These are pure, or black (Kirghis), and dwell on the eastern boundary of Turkestan, namely, the valleys of the Thian-shan chain of mountains, and inhabit several points on the shores of the Issik Köl, close upon the frontier towns of Khokand. As I am told (I have only seen a few of them), they are thick-set, but of powerful stature, strong-boned, but remarkably agile, to which last quality their warlike renown is attributed. By their physiognomy alone are they to be distinguished from the Mongolians and Kalmucks: the face is less flat, their cheeks less fleshy, their foreheads somewhat higher, their eyes are less almond-shaped than those of the latter. With regard to their colour, they can be little distinguished from the neighbouring nomadic races; red or fair hair and white complexion (by which type our European scholars would claim relationship for this race with the Finlanders and other north Altaic races) are rarely found; at least, my Khokand friends assured me that among hundreds there were scarcely one or two.[38] In all likelihood the Kiptchaks, of whom I have made mention in my travelling journal at page 382, are no other than a division of the Buruts, who are settled down in and around Khokand, and have caught, both from Islam and from their social relationship with Turkestan, far more than the rest of the Buruts, who, through their contact with Kalmucks and Mongolians, now and then profess themselves more or less Islam. Their language also contains many more Mongolian words than the dialect of the Kiptchaks. From this most original Turkish people we pass over to the second gradation, which is-- THE KIRGHIS. Among the Kirghis or Kasak (as he calls himself), the character of the Mongol Kalmuck type is no longer to be met with in such a striking manner as among the Buruts, although he is hardly to be distinguished from the latter in language and manner of life. In colour, he nearly resembles the rest of the inhabitants of the deserts of Central Asia. The women and youths, in general, have a white and almost European complexion; still this becomes soon altered, through the manner of living in the open air, in heat and cold. The Kirghis are of thick-set and powerful frames, with large bones; they have mostly short necks,--a real type of the Turanian, opposed to the long-necked Iranian; not very large heads, of which the crown is round, more pointed than flat. They have eyes less almond-shaped, but awry and sparkling, prominent cheek-bones, pug noses, a broad flat forehead, and a larger chin than the Buruts. Their beards have little hair on the chin, only on both ends of the upper lip; and it is remarkable, that they lament this deficiency, and by no means find such delight in this physiognomical characteristic as in the projecting cheek-bones, small eyes, &c., which are esteemed by them as beauties.[39]