EXTENT OF THE MOGUL EMPIRE-ITS MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT. CHAPTER CCXVII. General Views-Military Affairs - Divisions 425 the present century, (A. D. 1803,) the British nation | king's sons. There were sixty-six of these bodies of took under their immediate sovereignty Agra and Delhi, five thousand. The captains of one hundred were of pensioning off the king of Delhi, the last representa- eleven ranks, and paid accordingly, from five hundred tive of a mighty race. Thus terminated the empire to seven hundred rupees, or about two hundred and fifty of the Grand Moguls in India; though the name to three hundred and fifty dollars per month. Every King of Delhi is still given to the lineal descendant commander had, also, half as many infantry as cavof the Grand Mogul -a pensioner of the British alry of the infantry one fourth were bundookchean, government who resides at Delhi. that is, "matchlock-men," the rest archers, except a few who were carpenters, blacksmiths, water-carriers, and pioneers. The trooper supplied his own horse on entering the service; afterward, in case of accident, the government supplied it, and took half its value out of the pay by quarterly stoppages. This may suffice as a specimen of these curious and minute regulations recorded in the "Mirror of Acbar," already mentioned. The whole army was divided into twelve divisions: each division did a year's duty in rotation. A body of twelve thousand bundookchean, was always employed about the royal person. A thou sand porters guarded the palace, who were paid from two dollars and three quarters to seven dollars and a half per month. Another thousand guarded its environs. Several thousand bearers, some of whom could carry enormous weights, did service at the palace. Another thousand men were employed as spies, couriers, and errand men, and also in nice and difficult undertakings. Besides all these, were the gladiators, performers of feats, wrestlers, and the slaves. As Acbar "did not approve of giving these unfortunate men the opprobrious name of slaves," they were called "dependants." They were of five kinds-infidels taken in battle, and bought and sold as common slaves; those who of themselves submitted to bondage; children born of slaves; thieves, become the slaves of the owners of the goods they had stolen; and fifthly, persons sold for the price of blood — that is, for homicide. THE Mogul empire, in 1725, included all of India from Afghanistan, or Candahar, Beloochistan, and Sindh, to Assam and Arakan, and from Badakshan, Siapouch, Thibet, and Nepaul, to the ocean, except the Malabar coast, and the triangular territory south of the Gavery. From Cabul, the chief town in the extreme north-west, to Pondicherry, in the south-east, the distance is nearly eighteen hundred miles, or as far as from Bangor, in Maine, to the capital of Texas. Its width from north-east to south-west varied from seven hundred to fourteen hundred miles; in all about one million square miles, with from eighty to ninety millions of inhabitants. Aurungzebe's treasury was supposed to equal four or five hundred millions of dollars. The regular annual revenue of Acbar, from twelve fifteenths of the empire, was about ninety millions of Sicca rupees, or forty-five to fifty millions of dollars. The military establishment was under fixed and regular pay, and the nicest discipline and regulations. It was a maxim of Acbar, which he carried into every department of his concerns, that "true greatness gives attention to the minutia of business, as well as to capital affairs." In this, and some other things, Napoleon seems to have imitated him. The militia, or Zemindary troops, numbered, says the "Mirror of Acbar," four millions four hundred thousand. Some of the cavalry had their horses marked, and a description taken in writing of the persons of the men, and these troopers took rank of the others. Their pay was from seven to eleven dollars a month. Every thing that regarded the horses, their feeding, classification, menage, &c., was minutely regulated. The Moguls had a body of fifty thousand of these horsemen, near the seat of government. The elephants, of which there were seventeen or eighteen hundred, were divided also into seven kinds, and the details of their feeding, care, the pay of their keepers, &c., were regulated with the utmost exactness. yearly allowance to each elephant was from three and a half dollars to more than sixteen and a half dollars. The The officers were commanders of ten, and so up to ten thousand; their commands increasing by hundreds from four hundred to five thousand, below that by fifties and twenty-fives, and below ninety, by tens. Many of the commanders of above five thousand men were the The daily pay of these was from one and a quarter cents to fifty cents. They were formed into divisions, and committed to the care of skilful persons, to be instructed in various arts and occupations. "His majesty," adds the "Mirror," "out of his humanity and discernment, promotes these and other inferior classes of people, according to their merits; so that it is not uncommon to see a foot soldier raised to the dignity of an omrah of the empire." It is said that the emperor had a body-guard of Arab women, who were extremely well disciplined, and never quitted the seraglio: amongst them were established all the different degrees of rank which obtained among the men. Besides the army at Delhi, there was always a very considerable one at Agra, the other capital. Exclusive of these, the smallest village had two horse and six foot soldiers, who acted as the police, or spies of government, and sent an account of whatever was transacted. Every town had a garrison. In a word, each of the rajahs, who were so many petty chiefs, or feudatories of the empire, always, in later times, supported a numerous body of troops ready to march.