Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/425

Rh places the edict is still observed with exactitude, but at Lha-Ssa it is not unusual to meet women who set it at defiance, they are, however, unfavourably regarded. In other respects they enjoy great liberty. Instead of vegetating prisoners in the depths of their houses they lead an active and laborious life. Besides household duties, they concentrate in their own hands all the retail trade of the country, and in rural districts perform most of the labours of agriculture."

4. Schalû. In another version of the legend he is called Sakori, the soothsayer, because he made these predictions. (Journal of As. Soc. of Bengal, vi. 350, in a paper by Lieut. W. Postans.)

5. The wolf-nurtured prince has a prominent place in Mongolian chronicles. Their dynasty was founded by Bürte-Tschinoa = the Wolf in winter-clothing. See I. J. Schmidt's Die Völker Mittel-Asiens, vorzüglich die Mongolen und Tibeter, St. Petersburg, 1824, pp. 11–18, 33 et seq.; 70–75; and sSanang sSetsen, 56 and 372.

6. I cannot forbear reference to notices of such sudden storms and inundations in Mongolia made from personal experience by Abbé Huc "Travels in China and Tartary," chapters vi. and vii.

7. The persistent removal of the child after such tender entreaties and such faithful unrequited service carries an idea of heartlessness, but in extenuation it should be mentioned that while the Indians honoured every kind of animal by reason of their doctrine of metempsychosis, the wolf was just the only beast with which they seem to have had no sympathy, and they reckoned the sight of one brought ill-luck, a prejudice probably derived from the days of their pastoral existence when their approach was fraught with so much danger to their flocks. In Mongolia, where the pastoral mode of life still continues in vogue, the dread of the wolf was not likely to have diminished. Thus Abbé Huc says, "Although the want of population might seem to abandon the interminable deserts of Tartary to wild beasts, wolves are rarely met, owing to the incessant and vindictive warfare the Mongolians wage against them. They pursue them every where to the death, regarding them as their capital enemy on account of the great damage they may inflict upon their flocks. The announcement that a wolf has been seen is a signal for every one to mount his horse the wolf in vain attempts to flee in every direction; it meets horsemen from every side. There is no mountain so rugged that the Tartar horses, agile as goats, cannot pursue it. The horseman who has caught it with his lasso gallops off, dragging it behind, to the nearest tent; there they strongly bind its muzzle, so that they may torture it securely, and by way of finale skin it alive. In summer the