MONGOLIA, in the east of Asia, stretches from Siberia in the north, towards the Great Wall of China in the south, and from Dauria and Manchuria in the east, to the Altai and the sources of the Irtish, Tian Shan, and Eastern Turkestan in the west. In the centre of this region is the desert of Gobi, called Sha-tno or Sand Sea by the Chinese. The country north of the Gobi, from the Altai, Tungnu, and the Saian mountains in the west, to Manchuria in the east, is called Kalka, comprising as its chief districts, Urga (Kurd), Uliasutai, and Kobdo. In a N.W. direction from Gobi, between Tian Shan and the Altai, is Sungaria. Population, 2,000,000; area, 1,400,000 square miles. Mongolia populations extend in the south over the Great Wall, to the basin of the Koko Nor or Blue Lake, and thence range due west over Tangut and the northern border of Tibet. There are Mongol likewise in Turkestan, in the territories of Semeryetshensk, Alatan, and Semipalatinsk, in the south of the province of Tomsk, with a more populous region due north to Siberia, round the Baikal lake.
This is a prolific region, and has given forth the warriors who extinguished Christianity in Asia and Africa, and nearly also in Europe, who con quered China and India, and held Russia for nigh two hundred years. They have been known to Europe as the Hun, Turk, Tartar or Tata, Kit n, Mongol, and Manchu. As known in Asia, the branches of the race comprise the Buriat, Char Aimak, Hazara, Kalmuk, Kazak, Kerait, Kip chak, Koshod or Eleuth. But, as a whole, the race may be classed as East and West Mongols and Buriat.
The East Mongols are divided into the Kalka, also the Shara Mongols, south of the Gobi, along the Great Wall north-eastward to Manchuria ; and lastly, the Shiraigol in Tangut and Northern Tibet.
• The West Mongol clans are the Kalmuk, Oelod, Oirad or Dorbon Oirad.
The Dorbon Oirad clans are the Sungar, Torgod, Khoshod, and Dorbod.
The ruthless conqueror Temuchin, afterwards known as Chengiz Khan, was a Mongol, born on the banks of the Onon, A.D. 1162.
The Mongol are called Kalmuk in Herat and Afghanistan. Those of Kabul and Persia are the Char Aimak and the Hazara. Aimak is a Mon
golian, Manchu, and Turk word, meaning tribe. They dwell to the north of Herat and Kabul, in a country which in some places assumes a mountainous, in others a hilly character, and in some parts is well watered, in others bleak and rough, forming a watershed of two natural divi sions, from the west of which flow the Murghab, the Tajeud, and the Farrah-Rud, and from the east, the Helmand, the south-,•astern feeders of the Oxus, and the north-western feeders of the Kabul river.
The Tibetan and Nepalese are a Mongol race. The Dharma race, occupying the Dharma pass lead ing into Garhwal, are said to be the descendants of a body of Mongol whom Timer left behind him in Kamaon. They practise divination, taking their omens from the warm liver of the sacrificed sheep. They eat the yak and the cow, inter their dead for a time, and then, in the month Kartik, they exhume and burn them.
The great aboriginal stock of the inhabitants of the mountains,.east of the river Kali, as in Nepal, is Mongol. The fact is inscribed in plain charac ters upon their faces, forms, and languages.
Ethnologists give to the race very extended possessions. Mongol is said to be from Mung, brave. It was softened by the Persians into Moghul, under which term, as known to Europe, Timur's descendants ruled in Northern India from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
Dr. Latham regards the indigenous Americans as Mongols who have emigrated direct from Eastern Asia.
About two or three millions of the population of Mongolia are directly under Chinese rule, but among Mongoloid races under that empire ethno logists include also the people of Formosa, the Chinese, the Manchu, Tibetans, Tungus, and Uzbak.
Alexander Castren arranges them into Mongol proper, Tungus, Turk, Finn, and Samoyed.
Peschel, adopting the opinions of Moritz Wagner, Dr. Latham, and Mr. A. R. Wallace, designates the following nations as Mongoloid, viz. :— The Aleutian Islands are a volcanic band running in a regular course between Alaska and Kamtschatka. Their inhabitants are a Mongoloid race, and their children are married in their tenth