Sogdiana, or Transoxiana, became a part of the Greek | south-east corner of the Caspian; south and south-east state of Bactria, when the rest of that kingdom by a curved line from the corner of this kingdom to submitted to Parthia, 142 B. C. Sogdiana being the junction of the five rivers to form the Indus, sepoccupied by the Yuetchi, from the borders of China, arating it from the Seleucide empire. and allies of it, became the nucleus of that Indo-Scythian kingdom, which was enlarged till, in A. D. 232, it stretched from the Caspian nearly to the Ganges. In 425, it was an important part of the Yeta or Getæ empire. In 565, it formed a part of the vast Turkish empire. In 632, under the Arabic name of Mawarannahar, "between rivers," and the Chinese name Yang, it became the most western kingdom dependent on China, a part of the empire of the Shang dynasty. In 865, we find Sogdiana a part of the immense empire of the Abbasside khalifs; then of the Samanides, in 912; in 1000, of the Hoei hoo, or Ouigoors; in 1125, of the Kara Kitai; in 1226, of the Mongols; in 1368, of the Zagatai empire; in 1404, the seat of the capital of Tamerlane; in 1479, the kingdom of Mawarannahar; in 1725, divided between the khanat of Bokhara, and the kingdom of Kharism; at present divided between the khans of Bokhara, Khiva, and the Kirghis. Such is a specimen of the changes which the states of Independent Tartary have undergone. It would be futile and tedious to follow out the details. A notice of the capital, Samarcand, is given in the history of Tamerlane. Parthia forms the subject of another chapter. Khiva, Tashkent, the Kirghis, &c., are noticed in the geographical introduction to Tartary. We need only further remark, that in the middle ages, Sogdiana became famous, under the Arabic name of Sogd, for its great fertility and cultivation. The territory around Samarcand, the capital, in particular, the Arabian geographers describe as a terrestrial paradise. The rich valley of Sogd presented so great an abundance of exquisite grapes, melons, pears, and apples, that they were exported to Persia, and even to Hindostan. BACTRIANA, now forming that part of Independent Tartary called Koondooz, was one of the richest satrapies of the Persian empire of Darius Hystaspes; it was on the great highway between Russia, Tartary, and China on one side India, Persia, and Western Asia on the other. At the remotest period, this centre of the commerce of the continent is said to have been illumined by a mild civilization. The Orientals call its capital (Bactra, Zariaspe, Balkh) the "mother of cities," and consider it the most ancient on earth. Near the only pass through the formidable Hindoo Koosh Mountains, which divide Central from Southern Asia, this site, or one in its neighborhood, must ever be the location of a great emporium of trade. In 254 B. C., Bactriana broke away from the Seleucide empire, and, under Theodotus I., became the nucleus of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. This state was ruled by Greeks, with whom the wise foresight of Alexander colonized it, settling them in the cities which he built here to secure the trade of the northern and eastern Oriental world. History has left us very little information concerning this once powerful kingdom; and it is only by the help of a few coins, laboriously compared with some scant and scattered notices in Oriental literature, that we can form an idea of it. At its greatest extent, say in 210 B. C., - we find it bounded on the south-east by the most easterly of the five rivers that form the Indus; on the east by Mount Imaus, separating it from Khotan; north by the Jaxartes and Aral; west by Parthia, then a small kingdom on the The annals of Bactriana are briefly these: Theodotus I., who ruled also over Sogdiana, shook off the sway of Antiochus II. in 254 B. C. In 243, his son and successor, Theodotus II., made a treaty of peace and alliance with the Parthian king Arsaces II.; but lost his throne to Euthydemus of Magnesia, in 221. Antiochus the Great attacked this prince after the Parthian war was ended; but made peace with him, on the Bactrian king's reducing his military establishment by giving up his elephants. A marriage, too, between his son Demetrius and the daughter of Antiochus was agreed upon. Demetrius was king of a part of India, but it is not certain if of Bactria also. Menander succeeded him, and extended his conquests to Serica; but over these territories his sway was transient. Eucratidas succeeded in 181; under him, Bactria is said to have acquired its greatest extent. He was, however, murdered by one of his sons, probably Eucratidas: this person, having obtained the throne, instigated Demetrius II., king of Syria, to attack, in conjunction with himself, the Parthian kingdom, under Arsaces VI. But Arsaces resisted victoriously, and obtained the chief part of the Bactrian territory. The nations of Middle Asia now overran the northern part, Sogdiana, as already noticed in the account of that satrapy. Upon this the