CHAPTER XII.

THE BURIATS.

 

IN an inquiry like the present, which bristles with difficulties, and in which opinion is unsettled upon so many points, it is not strange that our conclusions are often only tentative and subject to be modified by further criticism. More than once in the course of this work I have had to qualify or alter opinions formerly held, and held in common with previous inquirers. I have now to do so again. I asserted that Uirad is not a race name among the Mongols. I argued that the term Durben Uirad is a mere descriptive epithet, and not in use as an indigenous name among the Mongols, and further, the only race who style themselves Uirad are the Telenguts, who I therefore identified with the Uirads of Raschid. I again argued the same way on page 590. That this conclusion was not without some warrant may be seen by an examination of the reasons there given, but it is a conclusion to which I cannot now wholly subscribe. It is true the Telenguts still call themselves Uirads, and that they were treated as Uirads by Ssanang Setzen in the seventeenth century; but this I now hold to be due to the fact that they were formerly in close alliance if not subject to the Uirads, and I now bold that the modern Telenguts are descended from the Telenguts of Raschid, and not from the Uirads of that author. Nor am I so confident now that the name is not used as a race name, or that its etymology has been finally settled. I have only recently met with a passage in a scarce work by Schmidt, in which it is stated that the favourite name the Volga Kalmuks give themselves is Uirad or Mongol Uirad. Schmidt, who probably knew the Volga Kalmuks better than anybody, is not likely to have been mistaken. It seems clear further, that the name by which the Kalmuks were known to the Chinese during the supremacy of the Ming, namely, Wala is a mere transcription of Uirad; the Chinese, who have no r, replacing it by l. Besides the Uirad, or,  Durben Uirad we also read of the Uirad Buriad and the Gol Minggan of the Uirad. I am therefore pretty confident that Uirad is an indigenous name among the Kalmuks. Let us now shortly consider its meaning. Remusat and Pallas, both of them first rate authorities, tells us that Durben Uirad means the four allies, and this etymology has been pretty generally received, but there is another which has some plausibility.

In speaking of the herds of white mares kept by Genghis Khan, Marco Polo says, “The milk of these mares is drunk by himself and his family, and none else except by those of one great tribe that have also the privilege of drinking it. This privilege was granted them by Genghis Khan on account of a certain victory they helped him to win long ago. The name of the tribe is Horiad.” Colonel Yule identifies the Horiad with the Uirad, and he adds that according to Vambery, Oyurat means a grey horse. This, as Colonel Yule says, is in curious accord with the anecdote told by Pallas. I may add further that Vambery considers that Kunkurat is derived from the Turki Kongur-At, a chesnut horse, which would make a parallel example. Whatever the etymology, I believe the ancient Uirads of Raschid to have been the ancestors of the modern Kalmuks.

According to Abulghazi, the Uirads were settled on the Sikiz Muran (the eight rivers). These eight rivers, he says, fell into the Angara, that is, into the great head stream of the Kem or Yenissei, which flows out of the lake Baikal. This is confirmed by the names of the rivers. Thus the Ikra or Akra Muran is doubtless the Irkut. The Aka Muran is no doubt the Oka, the Chaghan Muran, or white river, doubtless survives in the Biela, which is a new name given to one of the tributaries of the Angara by the Russians, and which means white, while the Jurja Muran is perhaps the upper Tunguska, Jurji being the Mongol name for the Tungus. Of the other four rivers the Kara Ussun is still the name of a tributary of the Oka. The Une Muran is probably the modern Unga. The Kuk Muran, or blue river, and the Sanbikun (called Siyitun by Erdmann) cannot identify; but these suffice to fix the homeland of the Uirads in the days of Genghis Khan. The Uirads were divided into several tribes. Although they spoke Mongol, yet their dialect was somewhat different from that of the other Mongols. Thus a knife, which among the other Mongols was called gitukah, they called mudghah. They were close allies of Genghis Khan, to whom they apparently submitted without any struggle. Their chief in his days was named Khutuka Bigi, who left two sons named Inalji and Turalji, and a daughter named Ukul Kitmish, who seems to have married Mangu Khan. Turalji married Jijegan, Genghis Khan’s daughter, and was thence known as Turalji Kurgan, or the son-in-law. By her he became the father of Buka Timur, who was a famous general and served in Khulagu’s western campaign. It was probably with him that the large body of Uirads entered Persia, who are mentioned by the Egyptian historian Makrizi. He describes how, in 1296, 15,000 Uirad families deserted the service of Gazan Khan of Persia and went to the Mameluke ruler of Damascus, by whom they were well received. We are told that their heathenish practices, however, gave offence to the faithful, that they were settled in the Sahil or coast districts of Palestine, where many of them died, and the others embraced Islam, spread over the country, and gradually became absorbed in the general population. Their sons and daughters were greatly admired for their beauty.

