AFTER the burial of Genghis Khan his sons and descendants dispersed to their several governments, and during a space of two years there was no supreme ruler among them. Tului, the youngest, who, according to Mongol custom retained his father’s portion and ruled specially over the Mongols proper and the Keraits, acted as regent. But in the spring of 1229 a Kuriltai, or general assembly of the chiefs, was summoned by Tului to elect a chief Khan. After three days spent in festivity they proceeded to the business of the meeting. Tului was pointed out for the post by the suffrages of many, while Jagatai, as the oldest surviving son of Jingis, was the heir according to Mongol rules of inheritance; but the will of Jingis was paramount, and Ogotai had been named for the post by his father. After forty days’ hesitation his reluctance was overcome. We are told he was conducted to the throne by his brother Jagatai and his uncle Utjuken, and that while Tului presented him with the cup, the rest, both inside and outside the tent, with heads uncovered, prostrated themselves nine times, according to the ancient Chinese ceremonial, and saluted him with the title of Kaan. (Kaan is a contraction for Khakan, a title which Ogotai and his successors bore to distinguish them from the rulers of the three other branches of the house of Genghis.) Ogotai then came out of his tent and made three solemn genu­flexions to the sun, in which he was followed by his people; and the day concluded with festivities. The oath of allegiance sworn by the other princes is thus given by the chroniclers, “We swear that so long as there remains of thy posterity a morsel of flesh which thrown upon the grass will prevent the cows from eating, or which put in the fat will prevent the dogs from taking it, we will not place on the throne a prince of any other branch.”

Ogotai now distributed the treasures collected by his father among the grandees; he ordered that during three days rich meats should be offered to his manes, and having chosen forty of the fairest daughters of his subjects, he, in the words of Raschid, sent them to wait upon Genghis Khan in the other world; with them perished many richly caparisoned horses. He then proceeded to organise his vast empire, a task in which he was greatly assisted by Yeliu Chutsai, the faithful friend of Genghis Khan, whose influence in civilising the Mongols was so great that he deserves a short notice. He was born in 1190 in the country of Yan, and belonged to the royal stock of the Khitans, who founded the Liau dynasty. He was an able astronomer and composed some tables named Mathapa, in which he followed the Mussulman and not the Chinese system. He was also a proficient in geography and arithmetic. When the Mongols cap­tured Peking, Yeliu Chutsai was its governor, and in the great conqueror’s life I have described his honest answer when Jingis attacked his old sovereign, and how the Mongol chief took him into his service as an astrologer. He predicted the overthrow of the empire of Khuarezm and of the Kins, and was consulted by Genghis on many occasions : one instance will suffice to show the kind of stories told of him. During Genghis’s Indian campaign, he one day saw an animal like a deer, with a horse’s tail, a green body, and a single horn. This animal could speak, and cried out to the Emperor’s guards that their master ought to retire in all haste. Jingis consulted Chutsai, who told him the animal was called Kiotuan; that it understood all languages; that it abhorred carnage; and its coming was to warn him that if he was the son of heaven, the peoples were also his children, and heaven was loth that he should slaughter them. During a great epidemic he is said to have saved 10,000 lives by his knowledge of drugs, the chief one being the rhubarb so much used in Chinese medicine; and it was by his influence that a more temperate policy began to be inaugurated among the Mongols, and, in Eastern phrase, the “wind of carnage began to abate.” He now urged upon Ogotai that, although his empire had been conquered on horseback, it could not be governed so. He arranged the etiquette of the court and the order of precedence of the several princes; he restrained the absolute and arbitrary power of the Mongol governors, and established forms of procedure which they were bound to follow. The annual taxes were fixed; the Chinese were to pay silver, silk, and grain, &c. De Mailla says the tax was fixed at a tithe of wine, being a luxury, and a thirtieth of other articles, and custom-houses were appointed for collecting it; Ogotai also forbade the receipt of presents by superior officials from inferiors, that constant source of corruption in the East. The Chinese paid so much for each house, while the nomads paid yearly a hundredth part of their horses and cattle. In their case the levy was not made per house, but so much for each adult male. Public granaries were established, and also a system of posting. At the beginning of 1232 the conquests from the Kin (China north of the Yellow River), were divided into ten departments, each with its own administration; and this after the plan of the Chinese philosopher Kungtsé.

