Mongol

“ There is almost nothing of Mongolian manufacture,—just rugs and felt and saddles; and most of the work is done by the women. Nor does the Mongol till the soil; nothing is found growing near his yurt. Unlike the rice-eating people just across the Great Wall, his diet is almost wholly meat, and milk in some form or other,—cheese, curds, koumiss. The tea which he drinks in enormous quantities, so that even my "boy" opened his eyes, is brought by the Chinese traders.
The Mongol has great endurance; days in the saddle are nothing to him, and he sleeps as soundly on his camel as on the ground. ”

“ To the Europeans who cowered in horror before them, the squat, slit-eyed, brawny horsemen, “with faces like the snouts of dogs,” seemed as hideous and fearsome as demons, and as irresistible by ordinary mortals. They conquered China and set on the throne a Mongol dynasty. India also their descendants conquered, and there likewise erected a great Mongol empire. Persia in the same way fell into their hands. Their armies, every soldier on horseback, marched incredible distances and overthrew whatever opposed them. ”

“ At the sound of our unmuffled engine tent-doors became alive with gaping, bullet-headed Mongols, lower orders of whom, or their Chinese counterparts, came to life from beneath what had seemed to be mere bundles of felt rags and sheepskins on the cold hard ground, while the horses tethered about the camp with three feet hobbled together after the Mongol fashion made frantic and often successful efforts to escape from this new terror descending upon them. ”

“ The military enthusiasm in the Mongols is only dormant, not dead. We have seen, four or five years ago, with what alacrity Sang-ko-lin-sin, himself a Kalka Mongol, and one of the forty-eight kings, brought a force into the field to bar our entrance into Peking, and with what zeal and energy the Mongol troops acquitted themselves. Given a sufficient motive, and a man to lead them, and the shepherds could soon be put in motion again. By nature they are faithful to their chiefs, and their head lama has but to hold up his finger to stir up the sleeping prowess of the shepherds. ”

“ The obtuseness of the Mongol is enough to exhaust one's patience; you are no longer talking to the same man you knew in his native state, you have now to do with a child, full of curiosity, but incapable of understanding what you tell him. ”

“ Very rarely is a Mongol addicted to that. But they all smoke tobacco,—men, women, and children,—just as they all ride. To appreciate the Mongol you must see him on horseback,—and indeed you rarely see him otherwise, for he does not put foot to ground if he can help it. The Mongol without his pony is only half a Mongol, but with his pony he is as good as two men. It is a fine sight to see him tearing over the plain, loose bridle, easy seat, much like the Western cowboy, but with less sprawl. ”

“ It was not till we reached Urga, and met some of the better class, that we were able to distinguish what the Mongol costume really is, viz. a kind of loose dressing-gown reaching just below the knee, secured by an ornamented silver belt, a pair of baggy breeches stuffed into a pair of Chinese half-boots with felt soles, the whole surmounted by a broad-brimmed black felt hat, not unlike a sailor’s hat in shape, with long silk streamers. In winter the poor Mongol is smothered in sheepskins, the rich in furs from Siberia. ”

“ The Mongols are strangers to every kind of industry. Some felt carpets, some rudely tanned hides, a little needlework and embroidery, are exceptions not deserving of mention. On the other hand, they possess to perfection the qualities of a pastoral and nomad people. They have the senses of sight, hearing, and scent prodigiously developed. The Mongol is able to hear at a very long distance the trot of a horse, to distinguish the form of objects, and to detect the distant scent of flocks, and the smoke of an encampment. ”

“ CHAPTER V THE MONGOL CONQUEST OF CHINA While the Kins were absorbed in their contest with the Southern Chinese, they were oblivious of the growth of a new and formidable power on their own borders. The strength of the Mongols had acquired serious dimensions before the Kins realized that they would have to fight, not only for supremacy, but for their very existence. ”

