N. lat. 40 miles to the S.E. of the Onon Sekim, or 'source of the Onon.' After running in a direct course 500 British miles, (and more than 600 by the windings,) and watering the richest pastures in Mongolia, it enters the lake of Kulon, and passing through it, subsequently receives the name of the Argoon, and joins the Amoor after a further course of 300 miles, and receiving a host of minor streams from the great range of Siolki, particularly the Kalka, which gives name to the Kalkas, a powerful Mongolian tribe. Thirty miles below this confluence, the united stream receives on the N. side the Ajighe Kerbechi, or Gorbitza, from the Yablonnoi mountains, a river which forms on that side the Russian boundary. After a further course of 80 British miles almost due E. in 53° N. lat., it changes its line of direction, running thence 630 British miles S.E. as far as 48o N. lat., where it receives the great river Soonggaree from the S.W., a deep and navigable stream. Thence it changes its course again to the N.E., receiving the Oosooree from the S., after a course of 320 British miles, a large and transparent stream, and the Hata Hala from the Hinkan Alin, a stream of equal size, with a multitude of minor streams on either side. Fifteen miles above the city of Saghalin-oola Hotun, in N. lat. 50" and E. long. 128°, it receives the large stream of the Chikiri, called Zia by the Russians, which rises in 55° Ñ. lat. in the Yablounoi range, which separates the basin of the Amoor from that of the Lena. This stream receives a multitude of others, both from the Yablonnoi and the Hinkan Alin, particularly the Tsilimpri, and has a S.W. course of more than 400 British miles. It is more than a mile and a half broad at its confluence with the Amoor, and so rapid, that it requires more than two months to ascend it, though it may be descended in 15 days in a boat. The Amoor, after receiving a multitude of other streams, finally enters a large gulf formed by its mouth, in 53° N. lat. and 142° E. long., opposite the N.W. end of the island of Tchoka or Sagalian, by a channel 3 leagues wide, and very deep and rapid. The length of its course, including sinuosities, is estimated at 2280 miles, and its average discharge of water per second at 298,800 cubical feet. Its basin contains a surface of 900,000 British square miles, and the river is navigable as far up as Nerchinsky, a distance of 1500 British miles, for vessels of large burden. Its mouth is concealed by a vast number of aquatic plants, but the channel, deep and still, presents no impediments to navigation, having neither rocks nor shallows, and its banks are lined with magnificent forests.-The Swifond Pira falls into the sea of Japan, and is a considerable stream.-The Toomen and Yaloo have been noticed in our account of Korea.-The Lyau is a large stream, originating in the Siolki range, in 43° N. lat. and 0° 45′ E. of Peking., under the name of Sira Mooren. After running 7° E., it turns to the S.W., and entering Lyau-tong, where it obtains the name of Lyau, it runs quite through that province, and then falls into the Yellow sea after a comparative course of 500 miles. It is not, strictly speaking, a Mandshoorian river; but as the province of Lyau-tong has, since the conquest of China, been incorporated into the government of Mandshooria, the Lyau is now politically a Mandshoorian stream.

Climate.] Though this extensive region is the eastern declivity of the great upland plateau of Mongolia, and consequently on a much lower level

3 This river is called Onon and Schilka in the early part of its course. By the Russians it is called the Amoor after its junction with the Argoon, and Schilken after its junction with the Ingoda. By the Tongousians and Mandshoors it is called Saghalien Oola, the black river;' and by the Chinese Helong Kreaung, 'the dragon river.'