* One of them kept on foot, in the early part 426 PUBLIC SCHOOLS-BRANCHES TAUGHT. of the last century, an army of fifty thousand cavalry | and two hundred thousand infantry. The emperor maintained five hundred elephants: his arsenals contained an immense quantity of ammunition. Acbar's empire was divided into fifteen soobahs, or viceroyalties, with each its soobahdar, or viceroy, viz.: Allahabad, Agra, Oude, Ajmeer, Ahmedabad, Bahar, Bengal, Delhi, Cabul, Lahore, Moultan, Malwa, Berar, Khandees, and Ahmednagur. The first twelve of these were subdivided into one hundred and five sircars, or provinces, and two thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven kusbahs, townships, or counties. Remains of an Observatory at Delhi. It is said there are more than a score of cities, in Hindostan, which bear, in their decay, the evidence that they were once royal capitals. Delhi, one of the capitals of the Grand Moguls, was formed of the old city with its walls, the new city at a short distance, and the space between, enclosed by two walls. Here, in Tamerlane's time, was the splendid "Palace of the thousand columns," built by a famous Indian king. But the present Delhi is at another place, and was founded by Acbar, whose structures are noticed in our history of Hindostan. It once extended twenty miles, and a French writer, in the last century, estima. ted its inhabitants at one million seven hundred thousand. The imperial palace is of red granite, of tasteful architecture, one thousand yards long by six hundred broad, and cost more than five millions of dollars. The stables will hold ten thousand horses. There are besides many relics of ancient grandeur. Agra was made the seat of the empire by Acbar, and a most magnificent city. He here built his palace, a "fort of red stone, the like of which no traveller has ever beheld." "It contains above five hundred stone buildings, of surprising construction, in the Bengal, Guzerat, and other styles; and the artificers have decorated them with beautiful paintings. At the eastern gate are carved, in stone, two elephants, with their riders, of exquisite workmanship." This fortified palace is still to be seen, extending in a crescent shape along the river side. On the opposite bank were the four gardens a monument of Humaioon's magnificence. At Agra also is the mosque of Acbar, said to be more splendid than that of Solyman at Constantinople; also the mosque of Aurungzebe, with its hundred columns; besides other monuments of former greatness. The following were Acbar's "regulations for teaching in the public schools. The boys are first taught to read the letters of the Persian alphabet separately, with the different accents, or marks of pronunciation; and his majesty has ordered that as soon as they have a perfect knowledge of the alphabet, which is generally acquired in two days, they shall be exercised in combinations of two letters; and after they have learnt those for a week, there is given to them a short line of prose or verse, containing a religious or moral sentiment, wherein those combinations continually occur. They must strive to read this themselves, with a little occasional assistance from the teacher. "For some days the master proceeds with teaching a new hemistich or distich; and in a very short time the boys learn to read with fluency. The teacher gives the young scholar four exercises daily, viz.: the alphabet, the combinations, a new hemistich or distich, and a repetition of what he had read before. By this method, what used to take up years is now accomplished in a few months, to the astonishment of every one. "The sciences are taught in the following order: morality, arithmetic, accounts, agriculture, geometry, longimetry, astronomy, geomancy, economics, the art of government, physic, logic, natural philosophy, abstract mathematics, divinity, and history. Every individual is educated according to his circumstances or particular views of life. From these regulations, the schools, adds Abul Fazil, have obtained a new form, and the colleges are become the lights and ornaments of the empire." A great number of religions prevailed in the empire of the Grand Moguls, the chief of which were the Brahminic and Buddhist, described in the history of Hindostan and Thibet; the Mahometan, described under Arabia; and the Parsee, or Gheber, described under the history of Persia. Supernatural powers were claimed for the emperor Acbar, who was in reality a man of profound intelligence, and liberal in his religious views, as may be seen in our history