'When Chingis Khan
Defeated His Enemies, The Merkits, They Fled To Barhuchin Tokum.' Tokum
Signifies 'a Hollow, A Low Place,' According To The Chinese Translation Of
The Above-Mentioned Biography, Made In 1381; Thus Barhuchin Tokum
Undoubtedly Corresponds To M. Polo's Plain Of Bargu.
As to M. Polo's
statement that the inhabitants of Bargu were Merkits, it cannot be
accepted unconditionally.
The Merkits were not indigenous to the country
near Baikal, but belonged originally, - according to a division set forth
in the Mongol text of the Yuan ch'ao pi shi, - to the category of tribes
living in yurts, i.e. nomad tribes, or tribes of the desert. Meanwhile
we find in the same biography of Chingis Khan, mention of a people called
Barhun, which belonged to the category of tribes living in the forests;
and we have therefore reason to suppose that the Barhuns were the
aborigines of Barhu. After the time of Chingis Khan, this ethnographic
name disappears from Chinese history; it appears again in the middle of
the 16th century. The author of the Yyu (1543-1544), in enumerating the
tribes inhabiting Mongolia and the adjacent countries, mentions the Barhu,
as a strong tribe, able to supply up to several tens of thousands (?) of
warriors, armed with steel swords; but the country inhabited by them is
not indicated. The Mongols, it is added, call them Black Ta-tze (Khara
Mongols, i.e. 'Lower Mongols').
"At the close of the 17th century, the Barhus are found inhabiting the
western slopes of the interior Hing'an, as well as between Lake Kulon and
River Khalkha, and dependent on a prince of eastern Khalkhas, Doro beile.
(Manchu title.)
"At the time of Galdan Khan's invasion, a part of them fled to Siberia
with the eastern Khalkhas, but afterwards they returned.
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