than the former, yet the climate is remarkably severe. The trees and plants of temperate climates begin again to appear, and to salute the eye of the weary traveller who has traversed the elevated treeless wastes of the central plateau. Yet the high elevation of the mountains, which on three sides environ Mandshooria, and of the transverse range of the Hinkan to the N. of the Amoor, together with the immense forests which cover the country, counteract the influence of the solar rays. Though under the same latitude with France and Italy, yet the vast southern mountains between Korea and the river Amoor have very long and rigorous winters, as they are covered with glaciers. A still greater mass of snowy mountains forms the northern border of its basin, and the sea which encircles its eastern coast is covered with perpetual fogs. Another cause of the severity of the climate may perhaps be owing to the want of inhabitants and cultivation to clear the ground of those immense primeval forests which cover its surface, so that the soil is never heated by solar influence. On the whole of the eastern coast there is frost and snow in the middle of September. It must also be remarked, that immediately to the E. of China and gulf of Lyau-tong, the Asiatic continent gradually contracts in breadth to Behring's straits. There is no mass of heated land to the S. to communicate to it a part of its caloric, and react upon the temperate mass of air, and by dilating it, force it towards the N., and thus confine the cold. If we consider the mountains that encircle it, the immense forests that overspread it, and the cold fogs that for ever envelope its coasts, and likewise, that, from whatever quarter the wind may blow, it must necessarily be sharp and piercing, or cold and humid,—we need not wonder, from the physical circumstances just enumerated, that the temperature of this extensive region should be so much below the standard even of Scotland, and so much like that of Lower Canada. The Jesuit missionaries being at Tondon Kajan, the first village of the Ketching Tartars on the Amoor, in N. lat. 49° 24′, on the 8th of September, were compelled to put on clothes lined with sheep skins. They were afraid also that the river, though so deep and wide, would be frozen over, as indeed it was every morning to a considerable distance from the shore.

Soil and Productions.] In such an extensive region there must necessarily be a great diversity of soil and produce. The province of Lyautong, or government of Mookdin, is well-cultivated, and the soil good, producing abundance of wheat, millet, and cotton. A great extent of pasture lands in this province renders it of much utility to China, where these are scarce, as a vast number of sheep, cows, and oxen, are there grazed, which animals are by no means abundant in China. Wheat, we are told by the emperor Kien-long, in his eloge already noticed, here produces 100 fold. Southernwood and mugwort would cover all the fields; but, from the general cultivation, are found only in the deserts. Amongst the trees of this country, Kien-long mentions the pine, the cypress, the acacia, the willow, the apricot, the peach, and the mulberry. In the vicinity of Ningoota, in the government of Kirin Oola, oats are so abundant, that they are given to horses, as in our country, instead of black beans, common to all the northern provinces of China. Abundance of a species of millet, called maysimi by the Chinese, is raised. Wheat and rice are scarce; and father Regis is astonished, that in districts situated in 43° 44′ and 45° of latitude the latitudes of the south of France-the pro4 La Perouse found the coasts of this country, under 40° N. lat., covered with snow in August.

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ductions of the soil should be so scanty and limited in kind, as to be behind the northern provinces of France. He imputes its barrenness to the nitrous quality of the soil. But had he taken into account the other circumstances which modify climate so much, he would have found, what is now a recognised fact by all who have studied the climates of the globe, that the climate of a country is not regulated by the sole circumstance of latitude, but by other causes, both physical and moral. Perouse, who examined the S.E. coast and the mouth of the Amoor, says that the country seemed almost a desert. On every hand a luxuriant vegetation reminded the French sailors of the dear country they had left, and which they were never more to revisit. The lofty mountains were adorned with the spreading branches of the oak and the verdant pyramidal forms of the pine. In the lower grounds the willows drank the moisture of the rivers; the birches, the maples, and the medlar-trees, rustled in the winds; the lily, the rose, and the convallaria, perfumed the meadow. The spring was that of Europe; the flora nearly that of France. But there was no trace of the slightest cultivation,—no proof that these shores had ever been inhabited by human beings,-no paths but those of the bear and the stag were formed across the rank herbage nearly four feet high. A single grave and some fishing utensils seemed to indicate that some wandering tribe came occasionally from the interior to give a momentary disturbance to the fishes which swarmed at the mouths of the rivers. Every stream that swells the volumes of the Amoor swarms with fish of every kind; and these serve the poor natives both for food and raiment. The Yupi Tartars, a tribe of fishers so called by the Chinese, spend all the summer in fishing. One part of what they catch is laid up to make oil for their lamps; another serves them for daily food; and the rest, which they dry in the sun without salting-for of salt they are destitute-is reserved for winter provision, whereof both men and cattle eat when the rivers are frozen. That valuable fish, the sturgeon, abounds in the Oosooree and Amoor. The Yupi call it the king of fish. They commonly spear the larger fish and take the lesser with nets. These Yupi know nothing of agriculture, and sow nothing but a little tobacco in a few plats of ground near each village on the banks of the river. All the rest of the land is covered with dense impenetrable woods, from whence they are annoyed with myriads