“ It is with the remarkable career of this Mongol tribe that we are here particularly concerned.
The first of the Mongol chiefs whose name is preserved was Budantsar, who conquered the district between the Onon and the Kerulon, the earliest known home of the Mongol race. His descendants ruled over the clan until about the year 1135, when the first step of rebellion of the Mongols from the power of the Kins took place. This was under Kabul, a descendant of Budantsar. The war with the Kins continued under later leaders, of whom Yissugei captured a powerful Tartar chief named Temujin. ”

“ The fatherland proper of the Mongols is Mongolia (q.v.) . The sum total of the Mongol population under Chinese government is calculated at between two and three millions.
Generally the whole Mongol tribe may be divided into three branches: East Mongols, West Mongols and Buriats.
1. The East Mongols are divided into the Kalkas in the borders just mentioned, the Shara Mongols south of the Gobi along the Great Wall north-eastward to Manchuria, and lastly the Shiraigol or Sharaigol in Tangut and in northern Tibet. ”

“ Not only does the Mongol inspire you with admiration for his full-blooded, virile manhood, but also you like him because he likes you. He doesn't try to disguise the fact. There is a frank openness about his attitude which is wonderfully appealing, and I believe that the average white man can get on terms of easy familiarity, and even intimacy, with Mongols more rapidly than with any other Orientals.
Ude is the second telegraph station on the road to Urga. It has the honor of appearing on most maps of Mongolia and yet it is even less impressive than Panj-kiang. ”

“ The Mongol is perhaps above all others the type that perpetuates itself with most energy, and most obstinately resists the influence of foreign admixture continued through a long series of generations. We have found it in all its originality among the Cossacks, the Tatars, and every other people dwelling in the vicinity of the Kalmucks. Is it not then a most curious fact to see it vanish immediately under the influence of the Hindu blood, and produce instead of itself a thoroughly Caucasian type? ”

“ In India, whose most striking history in modern ages is Mongol, nearly all populations save Aryans and Semites are classified with Mongols. In Persia where the dynasty is Mongol that race is preponderant in places and important throughout the whole kingdom, [2] though in a minority. In Asia Minor the Mongol is master, for the Turk is still sovereign, and will be till a great rearrangement is effected.
Five groups of Mongols have made themselves famous in Europe: the Huns with their mighty chief Attila, the Bulgars, the Magyars, the Turks or Osmanli, and the Mongol invaders of Russia. ”

“ This Mongolian pride makes most Mongols, even those that try to be calm and well-balanced, to be pitied for their narrow-mindedness and petulance, in spite of all their other numerous good qualities. A Mongol has it in him to become a great leader like Genghis Khan ”

“ In this sense the word Mongol co-ordinates vast numbers of people, immense groups of men who are like one another in some traits, and widely dissimilar in others. It embraces the Chinese, the Coreans, the Japanese, the Manchus, the original Mongols with their near relatives the Tartar, or Turkish tribes which hold Central Asia, or most of it. Moving westward from China this term covers the Tibetans and with them all the non-Aryan nations and tribes until we reach India and Persia. ”

“ The Mongol is not inferior to the Nordic in intelligence, as is the Negro, but represents such a divergent type that the mixture between Nordics and Chinese or Japanese is not a good one. The overflow of these Asiatics into our Pacific Coast might have Mongolized the States there, had not the Amer [Pg 38] ican laboring man taken alarm and secured legislation forbidding their immigration. ”

“ The Mongol people, though in a sense slaves or serfs to their chiefs, really enjoy every liberty. They pay tithes to their lords of the produce of their herds, but there is no exaction, and no apparent discontent. The forty-eight chieftains enjoy the Chinese title of wang, i.e., prince, or king, and though tributary to the Emperor, they receive from him more than they pay. ”

“ Two commandants came now, one a Mongol, the other a Persian, who gave orders to follow the wishes of Zein ud din el Hafizzi, [266] and treat the inhabitants with justice. Soon after this Kita Buga arrived with a body of Mongols, safety was proclaimed at his coming, and respect for life and property. The citadel refused to surrender but was taken after sixteen days of siege labor. ”

“ In such characters it is impossible to recognise the Mongol, and the contrast is most striking with the neighbouring Ladakhi, true Mongols, as shown by their slightly raised superciliary arches, square and scarcely curved eyebrows, slant eyes, large prominent cheek-bones, lank and coarse hair, yellowish and nearly hairless body. ”

