The Calmucks, a principal branch of the great Mongol stock, are more widely dispersed over the globe than any other, even the Arabs not excepted. Tribes of this people occur over all the countries of Upper Asia, between 38° and 52° north latitude, and from the most northern bend of the Hoang-ho to the banks of the Volga. They are the _Hippophagi_, or eaters of horseflesh, of Pliny, and the more ancient historians. They have very large settlements in the neighbourhood of Taganrok, and there Dr. Clarke had an opportunity of studying their habits and appearance. Calmuck men and women were continually galloping their horses through the streets of the town, or lounging in the public places. The women, he says, ride better than the men, and a male Calmuck on horseback looks as if he was intoxicated, and likely to fall off every instant though he never loses his seat; but the women sit with much ease, and ride with extraordinary skill. We shall see however by and by, that the men are better equestrians than the learned traveller supposed. The ceremony of marriage among the Calmucks is performed on horseback. A girl is first mounted and rides off at full speed. Her lover pursues, and if he overtakes her she becomes his wife on the spot, and then returns with him to his tent. But it sometimes happens that the woman does not wish to marry the person by whom she is pursued, in which case she will not suffer him to overtake her; and Dr. Clarke was assured that no instance occurs of a Calmuck girl being thus caught unless she has a partiality for her pursuer. If she dislikes him she rides, in English sporting phrase, _neck or nothing_, until she has completely escaped, or until the pursuer’s horse is tired out, leaving her at liberty to return, to be afterwards chased by some more favoured admirer.