1879, and as Dr. Schuyler says the Sibos speak a
Tunguse dialect similar to the Manchu, I presume they
come from about that locality. The colonists were
divided into 14 banners or sumuls, afterwards increased
to 16, the Solons being settled on the right
bank of the Ili, and the Sibos on the left. We
passed through the Solon district between At-kend
and Borokhudzir, but their numbers were so reduced
by the war that only 800 were left in 1877» an<^ these,
by the immoderate use of opium, appear to be doing
their best to destroy themselves.
The Sibos number 18,000 souls, the sexes, numerically,
being about equal. I had been recommended to
visit a Sibo sumul as one of the sights of Kuldja, and we
accordingly did so. O f the eight Sibo sumuls we drove
to the second, and arrived at a rectangular walled town,
with a chamber over the gate. In this room were
some idols, brought thither from a destroyed temple.
We drove through a long, and fairly wide, but dirty
street, to a building that corresponded to a town hall
or house of public business, the walls of which were
written over with stories in Manchu. We were next
taken to a “ tanza,” or house, as I supposed, of a
dignitary. The principal room was spacious and clean,
but the furniture and ornamentation were principally
confined to the western side, where were a hieroglyphical-
looking representation of a tiger, and the paraphernalia
of a Buddhist altar, on which were placed the penates or
household gods. I should have liked to have purchased
some of their burkhans, or idols, but they would not
sell them: in fact, I think the proprietor was not there.
I had taken some Scriptures, in Chinese and Mongol,
but they could read neither one nor the other. They
said, however, that the men of the sixth sumul could
read, and that books should be sent to them through
the Russian Consul. We then went into other houses
looking for curiosities, when my eye fell upon a man s
belt with a clasp, fastening with a hook and eye cut
in jade. There was also suspended from the belt,
of th e same material, a carved lotus, or sacred flower
of the Buddhists. I bought' the whole, and it is now
in the British Museum. We inquired, likewise, if
any in the town were sick, and were taken to a
miserable hovel little better than a shed, where was
A SIBO WOMAN.
an old man, somewhat of an idiot, with fever, but not
of an eruptive character, and opposite to him a young
man. Mr. Sevier carefully examined him, sounding his
swollen and dropsical stomach. His ribs were dilated,
the liver pushed up, heart out of place, and arms
wasted, whilst his pulse was beating fast, and he was
suffering from bronchitis.* We had not the necessary
* Whence he had got the idea I know not, but (perhaps from local
superstition) he was drinking his own water, and this was not the first
case Mr. Sevier had met with. He directed him, of course, to discontinue
it, and told him to drink milk.