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those of Tsokooee. But numerous idols are also worshipped, whom they represent as deified saints, in this respect coinciding with the Jains and Bhoodists, as also with the more ancient pagans. An apotheosis is easily obtained among the Caufirs, as a rich man has nothing to do to ob tain this posthumous honour, but to be liberal and charitable, and erect a statue for himself, which will be sure of being introduced into the Caufir pantheon after his decease. But the idols of one tribe differ from those of another, though there be one deity common to all. The Caufirs of Caumdaish have 13 deified heroes, one of whom, the first in the list, is Bughush, (probably Bhagesa or Bacchus,) and we are told by the ancients that Bacchus was an Indian deity. One would infer from this, that the Caufirs are of Hindoo origin, and that they belong to the impure hill-tribes, whom the Hindoos call Chasas. What adds strength to this, is, that all the Caufirs are beef-eaters, and sprinkle their idols with the blood of goats and cows. They have a hereditary priesthood, but their influence is small. Their festivals are often accompanied with animal sacrifices, the blood of which is thrown through the fire on the stone-idol, part of the flesh burned, and part eaten by the priest and his assistants. One of their prayers on these occasions is always for the extirpation of the Mohammedans. As to their marriages, the wife is purchased from her father; the value of a wife is sometimes estimated at 20 cows. The women are not concealed from public observation. Some of their slaves are captured in battle, others are obtained from tribes with which they are at peace, but the greater number are from their own tribe, it being quite common for the powerful to seize the children of the weak, and either sell them to the Mohammedans, or retain them for slaves. A person who loses his relations is soon made a slave. The Afghauns purchase Caufirs for slaves, and some are made prisoners by the Yusufzyes on the borders. The captives are generally females who are much sought after for their remarkable beauty. What is the mode of government among them is almost wholly unknown. The authority seems to be lodged in the hands of the chiefs of each tribe, and the law of retaliation is firmly established. Their only honorary title is that of khaun, which they have borrowed from the Afghauns. Their property chiefly consists of cattle and slaves. The dress of the Sceapooshes consists of four goat-skins, two forming a vest, and the other two a petticoat, with the hair outside Until they have slain a Mohammedan the men go bareheaded, shaving their heads all but a small tuft on the crown, and wear beards four or five inches long. Their dwellings are generally wooden houses, and they have others where they keep their cheeses, ghee-wine, and vinegar. In every house is a wooden bench fixed to the wall, with a low back to it, and they have stools shaped like drums, narrow in the middle. Partly owing to their dress and partly to custom, the Caufirs cannot sit as other Asiatics, so that when forced to sit on the ground, they are compelled to stretch out their legs like Europeans. Their stools are made of wicker-work, their beds of wood, and their thongs of neat's leather. Their food is usually cheese, butter, and milk, with bread or a sort of suet-pudding. Their flesh is eaten half-dressed. Their fruits are walnuts, grapes, apples, almonds, and wild apricots. Both sexes drink wine to great excess. Of this they have three kinds, red, white, and dark-coloured, besides a kind of a jelly-consistence and very strong. So prevalent is the use of wine among them, says Baber, (who was himself a lover of the bottle,) that every Caufir has a keg or leathern bottle of it swung round his neck. They drink it during meals in place of water, and though elevated by it, are not quarrelsome, are exceeding

hospitable, hunt but little, their favourite amusement being dancing, which is prosecuted with great ardour by both sexes and all ages. Their musical instruments are a pipe and tabor, and their music is wild, quick, and varied. One of their most distinguishing characteristics is their ceaseless wars with their Mussulman neighbours, and their usual mode of attack is by ambush, and they give no quarter in battle. Their chief glory is the death of a Mussulman; and in their solemn dances and festivals, each man wears a turban, into which a long feather is stuck for every Mohammedan he has killed. The number of bells which he is authorised to wear round his waist is also regulated in the same way. A Caufir who has not killed his man, is not permitted to flourish his axe round his head during the dance. Such as have had the good fortune to kill a Mussulman are visited by their neighbours, and have afterwards a right to wear a little red woollen cap or cockade tied to the head. Those who have slain many, may erect a high pole before their doors, in which are holes to receive a pin for every Mohammedan the owner has destroyed, and a ring for each he has wounded. But when taken apart from their long-rooted and bitter antipathies, they are said to be a kind-hearted, joyous race. Their arms are a bow with barbed arrows, sometimes poisoned, and a dagger. They have lately learned the use of fire-arms and swords from their neighbours the Afghauns. The Mohammedan princes in their vicinity frequently invade their territories and carry off slaves, and sometimes the Caufirs condescend to make peace with them, the negotiation being accompanied with strange ceremonies. In 1780 a general confederacy of all the Mussulman chiefs was made against the Caufirs. The united force of the khaun of Badakshaun, one of the chiefs of Kaushkaur, the padshah of Cooner, the bauz of Bijore, and several of the Yusufzye khauns, penetrated into the very heart of the country. But notwithstanding this success, they could not keep their ground, and were forced to evacuate the country, after sustaining severe losses. There is no particular map of their country, to show the relative situation of their valleys, tribes, and villages, yet published. None of the tribes or villages mentioned by Elphinston are set down in the map, except Gumber and Pusha. Baber mentions Kattor and Gebuk as places in Caufireestaun, but gives not the least hint of their relative situation. All that can be said of the topography of this region is, that Ketuer, or Kuttore, lies somewhere on the Kaushkaur river; that Gumber lies to the E. of the pass of Kawuck; and that the chief part of Caufireestaun seems to be in the large angle formed by the junction of the Beloor Taugh coming from the N.E. with the Hindookho coming from the N.W.

