Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/81

 TURKS the empire was overthrown by the attacks of the Hoei-he or Hoei-hu, as the Chinese named them (the Uigurs of western writers), another Turkish tribe who had previously been sub- jects of the Tu-kiu empire. There were at this time, and had been for some centuries, eight distinct Turkish tribes or nations in cen- tral Asia. The Uigurs never attained to the vast power of their predecessors, but they were the first of the Turkish tribes to adopt a written language. At first they were Bud- dhists ; but about the 4th century they became very generally disciples of Zoroaster, and in the 9th or 10th century embraced Islamism. In the west their empire was overthrown in 848 by the Kirghiz Tartars; but they main- tained an independent kingdom in the valleys of the Thian-shan range till about A. D. 1000, when the increasing power of the Khitans in China compelled their emigration westward. The invasion of Genghis Khan overthrew the last remains of the Turkish empire in central Asia ; but the prominent officers of that con- queror and his successors were taken from this very tribe of Uigurs on account of their supe- rior intelligence. But meanwhile the Turks had been acquiring new territories in the west. In the 6th and 7th centuries they were already in possession of an extensive region in what is now Asiatic Turkey, and were pressing for- ward toward S. E. Europe. In the 9th and 10th centuries the Tulunides and Ikshides, who founded short-lived dynasties in Egypt before the Fatimites, were Turks. In the 9th cen- tury a Turkish dynasty, the Taherides, ruled in Khorasan ; and their successors, the Ghuz- nevides and the Ghorides, extended their sway from Persia to India between the 10th and 12th centuries. But a more famous Turkish dynasty than either of these was that of the Seljuks, whose dominion extended in the lat- ter part of the llth century from the frontiers of China to the vicinity of Constantinople. (See SELJUKS.) Like its predecessors, this vast empire crumbled to pieces from its want of homogeneity, and the Seljukian sultans sub- mitted to be tributaries of the Mongol emper- ors. About the beginning of the 14th century the Ottoman empire was founded by Othman, a Turkish chief, and in the succeeding centu- ries spread over a vast territory in Asia and Europe. (See TURKEY.) The Turkish tribes which had submitted to the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, and still remained in the region of the Thian-shan mountains, the Aral, and the Caspian, sent out colonies N. of the Caspian into that portion of southern Russia lying on the borders of the Black sea, where, under the name of Tartars, several tribes of them still occupy extensive territories: While acknowledging the Russian sway, they are still zealous Mohammedans. The Mongol invaders of Turkistan, instead of impressing their own habits and language upon the Turks of that country, gradually became identified with the people they had conquered; and eventually, TURMERIC 69 the Turkish element again predominating, in the age following the death of Tamerlane they had invaded and subdued Armenia and the countries bordering on the Tigris and Euphra- tes. From this region they were expelled in the 16th century by the Sufis. In the same century the Uzbecks, a Turkish tribe, prima- rily inhabiting the southern provinces of Chi- nese Turkistan below the Thian-shan moun- tains, and said to be descendants of the Uigurs and the Naimans, made their way westward, and overran not only East Turkistan but the countries adjacent as far as the Euphrates, and were, after maintaining their power for more than a century, reduced to subjection by still another Turkish tribe, the Turkomans. The Turkomans and Uzbecks are now, in the an- cient seat of the Turks, the principal remain- ing tribes of that powerful race. The Cal- mucks between the lower Volga and Don, the Bashkirs between the Volga and Irtish, and the Yakuts on the banks of the Lena, are also Turk- ish tribes. The Yakuts are the only Turkish race professing Shamanism. TURK'S ISLANDS, or Turqnes, a group of islets in the S. E. extremity of the Bahama archi- pelago, about 90 m. N. of Hayti ; pop. about 2,500. The population fluctuates greatly at different times, as many people annually come from the Bermudas to work at salt raking, re- turning when the season is over. The islands are completely barren, and all kinds of sup- plies are imported. Grand Key or Turk's is the principal island. Since Jan. 1, 1874, the group with the Caicos group has been under the legislative control of Jamaica. The ports of entry are Grand Turk, Salt Cay, East Har- bor, and. West Caicos. The chief export is salt. For the year ending Sept. 30, 1874, the entries were 5 steamers of 3,555 tons, and 344 sailing vessels of 47,879 tons; total value of imports, $100,622; of exports, $115,682. TURMERIC, a name of unknown origin, given to the rootstocks of several species of cur- cuma (Pers. Jcurkum, the name also for saffron, and applied to this because of its similarly yel- low color), especially to C. longa, plants of the Turmeric, Long and Round. ginger family, which some botanists include in the scitaminece or banana family. The plants are indigenous to southern Asia, and are culti-