We are now in a position to inquire into the origins of the Buriats, who still form the most unsophisticated of the Mongol tribes, and who occupy such a large area on both sides of the Baikal Sea. They are otherwise known as Barga Buriats, and are called Bratski by the Russian travellers. Buriat ought perhaps to be written Burut, the name by which the Eastern or Proper Kirghises are also known. Schmidt tells us the Kalmuks call these Kirghises, as well as the Buriats of the Baikal Burut. The etymology of the name is perhaps to be found in the word Buri, which, according to Timkowski, means a stallion.

According to the traditions of the Buriats, they axe very closely connected with the Uirads. They say that Eleuth and Buriad were two brothers, who quarrelled about a foal and separated. Ssanang Setzen calls them Uirad Buriad. As I have said, the Buriats are also called Barga Buriats. This connects them with the Barguts of Raschid. He makes the name generic, and tells us it includes the Barguts, the Kuris, the Tulás, and the Tumats. The name Bargut, wrongly written Turghaut by Abulghazi, means “on the other side,” and was given them, he tells us, probably copying Raschid, because they lived on the other side of the Selinga, in the country called the plain of Bargu by Marco Polo, and which, according to Hyacinthe, is still called Barakhu. The same country is doubtless meant by the Barguchin Tugrum of Raschid, who tells us the Tumats lived there. The latter form of the name survives on the river Barguzin, which flows into lake Baikal on the east, and on which is the Russian settlement of Barguzinskoi.

The various Bargut tribes seem to be referred to in the history of Genghis Khan under the name of Tumats. Their chief was then called Tatulah Sukar. They seem to have rebelled during his absence in China, and in 1217 he sent his general Burghul against them. He demanded a contingent of troops from their neighbours the Kirghises, and afterwards subdued them. We are told by Petis de la Croix that the Tumats were so terribly punished on this occasion that Genghis himself came to the rescue of the survivors, and ordered their children to be educated and their wives and daughters to be married.

