way; and you are sure of sport when you begin the chase, for they appear generally by thirty or forty in a flock, and, always keep together when they fly.

In pursuit of this odd sort of gaine, it was our hap to meet with about forty Tartars; whether they were hunting mutton, as we were, or whether they

TARTAR:-The true spelling and pronunciation of this word has been already pointed out, in a note appended unto page 266 but its recurrence presents occasion for some additional information concerning this nation. It is not solely in a philological view that correctness in language is interesting. Languages afford the surest and most imperishable guide to the bistory of the nations who speak them, when their monuments are deficient: a language remains an indelible monument of origin; and whilst it continues to be spoken will serve to attest descent. Hence the corruption of words, so justly complained of by ROBINSON CRUSOE in the outset of his life, (page 1,) as "usual in England," is real matter of complaint, and cannot be too perseveringly resisted by writers. The languages of the central and elevated parts of Asia are comprehended in the order Tahtarian: they extend from the Caspian sea to the mouth of the Amour, through countries which have been in former ages the constant scenes of emigration and barbarism. The Turcotahtarians are supposed to correspond to the scriptural appellation Magog, and to the Scythians of the Greeks. The Turks of Tur kestan seem to have been the Massagetae and Chorasmii of the ancients; their country extended north of Persia and Tibet from the Caspian to the Altaic mountains. In the twelfth century they were brilliant and victorious, at present a few of the people only are left in the neighbourhood of the Mongols, and their language is unknown: the Turcomans scattered in Persia and Arabia, are derived from the same race. The Osmans, now commonly called Turks, separated from Turkestan in 545, and conquered Persia: they were denominated Osmans from one of their leaders in the fourteenth century; their language has been much mixed with Arabic and Persian. This language, with the neighbouring dialects, the Editor ventures to distinguish by the term Caspian, having already applied the word Tahtarian to the whole order: several of these dialects exhibit a mixture of words from the language of the Mongols, which, as well as the Calmuck, has a sufficient connexion with them to be arranged as belonging to the same Turco-tahtarian family: it would, perhaps, be equally correct to consider some of them rather as distinct languages than as dialects of a single one: but it is not easy to discriminate those which are entitled to this rank. The Bucharians are situated between the Oxus and Jaxartes: they still retain some traces of a superior degree of civilisation, by which they were once distinguished: their language is little known. The Tahtars were described by the terms Scythians, Bulgarians, Avari, and other appellations, before they were conquered and united by JENGHIZ Khaan the Mongol: in the year 1552, they became subject to the Russians. The most westerly are the Nogaic, or Nagaic, and Crimean Tahtars: their language is much like the Turkish, but mixed with some Mongol. Those of Cumania in Hungary have now forgotten their original language, and speak the Hungarian; the last person who understood the Cumanian having died in 1770: they entered Hungary in 1036, and became Christians in 1410. The Tahtarian, or rather Caspian, is spoken in great purity at Kasan: a dialect somewhat different in Orenburg; and another by the Kirgishes, who occupy part of the ancient Turkestan. Among the siberian Tahtars, the remains of the kingdom of Turan, some are Mohamedans; others, as the Turalinzic villagers, have been made Christians: at least, the Archbishop PHILOPHEI performed the ceremony of baptizing them, by ordering his dragoons to drive them in a body into the river: the inhabitants of the banks of the Tara, a branch of the Irtish, are said to be derived from the Bucharians. The Tshulymic Tahtars enjoy the same advantage as the Turalinzic, and are considered as Christians by the Russians. The Teleutes, in Sonjor, are heathens, nearly like the Shamanites of India. The Iakuts extend along the Lena to the sea: their language contains some Mantshuric and some Tungusic: that of the Tshuwashes, on the Volga, is said to have been once distinct from the Tahtarian, but is at present much mixed with it. The Mongols are marked by their features as a race very different from the other Tabtars: the character of their countenance seems to be easily propagated, and never completely effaced: they appear to have been originally situated about the Altaïc mountains. The description of the Huns, found in AMMIAN, PROCOPIUS and others, agrees exactly with the present Mongols, whom the Chinese still call Hi ng nu; and more particularly with the Calmuks; the names of the Huns

looked for another prey, I know not; but as soon as they saw us, one of them blew a kind of horn very loud, but with a barbarous sound that I had never heard before, and, by the way, never care to hear again. We all supposed this was to call their friends about them; and so it was; for in less than half a quarter of an hour a troop of forty or fifty more appeared, at about a mile distance; but our work was over first, as it happened.