of Hindostan. The most compendious method of conveying an idea of the complicated domestic machinery of the vast establishment of the Mogul court, is to enumerate the heads under which the "Mirror of Acbar" records the various regulations he adopted. Here minute directions are found written for the household, royal treasuries, jewel office, mint, coins, seraglio, equipages for journeys, encampments of the army, illuminations, ensigns of royalty, royal seals, water coolers, kitchen, lent days, prices of provisions, printing, perfume office, flowers, wardrobe, shawls; prices of manufactures; library and calligraphic rooms, painting gallery; armory, weapons and armor-of which some eighty different kinds are enumerated-artillery, firearms and their manufacture; elephant stables and their attendance, one hundred and one elephants for his majesty's riding, horse stables, horse bazaars, camel stables, ox stables, mules; manner in which his majesty spends his time, times of admission to the royal presence, forms of salutation; spiritual guidance, including miracles-such as breathing on persons, to cure them, and into cups of water, to endow them with virtue, &c. ; religious discipline; musters, that of elephants on Saturday, when they were most minutely examined; that of horses, on Sunday; of camels, mules, and oxen, on Monday; of soldiers, on Tuesday; the meeting of the council, on Wednesday; public administration of justice, on Thursday; relaxation in the harem, on Friday; damage to animals, regulations for the public fights of animals, regulations for buildings. SERAGLIO-FESTIVALS, FAIRS, GAMES. Among other things are also the regulations of festivals, alms, weighing the royal person, holidays, marriages, hunting, hawking, games, tribute and taxes, division of lands, revenues, collections, settlements; also instructions to the viceroy, to the commissioners for pronouncing sentence, to the judges, the chief of police, the collectors of revenues, the registrars and the treasurers. The scope of this History affords room for a particular notice of but a few of these matters. The seraglio was an enclosure of such immense extent as to contain a separate room for every one of the women, whose number exceeded five thousand. They were divided into companies, and a proper employment assigned to each individual. Over each of these companies a woman was appointed as duenna, and one was selected for the command of the whole, that the affairs of the harem might be conducted with the same regularity and good government as the other departments of the state. 427 The deer were moon, in the front of the palace. The emperor was the inventor of several useful machines; of one for polishing muskets; of a cart containing a corn-mill, which was worked by the motion of the carriage; of a carriage with several apartments and a hot bath, all drawn by a single elephant, extremely useful and refreshing on a journey; also several hydraulic machines, some of which were so adjusted that a single ox would at once draw water out of two wells, and at the same time turn a millstone. Pensions were given, in money and land, for subsistence, to the learned and their scholars; to those who had retired from the world; to the needy who were not able to help themselves; also to the descendants of great families fallen into decay, who, from false shame, did not follow any occupation for support. Every lady received a salary equal to her merit-as the king directed. from one thousand six hundred and ten to one thousand and twenty-eight rupees per month. At the grand gate was an officer to take account of the receipts and expenditures of the harem, in money and goods. When any lady wanted any thing, she applied to the treasurer of the harem; and he, regulating the requisition according to the stipend of the lady, sent a memorandum to the officer at the gate, who transmitted it to the treasurer of the king's palace, who paid the money. The ancient festivals were rejected, or continued, as the king directed. After establishing a festival, he endeavored to make it of the greatest possible use, embracing every occasion of distributing largesses. With this view, he adopted the ancient Persian festivals of Giamschid and others, which were used as the means of bestowing donations. There was the new year festival, on the first of March, for nineteen days, during which immense sums of money and valuable articles were distributed; the kettle-drum was beat every three hours, accompanied by musical instruments. For three successive nights there were illuminations and The inside of the harem was guarded by women, fireworks. There was also a festival for each month. and about the gate of the royal apartments were The merchants' wives held fairs on the ninth day placed the most confidential. Immediately on the out-after the festivals, and here the women of quality purside of the gate, watched the eunuchs of the harem, chased. The monarch attended these fairs in disguise. and at a proper distance were stationed the rajpoots, Afterwards, there were fairs for the men. These the beyond whom were the porters of the gates, and, on the king attended, and any one might then have free outside of the enclosure, the