After this the Tumats and their allies disappear from history for many centuries. If there axe any native chronicles extant among the Buriats none of them have been made accessible to us, and we do not meet with reliable notices of them until the Russian invasion of Siberia. We can only dimly gather that during the interval they spread a good deal from their original homeland. Of this we have some evidence. Thus Raschid himself tells us that the country on the Angara, then occupied by the Uirads, was the former homeland of the Tumats. And on turning to the traditions of the Kalmuks, collected by Pallas, we find that the most widely spread belief among them makes out that the four sections of the Durben Uirads were originally the Eleuths, the Khoits, the Tummuts, and the Barga Buriats. These Tummuts can be no other than the Tumats of Raschid. Pallas adds that the Kalmuks do not know what has become of the Tummuts. They believe that they still exist in Eastern Asia, and mention a fable according to which the roving spirit Sharashulma, who is often the leader of tribes when wandering, separated them from the other Uirads and led them far away.t We must be careful to distinguish them from the Seven Tumeds, a tribe of very modem origin among the Mongols of the Forty-nine Banners, whom I have already described, and with whom they are confounded by Pallas and Schmidt. Many of the Buriats still remain in the country watered by the Angara and also in the land of Bargu, both of them inhabited, as I have shown, by the Barguts in the time of Genghis Khan. Another body of them is now found on the Lena. This, however, seems to be an intrusive section. Fischer has remarked that when the Russians conquered the Tunguses on the Lena the latter, who are clearly the old inhabitants of this area, were tributaries of the Buriats, pointing to their having been conquered by them; and among the Yakuts, another intrusive tribe, on the Middle Lena, who form a curious section of the Turk race, there is a tradition that they comparatively recently migrated down that river from the neighbourhood of the Baikal lake, where they formerly lived on good terms with the Buriats, but having quarrelled with them they were driven from their old land. The movement of the Buriats to the Lena was perhaps coincident with the migration of the Yakuts, and may have been con­nected also with the displacing of the Tumats on the Angara by the Uirads. It is curious that Baikal, meaning rich sea, is a Yakut and not a Buriat gloss. Let us now turn to the later history of the Buriats. They are first named, so far as I know, in the Russian annals in 1612, when we  read that the Siberian tribe of the Arini submitted to the Russians, and that a short time before the same Arini had been attacked by the Buriats. They are next mentioned in 1622, when we are told they appeared on the Yenissei with a body of 3,000 men, but they seem to have retired again. It was not till 1627 that they came into actual contact with the Russians. In that year Maxim Perfirief with forty Cossacks was sent along the river Tunguska, and readied the so-called Buriat waterfalls or rapids, made tributary the Tunguses on its banks, and then went overland to the settlements of the Buriats, who refused submission. He returned to Yeniseisk in 1628. The same year the Cossack sotnik or captain, Peter Beketof, with a party of Cossacks, built the fort or settlement of Kibenskoi, whence he navigated the Tunguska in canoes, passed the waterfalls, and took tribute from the Buriats on the Oka. He also carried off a number of Buriats as slaves, but these were returned.} The Cossack explorers of Siberia had a good deal of the buccaneer about them, and their brave and dangerous journeys were often .made in search of plunder, furs, &c., which were easily forced from the weak tribes. It would seem that rumours had reached the. Russians that there was a good deal of silver among the Buriats. This came to them from China by way of the Mongols, and it was this which apparently induced the Voivode of Yeniseisk, Yakof Rhripunof, to make aa expedition into their country. He set out from Tobolsk in the spring of 1628, and a year later reached the mouth of the Him, a tributary of the Tunguska. Leaving a small body of Cossacks there in charge of some guns be had taken with him, and sending thirty others towards the Lena, he marched with the remainder to the Angara. He met with the Buriats on the Oka, where we are told he was victorious, but his victory bore no fruits, for he returned and almost immediately died. This expedition also carried off twenty-one Buriats as slaves, but they were sent home again. The Russians now attempted to approach the Buriats in a more diplomatic fashion, sent them bade some prisoners they had captured, and sent two Cossacks to them as envoys, but they , were not well received, and one of them was killed.

In 1631 the Russians built a fort near the mouth of the Oka, which was given the name of Bratzkoi from the Buriats in whose country it was built. After the murder of the Cossack above named the Ataman Maxim Perfirief, with fifteen Cossacks, had made an expedition to the Buriats. Each of them was presented with a sable skin by the latter in gratitude far the release of their friends above named. This present was construed by the Russians into a payment of tribute, but the construction was resented by the Buriats, who also persuaded the Tunguses to cease paying yassak.

In 1635 the Buriats killed Dunaief and fifty-two Cossacks who formed the garrison of the Bratzkoi ostrog, and carried of their guns and ammunition. A force was now sent from Yeniseisk to punish them. They were speedily reduced, and the Russians extended their authority so much among them that in 1639 the district subject to the Ostrog at Bratskoi extended from the Wichorefka, a tributary of the Angara, as far as the Uda.

