Volume 1 — CHAPTER I. GENERAL DIVISIONS AND FEATURES OF THE EMPIRE. (continued 2)

MANCHUS AND MONGOLS.

The Mongol and Manchu races have been considered as springing from the same stock, but during centuries of separation under different circumstances they have altered much. The Mongols are essentially a nomadic race, while the Manchus are an agricultural or a hunting people, according to the part of their country they inhabit. The Manchus are of a lighter complexion and somewhat larger than the Chinese, have the same conformation of the eyelids, but rather more beard, while their countenances indicate greater intellectual capacity. They seem to partake of both the Mongol and Chinese character, possessing more determination and largeness of plan than the latter, with much of the rudeness and haughtiness of the former. They have fair, if not florid, complexions, straight noses, and, in a few cases, brown hair and heavy beards. They are more allied to the Chinese, and when they ruled the northern provinces as the Kin dynasty, amalgamated with them. They may be regarded as the most improvable race in Central Asia, if not on the continent; and the skill with which they have governed the Chinese empire, and adopted a civilization higher than their own, gives promise of still further advances when they become familiar with the civilization of Christian lands.

Under the term Mongols or Moguls a great number of tribes occupying the steppes of Central Asia are comprised. They extend from the borders of the Khirgís steppe and Kokand eastward to the Sialkoi Mountains, and it is particularly to this race that the name Tartars or Tatars is applicable. No such word is now known among the people, except as an ignominious epithet, by the Chinese, who usually write it with two characters—tah-tsz’—meaning ‘trodden-down people.’ Klaproth confines the appellation of Tartars to the Mongols, Kalmucks, Kalkas, Eleuths, and Buriats, while the Kirghís, Usbecks, Cossacks, and Turks are of Kurdish and Turkoman origin.

The Mongol tribes generally are a stout, squat, swarthy, ill-favored race of men, having high and broad shoulders, short, broad noses, pointed and prominent chins, long teeth distant from each other, eyes black, elliptical, and unsteady, thick, short necks, extremities bony and nervous, muscular thighs, but short legs, with a stature nearly or quite equal to the European. They have a written language, but their literature is limited and mostly religious. The same language is spoken by all the tribes, with slight variations and only a small admixture of foreign words. Most of the accounts of their origin, their wars, and their habits, were written by foreigners living or travelling among them; but they themselves, as McCulloch remarks, know as little of these things as rats or marmots do of their descent. Yet it is not so easy to find the typical Mongol among the medley of nationalities in their towns. A crowd in a town like Yarkand exhibits all the varieties of the human race. The gaunt, almost beardless Manchu, with sunken eyes, high cheek-bones, and projecting jowl, contrasts with the smooth face, pinky yellow, oblique eye, flat cheeks, and rounded jowl of the Chinese. The bearded, sallow Toork, the angular, rosy Kirghís, the coarse, hard Dungani, and thick-lipped, square-faced Eleuth, all show poorly with the tall, handsome Cashmerian, the swarthy Badakshi, and robust, intelligent Uzbek. The fate of the vast swarms of this race which have descended from the table-land of Central Asia and overrun, in different ages, the plains of India, China, Syria, Egypt, and Eastern Europe, and the rise and fall of the gigantic empire they themselves erected under Genghis in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, are among the most remarkable episodes in the world’s history. They have always maintained the same character in their native wilds, their conquests have been exterminations rather than subjugations, their history a record of continual quarrels between clans.

The last of the five races is the Tibetan, who partake of the physical characteristics of the Mongols and Hindus. They are short, squat, and broad-shouldered in body, with angular faces, wide, high cheek-bones, small black eyes, and scant beard. They are mild in disposition, have a stronger religious feeling than the Chinese, and have never left their own highlands either for emigration or conquest. Their civilization is fully equal to that of the Siamese and Burmese, and life and property are more secure with them than among their turbulent neighbors in Butan, Lahore, or Cabul.

CIVILIZATION PAST AND FUTURE.

