172 SURGEON-GENERAL C. A. GORDON. 
by a king of their own race. In the year B.C. 165 they were 
attacked by the Hionanou ‘Tartars, who were to be known in 
subsequent centuries as the Huns; they were by the latter de- 
feated, and compelled to seek elsewhere their independence. In 
their migration they retreated along the Tian Shan range to the 
countries of Trans-Oxiana ; and having established themselves 
in Central Asia, there, some years afterwards, they came into 
conflict with the Parthians,* whom, after a continuous struggle 
of several years’ duration, they overthrew. Other bands of 
Yuchi Scythians, or, more correctly, Scoloti, attacked and 
destroyed the Greek kingdom of Bactria (Balkh), one of the 
last relics of Alexander’s Asiatic conquests. Between the years 
B.C. 126 and 120 various migrations of the same people took 
place into India, culminating in the establishment of the 
empire of Kanishka about B.C. 50-30.— The name China- 
pati, given to a place about ten miles to the west of the Beast 
river, indicates a town to which Chinese hostages were taken 
as recently as A.D. 629-645.§ It is believed that the Jats|| 
of the present day are related by descent to the Yuchi of 
whom we have just spoken. History records numerous other 
instances in which migrations of tribes have taken place on a 
large scale, sometimes westward, at others eastward ; and even 
in our own day migration-streams are flowing more or less 
copiously towards various destinations. As with the present, 
so in past time similar currents were set in movement by 
similar causes, and regions became occupied by foreigners ; 
the so-called aborigines,—because history gives no clue to 
their actual origin,—being more or less completely replaced 
by immigrants. Thus, in relation to China, although the 
people now known by the name of “the Chinese” claim 
our first attention, there are others throughout that great 
empire who merit our notice, including the Miaotze, 
Li-mou, Kakyens, and other aborigines in the southern 
provinces ; the Manchus, Mongols, and various Tartar 
tribes in the north, and the “ wild” tribes in the island of 
Formosa. 
The In-min, or Chinese, properly so-called.—Twenty-two 
centuries before our era a band of immigrants advanced in an 
easterly direction through Central Asia, along the valley of 
* The Parthians inhabited what is now the Persian province of 
Khorassan. 
+ The name of Kanishka, a Turk or Tartar King of India, has been found 
in inscriptions at Muttra, Manikiala, and Bhawulpore, 
ft Beas river—the ancient Hyphasis. 
§ Boulger’s China, vol. i. 
|| See Note 1. 