Meanwhile the Cossacks were also advancing on the side of the Lena. The Tunguses there were tributaries of the Buriats, and were forbidden by the latter to pay the Russians tribute. The sotnik Beketof accordingly set out to punish them. He had thirty men only with him, of whom he left ten at Ust Kut. With the rest he advanced to the river Kulenga, where the Buriat steppe commenced. This was in 1631. After a march of five days he came upon a body of 200 Buriats, who fled. The Cossacks having entrenched themselves, sent to demand that they should become Russian subjects. They promised to send them some furs in two days as a tribute. Two of their chiefs accordingly went with sixty followers.. They were allowed to enter the stockade after depositing their bows and arrows outside, and they then offered five wretched summer sable skins and a rotten fox skin, almost denuded of hair. The Russian commander was indignant, and saw that a trick was being played upon him. While the Buriats, who seem to have had no intention of becoming tributaries, pulled out the knives and daggers they had hidden in their clothes, but the Russians were prepared and laid forty of them on the ground, and wounded many of the rest, while they only succeeded in killing three Tunguses (who were proteges of the Russians, among them being the Tungus chief Lipka), and wounding one Cossack. Meanwhile the Buriats assembled outside to revenge their dead countrymen. Beketof thought it prudent to retire, and having mounted his men on Buriat horses, made a hasty retreat, riding in one march twenty four hours together, and at length reached the mouth of the Tutur, where his allies the Tunguses lived, and where he determined to build an ostrog or settlement.

A few years later, namely, in 1640, Wasilei Witesef was sent at the head of ten Cossacks from Ilimsk along the Lena. He brought many of the Tunguses into subjection, and then went to the Buriats at the mouth of the Onga, a tributary of the Lena, from whom he demanded tribute. Some excused themselves on the ground that they had already to pay tribute to the Mongols on the other side of lake Baikal, while others asked time for consultation with their friends. Wasilei having returned to Ilimsk, it was determined to prosecute a campaign against the Buriats. One hundred men, under his command, were accordingly sent in the early spring of 1641. They marched on snow shoes, and were guided by the Tunguses, and so surprised the Buriats that in three weeks they were made to submit. Their chief Chepchugai kept up the struggle, however, and we arc told he defended his yurt bravely, and wounded many of the Russians with the arrows he shot from it. He was only subdued when his tent was set on fire by the Russians, and he had perished in it. Having recovered from their panic, the Buriats afterwards recommenced the struggle, and we are told that Kurshum, Chepchugai’s brother collected a body of 200 of them and made an attack, in the hope of releasing his countrymen who had been taken prisoners, among whom his son Chefdakom was the most distinguished, a bloody struggle ensued, which lasted from dawn tilt nightfall, in which the Buriats were at length beaten 0$ although not until the Russians had suffered severely. This struggle seems to have cowed the Buriats, and the Russians having offered to release their prisoners, who were chiefly women, if they would go to them and do homage and agree to pay tribute, Kurshum, who was now their head chief, went to their camp. The prisoners were set free except Chefdakom, Kurshum’s son, whom the Russians wished to retain as a hostage, and whose freedom was only purchased by his father agreeing to become a hostage in his place. Later in the year an ostrog was built on the Lena to control these Buriats. This was called Werkholensk. In 1644 a sub-chief of Cossacks named Kurbat Iwanof, who commanded at Werkholensk, made an apparently unprovoked attack on the Buriats in the steppes of the Angara, and returned with much booty. This caused an alliance between the Angara Buriats and those of the Lena, who determined upon a joint expedition against Werkholensk. They accordingly carried off the Russian cattle there and beleaguered the fort. They were 2,000 strong, were all mounted, armed with bows and arrows, with swords and lances, and many of them wore coats of mail; but they did not take the fort, although its garrison was only fifty strong. But they did not pay tribute that year, and they so frightened the Tunguses that they also stayed away with their yassak. The following year Alexei Bedaref, with 130 Cossacks, was sent from Ilimsk to relieve the fort. On the way he defeated a body of 500 Buriats, and when he came near Werkholensk the besiegers withdrew. He turned aside to attack one of the Buriat camps, which he surprised in the absence of the warriors, and took some prisoners. He then went on to Werkholensk, where he was followed by the Buriats. They prayed him to release their people, which he did on condition that they became tributary. The following year, in 1646, he inarched against another of their tribes, but it showed a bold front. Notwithstanding this the Russians overcame them, and also succeeded in subduing a third tribe. But meanwhile the Buriats began to collect together in large numbers from the neighbourhood round, and Bedaxef deemed it prudent to retire to Werkholensk, which he had some difficulty in reaching. The same year Bedaref had a campaign with the Buriats beyond the Angara. In this he was at first successful, but as he returned his retreat was cut off by a 2,ooo of the enemy, and he lost many of his men in a struggle with theme. The Buriats, how­ever, lost heart in turn and retired, and he reached Werkholensk in safety. Emboldened by their success, they seem in 1648 to have beleaguered Werkholensk, Ust kut, and even Ilimsk, but the Russian firearms and their vigorous policy was an overmatch for the poorly armed Buriats, and in the campaign winch followed they lost many horses, cattle, and other booty. A portion of it was carried off by the Buriats in a subsequent engagement, but the Russians managed to secure their prisoners. In the following year the campaign was urged vigorously against them in the district of the Lena, their tribes were subdued one after another, their confederacy was broken up, and many of them fled beyond the Baikal to their countrymen the Mongols; but they were no better off there and. returned again. At length, after a devastating and bloody struggle, which lasted over many years, they were about 1655 cowed and subjected. And after this the Lena Buriats may be looked upon as Russian subjects and as following the fortunes of the Russians in Siberia. Let us now turn once more to their brethren on the Angara and its tributaries.