The Mongols now proceeded to complete the rôle of conquest marked out by Genghis Khan. The Kin Emperor had, in 1229, sent offerings for the manes of that conqueror, but they were refused. Notwithstanding the death of Genghis, a desultory war had been continued with the Kins. In 1228 the Chinese won their first victory for eighteen years over the Mongols.

The latter had entered the district of Ta-tchang-yuen with 8,000 men. A Chinese commander named Wanien-tchin-ho-chang opposed them, with an advance guard of 400 cuirassiers composed of deserters and vagabond Chinese, Uighurs, Maneis (the mountaineers of Suchuan), Thibetans, Thu-ku-hoan, &c. Desperate characters, they fought desperately, and although so greatly outnumbered, they completely defeated the enemy. In 1230 the Kin troops again defeated the Mongols in two small engagements, and a Mongol envoy who had been imprisoned was sent back with an insulting message. Ogotai and his brother Tului now determined to press the war against the Kins in person. Having taken several strongholds in Shansi they crossed the Yellow River into Shen-si, where they captured sixty places in which the Kins had garrisons, and conquered the country between Tong tcheu and Hoa tche. They then proceeded to attack Fong-tsiang-fu, which offered a brave resistance. The Kin Emperor sent two officers to relieve it, and ordered them to take a portion of the garrison of the celebrated fortress of Tung kuan with them. With this they attacked the Mongols, the result was not decisive, but the Kin generals retired. The garrison held out bravely and repulsed an assault, and the Mongol general Antchar at length converted the siege into a blockade. He then proceeded to capture Ping leang, Si ho tcheu, King yang, Pin yuen, &c., towns of Shen-si, and eventually compelled Fong tsiang to surrender. Ogotai, who had remained in Pehchehli, now retired northwards to pass the summer heats at the Lake Ilun Ussun, fifty leagues north of the Great Wall, where he held a Kuriltai, to decide upon the plan of campaign to be adopted against the Kin.

Shensi was now in the power of the Mongols, and the dominion of the Kin emperors was restricted to the province of Honan—a province bounded and protected on the north by the Yellow River and on the west by high mountains and the fortress of Tung kuan. On the south it was bounded by the Sung empire, and on this side it was accessible. Genghis, in the plan that he had sketched before his death, had advised his sons to make a wide detour, turning the northern and western barriers of Honan, and to invade that province from the south.

This plan necessitated marching through a part of the territory subject to the Sung dynasty, and the Mongols sent an envoy to ask permission, but his mission was suspected and he was put to death. This treacherous act greatly surprised the Mongols, whose alliance had been courted by the Sung authorities, and it was made the pretext eventually for the destruction of that empire.