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INDEPENDENT TARTARY.

THIS is a very extensive region, comprehending all the tract between the Caspian sea and the great plateau of Central Asia, and extending from the frontiers of Persia and Afghaunistaun on the S., to those of Aisatic Russia on the N. The geography of this tract is only known in a very general way; so obscure is it that it has been justly characterized by one of our best writers on geographical science, Mr Pinkerton, as being "chiefly conjectural," and as remaining, to the disgrace of science, " in a wretched state of imperfection." For our knowledge of it we are chiefly indebted to oriental historians and geographers, as Abulfeda, Ebn Haukel, Abulghazi, and others, and to some notices from Jenkinson, Thompson, and Hanway. These imperfect accounts have been followed of late years by more accurate information, obtained by Mr Elphinstone, in his mission to Peshawer,-by the Russians, in their late embassies to Kokun, Khiva, and Bokhara,―and from the memoirs of Baber, a native of this region, and sultan of Kokun, previous to his expulsion by the Usbecs, the present possessors. Some valuable additional information has also been obtained by Mr Fraser at Meschid in 1822, which he received from an exiled Usbec prince there resident, who was the brother of the reigning khaun of Bokhara. With such aids as the above additional information has given, we shall endeavour to give a concise account of this region and its inhabitants. Boundaries and extent.] Independent Tartary has the Caspian sea and the river Jaik or Ooral on the W.; the Ooral Tau, and the Algidym Shalo, on the N. and N.E.; Soongaria and Eastern Toorkistaun on the E.; on the S.E. the basin of the Upper Indus, or what we now denominate Western Tibet; and on the S. Persia and Afghaunistaun. From S. to N. it extends 16 degrees of latitude, or from 35° to 51° N. lat. and 20 degrees of longitude from W. to. E., or from 54° to 74° E. long., that is, from the Caspian sea to the summit of the Beloor Tagh. It must be observed, however, that as the eastern limit of this vast tract has never been astronomically determined, it is impossible to be precise on this point.10 Independent of the Kirghissian portion of this tract, Balbi has estimated the total superficies of the Usbec and Turcoman portion at 555,000 British square miles, thus:

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In this estimate the surface of the Aral lake is included, but whether he

10 The maps generally carry the longitude not farther than 70° and 72° E. and even Malte Brun states the eastern frontier at the summit of the Beloor at only 69° E. long, adopting the opinion of Rennel, that the range of the Beloor has been placed five degrees too far E. by D'Anville. We must wait till the point be settled by future ob

servers.

includes the tract S. of the Oxus, or Jihoon, we are not certain; but it is probable he does not. Malte Brun makes the whole superficies, exclusive of the steppe of Issim, only 460,000 square miles, which is certainly by far too low. If the medium breadth of this tract be 15 degrees of longitude by 16 of meridional length, then the surface will be found to be 843,600 B. square miles, including the tract S. of the Oxus. This will not appear too great, if we compare it with the statements of Klaproth and Balbi. The former states the superficies of the tract occupied by the Lesser and Middle Kirgee hordes, and lately incorporated with the Russian empire, at 220,000 B. square miles, which, added to Balbi's statement of that of the Usbec khanates, makes 775,000 B. square miles. To this must be added the large and extensive province of Bactria, extending more than eight degrees of longitude by two degrees of medial breadth.