It will be seen from this short survey that a full account of the geography, government, manners, literature, and civilization of so large a part of the world and its inhabitants requires the combined labors of many observers, all of them well acquainted with the languages and institutions of the people whom they describe. No one will look, therefore, for more than a brief outline of these subjects in the present work, minute enough, however, to enable readers to form a fair opinion of the people. It is the industry of the Chinese which has given them their high place among the nations of the earth. Not only has the indigenous vegetation been superseded wherever culture would remunerate toil, but lofty hills have been tilled and terraced almost to their tops, cities have been built upon them, and extensive ranges of wall erected along their summits. They practise all the industrial arts whose objects are to feed, clothe, educate or adorn mankind, and maintain the largest population ever united under one system of rule. Ten centuries ago they were the most civilized nation on earth, and the incredulity manifested in Europe, five hundred years ago, at the recitals of Marco Polo regarding their condition, is the counterpart of the sentiments now expressed by the Chinese when they hear of the power and grandeur of western nations.

Isolated by natural boundaries from other peoples, their civilization, developed under peculiar influences, must be compared to, rather than judged of, by European. A people from whom some of the most distinguishing inventions of modern Europe came (such as the compass, porcelain, gunpowder, and printing), and were known and practised many centuries earlier; who probably amount to more than three hundred millions, united in one system of manners, letters, and polity; whose cities and capitals rival in numbers the greatest metropoles of any age; who have not only covered the earth, but the waters, with towns and streets—such a nation must occupy a conspicuous place in the history of mankind, and the study of their character and condition commend itself to every well-wisher of his race.

It has been too much the custom of writers to overlook the influence of the Bible upon modern civilization; but when a comparison is to be drawn between European and Asiatic civilization, this element forces itself upon the attention as the main cause of the superiority of the former. It is not the civilization of luxury or of letters, of arts or of priestcraft; it is not the spirit of war, the passion for money, nor its exhibitions in trade and the application of machinery, that render a nation permanently great and prosperous. “Christianity is the summary of all civilization,” says Chenevix; “it contains every argument which could be urged in its support, and every precept which explains its nature. Former systems of religion were in conformity with luxury, but this alone seems to have been conceived for the region of civilization. It has flourished in Europe, while it has decayed in Asia, and the most civilized nations are the most purely Christian.” Christianity is essentially the religion of the people, and when it is covered over with forms and contracted into a priesthood, its vitality goes out; this is one reason why it has declined in Asia. The attainments of the Chinese in the arts of life are perhaps as great as they can be without this spring of action, without any other motives to industry, obedience, and morality, than the commands or demands of the present life.

A survey of the world and its various races in successive ages leads one to infer that God has some plan of national character, and that one nation exhibits the development of one trait, while another race gives prominence to another, and subordinates the first. Thus the Egyptian people were eminently a priestly race, devoted to science and occult lore; the Greeks developed the imaginative powers, excelling in the fine arts; the Romans were warlike, and the embodiment of force and law; the Babylonians and Persians magnificent, like the head of gold in Daniel’s vision; the Arabs predacious, volatile, and imaginative; the Turks stolid, bigoted, and impassible; the Hindus are contemplative, religious, and metaphysical; the Chinese industrious, peaceful, literary, atheistic, and self-contained.[23] The same religion, and constant intercommunication among European nations, has assimilated them more than these other races ever could have become; but every one knows the national peculiarities of the Spaniards, Italians, French, English, etc., and how they are maintained, notwithstanding the motives to imitation and coalescence. The comparison of national character and civilization, with the view of ascertaining such a plan, is a subject worthy the profound study of any scholar, and one which would offer new views of the human race. The Chinese would be found to have attained, it is believed, a higher position in general security of life and property, and in the arts of domestic life and comfort among the mass, and a greater degree of general literary intelligence, than any other heathen or Mohammedan nation that ever existed—or indeed than some now calling themselves Christian, as Abyssinia. They have, however, probably done all they can do, reached as high a point as they can without the Gospel; and its introduction, with its attendant influences, will erelong change their political and social system. The rise and progress of this revolution among so mighty a mass of human beings will form one of the most interesting parts of the history of the world during the nineteenth century, and solve the problem whether it be possible to elevate a race without the intermediate steps of disorganization and reconstruction.