Views of nature: or Contemplations on the sublime phenomena of creation: with scientific illustrationsHumboldt, Alexander von
Science
Views of nature: or Contemplations on the sublime phenomena of creation: with scientific illustrations
Humboldt, Alexander von
Physical geography; Plant morphology; Science; South America -- Description and travel
The Hiongnu (Hioung-nou), whom Deguignes and with him many other
historians long believed to be identical with the Huns, inhabited the
vast Tartarian tract of land which is bordered on the east by
Uo-leang-ho, the present territory of the Mant-schu, on the south by
the Chinese wall, on the west by the U-siün, and on the north by the
land of the Eleuthes But the Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and the
Huns to the Finnish or Uralian race. The _northern_ Huns, a rude
people of herdsmen, unacquainted with agriculture, were of a blackish
brown complexion. The _southern_ Huns, or Hajatehah called by the
Byzantines Euthalites or Nephthalites, and inhabiting the eastern
shore of the Caspian Sea, had fairer skins. These pursued agriculture,
and dwelt in towns. They are frequently termed _White Huns_, and
d’Herbelot even regards them as Indo-Scythians. In Deguignes[CN] an
account will be found of the Punu, the leader or Tanju of the Huns,
and of the great drought and famine which led to the migration of a
portion of the nation northwards about the year 46 A.D. All the
details, given in his celebrated work regarding the Hiongnu, have been
recently submitted by Klaproth to a rigid and learned scrutiny. From
the result of his investigations it would appear, that the Hiongnu
belong to the widely diffused Turkish races of the Altai and Tangnu
mountain districts. The name of Hiongnu was a general name for the Ti,
Thu-kiu or Turks, in the north and north-west of China, even in the
third century before the Christian era. The southern Hiongnu submitted
themselves to the Chinese, and in conjunction with the latter
destroyed the empire of the northern Hiongnu, who were in consequence
compelled to flee to the west, and thus appear to have given the first
impulse to the migration of nations in Central Asia. The Huns, who
were long confounded with the Hiongnu (as the Uigures were with the
Ugures and Hungarians) belonged, according to Klaproth,[CO] to the
Finnish race of the Uralian mountains, which race has been variously
intermixed with Germans, Turks, and Samoiedes.
The Huns (Οὖννοι) are first mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes, a
writer who was able to obtain more accurate information than others
regarding the interior of Asia, because, as a learned man and a native
of Charax on the Arabian Gulf, he was sent back to the East by
Augustus, to accompany thither his adopted son, Caius Agrippa.
Ptolemy, a century later, writes the word Χοῦνοι with a strong
aspiration, which, as St. Martin observes, is again met with in the
geographical name of Chunigard.
Footnote 12:
p. 6—“_No hewn stone_.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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