Bactrian kingdom became, as such, extinct; and Bactria itself, with the other countries on this side the Oxus, became a part of the Parthian empire. ana. Of that division of Bactriana north of the Oxus, we have already given the history, under the head of SogdiThe part immediately south of the Oxus formed a portion successively of the Indo-Scythian, Sassanide, Ommiade, and Abbasside empires. In A. D. 865, the west part formed part of a kingdom of Thaherians, while the east belonged to the Abbassides. In 912, it was all included, together with Sogdiana, under the Sassanide empire, which extended from the Caspian to the Indus, and from the Persian Gulf to the Jaxartes. In 1000, we find Bactriana a part of the Ghaznevide kingdom, which, in 1125, had surrendered a portion of it to the Kara kitai, and another to the Seljukian empire. It was then all swallowed up in the empire of Zingis, and on the dissolution of that, fell to the Persian-Mongol empire, and after some other changes, to the empire of Tamerlane. then, it has passed to the khans of Khorasan, and then a part to the kings of Persia, and part to the Afghan kingdom. These two powers seem now to share an influence over it; though it may be deemed independent, under its own khans and the Turcoman vagabonds. Since The countries whose history we have just given, belonged to what was anciently called Scythia, and now bears the name of Tartary. Scythia, indeed, included all the northern portions of Asia and Europe, until the name of Sarmatia was given to the European division. The country called Serica was on the remote borders of Scythia, and is supposed to have been some part of China. It was the country which first produced silk; and its capital, Sera, seems to have been the western capital of China- - Si ngan foo, or near it. The silk trade with Serica was very active at an early date. Having given these general notices of what belongs to the ancient history of Tartary, we proceed to the general history of that country. People of Western Tartary - Kirghis. CHAPTER CXCIX. Preliminary View of TARTARY IN GENERAL TARTARY,* known to the ancients under the name of Scythia, and the original seat of the Huns, the Turks, the Mongols, and many other tribes, includes about a third of Asia, embracing the vast region between Persia, Thibet, China, and Corea, on the south, and Siberia on the north. Most of this region is very elevated, and possesses, therefore, a clear, cold climate, severe in the northern and extreme eastern parts, while in the south-west is found one of the finest climates on the face of the earth. No portion of this wide and varied expanse of country seems to have the exuberant rankness of fertility which much of our western lands may boast; though the extreme east, upon a still virgin soil, exhibits a wild luxuriance of shrub and forest, well worthy of a denser and more civilized population. The soil, in fact, varies from rich river bottoms and plains- which shoot up grass taller than a man, where there is moisture — to the broad fields of ice and snow, or the numerous ridges of lofty mountains, and the shifting sands and bare rocks of extensive deserts, which have never been, and will never be, shaded with a single green leaf. Next to the long and lofty mountain ranges which bound it on the north and south, and divide it into east and west in unequal portions, or intersect longitudinally its larger eastern mass, Tartary is characterized by broad and high table lands. These stretch-an ocean of verdure - generally from east to west, and have given to the majority of the inhabitants that pastoral and wandering * INDEPENDENT TARTARY is occupied by a great number of Tartar tribes, forming several independent states. The usual divisions are as follows: Turcomania, or the country of the Turcomans, in the south-west; Turkistan proper, in the east; Usbekistan, in the south. Branches of these tribes are, however, scattered about in different parts of the country. The chief states are the khanats of Great Bucharia, Khiva, and Kokan; the smaller states are Kissar, Balkh, &c. CHINESE TARTARY is divided into Manchooria, in the east; Mongolia, near the middle; Soongaria, Little Bucharia, and Little Thibet, in the west; Thibet being at the south-west. This vast region lies nearly in the latitude of our Middle States and New England. People of Eastern Tartary - Mongols and Kalm character which they have ever borne. Mo indeed, as the earliest historical notices des still wander, during winter, over these pla are then watered by streams and springs. they are obliged to retire into the valleys o tains, where they can enjoy a pure, fresh a and where the grass is not dried up by th winds of the steppes, as the illimitable plains it almost inva If a horde, or tribe, oversteps its usual advances straight on, then happens a verita tion: the neighbor tribe, if itself nomadic, the migratory one, and swells the tide of in if settled, repels force by force, or succur latter is the ordinary event; for as the nom der carries all