aro-Chinese villages, enter the farms, and disdaining the
domestic animals they find in the yard, proceed to the inside of the
house, and there select their human victims, whom they almost invariably
seize by the throat and strangle. There is scarcely a village in
Tartary, where, every year, misfortunes of this kind do not occur. It
would seem as though the wolves of this country were resolved to avenge
on men, the sanguinary war which the Tartars make upon their brethren.

The stag, the wild goat, the mule, the wild camel, the yak, the brown and
black bear, the lynx, the ounce and the tiger, frequent the deserts of
Mongolia. The Tartars never proceed on a journey, unless armed with
bows, fusils and lances.

When we consider the horrible climate of Tartary, that climate ever so
gloomy and frozen, we should be led to think that the inhabitants of
these wild countries must be of an extremely fierce and rugged
temperament; their physiognomy, their deportment, the costume they wear,
all would seem to confirm this opinion. The Mongol has a flat face, with
prominent cheek bones, the chin short and retiring, the forehead sunken,
the eyes small and oblique, of a yellow tint, as though full of bile, the
hair black and rugged, the beard scanty, the skin of a deep brown, and
extremely coarse. The Mongol is of middle height, but his great leathern
boots and large sheep-skin robe, seem to take away from his height, and
make him appear diminutive and stumpy. To complete this portrait, we
must add a heavy and ponderous gait, and a harsh, shrill, discordant
language, full of frightful aspirates. Notwithstanding this rough and
unprepossessing exterior, the disposition of the Mongol is full of
gentleness and good nature; he passes suddenly from the most rollicking
and extravagant gaiety to a state of melancholy, which is by no means
disagreeable. Timid to excess in his ordinary habits; when fanaticism or
the desire of vengeance arouses him, he displays in his courage an
impetuosity which nothing can stay; he is candid and credulous as an
infant, and he passionately loves to hear marvellous anecdotes and
narratives. The meeting with a travelling Lama is always for him a
source of happiness.

Aversion to toil and a sedentary life, the love of pillage and rapine,
cruelty, unnatural debaucheries, are the vices which have been generally
attributed to the Mongol Tartars. We are apt to believe that the
portrait which the old writers