234 BIMANA. 



overthrown, which he carried to the king ; for, not until he had brought 

 a head, was he allowed to take his share of the booty : they were, also, 

 accustomed to scalp their enemies, preserving the skin with the hair 

 on; and to make drinking-vessels of their skulls, covering the outside 

 with a piece of leather, and lining the inside (if able to afford it) with 

 gold. 



Modern Turkey is possessed by a people descended from the Turko- 

 mans, a Tartar race, the name of which, though it long slept in obscurity, 

 was destined to become of fearful celebrity.* 



Gibbon thus records their rise, and the circumstances of their migra- 

 tion from the Altaic Mountains ; their original country being that now 

 occupied by the Calmucs.-f " At the equal distance of 2,000 miles from 

 the Caspian, the Icy, the Chinese, and the Bengal Seas, a ridge of moun- 

 tains is conspicuous, the centre, and, perhaps, the summit of Asia, 

 which, in the language of different nations, has been styled Imaus, and 

 Caf, and Altai, and the Golden Mountains, and the Girdle of the Earth. 

 The sides of the hills were productive of minerals ; and the iron-forges, 

 for the purpose of war, were exercised by the Turks, the most despised 

 portion of the slaves of the Great Khan of the Geougen. But their 

 servitude could only last till a leader, bold and eloquent, should arise to 

 persuade his countrymen that the same arms which they forged for their 

 masters might become, in their own hands, the instruments of freedom 

 and victory. They sallied from the mountain (of Irgana-Kon) ; a 

 sceptre was the reward of his advice ; and the annual ceremony, in 

 which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a smith's hammer was 

 successively handled by the prince and his nobles, recorded for ages the 

 humble profession and rational pride of the Turkish nation. Bertezena, 

 their first leader, signalized their valour and his own in successful 

 combats against the neighbouring tribes ; but when he presumed to ask 

 in marriage the daughter of the khan, the insolent demand of a slave 

 and mechanic was contemptuously rejected. The disgrace was expiated 

 by a more noble alliance with a princess of China ; and the decisive 



* "Some tribes of the Turkish, or Tartar race," says Dr. Prichard, "display a conformation of 

 features similar to the Mongole class." See Prichard's Researches, vol. i. p. 306. 



t " The tradition of the Moguls, of the 450 years which they passed on the mountains, agrees with 

 the Chinese periods of the history of the Huns and Turks (de Guignes, torn. i. pt. ii. p. 376), and 

 the twenty generations, from their restoration to Zingis." Gibbon. " From the spacious highlands 

 between China, Siberia, and the Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeatedly been 

 poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Turks were occupied, in the twelfth century, by many 

 pastoral tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which were united and led to conquest by 

 the formidable Zingis." Ibid. The description of Attila, king of the Huns, whose features bore 

 the stamp of his national origin, is that of a genuine Mongole. Gibbon speaks of an embassy, in the 

 reign of Justin, from Constantinople to the Turkish monarch Disabul. The duration and length 

 of the journey,; from the Byzantine court to Mount Altai, he observes, are not stated in the account ; 

 but the reception of the Roman ambassadors is narrated in detail. " After they had been purified 

 with fire and incense, according to a rite still practised under the sons of Zingis, they were introduced 

 to the presence of Disabul," &c. 



