270 BIMANA. 



ing ramifications through China, the Birman Empire, and the Malay Pe- 

 ninsula. Other branches run through Corea; and a continuation follows the 

 Coast of Manchouria, and joins the Stanovoy branch of the Altaic chain, at 

 the south-east extremity of Siberia. Between the Altaic and the Himalayan 

 chains stretches a vast desert, more or less interrupted by mountain 

 ramifications, extending from Bucharia to the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk,* 

 leaving China, Thibet, and Hindostan to the south, and bounded, on the 

 west, by the range termed Belur Tag, which passes through Little Bucharia. 

 The whole of this vast tract has been inhabited, from time immemorial, by 

 fierce nomadic hordes, distinguished by various titles as Huns, Cal- 

 mucs, Mongoles, Mantchous, &c. ; acting independently under separate 

 leaders, but all appertaining to one great type the Turanian of Dr. 

 Prichard, and the Mongole of most writers. Westward of the Belur Tag are 

 the deserts of Turkestan and Bucharia, inhabited by the Tartars, or Tatars, 

 regarded, by most naturalists, as appertaining to a type distinct from that 

 of the Mongole. Lawrence expressly states, that they belong to the Cauca- 

 sian, or Iranian division of the human race : he, consequently, regards the 

 description of the Tartari, by Matt. Paris, as applicable, not to the true 

 Tartars, but to the hordes of Mongole invaders, who had penetrated, with 

 their arms, into Europe : and Blumenbach observes, respecting the same 

 description, " the writer (Matt. Paris) obviously speaks, not of the genuine 

 Tartars, but of a people widely different from them ; namely, the Mon- 

 goles, or Calmucs, whose only affinity to them consisted in the name by 

 which then, and even now, the two races are improperly confounded. All the 

 characters, therefore, which naturalists have assigned to the Tartars, belong 

 to the wholly different Mongolian race. We know, on the contrary, that the 

 Tartars are a handsome people, conspicuous for the beauty and symmetry of 

 the countenance, as is evinced by the skull, which presents a complete con- 

 trast to the Mongolian characters," &c. " The Tatars, or Tartars," says 

 Gibbon, " were a primitive tribe, the rivals, and, at length, the subjects of 

 the Moguls. In the victorious armies of Zingis Khan and his successors, 

 the Tartars formed the vanguard, and the name which first reached the 

 ears of foreigners was applied to the whole nation. (Teret, in the Hist, de 

 VAcad. torn, xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or any of the northern 

 shepherds of Europe or Asia, I indifferently use the appellation of Scythians 

 and Tartars. "{ These tribes, however, became blended with the Huns, 



* The great rivers which take their rise in the Altaic chain ; viz. the Irtish, the Enissey, the 

 Lena, &c., travel northward, traversing Siberia to the Arctic Ocean. From the Himalaya range, 

 the Indus, the Ganges, the Ira-wadi, and the Kiulon-kien, run southward. The Kian-ku, and the 

 Ho-ang, or Yellow River, run eastward ; as does also the Amoor, or Saghalien River, which has its 

 origin partly in the Siolk mountains, but principally in the Stanovoy mountains, and traverses Man- 

 chouria. The Great Desert has no large rivers. 



t See note, vol. iv. p. 231. 8vo. 1827. Gibbon uses the terms Tartars, Scythians, Huns, &c. indis- 

 criminately ; and often so as to lead to some confusion. 