his property and household wi every adult male is a warrior quers its more highly civilized opponent, w dom bring every man into the field, and is t tracted with fears for property and family. and simple facts, which have so often changed and position of the Tartar tribes, are, indee ome of the history of this large portion o thousands of years. Though Tartary, at the present day, is usua into two distinct portions - Independent Tart Chinese Tartary - yet, as the whole territo ages borne one general title and character, and frequently blends its various tribes in one comr of events, we propose to embrace the wh view, so far as may be practicable, giving to each of the prominent races a distinct not Restless nomads, as the Tartaric nations n following, with their flocks and herds, the rivers, seeking new pasture grounds when longer yield sufficient feed - and thus living petual state of migration; yet, as this migr narily keeps within certain limits, we are e give the present political divisions of the co some degree of distinctness. On the extreme east is Manchooria - et known to the ancients whose earliest i seem to have been such rude tribes as th Tungouse of Siberia. These, early mingled other Siberian tribe, the Mongols, and be 18 ho held it in the last century. This country ely known to the ancients, and classical writ CHAPTER CC. sent it as the end of the earth. Here they INDEPENDENT TARTARY eir Scythia beyond Imaus, of which they t one tribe, the Issidons, with their capital - Lop; and beyond it was their Serica, or China. orthern part of Kalmookia, was Soongaria, d from a Siberian Tartar tribe, who became Chere. fifteenth century, Kalmookia was shared he Ouirat horde on the north, the kingdoms r and Khamil, or Hami, in the middle, and the south, with capitals of the same names. Last, taken together, have also borne the indef5 of Tangoot, Turkestan, and Little Bucharia. -lier, in Tamerlane's time, all these formed of the Ouigoors of Bishbalik, with the capital ne, also called Ooroomtsi. Previously, the as held by the descendants of Zingis, in ire it was merged, in the twelfth century. ia now forms a part of the Chinese empire, names Peloo in the north, and Nanloo in the Beloor Mountains, the Imaus of the e find on our maps, Independent Tartary, ecause its tribes are subject neither to China This was the Scythia this side the Imaus, I writers, who had still another Scythia, via Sarmatica, which was the extension into rope of the Asiatic plains, forming the level aropean Russia. It was called Scythia, becople were of similar origin and habits with brethren of the same name. ent political divisions of this part of Tarthe Kirghis country on the north, Khiva, ad Kokan in the middle, Turcomania, Balkh, boz on the south, will be more particularly ereafter, as also their former occupants. e kingdoms, however, occupying the south this interesting region, to wit, Sogdiana, Bactriana, and Parthia, as forming the conbetween ancient and modern, classic and tory, have already been treated in chapters previous to this. These details seem inthe nature of the subject; but, as the his region is one of great interest and imporeem it essential to introduce them. Ory of Tartary, then, will embrace the opics, viz., Scythia and its modern occuCirghis, or Asiatic Cossacks, with a sketch - modern states of Independent Tartary, kan, Bokhara, Badakshan, Balkh, Koonand Turcomania. These states are most treated of in connection with this our geoew, with which, also, we shall connect noUsbecks, Kalmucks, and Manchoos. Next The Alan-Goths, or Indo-Germanic tribes, - our ancestry in part; then of the ancient early conquerors of China; then of the - Physical Geograp The Kirghis and Cossacks - Kokan Khiva The Turcomans Bokhara The Usbecks - Balkh - Koondooz. THE country bounded on the south by the Paro misan range of North Persia, on the west by Caspian and Volga, or Ural, on the north by the froz regions of Siberia, and on the east by Thibet a Mongolia, is a region of the greatest possible vari of surface, soil, and climate. It is variously cal Touran, Independent Tartary, Turkestan, Weste Tartary-and embraces an extent of somewhat 1 than five hundred thousand square miles, with a pop lation of seven millions. Mountains capped with eternal snows are he contrasted with plains of burning sand, or broad, le steppes, without visible boundary, covered with coa bent; here are frozen wastes and rough alpine valle by the side of charmingly undulating champaigr vales, lovely as paradise, and salt plains, given over perpetual desolation; rocky aridity and exubera fertility; romantic lakes bordered by perennial v dure, and broad salt seas environed by vast mars flats; wide and copious rivers; regions watered numerous and perennial streams; and the thirsty be of rivulets, whose scanty thread of water is soon c sipated in hopeless deserts. There is little forest, but the soil on the margin the streams is fertile. Here, grain and the vine mind one of the best portions of our Middle State