are also found to be explicable from the Mongol language. In the first century they were driven westwards by the Chinese; under ATTILA they penetrated into the middle of Europe: and they were little less successful at subsequent periods under JENGHIZ-Khaan and TIMUR LENG. When they were expelled from China, after having held it in subjection for more than a century, they carried back no civilisation with them; nor was either of the languages permanently affected by this temporary mixture of the nations, although the physiognomy of the Chinese bears ample testimony of its having once existed. The construction of their language seems to be very indirect and figurative. The Calmuk dialect is somewhat mixed with Tahtarian. The Tagurians, or Dahurians, between the lake Baikal and the Mongol hills, are said to be of Mantshuric origin: but their language evidently resembles the Calmuk. The Mantshurians are sometimes improperly called eastern Mongols; they are subjects of the empire of China. Their language is rude, and not much like the Chinese, though evidently derived from the monosyllabic class: it has some words in comnion with the European languages; as Kiri patient, Kirre, Germ. Cicur, Lat. tame; Furu, Furor; Lapta, rags, Lappen, Germ.; Sengui, Sanguis; Ania, Annus: but these resem blances are scarcely sufficient to justify us in forming any conclusion from them. The Tungusians, in the east of Siberia, subject to the Chinese, speak a peculiar language mixed with some Mongol. Whether that of the island of Sagalien, opposite to the mouth of the Amur, is a dialect of the Mantshuric, or a language totally distinct from it, appears to be not sufficiently ascertained. The Corean has been supposed to be a mixture of Mantshuric and Chinese; the Coreans do not understand either of those languages when they are spoken, but this fact is perfectly compatible with the supposition. The languages belonging to the siberian order occupy the whole of the north of Asia, between the mountainous tahtarian territory and the Frozen Sea. At the commencement of this order we find a variety of inconsiderable nations in the neighbourhood of the confines of Europe and Asia, which have their distinct languages, probably formed in times comparatively modern, out of the fragments of others. They have almost all of them some Finnish words, but none a sufficient number to justify us in considering them as dialects of the Finnish language, although the people were very probably connected with the Fins, as neighbours, in the middle ages, on the banks of the Dwina and elsewhere. The Sirjänes, in the government of Archangel, speak the same language with the Permians, who are partly in the same government, and partly in that of Kasan: the Wotiaks, on the Wiatka, also in Kasan, have a dialect which seems to be intermediate between the Permian and the Tsheremissic. The Woguls, situated on the Kama and Irtish, have borrowed much from the language of the Ostiaks; they have also some Hungarian words. The Tsheremisses, on the Volga in Kasan, have a little mixture of Turcotahtariau. The Morduins on the Oka and Volga, have about one eighth of their language Finnish, and also some turcotahtarian words. The Teptjerai are people paying no taxes, who originated from the relics of the tahtaro-kasanic kingdom in the sixteenth century. Perhaps the connexion of these languages with each other, and with the Finnish, would justify us in considering them as belonging at least to one family but the specimens are too scanty to enable us to arrange them in a manner perfectly satisfactory. The Samojedic nations are situated north of the Tartars, by whom they may possibly have been driven into their present habitations. The Camashes are on the right of the Jenisei : they are Shamanites or Buddists: their language seems to be a mixture of several others. The Koibals have been baptized; their dialect has borrowed some turcotahtarian words. The Motors are situated on the Tuba. The Jukadshirs are few in number; they are between the Iakuti and the Tshutshi: they have some Iakutish words; and, it may be added, some Tsheremissic. The Koriaks and the Tshutshi occupy the north easternmost point of Siberia: the Kamtshatkans are immediately next to them on the south. The insular order of the tataric or atactic class of languages must be understood as comprehending all the Asiatic islands east of Borneo. The language of the Kurilees is different from that of the neighbouring Eastern islands, as well as from

One of the scots merchants of Moscow happened to be amongst us; and as soon as he heard the horn he told us, in short, that we had nothing to do but to charge them immediately, without loss of time; and, drawing us up in a line, he asked if we were resolved? We told him we were ready to follow him. So he rode directly up to him. They stood gazing at us like a mere crowd, drawn up in no order, nor showing the face of any order at all; but as soon as they saw us advance, they let fly their arrows, which, however, missed us, very happily. It seems they mistook not their aim, but their distance; for their arrows all fell a little short of us, but with so true an aim, that, had we been about twenty yards nearer, we must have had several men wounded, if not killed.

