BASHKIRS, a people who inhabit the Russian governments of Orenburg, Perm, and Samar, and parts of Viatka, especially on the slopes and confines of the Ural, and in the neighbouring plains. The Bashkirs are a Tatarized Finnish race, and are called Eestyak by the Kirghiz, in allusion to their origin from a mixture of Ostyaks and Tatars. The name Bashkir or Bash-kûrt appears for the first time in the beginning of the 10th century in the writings of Ibn-Foslan, who, describing his travels among the Volga-Bulgarians, mentions the Bashkirs as a warlike and idolatrous race. The name w as not used by the people themselves in the 10th century, but is a mere nickname. It probably points to the fact that the Bashkirs, then as now, were distinguished by their large, round, short, and, possibly, closecropped heads. Of European writers the first to mention the Bashkirs are Plano-Carρini and Rubruquis. These travellers, who fell in with them in the upper parts of the River Ural, call them Pascatir, and assert that they spoke at that time the same language as the Hungarians. Till the arrival of the Mongolians, about the. middle of the 13th century, the Bashkirs were a strong and independent people, and troublesome to their neighbours, the Bulgarians and Pechenegs. At the time of the downfal of the Kazan kingdom they were in a weak state. In 1556 they voluntarily recognized the supremacy of Russia, and, in consequence, the city of Upha was founded to defend them from the Kirghiz, and they w ere subjected to a fur-tax. In 1676 they rebelled under a leader named Seit, and were with difficulty reduced; and again in 1707, under Aldar and Kûsyom, on account of ill-treatment by the Russian officials. Their third and last insurrection was in 1735, at the time of the foundation of Orenburg, ...