1853.] Sifdn and Horsok Vocabularies. • 131 



this paper, no other than the Olet and Kalmak of Remusat and 

 Klaproth,* whilst their confreres the Horpa are almost as evidently- 

 Turkish, the Turkish affinity of the latter being inferred, not only 

 from the vocables but from the complex structure of Horpa verbs 

 and from the quasi Arian physiognomy of the samples I have seen of 

 the Horpa race. And thus, quoad Sokpo, is dissipated the dream of 

 twenty years, during all which time I have been in vain endeavouring 

 to get access to the Sokpo, assured from the identity of names (Sok 

 pronounced Sog) that in the much talked of people of Eastern Tibet, 

 I should discover that famous race which gave their appellations to 

 the Sogdiana and Sogdorum regio (on the Indus) of the classics, and 

 whose identity with the Sacse of Indian and Grecian story, whose 

 genuine Arianism and resplendant renown, I never permitted myself 

 to doubt. Reverting to what I have better assurance of, I shall next 

 note a fact as extraordinary almost as that which formed the subject 

 of my last communication to the Society, to wit, that some of Hum- 

 boldt's characteristics of the Malay o-polynesian tongues hold good 

 as to the G-yarung language even more strangely than Eosen's of the 

 Circasian ; so that we may have possibly in the unsophisticated 

 tongue of this primitive race of mountaineers, situated centrally be- 

 tween the Chinese, the Indo-Chinese, the Tibetans and the Altaians 

 and protected from absorption, assimilation or conquest by their 

 fastnesses, the main and middle link of that vast chain which unites 

 the insular and continental nations of the East and the most re- 

 motely dispersed scions of the immensely diffused family of the 

 Mongolidse ! If Those who are acquainted with the famous Kavi 



* I might now add, having just laid my hands on M. Hue's book, the synonyme 

 of Turgot to those of Kalmak and Olet, but that Turgot, like Durb£t, designates 

 only a tribe of this race, and a tribe whose tribual denomination as well as its 

 migration to the Volga and back to the Hi, had been already stated by Remusat. 

 M. Hue's amusing work in fact adds nothing to our stores of accurate ethnological 

 knowledge, his mere assertion, for instance, that the Hiongnu were Huns throwing 

 no fresh light upon a long debated point, and the nullity of the absolute identity 

 of names in reference to the Sog teaching us yet more to doubt vaguer identifica- 

 tions of this sort. Let me add that M. Hue's account of the habits, manners and 

 characters of the several peoples is capital, and most evidently accurately as vividly 

 delineated. 



f It may reconcile some of my readers to this startling announcement to hear 



s 2 



