THE HUMAN SPECIES. 291 



and therefore the progress from the high declivities of the Mon- 

 golian steppes, which they appear to have held at an early 

 time, to their occupation of the Thian-Shan mountains, may 

 be admitted to come within two or three centuries before the 

 Christian era, because Kanishka, a Caucasian (Sakia) prince, 

 came down and conquered Bactria, only in 120 B. C. It is, 

 therefore, probable that their most ancient name of Hoei-yu 

 was changed to Hiong-nou, a century or two later, when the 

 Caucasian intermixture gave rise to dissension, and their 

 power was broken by civil wars and Chinese dexterity. 

 Though circumstances and dates in Chinese records should 

 not be held more credible than our own western documents of 

 remote antiquity, they still deserve general belief in the char- 

 acter of the events they narrate. Here their course is perfectly 

 natural; and from other sources will be shown, in the sequel, 

 that this general character is fully sustained in the later ages 

 here mentioned. 



The percussions then given to the nations of central High 

 Asia appear further to be depicted in the figurative, or per- 

 haps physically true legend, that in the fifth century of our 

 era the Oxus and Jaxartes dried up for seven years, and the 

 populations resident on their banks were forced to emigrate for 

 want of water. The period is coincident with that vast con- 

 vulsion when the Hunnic empire suddenly expanded from the 

 frontiers of China to the mouth of the Rhine; and though not 

 entirely, perhaps not even chiefly, composed of Mongolian 

 hordes, as we shall presently show, it certainly embraced, beside 

 Toorkees, vast legions of Kalmucks, Kirguise, and Bashkirs, 

 who, in the career of victory, under Attila, spread, till, in the 

 subsequent dissolution of that power, they could never again 

 reunite to preserve independence; for when, at a later date, 

 fresh waves, entirely composed of the Hyperborean stock, swept 

 them again, in the career of desolation, to the west, Nogais, 

 Usbeks, and Kalmucks, still more dislocated, settled further on 

 to the Crimea, from whence, however, the forgot Kalmucks, by 



