﻿24 THE FIFTH DISCOURSE : 



on plains in ambulatory mansions, which they remove 

 from pasture to pasture, must be as different in their 

 features as in their dialects ; yet, among those who 

 have not emigrated into another country, and mixed 

 with another nation, we may discern a family-likeness, 

 especially in their eyes and countenance, and in that 

 configuration of lineaments which we generally call a 

 Tartar face ; but, without making anxious enquiries, 

 whether all the inhabitants of the vast region before 

 described have similar features, we may conclude from 

 those whom we have seen, and from the original por- 

 traits of Taimur and his descendants, that the Tartars 

 in general differ wholly in complexion and counte- 

 nance from the Hindus and from the Arabs : an ob- 

 servation which tends, in some degree, to confirm the 

 account given by modern Tartars themselves of their 

 descent from a common ancestor. Unhappily, their 

 lineage cannot be proved by authentic pedigrees, or 

 historical monuments ; for all their writings extant, 

 even those in the Mogul dialect, are long subsequent to 

 the time oi Muhammed ; nor is it possible to distinguish 

 their genuine traditions from those of the Arabs, whose 

 religious opinions they have in general adopted. At 

 the beginning of the fourteenth century, Khizajah 

 Rash id, surnamed Fadluliah, a native of Kazvin, com- 

 piled his account of the Tartars and JSIongals from 

 the papers of one Pidad, whom the great grandson of 

 Holacu had sent into Tataristan for the sole purpose 

 of collecting historical information ; and the com- 

 mission itself shows how little the Tartarian princes 

 really knew of their own origin. From this 

 work of Rashid, and from other materials, Abut. 

 ghazi, king of Kfr&arezm, composed in the M>- 

 gui language his Genealogical History, which; hav- 

 ing been purchased from a merchant of Bokhara 

 bv some Swedish officers, prisoners of war in 

 Siberia, has found its way into several Eunopean 

 tongues : it contains much valuable matter, but, like 



