Abbé Jean-Baptiste Grosier (1743-1823) never went to China. In 1785 he published a general description of the Qing empire built from the Jesuit letters, maps and histories of the previous century, especially the Kangxi-era survey missionaries and Du Halde. The English translation (London, 1788) in this corpus covers Peking and the provinces, then Book II on 'Chinese Tartary': the Manchu homeland and the Amur peoples in the east, and the Mongols (Ordos, Chahar, Khalkha) and Eleuths in the west. Only the first volume is read here.
How they knew
Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here
Grosier uses 'Tartars' for all the peoples north of the Great Wall: the ruling Manchus ('Mantchew or Eastern Tartars'), the Mongols ('Moungal or Mogul Tartars'), the Eleuths or Kalmyks, and small Tungusic peoples of the Amur and Ussuri such as the Yupi-tatse ('fish-skin Tartars') and the Solons.
Why read it
A compact eighteenth-century map in words of who the 'Tartars' of Qing China were, with vivid details: felt yurts, fish-skin clothes, dog sleds, and the ruined cities of the Mongol emperors on the Kerulen.
Watch out
Everything is second hand, drawn from Jesuit reports of the 1690s to 1720s, often quoted without naming the missionary. Grosier's aim was partly to defend China's reputation. The OCR prints the long s as f.
Ruins of a Mongol city on the Kerulen: 'the City of the Tyger'
Editorial contextIn Khalkha country Grosier places 'Karakum', seat of Chinggis Khan's empire, and describes ruins on the north bank of the Kerulen: a square city about two leagues round, built by the Mongol successors of Kublai Khan, with foundations, bits of wall and two half-ruined 'pyramids' (probably stupas or towers) still standing. The locals called it Para-hotun. Ruined cities here are credited to the Yuan emperors.
On the northern side of it are seen the ruins of a large city, built by the Mogul successors of the famous Coblai-kan ; this city was square, and about two leagues in circumference; its foundations, some pieces of the walls, and two pyramids
About Khalkha Mongols; ruins left by the Yuan (Kublai's successors)
Keep in mind
Taken from Jesuit survey reports. The sentence ends on the next page: 'half in ruins, still subsist; it was called Para-hotun, or The City of the Tyger' (n198).
Editorial contextGrosier compares the two kinds of Tartar tent. Manchu tents are just single or double canvas, like European army tents. Mongol tents are round, shaped like a cut-off cone, covered in white or grey felt, with a smoke hole above a central fire; warm while the fire burns, freezing at night, stifling in summer. Three pages earlier he states flatly that the Mongols have 'neither towns, villages, nor houses', only wandering hordes living under tents.
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,
Editorial contextOn the Ussuri, Grosier says, live the 'Yupi-tatse' (Chinese for 'fish-skin Tartars'). They live almost entirely on fish and dress in fish skins, dyed three or four colours and stitched so finely with thin thongs that the seams look like silk. On the next pages he describes their bark canoes, hair hung with little mirrors, and a lady who drove a sledge pulled by a hundred dogs.
The river Ousouri, on the banks of which these people live, must supply them with abundance of fish, since they have no other food, and scarcely any clothes but what they make of their skins. They have the art of dressing these skins, and of dying them three or four colours ;
How the Mongols split into Mongol and Manchu 'Tartars'
Editorial contextGrosier explains 'Chinese Tartary' with an origin story: all its tribes were once called Mongol Tartars, and when the Mongols were driven out of China in 1368, some fled east toward the Amur and kept Chinese customs, becoming the Manchus or 'Eastern Tartars', while the rest went back west and stayed Mongols. The Manchus did not in fact descend from the Yuan refugees; the story shows how Europeans tried to make one 'Tartar' family out of different peoples.
Those of the east retain their ancient name of Moungal or Mogul Tartars: the rest are known by the name of Mantchew or Eastern Tartars. Chinese Tartary is therefore divided into two parts, the eastern and western.
About Mongol Tartars and Manchu ('Mantchew') Tartars
Keep in mind
The text as printed has 'east' and 'the rest' the wrong way round (it means the western group kept the Mongol name), and the origin story itself is mistaken. The quote swaps the printed long dash for a comma.
The fine print
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
Geographical / cultural compilation
Research notes
Not a firsthand traveler; one volume verified. Trace earlier Jesuit and Chinese sources behind claims.
Why it matters
A pre-1850 usage of Tartary in a detailed regional synthesis.