Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/327

 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.

THE TALDI.

P. 69-70.

is obvious that the passage of Palladius which Mr. Morgan has translated in the footnotes bears no very clear reference to the Taldi of Col. Prejevalsky. Mr. Ney Elias remarks on his account of them as follows:—

'The description of these people, as also the locality in which they occur, corresponds closely with Huc's account of the race he calls Dchiahours. The name of Dalde may certainly have suffered in copying or printing, but I can find no approximation to it in any work treating of Western China; nor, with the exception of Huc's, it must be added, of the Dchiahours either. The only specimen of Dchiahours that I am personally acquainted with is Huc's old servant "Samdadchiemba," who certainly, as regards language, corresponds to Prejevalsky's description of the Daldes.'

I transcribe Huc's account, referred to by Mr. Elias: 'The Dchiahours ... occupy the country commonly called San-tchouan—"Three Valleys,"—the native district of our camel-driver Samdadchiemba. The Dchiahours have all the rascality and craft of the Chinaman without his civility and polished language; so they are feared and detested by all their neighbours. When they fancy their rights infringed on it is always with the dagger that they seek redress. Among them the man held in most honour is always the one who has committed most murders. They