Visits to High Tartary, Yârkand, and Kâshgar

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chap. II . CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE. 21 CHAPTER II. THE TRIBES OF TOORKISTAN AND TARTARY. Characteristics of the People of Eastern Toorkistan ? Tartarised Aryans The original Inhabitants probably of Aryan Blood?Last Relic of these in Sarikol ? Toork and Tajik; Kirghiz and Sart ? The People of...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chap. II . CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE. 21 CHAPTER II. THE TRIBES OF TOORKISTAN AND TARTARY. Characteristics of the People of Eastern Toorkistan ? Tartarised Aryans The original Inhabitants probably of Aryan Blood?Last Relic of these in Sarikol ? Toork and Tajik; Kirghiz and Sart ? The People of Badakhshan; and of Wakhan ? The Oozbeks ?The Kipchaks ? The Toorkmans ? The Kazaks ? The Kara-Kalpaks ? The Kirghiz ? Their Mahammadanism; Settlers in Eastern Toorkistan; Cashmeerees; Bailees; Badakhshees ? The Thian-Shan; Kalmaks ? The Great Desert; the Doolans ? Zungaria ? The T oonganees; alleged Etymology of the Name, and Origin of the People ? The Taranchecs, Kansoo, Charchand, and its mention by Marco Polo ? Zilm, and ito approximate Position ? The Talkas. The inhabitants of Eastern Toorkistan are very far from being pure Tartars. Compared with the nomadic Kirghiz, and even with the more civilized and mixed tribe of Oozbeks, the men of Yarkand have a decidedly Aryan look.1 They are tall and somewhat gaunt (resembling the typical American as depicted in caricatures, or even 1 This fact does not seem inconsistent with what we learn from ancient authors. The Sakce apparently inhabited this region (Rawlin- son's ' Herodotus, ' App., Bk. VII., Essay I., viii.), and they are always mentioned by Herodotus in connection with the Bactrians, an Aryan people; and by Strabo (Bk. XI., chap. vi., 2; chap, viii., 2, 8) in connection with the Massagetse, another Aryan people. . The fact that the Sakaj are classed among the Scythian tribes does not prove their Turanian origin, when another tribe of Scythians (those inhabiting what is now the South of Russia) have been proved to be Arians by ' their language (Rawlinson's 'Herodotus, ' vol. iii., App., Bk. IV., Essa...