of
themselves in the presence of Mandarins.

{192} The Chinese name for Mr. Elliot, the English Plenipotentiary at
Canton, at the commencement of the Anglo-Chinese war.

{195} The class of reptiles comprehends fish, mollusks, and all animals
that are neither quadrupeds nor birds.

{200} Strabo, speaking of the customs of the nomadic Scythians, as
retained among the Sogdians and Bactrians, writes: "In the capital of
Bactria, they breed dogs, to which they give a special name, which name,
rendered into our language, means buriers. The business of these dogs is
to eat up all persons who are beginning to fall into decay, from old age
or sickness. Hence it is that no tomb is visible in the suburbs of the
town, while the town itself is all filled with human bones. It is said
that Alexander abolished this custom."

Cicero attributes the same custom to the Hyrcanians, in his "Tusculan
Questions," (Lib. i. section 45): "In Hyrcania plebs publicos alit canes;
optimates, domesticos. Nobile autem genus canum illud scimus esse. Sed
pro sua quisque facultate parat, a quibus lanietur: eamque optimam illi
esse censent sepulturam."

Justin also says of the Parthians: "Sepultura vulgo aut avium aut canum
aniatus est. Nuda demum ossa terra obruunt."

{203a} "Asia," vol. v., p. 800, German edition, 1833-1837.

{203b} See "Asiatic Journal of London," vol. xxi., p. 786, and vol.
xxii., p. 596. A notice of Moorcroft's manuscripts was inserted in the
"Journal of the Geographical Society of London," 1831.

{203c} Vol. xii, No. 9, p. 120.

{203d} M. Gabet.

{219} In the province of Oui there are three thousand.

{227} Ki-Chan, in fact, is now viceroy of the province of Sse-Tchouen.

{235} _Nouveau Journal Asiatique_, 1st series, tome iv. and vi.

{245} We had for a long time a small Mongol treatise on natural history,
for the use of children, in which a unicorn formed one of the pictorial
illustrations.

{246} A centimetre is 33-100 of an inch.

{248} The unicorn antelope of Thibet is probably the oryx-capra of the
ancients. It is still found in the deserts of Upper Nubia, where it is
called Ariel. The unicorn (Hebrew, reem; Greek, monoceros), that is
represented in the Bible, and in Pliny's "Natural History," cannot be
identified with the oryx capra. The unicorn of holy writ would appear
rather to be a pachydermous creature, of great strength and formidable
ferocity. According to travellers, it still ex