328 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



and the same inference applies to Salser and to Ros- 

 tum ; consequently, that the ruling clan of Cabulistan 

 was for a period of northern race. 



Of the Torkee branch the Hiong-nu, according te 

 Abel Remusat, is the most ancient recorded in history. 

 It once inhabited Mongolia proper, and possessed a 

 vast empire, which flourished about three centuries 

 before the Christian era; and the dissolution of this 

 state was the chief cause of that succession of barba- 

 rian invasions, which, like rolling waves, incessantly 

 poured upon the west during several centuries, driving 

 intermediate nations before them, or breaking through 

 discomfited tribes, which, in order to escape, made the 

 most destructive inroads themselves : often at war with 

 each other, the empire passing to a different tribe, or 

 with the Huns, and other more strictly Finns, who in 

 turn held temporary dominion. The Thou Kioei, or 

 Altaic Turks, according to Byzantine historians, 

 formed, in 552, a vast empire, which soon reached 

 from the Caspian to China, and broke up in 703. It 

 was Hzabul, their Kan-Khan, who received the am- 

 bassador Zemarkh, sent by Justin II., in 569, when 

 another embassy from the emperor of the west was 

 already returning. 



The Tchy-le or Thiele, a numerous nation, resided 

 in the sixth century, to the east of Lake Balkach, 

 under the names of Kaoutche and Hoei-he, and from 

 788 that of Hoei-hou represent the same people. 

 The Tchy-le, according to Klaproth, mustered above 

 300,000 horsemen, and the Hoei were formidable in 



