XXVI. CHAP. rary historians *. The annals of China † illustrate the state and revolutions of the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valour of the Barbarians of the North. From the mouth of the Danube to the sea of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be so easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance above a thou sand After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206.) was the era of the revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored; the characters were improved and fixed; and the future preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His labours were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one hun dred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is still extant; and the most considerable of them are now depo. sited in the king of France's library. † China has been illustrated by the labours of the French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs Freret and de Guig nes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is extracted from The Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de Guignes, Paris, 1770. The Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou, translated by the P. de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Ge nerale de la Chine, tom. i. p. xlix-cc.; the Mémoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c. tom. i. p. 1--323. tom. ii. p. 5— 361; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 1-131. t. v. p. 345 -362.; and the Mémoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377-402. tom. xv. p. 495-564. tom. xvill p. 178–295. tom. xxxvi. p. 164—238, XXVI. sand miles to the northward, till our progress is CHAP. stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate, instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke, which issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the Samoiedes the want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of rein-deer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the earth insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and diminutive savages, who tremble at the sound of arms seat of the Huns. The Huns, who under the reign of Valens Original threatened the empire of Rome, had been for midable, in a much earlier period, to the empire of China t. Their ancient, perhaps their original, seat, was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country, immediately on the north. side of the great wall. Their place is at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred thousand families t. But the valour of the Huns had extended the narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who assumed the appellation of Tanjou, gradually became the conquerors, and the sovereigns, of a See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620-664. + M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1-124.) has given the original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chi nese geography of their country (tom. i. part ii. p. lv-lxiii.), seems to comprise a part of their conquests. See in Duhalde (tom. iv. p. 18-65.) a circumstantial description, with a correct map, of the country of the Mone gous. Their cou quests in Scythia. XXVI. CHAP. formidable empire. Towards the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean; and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish, and in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued in a single expedition twenty-six nations; the Igours *, distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were in the number of his vassals; and by the strange connection of human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. On the side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia. The Northern Sea was fixed as the remote boundary of their empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, may be transferred, with much more probability, * The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7. Mémoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 17 -33. The comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared these distant events. The fame of Sovou, or Sc-ou, his merit, and his singular adventures, are still celebrated in China. See the Eloge de Monkden, p. 20. and notes, p. 241-247.; and Mémoires sur la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317-360. XXVI. probability, to the Baikal, a capacious bason, CHAP. above three hundred miles in length, which disdains the modest appellation of a lake*, and which actually communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of the Angara, the Tonguska, and the Jenissea. The submission of so many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but the valour of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third century before the Christian æra, a wall of fifteen hundred miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China against the inroads of the Hunst; but this stupendous work, which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with which they managed their bows and their horses; by their hardy patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most lofty mountains. They *See Isbrand Ives, in Harris's collection, vol. ii. p. 931; Bell's Travels, vol. i. P. 217-254; and Gmelin, in the Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 283-329. They all remark the vulgar opinion, that the holy sea grows angry and tempestuous, if any one presumes to call it a lake. grammatical nicety often excites a dispute, between the absurd superstition of the mariners, and the absurd obstinacy of travellers. This The construction of the wall of China is mentioned by Duhalde (tom. i. p. 45.) and de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 59.). XXVI. CHAP. They spread themselves at once over the face of the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished, and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese army. Their wars with the Chi .nese, ant. The em Christ, 201. peror Kaoti, a soldier of fortune, whose personal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and after a siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase his deliverance by an ignominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose lives were dedicated to the arts of peace, or the luxury of the palace, submitted to a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of arms and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that while the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on the head, and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labour of ineffectual marches t. A regular payment of money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist. de la Chine, published at Paris 1777, &c. tom. i. p. 442-522. This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of the Tong-Kien Kang-Mou, the celebrated abridgment of the great History of Semakouang (A. D. 1084.) and his conti nuators. See a free and ample memorial, presented by a Mandarin to the emperor Venti (before Christ 180-157.) in Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 412-426.); from a collection of State papers, marked with the red pencil by Khami himself (p. 384-612.). Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang Mou, t. ii. p. 555.) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of the Huns. |