CREED OF THE MONGOLS. 93 



wrapped in grass and weeds as in a funeral shroud." Similar relics 

 of the past are scattered over the deserts of Mongolia, but every- 

 thing connected with their origin is enveloped in shadow. 



The Mongolian family includes several branches, each subdivided 

 into tribes, obeying chiefs of unequal rank. The most numerous 

 people are the Kalkas, who occupy all the northern districts. The 

 Mongols of the south, dwelling near the Great Wall, have been 

 affected in their habits and manners by the neighbourhood of the 

 Chinese ; they have become industrious, and engage eagerly in com- 

 mercial affairs. But the Kalkas, and the other tribes of the Great 

 Gobi, are still nomadic, reckless, and indolent. Their religion is Budd- 

 hism ; they profess for its head, the living Buddha or Great Lama 

 (Dalai-lama, or Ocean-priest i.e., wide as the ocean), a reverence 

 and a blind obedience, which they also pay to the inferior lamas. 

 "Under an external aspect of savagery," says Hue, "the Mongol 

 hides a character full of mildness and kindly feeling; he passes 

 suddenly from the wildest and most extravagant gaiety to a sadness 

 which has nothing forbidding. Timid to excess in his ordinary life, 

 when impelled by fanaticism or revenge, he displays an irresistible 

 impetuosity of courage. He is simple and credulous as a child, and 

 passionately loves stories and legends of the marvellous." 



The Mongols are ugly in feature, of the middle height, agile and 

 robust ; their sight is wonderfully keen, their hearing of an extraor- 

 dinary acuteness.* Their wants are restricted to the indispensable 

 necessities of life ; of luxury they have no conception ; their few 

 pleasures are easily enjoyed ; their instincts lead them rather in the 



* Dr. Latham thus describes their physical characteristics : " The face is broad and 

 flat, because the cheek-bones stand out laterally, and the nasal bones are depressed. The 

 cheek-bones stand out laterally ; are not merely projecting, for this they might be without 

 giving much breadth to the face, inasmuch as they might stand forward. The distance 

 between the eyes is great, the eyes themselves being oblique, and their carunculse concealed. 

 The eyebrows form a low and imperfect arch, black and scanty. The iris is dark, the 

 cornea yellow. The complexion is scanty, the stature low. The ears are large, standing out 

 from the head ; the lips thick and fleshy rather than thin ; the teeth somewhat oblique in 

 their insertion, the forehead low and flat, and the hair lank and thin." Descriptive 

 Ethnology. 