Tului set out from Pao-ki, a town of Shensi, nine leagues S.W. of Fong siang, with 30,000 horsemen, to turn the western defences of Ho-nan. He had learnt from his father the policy of ruthless destruction, and he now put it in force mercilessly. De Mailla describes how he slaughtered people by the hundred thousands He advanced across the Hua mountains, which form the watershed between the rivers Han and Hoei, and were the boundary between the Kin and the Sung empires. He then entered upon the lands of the latter empire, captured many cities both in southern Shensi and northern Su-chuan. In January, 1239, he appeared on the river Han, and after a surprising march through mountain defiles and dangers in the province of Su-chuan, his troops at length passed the gorge of U sin koan, and appeared in Southern Honan. Meanwhile Ogotai advanced against the Kin empire from the north. He laid siege to Ho chung (Pou chau fa), a town situated in the extreme south of Shansi, and close to the Yellow River. De Mailla says the Mongols employed towers 200 feet high, made of pine wood, whence they could see the doings of the garrison, and on which they planted their artillery, while their sappers broke into the walls. The town was captured in a fortnight, and soon after Ogotai crossed the Yellow River at Baipo, near Ho tsing hien. Tului continued his march. He crossed the river Han. The Kin generals, with an army which is put by some as high as 130,000, marched against him. A fierce fight ensued at the mountain Yu, near Teng chau, nine leagues S.W. of Nan yang fu, in the province of Honan. Not only had the Kin army the advantage of numbers and position, but the Mongols would seem to have been much harassed and reduced by their long march. The result was not favourable to them, and they retired. They would probably have been annihilated but for the over- confidence of the Kin generals, who thought they had them in a trap, the Yellow River not being frozen over. Their spies meanwhile reported that the Mongols had retired behind a wood of junipers, that they ate and rested during the day, but were on horseback and vigilant during the night. They avoided a general engagement, but managed to capture a portion of the enemy’s baggage. Meanwhile the struggle at the Yu mountain seems to have been exaggerated at the court of the Kin Emperor into a substantial victory. The Emperor received congratulations from the various mandarins, and gave a grand feast. II

The various armies of the Mongols were now converging upon the doomed capital of the Kin. The army of Tului separated into several bodies, which overran a large portion of Honan, and rendezvoused at Teng chau, whence it proceeded to rejoin Ogotai. The Kin generals now gave orders that the sluices of the Yellow River should be cut and the country round the capital be laid under water; but it was too late, Ogotai had already crossed the river and cut in pieces the 10,000 workmen who were sent to sever the dykes. Tului having rejoined his brother at the mountain Sang fong, near Yu-chau, the Mongols surrounded the Kin army, which, seeing itself lost, gave vent to cries like a mountain in labour. They in despair made a desperate effort to cut their way out, and many of them succeeded in escaping to Kiun chau, but their respite was short; the town was besieged, a deep ditch was dug about it so that none might escape, and it soon after fell. The glory of its capture and of the defeat of the Kin troops was chiefly due to Tului. Most of the distinguished generals of the empire were either captured or killed; they showed the usual dignity and intrepidity which distinguished their race.

The death of three of them had an heroic character. “Conduct me,” said Khada, “to Subutai” (the great Mongol commander). “Thou, who hast not a moment to live,” said the latter; “what dost thou want with me? ” “It is heaven and not chance,” was the reply, “that creates heroes. Having seen thee, I die without regret;” and he was killed. Wanien Shengho-shang, on being brought before Tului himself, thus addressed him: “I am the victor of Ta-chang-yuan, of Wei-chau, and of Tao-hoi-goa; if I had perished in the confusion of retreat they would have called me traitor: they will now see how I dare die.” No pressure could humble his phrases: he had his feet hacked off and his mouth gagged, but he died like a hero; and the astonished Mongols drank to him in kumiss, saying, “Illustrious warrior, if ever thou retumest to life again, range thyself with us.” The third general, Ira Buka, died equally constant. When pressed to join the Mongols, he said, “I am a noble of the Kin empire. I ought to be faithful to my sovereign.” Noblesse oblige assuredly is a fine sentiment at such a crisis. He was also executed. The Mongols now proceeded to capture various towns of Honan, among which may be named those of Hiu chau and Sui chau. The Kin Emperor summoned the various garrisons of the eastern fortresses to come to his assistance. These now assembled under Tochan Utien, the commander of Ven siang, on the Yellow River, to the number of 110,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, and marched along the banks of the Hoang ho, escorting 200 barges with several hundred thousand measures of grain from the eastern depôts; but on the news that the Mongols were advancing against them they were seized with panic, and retired, with a vast number of fugitives, towards the high mountains of Thie-ling. The old men and children who lagged behind were slaughtered by the Mongols, while the soldiery, driven to bay by the frost and famine, were forced to surrender, and one of their generals, Wanien Chunsi, was killed.

