of these tra- 
vels, pp. 531, and following ; as 
also those Nagays, who, being a 
remnant of the Tartars of the Ku- 
ban, were taken prisoners in the 
Turkish fort of Anape, and, to the 
number of 4,500, carried into the 
Crimea, where they were dispersed 
among the nobility for their mainte- 
nance; but afterwards, by order of 
the court, they were considered as 
subjeéis, and still dwell in their own 
permanent villages, having acquired 
opulence by rearing of cattle and 
cultivating lands, from which they 
are enabled to pay high rents to their 
landlords. All these Nagays are, 
as their features evince, the unmixed 
descendants of the Mongolian tribe, 
who formed the bulk of the army of 
Yshingis-khan, which invaded Rus- 
sia aud the Crimea. 
The second class consists of those 
Tartars represented in plate 20, 
who inhabit the heaths or steppes as 
far as the mountains, especially on 
the north side ; and who, in the dis- 
triét of Perekop, where they are 
still unmixed, retain many traces of 
the Mongolian countenance, with a 
thinly scattered beard: they devote 
themselves to the rearing of cattle to 
a greater extent than the moun- 
taineers, but are, at the same time, 
husbandmen, though they pay no 
attention to gardening. In situa- 
tions destitute of stone, they build, 
Vou. XLY. 
785 
like the inhabitants of Bucharia, 
with unbaked bricks of clay, and 
make use of dried dung for fuel, of 
which they prepare large quantities, 
and pile it up in the same manner as 
turf, to serve them during the win- 
ter. Nearer to the mountains, 
these Tartars, as well as the nobles, 
are more intermixed with the Turk- 
ish race, and exhibit few of the Kal- 
muk-Mongolian features: this ob- 
servation also applies to the Cri- 
mean nobility, in whom those peculi- 
arities are almost entirely obliterated. 
To the third class belong the in- 
habitants of the southern vallies, 
bounded by the mountains ; a mixed 
race, which seems to have originated 
from the remnants of various na- 
tions, crowded together in these re- 
gions at the conquest of the Crimea, 
by the armies of the Mongolian lea- 
ders ; and which, in part, (as has 
already been stated) display a very 
singular countenance, with a stronger 
beard, but lighter hair; the other 
Tartars not considering them as true 
descendants of their race, but giving 
them the contemptuous name of 
Tat*. They are also, by their cos- 
tume, remarkably distinguished from 
the common Tartars of the heaths, 
though the dress and veils of the wo- 
men ar§alike. Their houses, or huts, 
are partly formed under ground, be- 
ing generally constructed against the 
steep precipices of mountains, one 
half excavated from the earth or 
rock, and only the front raised with 
rough stones, having at the same 
time a flat roof covered with earth. 
There are among them skilful vine- 
dressers and gardeners, but they 
are too idle to undertake new 
plantations, availing themselves only 
of those left by their predecessors, 
especially 
* From the Turkish word Mur-tat, which signifies a renegado, 
> 
34 
