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A britchka, drawn by three camels, and carrying Monsieur and Madame de Hell, led the van; then came a troop of four or five Cossacks, armed to the teeth, and several Kalmuks guiding a train of camels loaded with baggage.
Tavernier, the French traveller, in the seventeenth century, gives us a similar description of the Kalmuks, some of whom at present are included in the Russian Empire. "They are robust men," he says, "but the most ugly and deformed under heaven; a face so flat and broad, that from one eye to the other is a space of five or six fingers.
Among the Kalmuks, as among most Oriental peoples, the stronger sex looks with contempt upon all household matters, abandoning them entirely to the women; who work and take charge of the children, keep the tents in order, make up the garments and furs of the family, and attend to the cattle.
In addition to this, these wars brought China into conflict with the European colonial powers. In the years during which the Chinese armies were fighting in the Ili region, the Russians were putting out their feelers in that direction, and the Chinese annals show plainly how the Russians intervened in the fighting with the Kalmuks and Kazaks.
This exploit was several times repeated, and always without the rider suffering himself to be thrown. Madame de Hell's account of the Kalmuks is, on the whole, very favourable, while it shows how closely she studied their manners and customs, and the habits of their daily life.
The Hi region remained thereafter a bone of contention between China and Russia, until it finally went to Russia, bit by bit, between 1847 and 1881. The Kalmuks and Kazaks played a special part in Russo-Chinese relations. The Chinese had sent a mission to the Kalmuks farthest west, by the lower Volga, and had entered into relations with them, as early as 1714.
The well-to-do Kalmuks wear two long tunics, one of which is fastened round the waist, but the usual dress consists only of trousers and a jacket of skin with tight sleeves. The men shave a part of their heads, and the rest of the hair is collected into a single cluster, which hangs down on the shoulders. The women wear two tresses, which is really the sole visible distinction of their sex.
The costume of the common Kalmuks exhibits no decided peculiarity, apart from the cap, which is invariably of yellow cloth trimmed with black lambskin, and is worn by both sexes. Madame de Hell seems inclined to think that some superstitious notions are connected with it, from the difficulty she experienced in procuring a specimen. The trousers are wide and open below.
The lips of the men are thick and fleshy, but the women, particularly those of the higher classes the "white bones," as they are called have heart-shaped mouths of more than ordinary beauty. All have great ears, projecting strongly from the head, and their hair is invariably black. The Kalmuks are generally small, but with well-rounded figures and an easy carriage.
But for these reasons they are very bad pedestrians, their "cribbed, cabined, and confined" foot-gear obliges them to walk on their toes; and their distress is great when they have no horse to mount. Like all pastoral people, the Kalmuks live frugally, because their wants are few, and their nomadic life is unfavourable to the growth of a liking for luxuries.
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