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INHABITANTS THE MONGOLIANS. 109
Mongolian lamaism by guaranteeing a certain revenue to most of the monasteries.
Its constant policy has been to increase the priestly order, in order thereby to
dimmish the natural growth of the population, and replace by peaceful commu-
nities the old encampments of its hereditary enemies. Nevertheless the national
hatred still smoulders, fomented by social differences and conflicting interests.
Most of the savings of the Mongolian tribes find their way to the coffers of the
Chinese dealers and usurers, whence they pass into the hands of the lamas.
Although the monasteries are both numerous and extensive, some containing as
many as ten thousand inmates, a great many lamas also reside in their own families
or roam about from place to place, while the old Shamanism has also maintained
its prestige amongst most of the tribes. The wizards are still appealed to when
the flocks are attacked by disease, when " fine weather "
that is, rain is needed,
when the ailing are to be healed, or the healthy stricken with a mortal illness. As
indicated by the very name of Shaman, originally applied to the "Samaneans," or
Buddhist monks, every possible
transition is still observed between the old nature-
worship and Buddhism, introduced after Jcnghiz Khan's death. Since the close of
the last century some Chinese exiles and colonists have also disseminated Chris-
tianity amongst the tribes.
The various Manchu, Chinese, Tibetan, and Turki influences to which the
Mongols have been subjected are reflected in their customs. Thus the Manchus
have imposed on them, as on the Chinese, the fashion of shaving the head, leaving
nothing but the "pigtail." Monogamy also supplanted polygamy in the seven-
teenth century, and, as in China, the betrothals are all settled by the parents after
the astrologers have announced a happy conjunction of the stars. The purchase-
money is paid as amongst the Kirghiz, while a simulated abduction is gone
through, as in Turkincnia. In burials the Chinese rites arc observed in the case of
princes and princesses, who are placed in coffins, before which the family sacrifices
are offered at the prescribed times. The bodies of prelates are burnt, and their
ashes covered with little mounds or cairns, whereas the poor lamas and the common
folk are thrown to the wild beasts or dogs, as in Tibet. The ravens, called by the
Chinese the " Sepulchres of the Mongolians," seldom quit the nomad steppes,
where they fatten on human remains, and the dogs regularly follow the funeral
processions beyond the camping grounds.
The Chinese immigrants are continually encroaching on the Mongolian domain,
and the imperial territory
of Jchol, occupying some 20,000 square miles north-east
of Peking, has already been entirely
settled by Chinese colonists. Jehol has taken
tin Chinese name of Chengte-fu, and all the neighbouring places have in the same
wa.y changed their names. Here the immigrants increased from 477,000
in 1792
to XS4,OOi> in 1S27, and they appear to be now far more numerous. The region
usually called "Inner Mongolia," in contradistinction to the " Outer Mongolia"
north of the Gobi, is already more than half Chinese. Formerly the Great Wall
coincided roughly with the ethnical, political, and geological limits of the
conterminous state*, lint this line has long been burst through by the Chinese
traders and peasantry, who have occupied all the fertile valleys draining south-