Hordes that deserve to be called portable cities
Editorial contextCrossing the desert beyond the Great Wall at Xining on the way to Lhasa, Grueber and Dorville found it inhabited at set seasons by 'Tartars whom they call Kalmuk', camped along rivers where pasture was best, in hordes 'which not unfittingly deserve to be called portable cities'. The same Tartars roamed the desert as raiders, so caravans needed a strong armed escort.
This desert, however squalid it may be, is nevertheless inhabited at fixed times of the year by the Tartars whom they call Kalmuk, along the banks of the rivers where there is more pasture, in hordes which not unfittingly deserve to be called portable cities; the Tartars roam the desert far and wide here and there for the sake of robbery, so a caravan must be equipped with a strong force to repel the violence of the attacking Tartars.
Working translation
Original wording
Hoc desertum quamtumvis squalidum sit, à Tartaris tamen, quos Kalmuk vocant, constitutis anni temporibus, ubi ad ripas fluminum major pascuorum copia est, per hordas quæ portatiles non incongruè civitates dici merentur, habitatur; Tartaris desertum hinc indè longè latéque latrocinandi causâ divagantibus; undè ad Tartarorum insultantium violentiam propulsandam valida manu Caravanam instructam esse oportet.
About Kalmyk (Oirat, Khoshut) Mongols
Keep in mind
Kircher never travelled; he writes up what Grueber told him and drew. 'Kalmuk' here means the Oirat Mongols then dominant around Kokonor.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR partly garbled); long s normalized.