there, rice, cotton, and even the sugar-cane carry fancy towards the "sunny south." This, then, is appropriate nursery of mankind, and these infinite varied repositories of great Nature have cradled tions not a few; indeed, some, with much probab ity, place in these regions the primeval abode of c race, whence it descended west, south, east, a north, to people the world! The north half of Independent Tartary is occupi by the Kirghis steppes on the east and west, support by mountains - and between them a desert of sa The shore of the Caspian is mostly a long and gloom chain of arid downs and rocks. North of Bokhara a desert of sand, as also between Khiva and Pers Some rivers are lost in sands in the Kirghis count which is not well known. The Jaxartes (Sir, or Sihor rises in the lofty Mustag range, and flows in a nor westerly course of five or six hundred miles, by H kan, Kojend, Tashkend, and Otrar, into the north-e corner of Lake Aral, or the Sea of Eagles - a squa body of water, saltish, and abounding in sturgeon a other fish, and also in seals. Into its south-western c ner flows the Oxus, Amoo, or Jihon, which rises in high valley of the Beloor Mountains, and, in a cou of nine hundred miles or more, somewhat paral with the Jaxartes, flows by Badakshan, Termed, Khi or Ourgounge, and not far from Balkh. Koondo 378 The Kirghis were converted to Mahometanism from Shamanism about the beginning of the seventeenth century. They occupy the place of the Kipzaks, who were also subdued by Tamerlane. In 1742, a horde of the Kipzaks, (called Kara Kalpaks and Kara Kipzaks,) of fifteen thousand families, were almost annihilated by the Kirghis, for seeking the protection of the "White Czar," or Russia. Some Kara Kalpaks are still upon the Jaxartes; they continue the agricultural and pastoral life, and have a fixed place for their winter cabins, but their summer ones are movable. They use cattle for the saddle and draught, practise several trades, and sell knives, muskets, sabres, cooking pots, and gunpowder. The khanat of Kokan is under a mild, beneficent, and peaceful government, and its territory, lying along the middle course of the Jaxartes, is as well cultivated as that of Bokhara. Here is found Tashkent, an ancient city, a favorite with Tamerlane, and still containing one hundred thousand people and three hundred and twenty mosques. Here is but three months' winter; and peaches, vines, wheat, cotton, and silk reward the industry of its people. Kokan, in a fruitful and well-watered plain, is a modern town, which, from a small village, has risen to be the capital, numbering fifty thousand people and three hundred mosques. Kogend was a favorite residence of Tamerlane, and has now twenty-five thousand people. Its situation is delightful, and its inhabitants are deemed the most learned and polite of the Tartars. the north-east side of the river, near this spot, Alexander founded Alexandria, at the extreme northern limit of his empire, to control the Massagetæ and Scythians, and form an emporium for the trade of Tartary. Margilan and Ush are two fine cities; the latter has reclaimed a part of the Kirghis, on whose frontier it is placed, and they are peaceably settled around it. Kokan is the ancient Fergana, of which Baber, the founder of the empire of the Grand Moguls of India, was the hereditary prince. The Usbeck Aralians, on the plains about Lake Aral, have a town, or rather winter encampment, fourteen miles in circumference, defended by an earthen rampart, twelve Russian ells in height. There are other similar On KIRGHIS-KOKAN-KHIVA. and Fyzabad are near it, on mountain branches; Sam- | personal qualities. The heads of clans and old men arcand and Bokhara are upon a branch coming in on constitute the national assembly. the north. At Termed it issues from the mountains by a defile one hundred feet wide, the sublime horrors of which cause it to be named the "Lion's Throat." A low range of mountains divides Tartary from the steppe of Ischim and the provinces of Omsk and Tobolsk. On the east, Lake Balkash and the Tabagatai range, connecting the Altai and the Beloor, together with the lofty Beloor and Mustag, - connecting the Thianchan, or Celestial, and the Himmaleh Mountains, separate Independent from Chinese Tartary. These ranges are very little known. The Kirghis Cossacks, who inhabit the country called by their name, are, as is elsewhere intimated, derived from tribes who dwelt on the Upper Yenisei, and afterwards mingled with the ancient Turks, whose language they adopted. They are a fine race, with Tartar but not Mongol features, flat noses, small eyes yet not oblique-good complexion, high cheek bones, and a cheerful look. Some of them display the stout forms of the Turks; others the tall proportions of their Haka ancestry. Frugal and peaceful, they enjoy a long and healthy old age: intermittent fevers, colds, and asthma are their chief diseases. Happy in their freedom, they live on mutton and milk; without being bloodthirsty or quarrelsome, they are arrant plunderers, pillaging, with