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ASIA The result of trans-border surveys to the north and vest of between the Turkman of Central Asia and the Teutonic races of India has been to establish the important geographical fact that it Europe, based on a similarity of national customs and immemorial is by two gateways only, one on the north-west and one on the usage. Evidence of an original affinity between Turkman and west of India, that the Central Asiatic tides of immigration have Rajput has also been found in the mutual possession by these races iiowed into the peninsula. The Kabul valley indicates the north- of a ruddy skin, so that as ethnographical inquiry advances the western entrance, and Makran indicates that on the west. By the Turk appears to recede from his Mongolian affinities and to apKabul valley route, which includes at its head the group of passes proach the Caucasian. Turks and Mongols alike were doubtless across the Hindu Kush which extend from the Khawak to the included under the term Scyth by the ancients, and as Tatars by Kaoshan, all those Central Asian hordes, be they Sacm, Yuchi, more modern writers, insomuch that the Turkish dynasty at Delhi, Jats, Goths, or Huns, who were driven towards the rich plains founded by Babar, is usually termed the Mogul dynasty, although of the south, entered the Punjab. Some of them migrated from there can be no distinction traced between the terms Mogul and districts which belong to Eastern Asia, but none of them pene- Mongol. The general results of recent inquiry into the ethnotrated into India by eastern passes. Such tides as set towards the graphy of Afghanistan is to support the general correctness of Himalaya broke against their farther buttresses, leaving an inter- Bellew’s theories of the origin of Afghan races. The claim of the esting ethnographical flotsam in the northern valleys; but they Durani Afghan to be a true Ben-i-Israel is certainly in no way never overflowed the Himalayan barrier. And more recently most weakened by any recent investigation. The influence of Greek of the historic invasions of India from Central Asia followed the culture in Northern India is now fully recognized, and the distribution of Greek colonies previous to Alexander’s time is attested route which leads directly from Kabul to Peshawur and Delhi. By the western gates of Makran prehistoric irruptions from by recent practical knowledge of the districts they were said to Mesopotamia broke into the plains of Lower Sind, and either passed occupy. The habitat of the Nysfeans, and the identity of certain on towards the central provinces of India or were absorbed in the tribes of Kafiristan with the descendants of these pre-Alexandrian highlands south of Kalat. lii later centuries the Arabs from the colonists from the west, are also well established. To this day west reached the valley of the Indus by this western route, and ] hymns are unwittingly sung to Bacchus in the dales and glens of there established a dynasty which lasted for 300 years. The Kafiristan. The ethnographical status of the mixed tribes of the identification of existing peoples with the various Scythic, mountains that lie between Chitral and the Peshawur plains has Persian, and Arab races who have passed from High Asia into been fairly well fixed by Biddulph, and much patient inquiry in the Indian borderland, has opened up a vast field of ethnographical the vast fields of Baluchistan by Mockler, Tate, and others has inquiry which has hardly yet found adequate workers for its resulted in quite a new appreciation of the tribal origin of the investigation. To such fields may be added the yet more com- great conglomeration of Baluch peoples. plicated problems of those reflex waves which flowed backwards The recent bibliography of Asia, including the works of travellers from India into the border highlands. and explorers since 1880, is voluminous. It is impossible to refer By far the greater part of the population of Asia is Mongolian. to all that has been written in the Survey Reports and peCent In the form of nomadic and comparatively peaceful communities Gazetteers of the Government of India, or in the records Bibliothey extend through the ice-bound steppes of Siberia and the of the Royal Asiatic Society, or the Asiatic Society, graphy sterile sands of the central deserts to the plains north of the ! Bengal; but amongst the more important popular 0f Asia. Caspian, and through Eastern Asia, China, and Tibet to Burma | works are the following:— and Northern India. We now know that to the Tibeto-Chinese modifications of the pure Mongolian type all the Eastern Burmese Richthofen. “ China, Japan, and Korea,” vol. iv. Jour. tribes—Chins, Kachins, Shans, &c.—belong (as indeed do the R.G.S., China. Berlin, 1877.—Regel. “ Upper Oxus,” vol. i. Burmese themselves), and that a cognate race occupies the Himalaya Proc. R. G. S., 1879.—Bellew, Dr. Afghanistan and the Afghans. to the eastern limits of Kashmir. London, 1879.—Prjevalski. “ Explorations in Asia.” See vols. Some new light has been thrown on the connexion between the i. ii. v. ix. and xi. of the Proc. R. G. S., 1879-1889.—Blunt, W. Tibetan race and certain tribes of Central India, the Bhils and “A Visit to Jebel Shammar,” vol. ii. Proc. R. G. S., 1880.