Note 8 — Chapter XVIII · THE YENESEI.

Dr. Latham observes that, if we take the principal populations that are common to the Russian and Chinese Empires, we find them to be the Turkish, Mongolian, and Tungusian races; the Turk on the west, the Mongol in the middle, and the Tunguse on the east. The Tunguse race begins, he says, north of Peking, and stretches through Manchuria across the district of the Amur, and north-east and west to the sea of Okhotsk and to the Yenesei. Of the Tunguse family the Manchu is the most civilized, whilst in Siberia we have them in their extreme character of rude nomads, unlettered, and still pagan, or but imperfectly Christianized. The Tungusian approaches the Mongolian, the Ostjak, or the Eskimo, according as his residence lies north or south; within the limit of the growth of trees or beyond it, on the champaign, the steppe, or the tundra. On the tundra the horse ceases to be his domestic animal, and the reindeer or the dog replaces it. Hence we hear of three divisions of the Tunguse family called by different names, according as they possess horses, reindeer, or dogs.