Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/33

 TURKS AND TARTARS. 15 nomads. The rich pastures which have been the rearing- grounds of innumerable liorses have enabled the people, on the several occasions when they have had a leader of military genius, to descend like locusts upon the countries to the west. The Tartar emperors are said to have maintained in the lield for many years at least half a million of cavalry, and at all times the strength of the inhabitants of these plains has consisted in their horses and flocks. The early history of these races is involved in much obscurity. The Byzantine and Arab writers speak of Turks, Tartars, Mongols, Turco- mans, and Scythians, and the Byzantines, sometimes even of Persians, without caring to distinguish between them. The Turks, however, are ethnographically distinguishable from the Tartars,^ though the two words are radically the same, and call attention to the fact that they were roving hordes, confirmed wanderers, nomads, as the Bedouins and Turcomans are to-day. These wandering emigrants from Turan,* during ^ I write Tartar instead of Tatar because I agree with Dr. Koclle that the first is the form which the Tartars themselves used until they came into contact with foreigners, like the Chinese and Russians, Mdio had changed the form of the word. A like cause has induced the Arabs and Turks to use the word Mogul instead of Mongol, a form which we curiously retain when speaking of the Great Mogul. According to Dr. Koelle's view, Tartar is a duplication of a word signifying to move or to draw. Tartar therefore equals " ]Iove - move," and thus accurately characterizes the distinguishing peculiarity of the race, as it has always been known, and as it is represented among the Turcomans of to-day. The derivation of the word from Tartarus seems to have had its origin in an obvious pun made by St. Louis of France. Writing to comfort his mother on the rapid advance of the horde of Mongols in 1241, he says: " We shall either thrust back those whom we call Tartars into their own places in Tartarus, whence they come, or they will send all of us to heaven." The Greek writers use the form rdprapoi uniformly. The hite Mr. O'Donovan informed me that the accepted derivation in Merv of the word Turcoman is from " Tir," signifying to draw, to shoot, to move, and " coman," an arrow, the latter being a word still well known. The name would thus signify bowmen, and would not be contrary to the early reputation of the race. ^ I adopt the term Turan to designate the country north of Persia. The Persians called their own country Iran, and the barbarous lands to the north Turan, the names signifying respectively the land of light and