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CHAP. LVII. p. 276.

REINDEER SINJU.   61

55.  p. 268, n. 2. In the Yuan Shi, XX. 7, and other Chinese

Texts of the Mongol period, is to be found confirmation of the fact,

" He is slaughtered like a sheep," i.e. the belly cut open lengthwise.

(PELLIOT.)

56.  p. 269. " The people there are called MESCRIPT ; they are a

very wild race, and live by their cattle, the most of which are stags, and

these stags, I assure you, they used to ride upon."

B. Laufer, in the Memoirs of the A merican Anthropological

Association, Vol. IV., No. 2, 1917 (The Reindeer and its Domestica-

tion), p. 107, has the following remarks : " Certainly this is the

reindeer. Yule is inclined to think that Marco embraces under

this tribal name in question characteristics belonging to tribes ex-

tending far beyond the Mekrit, and which in fact are appropriate to

the Tungus ; and continues that Rashid-eddin seems to describe

the latter under the name of Uriangkut of the Woods, a people

dwelling beyond the frontier of Barguchin, and in connection

with whom he speaks of their reindeer obscurely, as well as of

their tents of birchbark, and their hunting on snowshoes.

As W. Radloff [Die Jakutische Sprache, Mént. Ac. Sc. Pet.,

1908, pp. 54-56] has endeavoured to show, the Wooland

Uryangkit, in this form mentioned by Rashid-eddin, should be

looked upon as the forefathers of the present Yakut. Rashid-

eddin, further, speaks of other Uryangkit, who are genuine

Mongols, and live close together in the Territory Barguchin

Tukum, where the clans Khori, Bargut, and Tumat, are settled.

This region is east of Lake Baikal, which receives the river

Barguchin flowing out of Lake Bargu in an easterly direction.

The tribal name Bargut (— t being the termination of the

plural) is surely connected with the name of the said river."

57.  p. 276.

SINJU.

" Marco Polo's Sinju certainly seems to be the site of Si-

fling, but not on the grounds suggested in the various notes.

In 1099 the new city of Shen Chou was created by the Sung or

Manzi ' Dynasty on the site of what had been called Ts'ing-

t'ang. Owing to this region having for many centuries belonged

to independent Hia or Tangut, very little exact information is

obtainable from any Chinese history ; but I think it almost certain

that the great central city of Shen Chou was the modern Si-ning.

Moreover, there was a very good reason for the invention of this

name, as this Shen was the first syllable of the ancient Shen-shen

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