Three principal nations are to be found in this family: the Kalmuks, the Mongols proper, and the Burïats.
_Kalmuks._--M. Vereschaguine, in his "Journey in the Caucasian Provinces," has described the nomadic Kalmuks whom he met with on the frontier separating the Caucasus from the district of the Cossacks of the Don. Travelling villages are found on these dreary and monotonous steppes. The habitations of which these villages are composed consist of tattered tents. These contain, mixed up in an incredible confusion, boxes, cases, lassoes, saddles, and heaps of rags. A hearth is the only sign of a fireplace. During the heat of summer, the children of both sexes, up to the age of ten, run about almost entirely naked. In winter, in the midst of their terrible snowstorms, and when the thermometer is below zero, they remain for days together huddled up in their tents beneath heaps of their clothing.
A Kalmuk's dress consists of a shirt, of a _bechmet_, of a wide pair of trousers, of red leather boots, and of a square cloth cap with a broad border of sheepskin fur, generally ornamented with an immense knob on the top. The more wealthy wear into the bargain an ample and lengthy dressing-gown. The women do not, like the men, wear a belt round their shirt; their hair falls from beneath their cap in several plaits tied up with ribbons of different colours.
Cunning, trickery, fraud, and theft, are the staple occupations of these nomadic tribes. The mother supports her child without the father troubling himself about it, and it grows up in a state of neglect.
The food of the Kalmuks is extremely primitive. Boiled flour, diluted with water and cooked up with pieces of horseflesh, forms the staple of their culinary art. They are fond of tea, and drink a great deal of it, but they season it so highly as to entirely lose its flavour. They are downright drunkards into the bargain, and in this respect the women and the children are not a whit behind the men. They sometimes spend whole days in gambling with greasy and ill-assorted cards.
The Kalmuks are capital horsemen. They also breed and break-in camels, which they sell in the Tiflis market.
_Mongols proper._--The Mongols proper, or the Eastern Mongols, wander in the steppes of Mongolia. They are divided into numerous tribes, of which the most important have received the name of _Khalkas_.