—Gill, Kols; and it seems more probable that these tribes are the remnants Captain. The River of Golden Sand. London, 1880.—Temple, of a Mongolian race which first displaced a yet earlier Negroid Sir R. “Central Plateau of Asia,” vol. iv. Proc. R. G. S., 1882.— population, and was then itself shouldered out by a Caucasian Baker. “ A Journey of Exploration in Western Ssu-Chuan,” irruption, than that they entered India by any of the northern vol. i. Supplementary Papers R. G. S., 1882-1885.—Wilson, Sir C. passages within historic times. Mongolian settlements have lately “Notes on Physical and Historical Geography of Asia Minor,” been found very much farther extended into the border countries vol. vi. Proc. R. G. S., 1884.—Walker, General. “Asiatic Exof North-west India than has been hitherto recognized. The plorers of the Indian Survey,” vol. viii. Proc. R. G. S., 1885.— Mingals, who, conjointly with the Brahuis, occupy the hills south Beal. Buddhist Records of the Western World. Boston, 1885.— of Kalat to the limits of the Rajput province of Lus Bela, claim Doughty. Travels in Northern Arabia. Cambridge, 1886.— Mongolian descent, and traces of a Mongolian colony have been Travels in Arabia Deserta. Cambridge, 1888.—Venukoff. found in Makran. “Explorations,” vol. viii. Proc. R. G. S., 1886.—Elias, Ney. Considerable progress has been made in the classification of the ‘ ‘ Explorations in Central Asia. ” See vols. viii. and ix. Proc. various races which occupy the continent to the west of the great P. t?. N., 1886-1887.—Carey. “ Explorations in Turkestan.” Sec Mongolian region. The ancient Sacae, or Scyths, are now recog- vol. ix. Proc. R. G. S., 1887.—Lansdell. Through Central Asia. nized in the Aryan population, who may be found in great numbers London, 1887.—Colquhoun. Report on Railway Connexion beand in their purest form in the more inaccessible mountains and tween Burma and China. London, 1887.—Tate, Major C. glens of the central highlands. These Tajiks (as they are usually Northern Afghanistan. Edinburgh, 1888. — Younghusband, called) form the underlying population of Persia, Baluchistan, Capt. F. The Heart of a Continent. London, 1893.—A Journey Afghanistan, and Badakshan, and their language (in the central Through Manchuria, <kc. Lahore, 1888.—Also, see vol. x. districts of Asia) is found to contain words of Aryan or Sanskrit Proc. R. G. S., and vol. v. Jour. R. G. S.—De Rhins. L’Asie derivation which are not known in Persian. They have been for Centrale. Paris, 1889.—Bonvalot. Through the Heart of Asia. the most part dispossessed of their country by Turkish immigra- Trans. Pitman. London, 1889.—From Paris to Tonkin. Trans. tion and conquests, but they still retain their original intellectual Pitman. London, 1891.—Roborovski. Translation from Russian superiority over the Turkish and other mixed tribes by which they Invalide, Oct. 1889.—Vol. xii. Proc. R. G. S.—“Central Asia,” are surrounded. Uzbeks and Kirghiz have but small affinity with vol. viii. Jour. R. G. S., 1896.—Bell, Colonel. “Trade Routes the Mongol element of Asia. They are the representatives of those of Asia,” vol. xii. Proc. R. G. S., 1890.—Rockhill. “An countless Turkish irruptions which have taken place through all American in Tibet.” Century Magazine, Nov. 1890.—The Land history.. Of the two divisions (Kara Kirghiz and Kassak Kirghiz) of the Lamas. London, 1891.—Bent, Theodore. “Hadramut,” into which the Kirghiz tribes are divided by Russian authorities, vol. iv. Jour. R. G. S., 1894.—“Southern Arabia,” vol. vi. Jour. the Kassak Kirghiz is the more closely allied to the Mongol type ; R. G. S., 1896.—“Bahrein Islands,” vol. xii. Proc. R. G. S., 1890. the Kara Kirghiz, who are found principally in the valleys of the —Grombcherski. “ Explorations in Kuen Lun,” vol. xii. Proc. Pian-Shan and Altai mountains, being unmistakably Turkish. R. G. S., 1890.—Lydekker. “The Geology of the Kashmir I he Kipchaks are only a Kirghiz clan. The language of the Valley and Chamba Territories,” vols. xiii. and xiv. Geological Kirghiz is Turki and their religion that of Mahommed. As a Survey of India.—Max Muller. The Sacred Books of the East. nomadic people they have great contempt for the Sarts, who re- Oxford, 1890-1894.—Reclus, ElisLe. The Earth and its Inhabitpresent the town dwellers of the tribe. The Kalmuks are a ants. (Series) 1890.—Leitner. Dardistan.—Blanford, H. F. Buddhist and Mongolian people w'ho originated in a confederacy Geography of India, Burma, and Ceylon. London, of tribes dwelling in Dzungaria, migrated to Siberia, and settled on Elementary 1890.—Guide to the Climate and Weather of India. London, the Lower Volga, From thence they returned late in the 18th 1889.—Dunmore, Lord. The Pamirs. London, 1892.—Tiscentury to the reoccupation of their old ground in Kuldja under A. Voyage au tour du Monde. Paris, 1892.—Curzon, the Chinese. The Turkman is the purest form of the Turk ele- sandier, Lord. Persia and the Persian Question. London, 1892.—Russia ment, and his language is the purest form of the Turkish tongue, and the Anglo-Russian Question. London, 1889.—Problems of which is represented at Constantinople by a comparatively mongrel, the Far East. London, 1894.—Bower, Captain. Diary of a or mixed, dialect. Recent ethnographers have traced a connexion Journey Across Tibet. Calcutta, 1893.—Szechenyi. Die Wis-