t OR, PLAIN 



The old geographers divided 

 I he country of the Tartars into 

 European, or Little Tartary, and 

 Asiatic, or Great Tartary; but 

 the distinction has gone out of 

 use, Little Tartary having been 

 annexed to Russia. Asiatic, or 

 G reat Tartary, 226, borders on 

 the Asiatic provinces of Russia, 

 on Persia, Thibet, and the Chinese 

 empire. The northern part con- 

 tains extensive steppes, 133, and 

 is partly occupied by wandering 

 tribes, which are governed by 

 separate princes, and differ in 



5 



477. 



their character and manners. The 

 proper Tartars, or more properly 

 Tatars, 5, are in reality Turks, 

 the term Tartar applying gene- 

 rally to all the wandering tribes 

 of central Asia. Once they 

 were a terror to all surrounding 

 nations; but they are now for 

 the most part subdued, and sub- 

 servient to foreign governments. 



The habits of the predatory Tartar tribes are 

 thus described :— These men do not seek after 

 glory ; they only desire booty, on which they 

 live. Their troops are never placed in regular 

 order ; they fall suddenly on the enemy's camp, 

 and take everything they can find ; and at the 

 Srst sound of the drum, which the captain has 

 fixed to the bow of his saddle, they retire and 

 return a quarter of an hour afterwards to attack 

 some other place ; so that they are constantly 

 on the alert, by which means they confound 

 their enemies, and continually stop and molest 

 them. They are, in fighting, peculiar in this 



7* 



TEACHING. 153 



respect, that they fight when Hying, and shoot 

 arrows from behind their heads, which are dis- 

 charged upon their enemies. They formerly 

 made frequent incursions into Poland, when the 

 Poles did not pay them the ten thousand coum- 

 qve.s, which are dresses made of sheepskins, 

 which they were obliged to furnish them with 

 every year. The Tartars, when making their 

 incursions, travel thirty or forty leagues in one 

 night, carrying with them a little sack filled 

 with ?*raw attached to the heads of their horses, 

 who do not stop that they may eat it, and a 

 piece of flesh which becomes baked under the 

 saddle • so that, their enemies unapprised of 

 their approach, they take all that they can find 

 in the country— men, women, and children, 

 whom they afterwards carry by the Black Sea, 

 to sell at Constantinople. 



Circassia lies in the south-east 

 of Europe, the east portion of it 

 being claimed by Russia, but in 

 a great measure independent. It 

 occupies the whole of the north, 

 and a great part of the south 

 side of the mountain chain of 

 the Caucasus,* and is intersected 

 throughout by branches of that 

 mountainous range, consisting of 

 deep precipitous ravines, which 

 in general are only wide enough 

 to form the beds of foaming tor- 

 rents, but occasionally, after com- 

 mencing with narrow gorges, 



6 



478. 



spread out into fertile valleys 

 It is generally admitted that the 

 Circassians, 6, exhibit man ifi 

 his finest physical form, and are 



* See a ur^er m«t> 