Immediately we halted, and, though it was at a great distance, we fired, and sent them leaden bullets for wooden arrows, following our shot full gallop, resolving to fall in among them sword in hand, for so our bold Scot that led us directed. He was, indeed, but a merchant, but he behaved with that vigor and bravery on this occasion, and yet with such a cool courage too, that I never saw any man in action fitter for command. As soon as we came up to them, we fired our pistols in their faces, and then drew; but they fled in the greatest confusion imaginable; the only stand any of them made was on our right, where three of them stood, and by signs called the rest to come back to them, having a kind of seimitar in their hands, and their bows hanging at their backs. Our brave commander, without asking any body to follow him, galloped up close to them, and with his fusil knocked one of them off his horse, killed the second with his pistol, and the third ran away; and thus ended our fight. But we had this misfortune attending it; viz. that all our mutton which we had in chase got away. We had not a man killed or hurt; but as for the Tartars, there were about five of them killed: how many were wounded we knew not; but this we knew, that the other party was so frightened with the noise of our guns, that they fled, and never made any attempt upon us.

We were all this while in the Chinese dominion, and, therefore, the Tartars were not so bold as afterwards; but in about five days we entered a vast, great, wild desert, which held us three days and nights' march; and we were obliged to carry our water with us in great leather bottles, and to encamp all night, just as I have heard they do in the deserts of Arabia.

I asked our guides, whose dominion this was in? and they told me this was a kind of border that might be called No Man's Land; being a part of the Great Karakathay, or Grand Tartary; but that, however, it was reckoned to China; that there was no care taken here to preserve it from the inroads of thieves, and

the Japanese but in some of them Japanese is spoken. The Japanese derive them. selves from the Chinese; but their language contradicts this opinion: they have evident traces of mongol extraction or relationship. Formosa was conquered by the Dutch in 1620, but in 1661 it was taken from them by a chinese pirate: the next year some books were printed in the formosan language in Holland, the capture of the island not being yet known in 1682, it was given up to the chinese government. The Tagalish and Bissayish, which are the principal dialects of the Philippines, and of the neighbouring islands, are supposed to have been originally derived from the Malayan: but their resemblance to it is in great measure lost. Some single words, as Matta, the eye, and Matte, death, are found in almost all the islands of the Pacific ocean; the languages of which, notwithstanding their immense distances, seem to differ less than those of the inhabitants of some very small continental tracts: they might perhaps be distinguished into a few well defined families, if our knowledge of them were more complete. The resemblance of Matte to the Arabian Mot and the Latin Mactare is probably accidental. The Tahtars or Tâtars, from their superior horsemanship, activity, and fidelity, became from early times so exclusively employed in the conveyance of correspondence that they have given name to the profession; and although the express service is now no longer confined to that nation, Tâtar is still as thoroughly the synonymous title of a special messenger in Turkey as Suisse is for porter, or Saveyard for chimney sweeper, at Paris,

therefore, it was reckoned the worst desert in the whole march though we were to go over some much larger.

In passing this wilderness, which, I confess, was at the first view very frightful to me, we saw two or three times, little parties of the Tartars, but they seemed to be upon their own affairs, and to have no design upon us; and so, like the man who met the devil, if they had nothing to say to us, we had nothing to say to them, we let them go.

Once, however, a party of them came so near as to stand and gaze at us whether it was to consider what they should do, viz. to attack us, or not attack us we knew not; but when we had passed at some distance by them, we made a rear-guard of forty men, and stood ready for them, letting the caravan pass half a mile, or thereabouts, before us. After a while they marched off, only we found they saluted us with five arrows at their parting, one of which wounded a horse so that it disabled him, and we left him the next day, poor creature, in great need of a good farrier; we suppose they might shoot more arrows, which might fall short of us, but we saw no more arrows or Tartars at that time.

We travelled near a month after this, the ways being not so good at first, though still in the dominious of the emperor of China, but lay, for the most part, in villages, some of which were fortified because of the incursions of the Tartars. When we came to one of these towns (it was about two days and a half journey before we were to come to the city of Naum), I wanted to buy a camel, of which there are plenty to be sold all the way upon that road, and of horses also, such ́ as they are, because so many caravans coming that way, they are very often wanted. The person that I spoke to to get me a camel, would have gone and fetched it for me, but I, like a fool, must be officious, and go myself along with him. The place was about two miles out of the village, where, it seems they kept the camels and horses feeding under a guard.

