speak a language of their own, which is a medley of Mongol, Chinese, and East-Tibetan. By their own account they are of Tartar origin; and if it be so it may be said that they have exceedingly well preserved the savage and independent character of their forefathers, whilst the manners of the present people of Mongolia have been singularly modified and softened.
'Although subject to the Emperor of China, the Dchiahours are under the immediate government of a kind of hereditary sovereign belonging to their own tribe, and bearing the title of Tou-ssẻ.'[1]—[Y.]
SILING AND TONKIR.
Pp. 107 and 119.
What the footnote at p. 107 refers to is this:—
Certain textures of shawl-wool, or resembling it, are imported from the eastward into Kashmír and Ladak under the name of S'ling. And certain other manufactures were found by Mr. R. B. Shaw in the markets of Kashgar, which were stated to come from a region called Zilm. Knowing from P. della Penna, and other sources, that Sining-fu was called by the Tibetans Ziling or Jiling, and by the Mongols Seling Khoto, it seemed to me almost certain that both the S'ling of Ladák and the Zilm of Kashgar, referred to the same place. Mr. Shaw doubted, from the particulars given him, if Zilm could be so far east; but I see by a recent letter that he now accepts the identity.[2]
In the footnote at p. 119, it is indicated that the Tonkir of the Russian traveller is Huc's Tang-keu-eul. The latter calls it 'a small city, but very populous, and with very
- ↑ ii. 35-36.
- ↑ In the Philos. Transactions, vol. lxvii. pt. ii. p. 482, in a letter from Mr. Stewart to Sir John Pringle, regarding Bogle's mission, dated March 20, 1777, mention is made of Seling, as a place to which the caravans traded. It is also probably the place 'on the river Sullum,' mentioned by Turner (see Embassy, p. 274).
