﻿ON THE TARTARS. 25 



and inscriptions on pillars or in caverns, analogous to 

 those which remain in every part of the western 

 peninsula, or to those which many of us have seen in 

 Bahar and at Banaras ; but (except a few detached 

 idols) the only great monuments of Tartarian anti- 

 quity are a line of ramparts on the west and east of 

 the Caspian, ascribed indeed by Ignorant Muselmans to 

 Yajuj and Majuj, or Gog and Magog ; that is, to the 

 Scythians , but manifestly raised by a very different 

 nation, in order to stoptheir predatory inroads through 

 the passes of Caucasiis. The Chinese wall was built, 

 or finished, on a similar construction and for a similar 

 purpose, by an emperor, who died only two hundred 

 and ten years before the beginning of our sera ; and 

 the other mounds were very probably constructed by - 

 the old Persians, though, like ma'ny works of unknown 

 origin, they are given to Secander, not the Macedo- 

 nian, but a more ancient hero, supposed by some to 

 have been Jemshld* It is related, that pyramids and 

 tombs have been found in Tatarlstan, or Western Scy- 

 thia, and some remnants of edifices in the lake Sat- 

 son-, that vestiges of a deserted city have been recently 

 discovered by the Russians near the Caspian Sea, and. 

 the Mountain of Eagles ; and that golden ornaments 

 and utensils, figures of elks and other quadrupeds in 

 metal, weapons of various kinds, and even imple- 

 ments for mining, but made of copper instead of 

 iron, have been dug up in the country of the Tshudes, 

 whence M. Badly infers, with great reason, the high 

 antiquity of that people : but the high antiquity of 

 the Tartars, and their establishment in that country 

 near four thousand years ago, no man disputes; we 

 are inquiring into their ancient religion and philosophy; 

 which neither ornaments of gold, nor tools of copper, 

 will prove to have had an affinity with the religious 

 rites and the sciences of India. The golden utensils 

 might possibly have been fabricated by the Tartars 



D 2 



