Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/174

152 from Mongolia to Tibet, until the Oliuth prince Gushi-Khan, who ruled in North-western Mongolia, marched an army to Koko-nor to subdue them. The Yegurs were partly exterminated, but some of them escaped to North-western Kan-su, where they mixed with the other inhabitants.

After the subjection of the Yegurs, some of the Oliuth (Eleuth) troops returned to the north, but others settled in Koko-nor; their descendants are the Mongol inhabitants of the present day. Some hundreds of them emigrated to Tibet, where their posterity has multiplied and now numbers 800 yurtas divided into eight koshungs (banners). They live six days' journey to the south-west of the village of Napchu, where they cultivate the soil and bear the name of Damsuk-Mongols, after the little river on whose banks they are settled.

The tradition further says that when the Yegurs were destroyed by the Mongols, one old woman, with three daughters all in the family way, escaped to the right bank of the Hoang-ho. Here the daughters gave birth to three sons, from whom are descended the Kara-Tangutans, or, as they call themselves, the Banik-Koksum. During the course of many years they increased in numbers and returned to Koko-nor, where they were at first obliged to defend themselves against the Mongols, but as they