Inner Mongolia

Others shew us several Figures seeming to represent Queens folding their Hands together, with their Servants on each side: The Queens having Crowns on their Heads, and the other being adorned with Rays or Lustres, as Saints are commonly painted, and also folding their Hands: all which hints that this Tower must needs be built by Christians.

He ordered a place in Tartary to be chosen that would henceforth be the capital of his states. This task was given to a Chinese monk named Lieoupingtchong. … A great city was built there, a palace for the Emperor, temples, palaces for the lords, and courts of justice. It was enclosed with high, thick walls.

Working translation

The feast was interspersed with entertainments by rope-dancers, who performed various feats of agility. There were also puppets, which played much as in Europe. The Khalkhas, who had never seen this spectacle, forgot to eat, so much did it amaze them. The Grand Lama appeared untouched by these frivolities

Working translation

On 10 October we came to a great, old and ruined city called Taimingzinz, in which stand two towers … The Chinese told us that this place, many hundreds of years ago, when a Tartar king called Utaichan reigned there, was conquered by a Chinese king and the Tartar driven out

Working translation

We passed several hamlets made up of a few earthen houses, inhabited by Mongols who farm the neighbouring fields. These poor inhabitants lined up along the road to greet the emperor, offering him sheep, butter, cream and various fragrant woods.

Working translation

On the eastern shore of the lake is the outer wall of a princess's detached palace, more than one zhang high and some two li square. Inside stands a sleeping hall flanked by two chambers, with a 'turtle' gallery behind, two side wings along its flanks and a lookout tower rising in front; climbing it gives a fine view. East of the palace, commoners and artisans live together, forming something of a settlement.

Working translation

He dismembered a portion of the Tchakar, and assigned it to the Mongol prince; he built for him, amid these solitudes, a small but handsome city, and presented to him a hundred families of slaves skilled in the arts and manufactures of China.

"We Mongols are formed for living in tents, and pasturing cattle. So long as we kept to that in the kingdom of Gechekten, we were rich and happy. Now, ever since the Mongols have set themselves to cultivating the land, and building houses, they have become poor. The Kitats (Chinese) have taken possession of the country; flocks, herds, lands, houses, all have passed into their hands.

"When the divine Timour dwelt within our tents, the Mongol nation was redoubtable and warlike; its least movements made the earth bend; its mere look froze with fear the ten thousand peoples upon whom the sun shines.

we came, in the solitude, upon an imposing and majestic monument of antiquity, … a large city utterly abandoned. Its turreted ramparts, its watch towers, its four great gates, facing the four cardinal points, were all there perfect, in preservation, except that, besides being three-fourths buried in the soil, they were covered with a thick coating of turf.

Several large heaps of Bricks lay in the City, besides a great many Stone Statues, as big as the Life, of Men, and Idols, Grave-Stones, great Stone Lions, and Tortoises of an uncommon largeness … The Chinese relate that many hundred Years past Utaichan, a Tartarian King, governed here, but was conquered and driven out of his Country by a Chinese King.

A Mongol nun, who with a rosary in her hand kept moving her lips continually, was asked whom she worshipped; she answered: the god who was thrust out of heaven by our God, and her god would come back into heaven and throw our God down from heaven again

Working translation

At that time Qiu Fu had died, and Zhao Quan, among the enemy, grew ever more powerful. He honoured Anda (Altan Khan) as emperor and built palaces for him. On the day set for raising the ridge-beam a great wind suddenly blew, the beam fell and injured several men, and Anda was afraid and did not dare to live there.

Working translation

It is a sort of Cage, made of pretty small Sticks, round, and about 13 or 14 Foot Diameter. … the Roofing begins at about four Foot from the Ground, and ends in a Point like the Roof of a Round Tower, or Pigeon-house: They are covered with Pieces of Woollen Stuff, not woven, but mill'd.

These tents are however more commodious than the common tents of the Mantchews, which are composed only of double or single canvass, almost like those of our troops; these of the Moguls are circular, in form of the frustum of a cone, and covered with a large piece of white or gray felt. A round hole in the top gives a passage to the smoke,

Here also is what we call the country of Gog and Magog ; they, however, call it Ung and Mungul, after the names of two races of people that existed in that Province before the migration of the Tartars. Ung was the title of the people of the country, and Mungul a name sometimes applied to the Tartars.

The Mongol tent, for about three feet from the ground, is cylindrical in form. It then becomes conical, like a pointed hat. The woodwork of the tent is composed below of a trellis-work of crossed bars, which fold up and expand at pleasure. Above these, a circle of poles, fixed in the trellis-work, meets at the top, like the sticks of an umbrella.

There are no towns, no edifices, no arts, no industry, no cultivation, no forests; everywhere it is prairie, sometimes interrupted by immense lakes, by majestic rivers, by rugged and imposing mountains; sometimes spreading out into vast limitless plains.

