They are described by Strabo as a mixed race of Celts and Illyrians, who used Celtic weapons, tattooed themselves, and lived chiefly on spelt and millet.
Their colonists were not farmers but trappers, woodrangers, coureurs du bois, who married Indian women, and formed a mixed race known as the bois brutes.
All the churches named have missions to the natives, and in 1904, 104,389 aboriginals and 10,909 persons of mixed race were returned as Protestants, and 1093 aboriginals and 117 of mixed race as Roman Catholics.
These five provinces, however, do not include the elevated steppes of Tsaidam (extending between the Kuen-lun and the Altyn Tagh or Nan Shan ranges), inhabited by a mixed race of marauding people, Tunguts and Mongols.
The population, estimated at 323,097 in 1899, is composed largely of mixed races; in some localities the inhabitants of mixed race are estimated to constitute four-fifths of the population.
