274 BIMANA. 



In the Decades of Blumenbach (tab. xv.), is the figure of the skull of 

 an ancient inhabitant of South Siberia, taken from one of the burial 

 places found near the old mines, in the mountain districts, and ascribed, 

 by the natives, to Ischudae, or barbarians a people evidently of the 

 Mongole family, but of whom no historic memorials exist ; their remains 

 and works alone surviving the lapse of ages. The skulls and bones 

 are said to have lost all their animal substance, a proof of the high 

 antiquity of the people whose existence they attest. 



It would appear, that the natives of Hungary, are, in some degree, to be 

 referred to a Mongole origin, blended with Scythian and Sclavonian 

 families. Hungary has been successively occupied by three Scythian, or 

 Mongole and Scythian colonies ; viz., first, by the Huns of Attila ; 

 secondly, by the Abares, in the sixth century ; and, thirdly, A.D. 889, by 

 the Turks, or Magiars, the immediate ancestors of the modern Hun- 

 garians, whose connexion with the two former is remote, and, perhaps, 

 even doubtful. 



With respect to China, its ancient records are enveloped in great ob- 

 scurity : there is, however, little reason to doubt that the earliest tribes 

 occupying that region, and the adjacent province of Thibet, were of 

 Mongole lineage. Nevertheless, it is probable, as Mr. Davis affirms, that 

 a colony from India, at an early era, settled in the Chinese territory, which 

 became blended with the primitive race, and with the Mongole invaders. 

 Mr. Davis observes (see Trans. Asiat. Soc.\ that the empire of China can- 

 not be dated earlier than the dynasty called Tsin, about 200 years before 

 Christ ; and the term Wong, or Prince, instead of Hoang-ti, or Emperor, is 

 applied, by their own historians, to all the monarch s of the race of Chow, 

 which immediately preceded it. From the race of Chow, B.C. 1100 

 to 240, may be dated the authentic history of the Chinese, which com- 

 mences with the Chun-tsew of Confucius, or the annals of his own times, 

 in which he relates the wars of the petty states against each other. The 

 dynasty of Chow, from about the middle of which the records may be 

 regarded as authentic, was distinguished by the birth of Confucius and 

 of Laon-keun, the founders of two of the sects of China ; while Fo, or 

 Buddha, the author of the third, was born in India, about the commence- 

 ment of the same period, although his worship was not introduced till 

 long afterward ; viz., in the first century of the Christian era. The 

 memory and the doctrines of Confucius have met with almost uninter- 

 rupted veneration, down to the present time ; while the absurd supersti- 

 tions of the other two have been alternately embraced or despised by the 

 different sovereigns of the country : under the present government of 

 Mantchou origin, they can scarcely be said to be tolerated. With 

 the exception of the worship of Buddha, the Chinese appear to have 

 received nothing from their western neighbours, the Hindoos. Before 



