Though I Have Been Unable To Find,
As Stated By Howorth (History, I. Pt.
I. 28), that the name Meng-ku
occurs in the T'ang shu, his conclusion that the northern Shih-wei of that
time constituted the Mongol nation proper is very likely correct....
I. J.
Schmidt (Ssanang Setzen, 380) derives the name Mongol from mong,
meaning 'brave, daring, bold,' while Rashiduddin says it means 'simple,
weak' (d'Ohsson, i. 22). The Chinese characters used to transcribe the
name mean 'dull, stupid,' and 'old, ancient,' but they are used purely
phonetically.... The Mongols of the present day are commonly called by the
Chinese Ta-tzu, but this name is resented by the Mongols as opprobrious,
though it is but an abbreviated form of the name Ta-ta-tzu, in which,
according to Rubruck, they once gloried." - H. C.]
Vincent of Beauvais has got from some of his authorities a conception of
the distinction of the Tartars into two races, to which, however, he
assigns no names: "Sunt autem duo genera Tartarorum, diversa quidem
habentia idiomata, sed unicam legem ac ritum, sicut Franci et
Theutonici." But the result of his effort to find a realisation of Gog
and Magog is that he makes Guyuk Kaan into Gog, and Mangu Kaan into
Magog. Even the intelligent Friar Ricold says of the Tartars: "They say
themselves that they are descended from Gog and Magog: and on this account
they are called Mogoli, as if from a corruption of Magogoli."
(Abulfeda in Buesching, IV. 140, 274-275; I. B. IV. 274; Golden
Horde, 34, 68; Erdmann, 241-242, 257-258; Timk. I. 259, 263, 268;
Vinc. Bellov. Spec. Hist. XXIX. 73, XXXI. 32-34; Pereg. Quat. 118;
Not. et Ext. II. 536.)
NOTE 6. - The towns and villages were probably those immediately north of
the Great Wall, between 112 deg. and 115 deg. East longitude, of which many
remains exist, ascribed to the time of the Yuen or Mongol Dynasty. This
tract, between the Great Wall and the volcanic plateau of Mongolia, is
extensively colonised by Chinese, and has resumed the flourishing aspect
that Polo describes. It is known now as the Ku-wei, or extramural
region.
[After Kalgan, Captain Younghusband, on the 12th April, 1886, "passed
through the [outer] Great Wall ... entering what Marco Polo calls the land
of Gog and Magog. For the next two days I passed through a hilly country
inhabited by Chinese, though it really belongs to Mongolia; but on the
14th I emerged on to the real steppes, which are the characteristic
features of Mongolia Proper." (Proc. R. G. S. X., 1888, p. 490.) - H. C.]
Of the cloths called nakh and nasij we have spoken before (supra ch.
vi. note 4). These stuffs, or some such as these, were, I believe, what
the mediaeval writers called Tartary cloth, not because they were made
in Tartary, but because they were brought from China and its borders
through the Tartar dominions; as we find that for like reason they were
sometimes called stuffs of Russia.
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