SIBERIA 



225 



the greater number of the people have temples, ritual, an order of priests, and a considerable 

 literature. Those who are Christians are not less endowed intellectually, and their number is 

 increasing. Most travellers glance only superficially at what has been done and what is being 

 done by the English Mission to the Buriats, and conclude without sufficient evidence that 

 its efforts must be necessarily futile. Mr. Lansdell, however, has shown that, years ago, 

 the English missionaries laid a solid foundation. They taught and trained several Buriat 

 scholars, and they translated the Scriptures into the Buriat tongue, which translation the 

 Kussian missionaries have in their hands to-day. The Russian missionaries of the Greek 

 Church count their converts by thousands. It has been ascertained that on the eastern side 

 of Lake Baikal, among the Buddhist Buriats, 300 converts and children are baptised each 

 year, and on. the western side, where Shamanism prevails, the number annually baptised 

 exceeds 1,000. 



Following the scheme of classification already set forth a scheme which is based on that 

 of Keane we come to the 

 tribes of Mauchu stock, in- 

 cluded under the general name 

 Tunguses. 



The Tunguses hold an 

 enormous domain, stretching 

 from the Yenisei River to the 

 shore of the Pacific Ocean, 

 and washed at two points by 

 the waters of the Arctic 

 Ocean. Travellers who have 

 lived among them enthusias- 

 tically praise the many ad- 

 mirable qualities of these 

 people, and Mr. Keane asserts 

 that "there can be no doubt 

 that they are one of the very 

 noblest types of mankind." 

 They are of Manchu stock, 

 and number about 80,000, 

 divided into a great number 

 of tribes, who wander over a 

 far larger area than the men 

 of any other race in Siberia. 

 Those in the Valley of the 

 Yenisei give themselves to 

 the care of reindeer and to 

 the chase. M. Theel says 

 they are by far the most in- 

 telligent of the natives on the 

 Yenisei, and that their rich 

 women (such as the wives 

 of chiefs) often wear furs of 

 beaver, sable, and grey fox to 

 the value of many hundred 

 pounds sterling. He men- 

 tions, as a proof of their 

 intellectual cultivation and 



their taste, a hexagonal spindle 



29 



3y permission of the Royal Geographical Society. 



DURANI MENDICANTS. 



