ETHNOLOGY, HTC., OF CHINA. 173 
the Tarim, or Ergu river,* and across the desert to Kansuh, 
which province they are believed to have entered at a point 
near lat. 408° N., long. 108° H., from whence in due time 
they spread themselves amidst the forests of Shansi that skirt 
the left bank of the Hoangho, where the great bend of that 
river occurs, through the provinces of Kansu, Shensi, and 
Shansi. Having arrived in that region, they had to fight 
their way against the aboriginal inhabitants much as some 
eight centuries later (B.C. 1451) the Jews fought their way 
into Canaan. Partly by driving the aborigines into the 
secluded mountain ranges, partly by intermingling with and 
colonising among them, communities arose, out of which, 
in the course of generations, the descendants of those immi- 
grants became possessors of the great empire whose name 
they now bear. 
Several migrations, similar in character to the above, 
have taken place into China since the early date first men- 
tioned. Of those more especially noticed in history one occurred 
in the ninth century of our era (860-873), and with regard to it 
we learn that the descendants of the early immigrants had by 
that time forgotten all trace of their original country ; they 
looked upon themselves as aborigines, upon the new invaders 
as belonging to a different race, and as being therefore their 
natural enemies. 
We endeavour still further to trace up to its earlier source 
the people whose immigrations are here related, and what do 
we gather with regard to them? In the first place, that they 
represented the ‘Scythians,” a portion of whom struggled 
into Media, the geographical position of which is southward 
of the Caspian Sea, and to the eastward of ancient Hlam and 
Susiana; that is, the modern Khurdistan, a portion of the 
ancient Persian empire. 
Recent investigations in Mesopotamia,—that is, the country 
between the rivers Huphrates and Tigris,—have discovered 
sculptures representing a people the type of whose features 
was distinctly Mongolian ; and, moreover, we learn that the 
primeval men, who spoke an archaic or monosyllabic language, 
are by tradition referred to the valley of the Huphrates as 
their original seat. “ We must,”’—so writes Baron Bunsen,— 
“we must picture to ourselves this primitive archaic people, 
few in number, their wants few, their tongue limited, leading 
their wandering life. At length, a branch separating from 
the archaic stock departed to the eastward, and arrived at 
last in a smiling country, well watered with rivers, and 
__* The river Tarim flows into the Lob-Nor. 
1 ANTARU 