Names and Political Divisions.] In compliance with long-established usage, we have adopted the customary appellation of Independent Tartary, as proper to this region. The name of Tartar has been for nigh six centuries applied as a generic appellation to all the nomadic tribes of Northern and Middle Asia, in the same way as the ancients applied the term Scythian to all the erratic nations of which they had any knowledge, whether in Europe or Asia. All the vagrant tribes to the N. and E. of the Danube, as far as geographical knowledge then extended, were anciently so called, from the time of Herodotus downwards, and the modern appellation Tartar, has succeeded by common consent to that of Scythian, ever since the middle of the 13th century; and so firmly has this ethnographic term taken root amongst all European writers, that it is now no more possible to eradicate it, than the generic term of Indian, universally applied to all the aboriginal natives of the American continent ever since its discovery. The first writer who introduced the term Tartar was the political missionary, Carpini, in 1246, but he applied it solely to the four great Mongolian tribes, who, he says, all spoke the same language, a strong proof that they belonged to the same parent stock. Rubruquis, in 1254, used it in the same sense, when he visited the court of Sartakh-Khan, grandson of Jenghis-Khan; but the Mongolian princes were indignant at being called Tartars, and told him that they were Mongols and not Tartars, who were a different and a vanquished tribe, and that they did not choose to be denominated from the name of a vassal horde. Still, however, the name prevailed, in spite of Mongolian remonstrance, and has been, and still is, applied not merely to the Mongolians, but also, most improperly and erroneously, by almost all modern writers, to designate exclusively, all the tribes of Turkish extraction, although it is certain these are a very different and distinct race. Hence the modern fashionable division of Great Tartary amongst Tartars, Mongols, and Mandshoors. The two latter names are just and proper, as designating distinct races, and as recognised by these races themselves; but the first appellation has never been acknowledged by any of the numerous tribes to whom it is applied. They all speak dialects of the same language, and know themselves only by the particular name of their own tribe, or by the general name of Turks. As all these tribes have the best, and indeed the only, right to fix their own name, it is unjust to call them by one they have never acknowledged; and if the name Tartar be at all applicable to any of the great races, it belongs to the Mongols, one of whose tribes the ancient Tartars were, with much greater propriety, than to either of the others. By the Arab conquerors of Asia, and by the Arab and Persian geographers, the name of Turks was applied

to all the nomadic hordes, Mongols as well as others, of which they had any knowledge, and they divided them into two great branches, Western and Eastern Turks, the former extending to the Black sea, and the latter as far E. as China. In this they were more correct than succeeding European writers. Both nations knew the people and their language. Their error lay in the too great extension of the name, in applying it to the whole of the nomadic races, instead of limiting it to one. As the real proper name of the race is Turks, so the whole region inhabited by the numberless tribes speaking Turkish, even as far E. as Hami, at the eastern extremity of the Lesser Bukaria, should have been called Toorkistaun, instead of receiving the name Tartary. It is probable that all the Scythian tribes known to the ancients since the days of Herodotus were of Turkish origin, and spoke dialects of the same language." We shall, therefore, divide it into three great divisions, Southern, Middle, and Northern Toorkistaun, all comprehended under the general name of Western Toorkistaun, to distinguish it from the extensive region to the E. of the Beloor, called Chinese or Eastern Toorkistaun.

I. SOUTHERN TOORKISTAUN SOUTH OF THE AMOO OR Oxus.

SUBDIVISIONS.

1. Turkman Desert and Kheewauh; 2. Baulkh; 3. Badakshaun.

II. MIDDLE TOORKISTAUN.

SUBDIVISIONS.

1. North of the Amoo.

1. Khotlaun; 2. Karrategeen; 3. Hissar, or Saganian; 4. Kesh; 5. Vale of Sogd, comprehending Bokhara and Samarcand.

2. Vale of the Syr, or Jaxarles.

1. Kokaun and Nemingaun; 2. Tashkunt; 3. Uratippa; 4. Ghaznah, or Desert of Aral; 5. Ilak, or Iestaun; 6. Toorkistaun Proper.

III. NORTHERN TOORKISTAUN, OR KIRGHISIAN REGION.

Divided amongst the three hordes of the Lesser, Middle, and Great Kirghisian hordes.

CHAP. I.-PHYSICAL FEATURES.

ALL the western and northern part of this region is occupied with immense desert plains, whilst the southern and eastern parts, or the basins of the Syr and Amoo, are of a different description, having fine tracts of land defended by inaccessible mountains and barren deserts, and watered by numerous streams. But even to this there are exceptions, the fertile plain

11 The name Turkai or Turca occurs in Herodotus, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny, so that it is of ancient origin, and we may hazard the hypothesis that all Scythia, from the Danube E. to the Imaus, or modern Beloor, was occupied by tribes of that widespread race. Even in the court of Attila the Hun, though himself a Kalmuc, Turkish seems to have been the prevailing language, for his very name Attila, as Mr Erskine has ingeniously and justly observed, is Turkish, being obviously Atalik, a Turkish term signifying regent,' or guardian,' which he actually was over his nephews, sons of his uncle, whom he succeeded, and one of his own sons was named Denghisick, from denghis, another word in the same language, signifying the sea, as he was born near the Euxine, Caspian, or some other sea. All the various tribes who inhabit the region here denominated Independent Tartary, whether they be Kirgees, or Turkmans, er Kaisaks, or Mankats, or Usbecs, are Turkish, and speak dialects of that tongue.

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