“ Living, therefore, in such [255] human pigsties, it is not to be wondered that the ordinary Mongol presents an extremely unsavoury appearance, so that it is often difficult to tell whether nature gave him a black or a white skin; for they are not a water-loving race, cleanliness evidently not being one of the appurtenances of godliness from Mongol-Buddhist point of view. ”

“ When Mongol princes granted life to a criminal he was either sent to the army, where he might die with some profit to his sovereign, or he was employed on a perilous mission, or was sent to some country with a death-dealing climate. ”

“ Now the fact of the matter is, these travellers know nothing about it. They may print as much as they like about the pastoral felicity of the simplicity of Mongol life; it is all humbug. Last night, two Mongols whom I know well, a petty chief named "Myriad Joy" and his scribe named "Mahabul" (I can't translate this last) , came into my room, and we had a tea-spree there and then. The two have been for fifteen days in Peking on Government duty, and last night their business was finished, and they were to mount their camels and head north this morning. ”

“ New lands were offered them in Asia. They became a weapon against the dwindling power of the Mongolian nomads, first in Turkestan and then across Siberia as far as the Amur.
The decay of Mongol energy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is very difficult to explain. Within two or three centuries from the days of Jengis and Timurlane Central Asia had relapsed from a period of world ascendancy to extreme political impotence. ”

“ The key to the distinctive characteristics of the North Mongols can be found in Sir Edwin Randall's definition of 'perseverance combined with shiftiness.' The Asiatic Yankees can turn, dodge and deviate while keeping a pre-determined aim steadily in view, and it is by no means improbable that Mongol influences have impressed similar peculiarities on the character of the northeastern Slavs. ”

“ The name is derived from that of the Ta-ta Mongols, who in the 5th century inhabited the north-eastern Gobi, and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, migrated southward, there founding the Mongol empire under Jenghiz Khan (q.v.) ”

“ Such are the dwellings of the Mongols, and so much are they attached to them, that even where they live in settled communities, as in Urga, where they have every facility for building wooden houses, they still stick to their yourts, merely enclosing them with a rough wooden paling. In the whole journey I did not meet with a single instance of a Mongol living in a house, or in anything else than a yourt or girai. The Mongols are very superstitious, and certain rules of etiquette have to be observed in riding up to and entering a yourt. ”

“ One cannot travel in Mongolia, amongst a pastoral and nomad population, without one’s mind involuntarily going back to the time of the first patriarch, whose pastoral life had so close a relation with the manners and customs which we still find amongst the Mongol tribes. ”

“ The order to slay the Tangut sovereign and the people of the city was carried out strictly, and the kingdom of Tangut was added to the Mongol Empire.
“Since the beginning of time,” writes the Chinese historian, “no barbarous people have ever been so mighty as the Mongols are at present. They destroy empires as a man plucks out herbs by the roots, such is the power in their possession. Why does Heaven let them have it?”
The remains of the great Khan were taken back to his birthplace. Lest his death might be known the troops who conducted them slew every person whom they met as they traveled. ”

“ As for southern Europeans, have you not observed that nearly all of them possess brachycephalic skulls, indicating the influence upon them of Mongolian invasions thousands of years ago and supplying, perhaps, a very substantial argument that, if we find the faintly Mongoloid type of emigrant repugnant to us, we can never expect to assimilate the pure-bred Mongol. ”

“ Mongol seems to approach the nearest to the proper name of this race. The Chinese call them Mong-kou; the Mondchoux, their neighbors, Monggo or Monggou. They called themselves also Beda. This fact seems to have been proved by M. Schmidt against the French Orientalists. See De Brosset. ”

“ The women are far less numerous than the men, a fact which is accounted for by the celibacy of the lamas. The Mongol is an excellent father, and passionately fond of his children. Whenever we gave them anything they always divided it equally among all the members of their family, were it a lump of sugar, and the portion of each individual only a crumb. The elders are always held in great respect, especially old men, whose opinions and commands are implicitly followed. ”