I walked it on foot, with my old pilot in company, and a Chinese, being very desirous, forsooth, of a little variety. When we came to this place, it was a low, marshy ground, walled round with a stone wall, piled up dry, without mor tar or earth among it, like a park, with a little guard of chinese soldiers at the door. Having bought a camel, and agreed for the price, I came away, and the chinese man that went with me led the camel, when, on a sudden, came up five Tartars on horseback; two of them seized the fellow, and took the camel from him, while the other three stepped up to me and my old pilot, seeing us as it were, unarmed, for I had no weapon but my sword, which could but ill defend me against three horsemen. The first that came up stopped short upon my drawing my sword (for they are arrant cowards), but a second coming upon my left, gave me a blow on the head, which I never felt till afterward, and wondered, when I came to myself, what was the matter with me, and where I was, for he laid me flat on the ground; but my never-failing old pilot, the Portuguese (so providence, unlooked for, directs deliverances from dangers, which, to us, are unforeseen), had a pistol in his pocket, which I knew nothing of, nor the Tartars neither; if they had, I suppose they would not have attacked us. But cowards are always boldest when there is no danger.

The old man, seeing me down, with a bold heart, stepped up to the fellow that had struck me, and laying hold of his arm with one hand, and pulling him down by main force a little towards him with the other, he shot him in the head, and laid him dead on the spot; he then immediately stepped up to him who had stopped us, as I said, and before he could come forward again (for it was all done, as it were, in a moment), made a blow at him with a scimitar, which he always wore; but, missing the man, cut his horse into the side of his head, cut one of his ears off by the root, and a great slice down the side of his face. The poor beast, enraged with the wound, was no more to be governed by his rider, though the fellow sat well enough too; but away he flew, and carried him quite out of the pilot's reach, and at some distance rising upon his hind legs, threw down the Tartar and fell upon him.

In this interval, the poor Chinese came in who had lost the camel, but he had no weapon; however, seeing the Tartar down, and his horse fallen upon him, he runs to him, and seizing upon an ugly, ill-favoured weapon, he had by his side, something like a pole-axe, but not a pole-axe neither, he wrenched it from him, and made shift to knock his tartarian brains out with it. But my old man had the third Tartar to deal with still; and seeing he did not fly, as be expected, nor come on to fight him, as as he apprehended, but stood stock-still; the old man stood still too, and falls to work with his tackle to charge his pistol again; but as soon as the Tartar saw the pistol, whether he supposed it to be the same or another I know not, but away he scoured, and left my pilot (my champion I called him afterwards) a complete victory.

By this time I was a little awake, for I thought, when I first began to awake, that I had been in a sweet sleep; but as I said above, I wondered where I was, how I came upon the ground, and what was the matter; in a word, a few moments after, as sense returned, I felt pain, though I did not know where: I clapped my hand to my head, and took it away bloody, then I felt my head ache, and then, in another moment, memory returned, and every thing was present to me again.

I jumped up upon my feet instantly, and got hold of my sword, but no enemies in view. I found a Tartar lie dead, and his horse standing very quietly by him; and looking farther, I saw my champion and deliverer, who had been to see what the Chinese had done, coming back with his hanger in his hand. The old man, seeing me on my feet, came running to me, and embraced me with a great deal of joy, being afraid before, that I had been killed, and seeing me bloody, would see how I was hurt; but it was not much, only what we call a broken head; neither did I afterwards find any great inconvenience from the blow, other than the place which was hurt, which was well again in two or three days.

We made no great gain, however, by this victory, for we lost a camel and gained a horse; but that which was remarkable, when we came back to the village, the man demanded to be paid for the camel. I disputed it, and it was brought to a hearing before the chinese judge of the place, that is to say, in English, we went before a justice of the peace. Give him his due, he acted with a great deal of prudence and impartiality, and having heard both sides, be gravely asked the chinese man that went with me to buy the camel, whose servant he was. “I am no servant," said he, “but went with the stranger." "At whose request?" said the justice. "At the stranger's request," said he. "Why then," said the justice, " you were the stranger's servant for the time; and the camel being delivered to his servant, it was delivered to him, he must pay for it."*

* LAW.-There certainly is no one document from which we may form a judgment of the character and condition of any nation, with so much safety as from the body of their laws; and when these are presented to us, not in the partial abstracts of their admirers or detractors, but in the original fulness and nakedness of their authentic statutes, the information which they afford may be fairly considered as paramount to all that can be derived from other sources. The representations of travellers, even where their fidelity is not liable to impeachment, will almost always take a tinge from their own imagination or affections; and where enthusiasm or controversy have any place in the discussion, there is an end to all prospect of accuracy or justice. The laws of a people, however, are actual specimens of its intellectual character; and may lead the reflecting observer to a variety of important conclusions, that perhaps did not occur to the compiler. In such a work the legislator inevitably paints both himself and the people for whom he legislates; and as nothing here depends upon the coloring of style or ornament, nothing short of intentional fabrication in the editor or translator can prevent us from forming a correct notion of the original. It may be considered as an historical fact, that the Chinese were united under a regular government, and in no low state of civilization, at least as early as the third century before our era, it might have been expected