TANGUTANS, OR SI-FAN; 109 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE TANGUTANS AND DUNCANS. 



Tangutan territory — The people — Characteristic traits — Stature ; ap- 

 pearance ; mode of wearing hair — Kara Tangutans — Language ; 

 dress ; habitations — Black tents and wooden huts — Occupations — ■ 

 The domesticated Yak — Its different uses — Nomadising habits — 

 Contrast between Mongols and Tangutans — Industry ; food ; dirt — 

 Tonkir, a trade centre — Avarice — Polite customs — Monogamy — 

 Religion — Government — Dungans or Mahommedan rebels — Their 

 temporary success — Chinese towns fall into their hands — Revolt 

 becomes brigandage — Opportunities neglected — Causes of non- 

 success — Cowardice of rebels and of Chinese — Inefficient weapons 

 — Siege of Chobsen — Commercial relations between belligerents — 

 Measures of Chinese Government — Chinese soldiers — Bad arms — 

 Want of discipline — Opium smoking — Looting — Government de- 

 frauded — Desertion — Punishment — Low morals — Mode of fighting 

 — State of Affairs in Kan-su — Chinese take the offensive — Advance 

 on Si-ning — Assault of this town — Marriage of Emperor of China 

 — Siege operations suspended — Cowardice of besieged — Capture 

 of Si-ning and advance westwards — Tangutan vocabulary. 



The Tangutans, or the Si-fan a-s the Chinese call 

 them, are of the same race as the Tibetans.^ They 

 inhabit the hilly region of Kan-su, Koko-nor, Eastern 

 Tsaidam, and the basin of the Upper Hoang-ho, and 

 are met with as far as the Murui-ussu,'"^ and perhaps 

 beyond it. They regard these countries, to which 

 they apply the name of Amdo, as their own peculiar 



* The ancestors of the present Tibetans were Tangutans who re- 

 moved to Tibet from Koko-nor in the fourth century B.C. See Father 

 Hyacinthe's 'Statistical Description of China,' Part II. p. 145. 



' I.e. the Tibetan course of the Kin-sha Kiang, which eventually 

 becomes the Great Yangtse-Kiang. — Y. 



