THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
20 
raised during the session was as to the cause of the decrease of those 
immense populations of Central Asia which once desolated Europe, 
and in one sense overran the world. M. Wassiljew explained that 
it was not from Siberia or the adjacent region that these invading 
tribes issued forth, for Siberia has always been thinly populated, 
but from the central plateaux of Mongolia and Northern China, 
and that the course they almost universally followed was along the 
northern and southern slopes of the great Thian Shan range into 
Songaria, where they were joined by the populations of the rich 
alluvial countries bordering on the rivers Talas and Chu, and thus 
advanced either northward into Europe, or southward into India 
and Persia. As to the decrease of these populations, that is to be 
attributed mainly to the wide prevalence of the Buddhist religion 
throughout the regions referred to above. As is well known, the 
followers of Tchenggis Khan were as yet unconverted to that re- 
ligion ; but shortly afterwards its influence extended among them, 
and throughout Thibet and Siberia ; the consequence was a rapid 
diminution of population. This may be understood if we only con- 
sider one statement made by M. Wassiljew, that in the monasteries 
of Pekin alone there are upwards of 100,000 priests, all of whom 
are condemned to a life of celibacy, and that this is by no means 
an isolated case, but that throughout Mongolia, as in China, these 
monasteries are equally crowded with priests. It may easily be 
understood how this state of things, existing during one thousand 
years, has materially interfered with the increase of the population 
of these countries, and freed us in consequence from the pressure of 
the barbarian element on our frontiers, which in former, ages was 
the dread of the Empire which it eventually overturned. So far we 
owe something to Buddhism. M. Wassiljew also explained what 
has hitherto been a doubtful question respecting the religion of the 
Siberian aborigines. Of course Eussia has succeeded well-nigh in 
bringing all these tribes into obedience, nominal at least, to the 
Greek Church ; but yet there lingers amongst them that mysterious 
Shamanism of which we read so much and understand so little. 
M. Wassiljew explained that this expression is but a perversion of 
the word Sramana, which means a Buddhist ascetic, and that 
when the missionaries of Buddhism penetrated into these inhospit- 
able regions, the name was adopted to indicate the fusion of their 
doctrine with that of the fetish worship of the people amongst 
whom they laboured. The Shamanism therefore of Siberia is but 
