﻿ON THE TARTARS. 21 



earth's temperature. To the south, on the frontiers of 

 iron are the beautiful vales of Soghd, with the cele- 

 brated cities of Samarkand and Bokhara ; on those of 

 Tibet are the territories of Cashghar, Khoten, CJiegil, 

 and Khata,d\\ famed for perfumes, and for the beauty 

 of their inhabitants ; and on those of China lies the 

 country oiChiu, anciently a powerful kingdom ; which 

 name, like that of Khata, has in modern times been 

 given to the whole Chinese empire, where such an ap- 

 pellation would be thought an insult. We must not 

 omit the fine territory of Tancut, which was known to 

 the Greeks by the name of Serica, and considered by 

 them as the farthest eastern extremity of the habitable 

 globe. 



Scythia seems to be the general name which the an- 

 cient Europeans gave to as much as they knew of the 

 country thus bounded and described; but whether 

 that word be derived, as Pliny seems to intimate, from 

 Sacai, a people known by a similar name to the Greeks 

 and Persians, or, as Bryant imagines, from Cuthia, or, 

 as Colonel J'allancey believes, from words denoting 

 navigation, or, as it might have been supposed, from 

 a Greek root implying wrath and ferociry, ihis at least 

 is certain, that, as India, China, Persia, Japan, are not 

 appellations of those countries in the languages of the 

 nations who inhabit them, so neither Scythia nor Tar- 

 tars are names by which the inhabitants of the coun- 

 trv now under our consideration, have ever distin- 

 guished themselves. Tataristan is, indeed, a word 

 used by the Persians for the south-western part of 

 Scythia, where the musk-deer is said to be common ; 

 and the name Tatar is by some considered as that of 

 a particular tribe ; by others, as that of a small river 

 only ; while Turan, as opposed to Iran, seems to 

 mean the ancient dominion of Afrasiah to the nor,h 

 and east of the Oxus. There is nothing more idle 

 than a debate concerning names, which, after all, are 



