Sagas From the Far East, or Kalmouk and Mongolian Traditionary Tales - With Historical Preface and Explanatory Notes #250083

The first thirteen chapters of the Well-and-wise walking Khan are a Kalmouk (1) collection, all the rest Mongolian and though traceable to Indian sources, they yet have received an entire transformation in the course of their adoption by their new country. In giving them another new home, some further altera tions, though of a different nature, have been necessary. However much one may regret them such transforma tions are inevitable. It seems a law of nature that history should to a certain. Extent write itself. We know theage of a tree by its knots and rings and we trace the age of a building by its alterations and repairs — and that equally well whether these be made in a style later prevailing, utterly different from that of the original design, or in the most careful imitation of the same; for the age of the workman' s hand cannot choose but write itself on whatever he Chisels.