Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/350

 with the meaning of 'north' is lost. Klaproth (Asia Polyglotta) quotes the following explanation from a Mongol vocabulary:—'Dzägun (Dzun); the quarter in which the sun rises is called Dzun, i.e. the Left hand. It is also called Dorona.' And it is easy to understand how the Mongols, whose tents always faced the south, should make the east left and the west right. Tibet Proper was called by the Mongols Baron-tala, the Right, i.e. West quarter, whilst Mongolia was Dzun-tala, the Left, i.e. East quarter. It is not so easy to understand how Dzungaria (Dzun-gar = Left-hand) got its name, for that region is the most westerly part of Mongolia.

The foregoing remarks indicate a probability that the Mongols of whom our author speaks were using the words right and left in their proper sense when he supposed them to be using the words east and west.

What Colonel Prejevalsky means by the Mongol north being our south I do not understand. In Chinese maps, as in our own medieval maps, I believe the south is generally at the top; and in the Chinese compass the needle is regarded as pointing south. To these circumstances perhaps he refers.—[Y.]

The author's account of this matter is far from exact.

There are 12 'moons ' or months in the ordinary year. These are some of 29 and some of 30 days, not alternating, but regulated by certain fixed rules, and the common 99