In 1647 the Buriats on the Uda, who were apparently threatened by the Mongols, sent an envoy to Krasnoyarsk to make a treaty of peace with the Russians. Their chief, who was called Ilanko, went shortly after in person with his son and a small party to ask that the Russians would build an ostrog in his country, partly to protect them against the Mongols and also as a place where they might receive their tribute. This request was acceded to, and a small fort was built on the eastern bank of the Uda, which was called Udinskoi. Their fidelity was not very firm, for on the disappearance of the Mongol danger they seem to have fallen upon the Cossacks who were sent to them to collect tribute and to have killed them. This was in 1649. In 1652 they were once more brought to submission by a Russian force commanded by Kirilla Bunakof.

In 1648 the post of Bratskoi was removed from its old situation at the mouth of the Oka on td the other bank of the Angara. Its new site was a very fruitful one, and the ground was especially productive in grain, and. returned tenfold of what was sown. This removal seems to have excited the jealousy of the Buriats in the neighbourhood, who rebelled, and in 1650 paid no yassak or tribute, and were only restored to obedience by the practised and skilful band of Maxim Perfirief, the former governor of Bratskoi, who had gained considerable influence there. After this, Bratskoi was once more removed to its old site on the Oka. This was in 1654, and the removal was superintended by Dimitri Firsof, who was ordered to build another outpost on the Angara. This second post was called Balaganskoi, and was situated about six versts above the outflow of the Unga, and opposite the island of Osinkoi. It was so named after a tribe of Buriats called Bologat, who lived on the rivers Unga and Ossa. Before this ostrog was built the Bologats had been plundered by the Russians under the pretence of collecting tribute from them, and directly after it was completed 1,700 of them became Russian subjects, and the Angara, became a Russian river as far as the great sea of Baikal. They founded a colony at Balagansk, and proceeded to work the iron mines in the neighbourhood, which had long been known to the inhabitants. The Bologats desired the Russians to send to their brethren on the rivers Biela, Kitoi, and Irkut, three feeders of the Angara which flow into it from the west, to reduce them also; but, as the sententious Fischer says, it is often easier to conquer than to retain. In 1658 the heavy hand of Ivan Pokhabof, the governor of Balagansk, caused an outbreak among the Bologats, who killed the Russians who were sent to them and fled. The Russians pursued them to the rivers Biela, Kitoi, and Irkut, but they fled southwards to the Mongols. So great was the migration that in 1659 hardly any yassak was taken to Balagansk. The following year the Mongols carried off the few remaining Buriats that remained in this part of the country. The Russians had now come close to the sacred lake of the Buriats, the great Baikal Sea. The first Russian who navigated it was Kurbat Ivanof, who had marched from Yakutsk in 1643 with not more than seventy-five men. With these he made a landing on the isle of Olkhon, and defeated the Buriats who lived there, and who were 1,000 strong. In 1646 another Cossack named Kolesnikof set out from Yeniseisk and skirted the northern shores of the Baikal with a body of men, and went as far as