5 It is strange (remarks Malte Brun very justly) to find a region so highly suscepti ble of cultivation in the state of an absolute desert, at the very gates of the ancient empire of China, in which the reported redundance of the population often proves the cause of famine, with all its attendant horrors. We may add, that it is indeed strange that this should be the case, when, if we can believe a late Canton register, the population of China was above 300 millions in 1793, and that the emperor Kien-long said he looked with great anxiety for the future, for the land did not increase, although the mouths fed by it did, and therefore exhorted his numerous subjects to use all possible economy in the use of their food, to ward off the impending danger of a population be yond the means of subsistence. Nothing is needed, one would suppose, but emigration to and colonization of such a vast region, consigned to bears and foxes as an undisturbed settlement. Nothing would be required for that government but to supply the means of emigrating, and enable the colonists to clear the vast forests and cultivate a soil so well watered, and render Mandshooria another Germany; for Germany, in the days of Cæsar, was just what Mandshooria is at present-a country of vast forests, and peopled by tribes of nomade hunters. Such a remedy, with such a country as it were at the very door, would prove a sure resource in the case of a redundant population and scarcity of food, and, by acting as a constant drain, keep the former down to the level of subsistence. The bare fact, that such an extensive region has been, and still is, consigned as a mere hunting country for a few nomade tribes, instead of being tenanted and cultivated by an industrious peasantry, is a clear and cogent proof of the ignorance of the Chinese government, and that the beams of the celestial presence have never irradiated the atmosphere of Mandshooria, nor dispelled the fogs of Eastern Tartary.

of gnats and other insects, which they are compelled to drive away with smoke. Beyond the Saghalien to the N., are nothing but forests frequented by sable-hunters. The N.W. portion of this region, comprehended in the government of Tsitsicar, is in a similar state of non-cultivation, though, here and there a few spots cultivated by the Tagouris or Daourians, an agricultural tribe of Mandshoors who dwell to the N.W. of Tsitsicar, and by the Solons, another tribe of the same stock who are both hunters and agriculturists. The Tagouris raise barley, oats, and millet, selling to the people of Tsitsicar their surplus produce. They breed cattle, such as horses, dromedaries, bulls, cows, and sheep. These last are very fine and large, their tails being above a span thick and two long, are all fat, and so very heavy that they cannot go fast. The Tagouris make great use of oxen to ride on, and are very expert archers, and their bows being esteemed the best in all Tartary, bear a high price. The soil in the vicinity of Tsitsicar and Merghen is sandy and poor, but that in the neighbourhood of Saghalien Oola Hotun yields fine crops of wheat, and at Tsitsicar, the Solons have very rich manured lands, all sorts of garden fruits, and several plantations of tobacco, which is the article of their subsistence.

Mandshooria also produces copper, iron, jasper, pearls and furs, and its mother of pearl is of admirable quality. The pearls are found in the Songpira, the Korsin-pira, and other streams which fall into the Amoor, and other rivers which descend to the Nonnee and Songgaree, as the Arom and Nemer in the road from Tsitsicar to Merghen. These pearls are got without much art, and are obtained by plungers who take up the first oyster they find, and though much cried up by the Mandshoors, these pearls would be little valued by Europeans, from their defects in shape and colour. These plungers, who form 8 companies, are bound to furnish the Bogdo Khan or Great Khan, as they call the emperor of China, with 1,104 fine pearls annually. But the furs form the most valuable part of Mandshoorian commerce. The Han Halas, and the Solon Mandshoors are the most expert in hunting the furred animals, as sable ermines, black foxes, and martins in the vast forests beyond the Amoor, and on the banks of the Chikiri. The Russians were masters of all these forests, previous to the peace of Nerchinsky in 1689, and had built a fortress named Albazen or Yaksa, on the northern bank of the Amoor, a few days' journey above Saghalien Oola Hotun, in order to protect and ingross the fur trade, By that treaty, they were compelled to demolish and abandon that fortified hunting station, and leave the Chinesian Mandshoors in full and undisturbed possession of these forests, and of the fur trade. The Mandshoors still keep a strong garrison on the frontiers in case of Russian encroachment, and armed barks on the Amoor. The hunters are clad in short jackets of wolves' skins, with a cap of the same, and their bows at their backs. They have horses laden with millet, and their long cloaks of tiger or fox-skins to protect from the cold, especially of the night. They have excellent dogs trained for the game, who clamber well and are acquainted with the wilds of the sables. Neither the severity of the weather, nor the fierceness of the tiger can restrain them from the chase, as all their riches depend on it. The finest furs are reserved for the emperor, who pays a fixed price. The rest bear a great price, even in Mandshooria it, self, as being very fine and scarce, and are immediately bought up by the mandarins in these quarters and the merchants of Tsitsicar. The jinsing so much extolled by the Chinese, and which usually sold at Peking for seven times its weight in silver, is now well known to be a production of

