(1220-1293). These
travellers, who fell in with them in the upper parts of the river Ural,
call them Pascatir, and assert that they spoke at that time the same
language as the Hungarians. Till the arrival of the Mongolians, about the
middle of the 13th century, the Bashkirs were a strong and independent
people and troublesome to their neighbours, the Bulgarians and Petchenegs.
At the time of the downfall of the Kazan kingdom they were in a weak state.
In 1556 they voluntarily recognized the supremacy of Russia, and, in
consequence, the city of Ufa was founded to defend them from the Kirghiz,
and they were subjected to a fur-tax. In 1676 they rebelled under a leader
named Seit, and were with difficulty reduced; and again in 1707, under
Aldar and Kusyom, on account of ill-treatment by the Russian officials.
Their third and last insurrection was in 1735, at the time of the
foundation of Orenburg, and it lasted for six years. In 1786 they were
freed from taxes; and in 1798 an irregular army was formed from among them.
They are now divided into cantons and give little trouble, though some
differences have arisen between them and the government about land
questions. By mode of life the Bashkirs are divided into settled and
nomadic. The former are engaged in agriculture, cattle-rearing and
bee-keeping, and live without want. The nomadic portion is subdivided,
according to the districts in which they wander, into those of the
mountains and those of the steppes. Almost their sole occupation is the
rearing of cattle; and they attend to that in a very negligent manner, not
collecting a sufficient store of winter fodder for all their herds, but
allowing part of them to perish. The Bashkirs are usually very poor, and in
winter live partly on a kind of gruel called _yuryu_, and badly prepared
cheese named _skurt_. They are hospitable but suspicious, apt to plunder
and to the last degree lazy. They have large heads, black hair, eyes narrow
and flat, small foreheads, ears always sticking out and a swarthy skin. In
general, they are strong and muscular, and able to endure all kinds of
labour and privation. They profess Mahommedanism, but know little of its
doctrines. Their intellectual development is low.

See J. P. Carpini, _Liber Tartarorum_, edited under the title _Relations
des Mongols ou Tartares_, by d'Avezac (Paris, 1838); Gulielmus de
Rubruquis, _The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the
World_, translated by