﻿32 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE : 



and Hindus ; for the Arabs adored the planets and 

 the beauties of Nature ; the Arabs had carved ima- 

 ges, and made libations on a black stone ; the Arabs 

 turned in prayer to different quarters of the hea- 

 vens ; yet we know with certainty, that the Arabs 

 are a distinct race from the Tartars ; and we might 

 as well infer that they were the same people, because 

 they had each their Nomades, or wanderers for pasture ; 

 and because the Turcmans, described by Ibnuarab- 

 shah, and by him called Tatars, are, like most Ara- 

 bian tribes, pastoral and warlike, hospitable and 

 generous, wintering and summering on different 

 plains, and rich in herds and flocks, horses and ca- 

 mels : but this agreement in manners proceeds from 

 the similar nature of their several deserts, and their 

 similar choice of a free rambling life, without evinc- 

 ing a community of origin, which they could scarce 

 have had without preserving some remnant at least 

 of a common language. 



Many Lamas, we are assured, or priests of Buddha ', 

 have been found settled in Siberia ; but it can hardly 

 be doubted that the Lamas had travelled thither 

 from Tibet ; whence it is more than probable, that 

 the religion of the Bauddhas was imported into South- 

 ern, or Chinese Tartary ; since we know that rolls of 

 Tibetian writing have been brought even from the 

 borders of the Caspian. The complexion of Buddha 

 himself, which, according to the Hindus, was between 

 white and ruddy, would perhaps have convinced M. 

 Bail/)', had he known the Indian tradition, that the 

 last great legislator and god of the east was a Tar- 

 tar; but the Chinese consider him as a native of 

 India ; the Brahmans insist that he was born in a 

 forest near Goya ; and many reasons may lead us to 

 suspect, that his religion was carried from the west 

 and the south, to those eastern and northern coun- 

 tries, in which it prevails. On the whole, we meet 