omrahs; the "detached" access to him, and the wronged receive justice. and other troops mounted guard according to their rank. If the beguins, or wives of the omrahs, or other women of fashion, wished to pay their compliments, they notified it outside, and their request was sent in, in writing, to the officers of the palace, after which they were permitted to enter the harem: some had leave to make a visit of a month. The monarch collected, in a kind of painting gallery, a number of artists, who might vie with each other in their productions. Every week the superintendents brought to his majesty the performance of each artist; and, in proportion to their merits, they were honored with premiums, and their salaries increased. A list of eighteen eminent artists is given in the "Mirror." Much attention was paid to the illumination of manuscripts-which was brought to a high degree of perfection—and also to the edges and binding. By command of the emperor, portraits were made of all the principal officers of the court, which, being bound up together, formed a thick volume, "wherein the past are kept in lively remembrance, and the present are insured immortality." Public spectacles were encouraged 66 as a means of bringing together people of all ranks, who, by partaking in the general diversion, may become acquainted, and enter into friendship and good fellowship with each other." In the public fights of animals, deer were pitted against each other; they were classified, registered, and their qualities betted on. Buffaloes, bulls, rams, goats, and cocks were also pitted. The fights came off at night, on the fourteenth day of the There was a curious custom of weighing the king twice a year-once on his birthday, against various articles, twelve times; and these were then given away. The princes were also weighed on their birthdays, and the things in the opposite balance distributed. Birds were let fly on these occasions, and animals were given away, the number corresponding to the years of the prince. In marriages, the emperor made the consent of the bride and bridegroom equally necessary with that of their parents. He disapproved of the marriage of parties of different sects in religion, or of ill-assorted dispositions; he held it sinful that mere children should marry, as is sometimes the custom in the East, because it would make discord; that persons of near affinity should intermarry, and that excessive marriage gifts or settlements should be made. He also disapproved of polygamy. The customs in the celebration of marriage varied in different parts of the empire. The Hindoos had several games of ball, at which the emperor was very expert, especially in those which were played on horseback. Other games, and among them cards, are enumerated, as in use. In the hunting expeditions, the "detached" soldiery surrounded the spot that contained the game; at the distance of eight or ten miles from this was the station of the kour, or king's suite, and beyond that were the omrah, or commander-in-chief, and others of rank; the whole being enclosed by the guards. In the enclosure that contained the game some principal omrahs and servants moved about gently in quest of 428 THIBET-GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION. sport, and when they discovered any, pointed it out to his majesty. Sometimes the lion was caught in a trap baited with a kid, for which he entered it, and the door was made to shut upon him. Sometimes straw was made sticky with some glutinous substance, and a sheep fastened near, in coming to get which the lion's claws became entangled, and he was rendered harmless, and taken. Sometimes a man was mounted on a large buffalo, and caused him to toss the lion till he was killed. Several instances are enumerated of Acbar's killing lions, in hunting, with his own hand. The mode of hunting elephants was very curious. Leopards were taken in a pitfall, with a spring-door. They were tamed and trained to hunt. Acbar had one which used to follow him about, without collar or chain, like a dog. A thousand hunting leopards accompanied the emperor to the chase, each with its attendant. Some were carried to the field on horses or mules, others on carriages or in palanquins. Sometimes they showed the leopard the game, and he crept along from his con cealment, and caught it. Sometimes he was put in a covert, or behind a screen, and the deer frightened toward him, when he sprang out, and seized it. Dogs were also used, and deer taught to hunt deer, by putting a slip-nouse on the horns of a tame animal, by which the wild one was entangled. Sometimes four hundred people hunted together; oxen were taught to act as stalking-horses, and moved so as to conceal the hunters, till the deer were come up with. In hunting the wild buffalo, the tame female was used as a decoy; sometimes the buffaloes were driven from the water into snares, on the bank. Six kinds of hawks were used in hunting. The falconers were generally from Cashmere. Upon the whole, it may be remarked, in closing this notice of the empire of the Grand Moguls, that Hindostan seems never to have been happier than under the vigorous but well-meaning, orderly, and generally