NATURAL .HISTORY. Ill 



tiieir complexion is tawny, and their hair is black. 

 They have hut little heard, have thick thighs, and 

 .short legs, ajid, though but of middling stature, they 

 arc remarkably strong and robust. The ugliest of 

 them are the Calmouks, in whose appearance there 

 seems to be something frightful. They are all wan- 

 derers and vagabonds ; and their only shelter is that 

 of a tent made of hair or skins. Their food is horse- 

 flesh and camel-flesh, either raw, or a little soJden 

 between the horse and the saddle. They eat also fish 

 dried in the sun. Their most common drink is mare's 

 milk, fermented with millet ground into meal. Thsy 

 all have the head shaved, except a tuft of hair on the 

 top, which they let grow sufficiently long to form in- 

 to tresses on each side oF the face. The women who 

 are as deformed as the men, wear their hair, which 

 they bind up with bits of copper, and other ornaments 

 of the same nature. 



The majority of these tribes are strangers to religion, 

 morality, and decency. They are robbers by profes- 

 sion ; and the natives of Daghestan, who live in the 

 neighbourhood of more polished countries, carry on a 

 great traffic of slaves, whom they carry off by force, - 

 and afterwards sell to the Turks and the Persian;. 

 Their wealth consists chiefly of horses, which are more 

 numerous', perhaps, in Tartary, than in any other part 

 of the world. They are taught, by custom, to live in 

 the same place with their horses. They are continu- 

 ally employed in training and exercising them ; and 

 at length they reduce them to such implicit obedience, 

 that they actually appear to understand the intention 

 of the rider. 



The limbs of the Chinese are well-proportioned, 

 their bodies are large and fat, their visages are large 