the upper Angara, which flows the Baikal, and built an ostrog there, which he called Werkhangarskoi. This was in 1647. While wintering there he heard that some Mongols, who encamped on lake Yerafna (between the rivers Barguzin and Selinga), were rich in silver. This excited his cupidity, as it did that of Khripumof, already mentioned. He accordingly sent four Cossacks with a chief of the Tunguses to explore. They proceeded along the river Barguzin as far as the lake Yerafna, and as they met with no Mongols they continued on as far as the Selinga. They there met with a powerful Mongol chief named Turukai-tabun, who received them well and gave them some gold, and two silver bowls. He also told them that these precious metals were not found in his country, but that they were obtained from the Chinese. He also sent a body of Mongols to escort them back to the Barguzin. Kolesnikof now returned to Yeniseisk, and thence to Moscow. This was in 1647. Meanwhile another expedition had set out in 1646 from Yeniseisk to explore the Baikal. This consisted of eighty-four men, and was commanded by Ivan Pokhabof. He made tributary the Buriats who lived on the river Ossa, and built a fort on an island opposite where that river foils into the Angara. He also imposed a tribute on the Buriats who lived on the Irkut, and the following year set out for the southern shores of the Baikal. He attacked the Mongols who lived there and took some of them prisoners. They turned out to be subjects of Turukai, who had behaved so well to the Russians the year before, and with whom were then staying four Cossacks who had been sent to him by Kolesniskof. One of these was sent to ask for the release of the captured Mongols. Mutual explanations followed, and peace was once more restored. Pokhabof had heard from the Buriats bn the Angara that they obtained their silver from a Mongol Khan named Zisan (the Setzen Khan of the Khalkhas whom I have previously described), who was father-in-law to Turukai, and lived not far from the Selinga. Pokhabof asked Turukai to supply him with some guides to his father-in- law’s urga or camp. Turukai, who suspected the object of his visit, and knew how hopeless it was to seek for silver in Mongolia, nevertheless distrusted the policy of admitting such powerful neighbours into the heart of his country. He therefore adopted the plan of conducting them by such a circuitous route that it took them two months to traverse what ought to have been gone over in a fortnight. The Russians learned from the Setzen Khan that any gold and silver he had, be obtained by trade with the Chinese. Pokhabof returned to Yeniseisk in 1648. On his return the inhabitants of Yeniseisk sent Ivan Galkin with sixty Cossacks to make the tribes about the Baikal tributary. When he arrived on the Barguzin he built an ostrog, which became the nucleus of the Russian possessions beyond the great sea. It was given the name of Barguzinskoi.

In 1650 an envoy from the Setzen Khan of the Khalkas, who had been to Moscow, was returning home with some Russians, when several of the latter were murdered by the Buriats on the Baikal at a place called Pasolskoi muis, i.e., cape of the envoys, and a monastery was afterwards erected on the spot.

The Buriats on the Irkut were made tributary, as I have described, by Bokhabof in 1646. It was not, however, till 1661 that an ostrog was built on that river, which became the nucleus of the now famous city of Irkutsk.