benign, administrations of Acbar and Aurungzebe. Chibet. Charac THE secluded country of Thibet is the Switzerland of Asia on a scale commensurate with the comparative size of Asia and Europe. Her Alps are the mighty Himmaleh on the south, the Belur and Mustag on the north-west, and the Kuenlun on the north. The passes of the Himmaleh are guarded by the Chinese and the obstacles of nature. It is difficult to breathe the rarefied air of these terrific heights. No army could penetrate into the country, without exposure to destruction, even before meeting an enemy. The only beast of burden in these regions is the sheep, which clambers where no other animal than the goat can find a footing. The adventurous traveller must stop, every few steps, to take breath; blood often starts from his mouth, eyes, and nose, and the pain sometimes amounts to agony. "On reaching the highest point," says a traveller over one of these passes, "the country looked like Lanarkshire, in Scotland, and, had there been heather instead of stone and brown grass, it would have resembled a Highland moor. The view, more ex tensive than beautiful, was cloudless. Right in front stretched a dreary plain, shrubless, treeless, and houseless, terminated, along its whole northern side, at about twenty miles off, by a low range of rounded brown hills, utterly without tree or jutting rock, but very much broken into ravines and perpendicular faces. Travellers were passing over the plain, to and from the pass, with loaded sheep; but no cattle were visible at pasture." Such is the scene presented in looking over this mountain wall from the Niti pass, leading to Bootan, and inaccessible, by reason of cold and snow, during eight months of the year. Of the northeastern extremity, European travellers have caught some faint glimpses; but, on the whole, these regions are almost unknown to Europeans. The Chinese government divides Thibet into five provinces, viz., Kam, on the east, which contains the sources of the Irawaddy and Cambodjia, and lies south of the Koko-nor Mongols; Ouei, containing Lassa, the residence of the grand lama, and the spiritual capital of Tartary, bounded south by the Sanpoo, or Burrampooter; Thsang, having Nepaul and part of Assam on the south, and the Khor Katchi Mongols on the north; Ngari, with the commercial emporium of Ladak for its capital, and the Punjaub, west; and Balti, a triangular province, with Cashmere and Cabul, south-west, Nanloo north-east, and Ngari southeast. Thibet has many lakes, some of considerable size, to several of which Hindoo pilgrims resort, as to the holiest spots of earth. Lake Palti is a kind of ditch, five miles broad, surrounding an island two miles in diameter. The largest lake, Terkiri, is seventy by twenty-five miles; it is in the north-east corner of Quei. Some sixteen kinds of quadrupeds are found wild, among which are the musk-deer, three kinds of jerboas, two species of fox, the hare, yak, ox, and the argali sheep. The beautiful fur, beneath the long hair of the Thibet goat, the smallest and most beautiful of the goat species, furnishes the material for the famous Cashmere shawls. The tail of the yak, a flowing mass of glossy, waving hair, is a considerable article of trade, of very ancient use as a brush for dispersing insects, and is often represented as a royal emblem on Persian and Egyptian monuments. Gold is found nearly pure, in the form of dust, and sometimes in pieces of large size. Copper, lead, cinnabar, and borax, are also part of the resources of this primitive country, which, notwithstanding serious obstacles, carries on considerable commerce with Hindostan, China, and Russia. Crude borax, gold, shawl-wool, and sheep-skins, are exchanged for woollens, cottons, silks, tobacco, spices, toys, tea, and porcelain. According to official Chinese geography, the whole of Thibet contains sixteen towns. Lassa, the capital, POLYGAMY-DRESS-THE KIANG. 429 the Rome of Central Asia, is in a large plain, in | pair of huge boots: silks and furs are worn by the rich. Ouei it is a small city, but its houses are of stone, A fine white silken scarf is an invariable present on and are very spacious and lofty. It is inhabited occasions of ceremony, accompanied by a complimenchiefly by merchants and artisans. In the surround- tary letter. The ordinary buildings are very rude, and ing plain are twenty-two temples, all richly adorned; quite unornamented, consisting of rough stones withand seven miles east of the capital is the "holy moun- out cement; but the religious edifices, uniting palace, tain," or Pootala, the "Vatican" of the Grand Lama. temple, and monastery, display extraordinary splendor. His temple-palace is said to be three hundred and sixty-seven feet high, to contain ten thousand apartments, filled with images in gold and silver, and to have its roof richly gilded. Its exterior is decorated with numberless pyramids of gold and silver. The state apartments are at the top of the edifice, which is seven stories high. Numerous priests and monks are maintained at the expense of government, and by presents which they receive. The Chinese have their military commander and civil governor at Lassa. The villages and monasteries, it may here be remarked, are generally situated about half way up the insulated rocks which diversify the table plain of Thibet. The rock above shelters from the cold blasts; that below offers channels to carry off the melted snow, while in the heart of the rock are excavated granaries and magazines. CHAPTER CCXIX. 