450 * 
ADDITIONAL NOTE 
to p. 61. 
“ Kirgissians; a people yet unknown .”3 — The author 
has mentioned the circumstance of his having resided beneath 
the same roof with a party of Kirgissians , in an inn at Moscow; 
and he has also stated, that very little is known of this 
people. They call themselves “ Sara Kaisaki," or “ Cossacks 
of the Desert.” Their antient history is so obscure, that even 
their name, and the existence of their race, were unheard in 
Europe before the cession of Siberia to the Russians by Jermak 
(or, as it is pronounced, Yermah), the Cossack hero, in 1581*. 
The Kirgissians fell under the Russian yoke in 1606, and from 
that period they have rendered themselves conspicuous by 
their frequent revolts -t - . In 1613, they were vanquished by 
the Calmucks. From immemorial time, they have been divided 
into three separate hordes, or Clans; and these leading brandies 
admit also of subdivisions. Their Chiefs, or Nobles, are 
distinguished into three classes; bearing the several titles of 
Ghodscha, Rib, and Saltan. The first consists of families 
renowned for their antiquity only ; the second, of those families 
which, as princes, have had Saltans, or famous warriors, for 
their ancestors. For the rest, their history, owing to the mili- 
tary spirit of the people, and to that contempt of labour which 
* See Chap. XIII. p. 376, of this volume. Also Storch’s Tableau rle la 
Russia, tom. I. p. 76. Basle, 1800. See also Muller's Description Ue 
Joules les Nations, Sec. Petersburg, 1776. p. 138. 
f Muller, p. IS 9. 