I gather nothing more from Fischer as to the Russian conquest of the Buriats beyond the Baikal. They fanned, in fact, but a small element in the population of the Trans-Baikal country or Dauria, where the Tunguses were the predominant race. With the subjection of the latter Fischer deals in considerable detail. So does Muller in his great collection on Russian history, but I can find nothing about the conquest of the Buriats there. Later authors, such as Georgi, Pallas, Gmelin, &c, merely describe the manners and customs of the Buriats, and tell us little or nothing about their history. It is very probable that the Trans-Baikal Buriats were as easily subdued and became as faithful subjects as those on this side of that sea. The Buriats have of late years been a good deal sophisticated. Many of them have been baptised, while a large number of the rest have forsaken their old allegiance to Red Lamaism and Shamanism and been converted by the Yellow Lamas. It now .remains to give a conspectus of their various tribes and fragments as they were in 1766, when Pallas and Georgi wrote their accounts of them.

1. In the district of Irkutsk were two tribes named Buyan, one of 171, the other of 454 males; two tribes of Abaganat, one 188, the other 479; the Ashagabat, 596; Karamut, 270; Babai, 89; Chenorut, 90; Kurkut, 191; Karokut, 530; Chetshelo, 65; Chitut, 116; Kurumchin, 743; Algut, 56.

2. In the district of Werkholensk.—The Abasai, in two tribes, numbering 1,639 males, of whom 464 live on the isle of Olkhon; two tribes of Chenorut, together 1,098; Hingudur, 581; Bayin Tabin, 306; Ura Kolbonda, 801; Olsanai, 415.

3. Living among the Tunguses. The Tutur, 193; Otshut,347, Kulen,224.

4. In the district of Balaganskoi.—The Walsai, 356; Kulmet, 396; Sharat, 79; Bikat, 200; Noyet, 103; Sungar, 135; Kholtubai, 289; Murui, 370; Ikanat, 269; Ongoi, 242; Ongotu, 80; Boroldoi, 90.

5. In the district of Tunkinskoi.—The Tirtei, 370; Muni, 370; Khoniut, 346; Rirkult, 224; Khonkhodoi, 2,319; Sholot, 176; Badarkhan, 73; Irkut, 122; Chicbidar, 33; Sharamut, 105 ; Sayektai, 206 ; Zengen-chin, 195.

6. In the district of Ilinskoi were five bands, which together number 713 males.

7. In Russian Dauria, and especially on the river Uda, lived the eleven tribes of the so-called Khorin Buriats (Sheep Buriats). They were thus named:—The Karakut, 2,090; Galit, 1,003; Batangul, 641; Kuldut, 1,556; Khuazan, 1,573; Batanai, 534; Sharait, 836; Khadai, 1,108; Zagan, 535; Kolbit, 506; Gutshit, 653. The Khorins were in Georgi’s time subject to a chief named Dordshi Olborief; his special tribe was that of the Karakuls.

8. In the district of Udinsk and Selenginsk: Golot, 572, Noyet, 179; Barai, 308; Ongoi, 558; Ongoto, 159; Khoitubai, 358; Kingultu, I61; Irkidei, 168; Sharaldai, 220; Kharangm, forming two tribes, together 987; Chenorut, 349; Olson, 193; Bahai and Khurumchi together, 185; Bomol and Tutulur, 335; and Alagui, 172.

Georgi does not mention the last seven names; but this district was especially well known to Pallas, who had travelled there, and he is no doubt right He says the Buriats altogether numbered about 32,000 men paying tribute. Besides those above enumerated were some small broken clans about the Udinskoi ostrog and Krasnoyarsk.

Pallas tells us that besides the Buriats who lived near the Selinga subject to Russia, there were the following clans of Mongols proper living in that district: Zongol, numbering 1,484 males who paid tribute; Ashekhabat, 832; Tabungut, divided into three sections, together 865; Sartol, 813; Attagan, 1172; Khachagan, 315; and close to Selenginsk, 232; altogether 5,713 males. They were doubtless the descendants of the subjects of Turukai above mentioned.