Canada and the United States, and the Americans are in the habit of exporting it to Canton, so that its price is much fallen. This plant supposed for long to be peculiar to Mandshooria, grows only on the declivity of wooded mountains, on the banks of deep rivers, or about steep rocks. It can neither bear much cold nor heat, for it does not grow beyond 47° N. lat.

CHAP. II.-INHABITANTS AND POPULATION.

THE terms Tartar and Tartary have been so long, though erroneously, applied to all the nomadic tribes and regions of Asia, by writers of all classes and every country in Europe, that it is now become impossible to eradicate them from our ethnographical nomenclature, so firmly have they taken root in our language. In compliance with established custom, therefore, we have been obliged to apply the term of Eastern Tartary to the region of the Lyau and Mandshoors; and if we are guilty of applying the name Tartars as a general appellation to all the Asiatic hordes, their very neighbours the Chinese are equally guilty, as they class them all under the general name of Ta-lse: though the Turks, Mongols, and Mandshoors, are as radically different in their features and language as Hindoo, Chinese, and Arabs. Whether the Mandshoors are the aboriginal natives, or succeeded a previous race, we cannot determine, as they have no historical records; but they are called Ny-uche, by the Chinese, and are supposed to be the descendants of the Kin, who, in the 12th century, subdued Northern China, and were, in their turn, subdued by Jenghiz Khan, in the 13th century. We are told, that the Mandshoors are the same race who, at different periods of the Chinese monarchy, have been successively denominated Sienpi, Geougen, Yew, Ookee, Sooshin, Moko, and finally Nyuching, or Kin; and we know another tribe, called the Syetan, Keetan, or Lyau, which came from the same region as the Kin, and preceded them in the path of conquest. But whether these names really belonged to one and the same race,—or to different tribes of that race, who successively acquired domination over the other tribes, or were appellations of different races, cannot now be determined; but it is probable they were all names of different tribes of the Mandshoorian race, and that these names are all Chine-ian, not Mandshoorian, appellations.-The first tribe of whom mention is made in the Chinese annals, is the Keetan, who seem to have come from Mandshooria Proper, and to have fixed themselves in Lyautong, and founded there a monarchy, which lasted from 916 to 1117, or 200 years. They had two capitals in Lyautong,-Lyauyang, and Mookden or Shin-yang. This tribe gave more trouble to the Chinese than all the other Tartars. Though they made no fixed settlement in China, yet they so harassed the Chinese, that one of the emperors was glad to compound with them by an annual tribute of 200,000 taels of silver, and 300,000 pieces of silk. Unable to repel these Tartars from the frontiers, the Chinese emperor Whaytsong called the Kin, another tribe of Mandshoors, to his assistance, who, uniting their forces with the Chinese, defeated the Keetan in every battle, and reduced them to such extremities, that the remainder were compelled to abandon Lyautong and fly to the W., where they founded a new dynasty, called the Western Lyau, or Kara Keetayans, which comprehended all the tract between the Bogdo Alin and the Caspian sea, and of which Khashghar was the capital. This dynasty did not last a century till it, in its turn, was overthrown by the Naimans under Kushluck Khan, who, in