3000 B. C. to A. D. 1849. History of Thibet Early Thibetans → THIRTY centuries before the Christian era, when the first Chinese colonies descended from the Kuenlun Mountains, which separate Thibet from Tartary, they found the Sanmiao, a Thibetan people, inhabiting the banks of the Liang River, which runs through the province of Hoo kooang into Lake Toong ting, in Central China. Even in times of a still higher antiquity, Thibetan communities seem to have occupied the western part of China as far south as the Nan ling Mountains, and as far east as the province of Honan. The Sanmiao were driven by the above-mentioned Chinese colonies into the mountains around Lake Kokonor, west of the provinces of Chensi and Szutchooan. Indeed, they long occupied the west part of the former province, which was not brought under the Chinese dominion till the second century B. C. Gertope is the chief market of the shawl-wool; it is rather a camp than a town, consisting merely of black tents made of blankets fastened to stakes by ropes of hair, and adorned at the tops with flags formed of shreds of colored silk and cloth. It is in the midst of a vast plain, scattered about upon which may be continually seen some forty thousand sheep, goats, and yaks. Ladak is the seat of a considerable trade, being the place of transit for the caravans which traverse both sides of the valley of the Indus, from Thibet, Hindostan, and Cabul. The people of this region held themselves independent of China, till she assigned it to the Grand Lama, out of respect to whom they abstain from the marauding habits which they previously prac-siderable. Their manners and customs were the same tised, but require that all the shawl-wool exported to Cashmere shall pass by the Ladak route. The Thibetans are of a mild temper and frank manners: the men are stout, and have something of the Mongol aspect: the complexion of the women is brown, enlivened by a mixture of fresh red. Their amusements are chiefly chess, which they thoroughly understand, and the pageantries of a splendid worship. Polygamy of a singular kind exists; all the brothers of a family having the same wife, chosen by the eldest. Marriages are not solemnized by the priests, nor are they attended with much ceremony: if the lover's proposals are approved by the parents of the female, they proceed with their daughter to the house of their intended son-in-law- the friends and acquaintances of the parties forming the marriage train. Three days are passed in the amusements of dancing and music, and when these have elapsed, the marriage is considered as concluded. The Thibetans are temperate, and even abstemious: their chief beverage is the tea-porridge of Tartary, a kind of pap of flour, salt, butter, and tea leaves. An old traveller says that they have substituted the drinking out of the skulls of their masters for their ancient and abominable custom of eating their relatives who died of old age; but this needs confirmation. The national dress is of thick woollen cloth, and prepared sheep-skins, with the fleece turned inwards: the religious orders wear a vest of woollen with red sleeves, a large mantle resembling a plaid, with a kilt and a The descendants of the Sanmiao received the name of Kiang from the Chinese-a name they afterwards applied to the whole Thibetan race. They led a nomadic life, and had numerous flocks; they also cultivated portions of land, but the produce was not con as those of the barbarians of the north: they lived in complete anarchy, and knew no other law or right than that of the strongest. Hence their country bore the name, among the Chinese, of Land of Demons, or Western Barbarians. Like all the rest of the Thibetans, the Kiang pretended to be descended from a large species of ape, and the people of the country still glory in this origin, and boast of being the most ancient of the human race. Middle Thibet is still called Ape Land, and a writer who lived long among the Mongols declares that the features of the Thibetans much resemble those of the ape, especially the countenances of the old men, sent as religious missionaries, who traverse Mongolia in every direction. These vaunt their apish parentage, and are quite pleased with what might seem the ugliness of their faces. The Kiang were often at war with China during the first two dynasties; but when, in 1125 B. C., Wouwang overthrew the Chang dynasty, their chief furnished him auxiliaries. Yet for more than a century they sent no embassy to China, although vassals. Hence, about the middle of the tenth century, the emperor attacked and defeated them; since which time they ceased not to disquiet the frontier, till effectually checked or driven off, about 250 B. C. In the third century B. C., a Thibetan tribe, called the Yuetchi, mingled with a blond race called the Oosun, both leading a nomad life, and rich in cattle, inhabited the country between the snowy ridge of |