The construction of the Palace is so devised that it can be taken down and put up again with great celerity ; and it can all be taken to pieces and removed whithersoever the Emperor may command. When erected, it is stayed [against mishaps from the wind] by more than 200 cords of silk.

there is nothing to be found but Mountains, Rocks, and Vallies, there are neither Cities, Towns, nor Villages, nor so much as any Houses. The Inhabitants Lodge under Tents, pitched on all sides in the open Feilds. They are for the most part Grasiers, and transport their Tents from one Vally to another, according as the Pastures are better.

those poor Tartars living there under huts, without walled houses, in the manner of the ancient Numidians or Hamaxobians, who, all given to the pastoral life, did not even have houses but went to live wherever it was most convenient with their portable huts. But the present Emperor of Tartary, now civilising them well, is beginning to have villages built for them and to gather them into these in communities

Working translation

[the lake] with its spring they filled with rubble and broken brick, and melted a great deal of tin and lead over it until it was firm; they raised it the height of a man above the ground and built a platform on top of it … and on top of that platform they built a palace in the Cathay [Chinese] manner, and round that meadow they drew a wall of marble.

Working translation

we reached another old desolate City, called Taimingzingh, fortified with a square Wall, and necessary Bulwarks: There are in it two Towers or Turrets, one very high and the other less: The largest was an Octagon, whose Front was built with Brick, and about ten Fathom from the Ground there was on each of the eight sides Stones placed, in which were carved several Histories.

one of his first Cares was to engage to his Interest by his Royal Bounties, and by Demonstration of a Singular Affection, the Lamas (or Preists) these Men having a great Repute above all those of their Nation, easily perswaded them to Submit to the Government of so great a Prince

The soldiers of the New Town of Koukou Khoton are Mantchou Tartars; but if you did not previously know the fact, you would scarcely suspect it from hearing them speak. Amongst them there is perhaps not a single man who understands the language of his own country.

We were greatly surprised at seeing on the road, six wersts from Elesoutou, the dead body of a child in a leather sack. Upon the sack was a little piece of sheep-skin, some millet, and some bread. This is the usual manner of burying the dead among the Mongols.

Among these people a man is called beg, and a woman ouddogoun, in the Mongol language. They are distinguished by an ardent imagination in the evocation of spirits, which throws them into wild transports. Ongon is their household divinity, which watches over their families and flocks. These remnants of the Shamanic faith have still many zealous partisans among the Mongols

Guihua city (200 li beyond the frontier wall at Shahukou; its Mongol name is Kuku Hetun [Kokekhota, Blue City]; two li in circuit and two zhang high, with one gate each on the north and south; the outer wall has three gates on its east, west and south sides. When Anda [Altan Khan] of the Ming period submitted, it was given its present name.

Working translation

proper temples, and on the latter stream also a remarkable tower of bricks with many idol figures and iron bells, called Chonchotu; but on the Locho river itself, below the stream Elbingol, a monastery built with many temples of brick … not thirty versts from the half-deserted city of Taimingtschin and about forty from an old earth fortress on the Locho

Working translation

and the town of Kokotan is of earth, with towers of brick, burnt brick; the gate towers are large, with two gates in each tower; … the gates are of oak, bound with iron; … there are no firearms, cannon or muskets; and there are many idol-temples in the town and outside it: the temples are of brick, their tops made as in Russia, and the roofs of glazed tile.

Working translation

The richer Tartars sometimes burn their dead with great solemnity. A large furnace of earth is constructed in a pyramidical form. Just before it is completed, the body is placed inside, standing, surrounded with combustibles.

Those who wish to show their devotion or their riches, cause monuments of wood or stone to be erected, in which they deposit the ashes of the deceased. This custom has been observed in Mongolia from the remotest times. Ruysbroek, says expressly: "The Tartars (Mongols), like the nations of antiquity, burn their dead, and preserve their ashes in high pyramids."

The thing is indeed very clearly expressed in their language; they say, "I have bought for my son the daughter of so and so." "We have sold our daughter to such and such a family." The marriage contract is thus simply a contract of sale.

The northern deserts make herding and hunting their livelihood; all the means of life come from these (History of the Liao). By custom they have no houses; they live wherever there is water and grass and move about with no fixed place (History of the Jin).

Working translation

They pass their Life either in Hunting, or doing nothing. And as they neither Sow nor cultivate the Earth, so they make no Harvest. They Live upon Milk, Cheese, and Flesh, and have a sort of Wine, not much unlike our Aqua-vitae ; with which they make their Feasts, and are often Drunk.

the coarser leaves, with which are mixed up the smaller tendrils, are pressed together in a mould, in the form and of the size of the ordinary house brick. Thus prepared, it becomes an article of considerable commerce, under the designation of Tartar-tea, the Tartars being its exclusive consumers, with the exception of the Russians

The ramparts, which are in ruins, are five toises high, and have small bastions at the four corners. In the interior, in the north-west angle, there is a circular space enclosed with unhewn stones: it was probably the site of the Khan's tent. … Some persons affirm that this fort, as well as those situated farther to the south, served as encampments during the expeditions of the celebrated Emperor Kanghi

Among the Tartars, household and family cares rest entirely upon the woman; it is she who milks the cows, and prepares the butter, cheese, &c.; who goes, no matter how far, to draw water; who collects the argol fuel, dries it, and piles it around the tent. The making of clothes, the tanning of skins, the fulling of cloth, all appertains to her