1853.] Sifan and Horsok Vocabularies. 125 



Chinese, though the latter be usually designated specially black 

 Gyas (Gya-nak). 



The Gyarungs themselves have no general name for their country 

 or people, a very common case. "When I submit the interesting 

 itinerary I possess of a journey from Kathmandii to Pekin, I shall 

 more particularly notice the topography of Sifan. At present it will 

 be sufficient to add that this country, which extends from the Blue 

 Sea to Yunan, with a very unequal width varying from several days' 

 march to only two or three, forms a rugged mountainous declivity 

 from the lofty plateau of Kham to the low plain of Sechuen, and 

 which is assimilated by those who well know both, to the Indian 

 declivity of the Himalaya, the mountains being for the most part free 

 of snow and the climate much more temperate than that of Tibet. 

 Within this mountainous belt or barrier of Sifan, are the Takpa, who 

 are consequently Tibetans : without it are the Gyami who are con- 

 sequently Chinese, as will be seen by their respective vocabularies 

 — vocabularies, not the less valuable for being dialects merely, (if no 

 more) of languages well known, because the dialectic differences of 

 the Chinese and the Tibetan tongues are little understood,* at the 

 same time that they are very important for enabling us to test the 

 alleged distinctness of the great groups of people nearest allied to 

 these divisions. 



Eor my part I apprehend that the true characteristics of the 

 Chinese and Tibetan languages have been a good deal obscured by 

 book-men,t Native and European • and, though it be somewhat pre- 



* Leyden reckoned ten Chinese tongues (As. Research. X. 266). Others hold 

 that there is but one. Again Remusat (Recher. sur les lang. Tartares) insisted 

 that there must be several tongues in Tibet, whereas DeCoros (Jour. No. 4,) con- 

 siders that there is but one. This comes in part of the want of a standard of 

 ethnic unity, whether lingual or physical, and in part of the mixture of distinct 

 races by regarding them under a large geographic and political unity, thus the 

 Horsok belong undoubtedly to Tibet, but do not belong to the Bodpa race. I have 

 given, I believe, all the languages of Tibet, that is, the languages of all the races 

 now and long settled in Tibet. My Gyami vocables exhibit a vast difference from 

 the Kong one of Leyden, ut supra. But I do not rely on mine, nor have I means to 

 test it. 



f A deal of DeCoros' abundant grammatical apparatus of the Tibetan tongue is 

 positively repudiated by the people of Tibet, whilst the learned and sage Remusat 



