﻿ON THE TARTARS. g t 



Bengal had formerly littered in the Siberian forests, 

 and the young, as the earth cooled, had sought a ge- 

 nial warmth in the climate of the south, it would not 

 follow that other savages, who migrated in the same 

 direction, and on the same account, brought religion 

 and philosophy, language and writing, art and science, 

 into the southern latitudes. 



We are told by Abulghazi that the primitive reli- 

 gion of human creatures, or the pure adoration of one 

 Creator, prevailed in Tartary during the first genera- 

 tions of Yafet, but was extinct before the birth of 

 Ogliuz, who restored it in his dominions ; that, some 

 ages after him, the Mongah and the Turcs relapsed 

 into gross idolatry ; but that Chengiz was a Theist, 

 and, in a conversation with the Muhammedan doctors, 

 admitted their arguments for the being and attributes 

 of the Deity to be unanswerable, while he contested 

 the evidence of their prophet's legation. From old 

 Grecian authorities we learn that the Massage^e wor- 

 shipped the sun ; and the narrative of an embassy 

 from Justin to the Rhakan, or emperor, who then re- 

 sided in a fine vale near the source of the Irtish, men- 

 tions the Tartarian ceremony of purifying the Roman 

 ambassadors by conducting them between two fires. 

 The Tartars of that age are represented as adorers of 

 the four elements > and believers in an invisible spirit, 

 to whom they sacrificed bulls and rams. Modern 

 travellers relate, that, in the festivals of some Tarta- 

 rian tribes, they pour a few drops of a consecrated 

 liquor on the statues of their gods j after which an 

 attendant sprinkles a little of what remains three 

 times toward the south, in honour of fire ; toward 

 the west and east, in honour of water and air j and 

 as often toward the north, in honour of the earth, 

 which contained the reliqucs of their deceased an- 

 cestors. Now all this may be very true, without 

 proving a national affinity between the Tarta 