great address, all the neighboring countries. Hence Russia is obliged to defend her frontier by a chain of strong forts, and even to distribute presents and pensions among the chiefs, and allow them to take a toll of ten or twelve rubles for each camel coming in the caravans to Orenburg. They delight in carrying off the Kalmuck women, who are said to retain the charms of youth longer than their own. They are very friendly to each other, and are served by slaves they have kidnapped. They wear wide drawers, pointed boots, and conical caps; the men shave their heads, the women dress theirs with heron's necks, so placed as to look like horns. Lances and matchlocks, discharged with white powder, are their arms; they are fond of games, exercises, and horse-racing, being valorous and ferocious horsemen. At funerals, horse-races are held, and the heir distributes slaves, camels, horses, magnificent harness, and other prizes among the victors. towns. Strict Mahometans, they are allowed several wives, Khiva, lately taken possession of by Russia, was but each has her separate tent. Their tents are of found to hold, in common with Bokhara, some two hunfelt, larger and neater than those of the Kalmucks, and dred thousand Persians and fifteen thousand Russians. often accommodating twenty persons. Hitherto plun- Its people are addicted to gluttony and kidnapping; der has given them foreign luxuries, but they are begin- man-stealing is their chief source of wealth. The terrining to purchase them in exchange for furs, hides, and tory, fifty miles broad and extending two hundred miles felt. Many of the tribes of the Great Horde, which along the Oxus, not far from Lake Aral, is watered ranges to the east and south, on the frontiers of Cash-chiefly by canals, and insulated from the civilized world gar and Kokan, have abandoned their roving habits, and settled down to agriculture and the town life. Among the high valleys, some fifty thousand are still very wild. Those about Lake Aral, and thence to the Caspian, are entirely pastoral. This race makes a fine mounted soldiery, and, as such, has traversed Europe in the armies of the czar. The Parisians once saw, with chagrin, these rough troopers encamped in the gardens of the Tuileries, and flaunting their horse-tails beneath the shades of the Champs Elysées. Russia appoints a nominal khan for the lesser horde, on the banks of the Ural, Caspian, and Aral; but his power depends on his wealth and by surrounding deserts. Of its three hundred thousand families, but one third are settled; the rest are nomadic and predatory, usually roaming, under the name of Turcomans, through their wide deserts, in a state of wild independence, under hereditary chiefs- but ever ready to join any standard, either of their own sovereign or of revolted Persian chiefs, which promises adventure and booty. They now make petty marauding expeditions into Persia, especially Khorasan, in which they carry off every portable thing of value, taking the inhabitants themselves to perpetual bondage in the heart of their deserts. Here was the seat of the Usbeck khans of Kharism, THE TURCOMANS THE USBECKS. in the early part of the last century: previously it formed a part of the kingdom of Mawarannahar, which included Bokhara, and was itself a fragment of Tamerlane's empire. When conquered by Zingis, it was the seat of the empire of Kharism, whose fate, under the chivalric but unfortunate Jelaleddin and his father, is elsewhere detailed. Its capital was at Ourgounge, a little north of Khiva. This dynasty was founded by a Turkish slave in 1097, and destroyed by Zingis in 1231. It was previously a principality between the Oxus and Caspian, with the Gaznevide empire on the south, both of them fragments of the Samanide empire, from the Jaxartes to South Persia, which flourished in A. D. 912, and long after. In 710, the faith of Mahomet was preached in the mosque of Kharism, and this was the first country of Tartary converted to Islam. The khan, whose capital, Khiva, the Russians lately entered in triumph, is now in alliance, offensive and defensive, with the czar, and ready to forward his vast views in Asia. 379 and previous to the Christian era, the kingdoms of Hyrcania and Parthia, as has been stated in a former chapter. Bokhara seems at present the most powerful of these independent khanats. Its history is detailed elsewhere. It need only be added here, that its king, by dividing and mixing the various tribes, and keeping the great men from all employments likely to strengthen their hereditary influence, and also by an affectation of superior sanctity, has gained such an ascendency over the Tartars as causes him to be courted by Russia, England, and Persia. He is also an Usbeck, the predominant race in these regions, a sketch of whose history and government may here be appropriately given their personal appearance and habits are elsewhere described. The The Usbecks first crossed the Jaxartes about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and pouring