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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1882.
thus confirming its identification with Ui-ra-ka. envoys Altan and Bughra or Burah. Only one Rashidu'd-dîn tells us it was called Eyirkai in the of the names of the Kirghiz chieftains is legible language of Tangut and Eyirkaya in Mongol.0 in the MSS. consulted by Erdmann and D'OhsSsanang Setzen calls it Irghai." As we have seen son, and this reads Urus Inal. I may say that it gave its name to one of the lu or circuits according to the readings in these MSS. the of Kan-suh or Tangut, and there can be two sections of the Kirghiz were respectively no doubt it was the Egrigaia of Marco Polo called Jines an Bede or Jenin an Bede and who calls it a province containing numerous Bede Urun or Biti Afrun. The difficulty in cities and villages and belonging to Tangut. reading one name in Rashidn'd-dîn's story He says the people there were chiefly idolators," must have arisen early, for Abulghazi only but there were also fine churches belonging to mentions one of the chiefs of the Kirghiz, and the Nestorian Christians. He tells us also that calls him Urus Inal. He describes the falcon in this city they made great quantities of sent as a present as being white with red camlets of camels' wool, the finest in the world, claws, beak and eyes, but red here ought some of which were made from the wool of surely to be yellow, for these famous falcons white camels, and were deemed the best.» were no doubt gerfalcons. Let us now shortly Colonel Yule says that among the Buriats and consider who these Kirghises were. For a long Chinese at Kiakhta snow-white camels without time there was a profound confusion about the albino character are still often seen. “ Philo. connotation of the term Kirghiz, two very stratus tells us that the king of Taxila furnished distinct branches of the Turkish race having been white camels to Apollonius."'
confounded under it-1, the so called Kirghiz We have now reached a point where the Kazaks of the Great, Middle and Little Hordes; order of events and general chronology be- the Hakaz of the Chinese writers who live in comes confused; a confusion in the present the plains north of the sea of Aral and between case, caused as I believe by the frailty of the Volga and Sungaria, and who were for a the chronological cycle used by the Mongols. long time improperly called Kirghiz; and 2, The Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi condenses into the year the Kirghiz proper, also called Buruts, Rock of the hare 1207 what all the other authorities, Kirghiz and Black Kirghiz. The latter have with more reason as I think, distribute between been supposed by previous writers to have been this year of the hare and another year of the known in the West at least as early as the year hare 12 years later, namely 1219. I shall here 569, when we are told by the Byzantine authors follow the story as told in the other authorities. that Zemarchus, the envoy of the emperor, was The Yuan-shi says that, after his attack on Hia presented by the chief of the Turks with a Chinghiz despatched an embassy to the Kir- young Kergis slave girl. But this was clearly a ghiz' consisting of Alertan and Powla (read reference to a Cherkes or Circassian maiden, a Boru by Hyacinthe). The tribes Eternale race whose attractions are still proverbial, and and Alertan (called Idir nere and Aldar by not an ugly flat-faced typical Turanian. Carpini Hyacinthe) sent envoys in turn with famous calls the Circassians Kergis." For the earliest falcons.1 De Mailla calls the envoys of notices of the Kirghiz we must turn to the Chinghiz Andan and Puula, and the tribes Chinese writers, who tell us the Ki-li-gi-si as which sent envoys Yetie Ynali and Alitier. 1 they call them submitted to China in the 7th
In the Huang-yuan we read that in the century. In the year 759 they became subject year 1207 Chinghiz sent Andan and Baula to the Uighurs, whose power they, a century to the tribe of the Kiligisi and their chiefs later, overthrew. By this victory they became Olosi Inan and Atelula, who thereupon came for a while the masters of Central Asia, and back with the envoys and brought a white several of their embassies are mentioned by faloon as a present." Rashidu'd-dîn calls the the Chinese writers. After the fall of the 10 Nouv. Journ. Asiat., tome XI, p. 463.
16 Douglas, p. 56; Hyacinthe, p. 40. 11 Op. cit., p. 163, etc.
17 Op. cit., tome IX, p. 42. 1 1. e. Buddhists.
1s Op.cit., p. 180. 13 Op. cit., Yule's ed., vol. I, p. 272.
1. Abulghazi, p. 92 note 4; D'Ohsson, vol. I, p. 113 * Id., p. 274 note 3: Erdmann, Travels, vol. II, p. 261. note: Erdmann, pp. 246 and 311. is Ke-leih-keih-sze is Mr. Douglas' transcript of the
90 Op. cit., p. 13. name.
31 D'Avezac, p. 678.