down on the possessions of Tamerlane's descendants, soon drove them from Bokhara, Kharism, (Kowaresm, Chorasmia,) and Fergana. They are of the great Turkish race, as elsewhere noticed. Their division into tribes has no relation to the government; and there are no separate jurisdictions or assemblies, even in the wandering hordes: the country is divided into districts and sub-districts, under officers appointed by the sovereign, who collect the revenue and dispense justice. heads of villages are appointed by the king, at the recommendation of the wealthy. In the army every thing depends on his appointments. In Bokhara, the men are said to be arranged in messes of ten each, who have a tent, a boiler, and a camel among them. In Bokhara and Fergana, at least, there is no trace of a popular government, and scarcely any of aristocracy. The Usbecks, having, doubtless, few native institutions, adopted, on their conversion, the Mahometan law in all its details, both in public and private. The revenue is collected exactly as prescribed in the Koran, and one tenth is applied to alms. Justice is administered by the same rule; and the use of wine and tobacco is as strictly forbidden, and almost as severely punished, as fraud and robbery. The king of Bokhara's title is Commander of the Faithful. Part of every day he teaches religion; most of the night he spends in prayers and vigils. He reads prayers in his mosque, and funeral service for the poor. The city of Khiva, surrounded with a ditch, clay wall, and rampart, has three gates, a castle, thirty mosques, a college, and ten thousand people. The neighborhood is filled with orchards, vineyards, and populous villages. The citizens have more natural genius than other Tartars, are fond of poetry and music; and it is said that "there seems to be a musical cadence in the very cries of the infants." The Khivans cultivate their grounds carefully, raise silkworms, and make coarse stuffs of cotton and of silk, and mixtures of the two. They are woven by the women in the houses. Their caravans carry to Orenburg wheat, raw cotton, silk and cotton stuffs, robes embroidered with gold, lamb-skins, &c. In return, they get European manufactures from the Russians, and horses, cattle, and sheep from the Turcomans. Khiva is, besides, a great slave market. Its annual foreign trade amounts to several hundred thousand dollars. The Turcomans inhabit all the eastern coast of the Caspian, and are divided into two parties - the Mangishlak near a fine harbor on the north of three thousand families; and the Astrabad, on the south, of twelve thousand families. They are more swarthy, smaller in size, but more square in the limbs than other Tartars; live in tents and caves, and are rude shepherds and plunderers. Their hordes are under Kirghis chiefs. They wear a coarse camels-hair cloth, Bokhara city has colleges fitted to hold sixty to and raise a little grain and rice, with melons and six hundred pupils each, with professors paid by the cucumbers. They live in felt tents, and dress in a king or by private donations. It is, indeed, said to mixed Tartar and Persian costume. Their chiefs have have eighty colleges, built of stone, with forty to three little authority. These ferocious and wild people have hundred pupils each, and a lecturer, who, as well as insinuated themselves into every part of Persia, Syria, the students, is paid by funds. It has one hundred and Asia Minor, where they may be seen in small and fifty thousand people. For commerce its accomparties, like the gypsies in Europe, picking up a pre-modations are numerous; it abounds in caravanserais, carious livelihood between the cities, and pasturing the vacant spots of soil, which abound in the Turkish and Persian empires. Their incursions have nearly depopulated North Persia, and rendered wide regions, once productive and populous, a desolate waste. It is elsewhere remarked, that the Turkish dynasty originated with Turcoman soldiers of fortune; and this rude race, under Oussun Hassan, founded an empire, which was called the Bayandoorian, or that "of the Turcomans of the White Sheep," and which, at the end of the fifteenth century, stretched from the Caspian to the Euphrates, and from Asia Minor to Beloochistan. Here were the Euthalites, or White Huns, (A. D. 425;) and farther south the Thaherian kingdom, in 865; where merchants of all nations meet with encouragement. Though the prince and the people are strictly orthodox Mussulmans, they fully tolerate all religions; they, however, put apostates to Christianity to death. The towns-people, or Tajiks, meaning tributaries, elsewhere noticed, seem to be a higher race. They lead a frugal life, living on rice, wheat, millet, and above all, fruits, such as melons, grapes, and apples, using much sesamum oil; tea flavored with anise, and grape juice, are the favorite drinks; and they intoxicate themselves with opium. Their clothes are mostly of silk and furs; the long robes of the women exhibit wide and varied plaitings; their hair is braided with |