To add to the misfortunes of the Kin empire, the celebrated fortress of Tung kuan, the buttress and key to Honan on the west, was treacherously surrendered by its commander Li ping; but the Mongols were not uniformly successful. They strove in vain to capture Kuété fu, whose feeble garrison was not to be intimidated into surrender either by threats or cajolery; while another town of Honan, namely, Lo yang, made even a more heroic defence. Its garrison consisted of only 3,000 or 4,000 men. After several days’ bombardment the Mongols made a breach in the eastern angle of the wall, when the governor, fancying the place was lost and unwilling to survive, threw himself into the ditch and was drowned, upon which the garrison elected a new commander, a most intrepid man, named Kiang chin. The garrison was reduced to 2,500 men. He had a number of standards made and hung over the walls, so as to deceive the enemy and make-believe he was stronger than he really was. He adopted a system of mutual supports inside the walls, and marched himself at the head of several hundred picked men to repulse the various assaults. The war cry of the garrison was Han tsé kiun, “Cowards, retire!” When iron failed them for arrow heads they made them out of copper money; they collected those shot by the Mongols, and made four heads out of each one they collected. These they shot out of tubes. He also invented new kinds of pao, i.e. artillery, which could be served by a few men, and fired huge stones for a hundred paces with great precision. The Mongols were at length wearied out, and after an attack of three months, during which they delivered more than 150 assaults, they raised the siege, although their army was 30,000 strong.

Ogotai assigned to his great general Subutai, the hero of so many campaigns, the task of capturing Pian-king (now Kai-fong-fu), then the Nanking or southern capital of the Kins. This city was a vast square, twelve leagues in circumference. Ogotai, who wished to pass the heats in the desert, sent an envoy to ask the Kin Emperor to surrender. The favours he demanded showed the increasing culture of the Mongols. He asked for the Academician Chaoping-wen, a descendant of Confucius called Kung-yuan-tsu, and several other learned men : he bade him send him as hostages girls skilled in embroidery and men in hawking. These terms were accepted by the Kin Emperor; but meanwhile Subutai ignored the negotiations: he constructed his catapults, and thousands of captives—women, children, and old people—were employed in filling the ditch with fascines and straw. The Emperor would not for a long time allow his people to reply, but his patience at length gave way. We are told the cannonade from the bamboo catapults was kept up night and day, and the towers on the walls were reduced to ruins. The besieged cased these in with hides and straw, upon which the Mongols made use of inflammable material, thrown by balistas; but the wall itself was firm as iron.

The stone bullets used by the garrison were made of stone from the mountain Ken yo and the lakes Tai hou and Ling-pi, all in the Sung territory; they were made of the shape of a round lantern. Those of the Mongols were more irregular and made of millstones, cut in half or in three pieces. One of their catapults (Tsuan tchu) was built up of thirteen pieces of bamboo. Their siege works were on a gigantic scale. They built a huge rampart or wall about the city, 150 li in circuit, with guard-houses containing 100 soldiers at every forty paces. On this they planted towers, &c., of wood, corresponding to those of the besieged. The besieged used a kind of bombshells called Tchin tien lei, which they bred from Mangonels or balistas, and also let them down with chains upon the Mongol sappers. They also employed a kind of burning rockets called Fei ho tsiang, which caused terrible wounds.

After sixteen days’ siege, in which a million of men are said to have perished, Subutai, despairing of capturing the place, offered to retire if the Kins would come to terms with the Khakan. He did retire as far as the Yellow River. In the succeeding month an epidemic broke out in the Kin capital: 900,000 coffins were counted, without enumerating those of the very poor who had none. While negotiations were going on for peace, a Mongol chief was killed in a riot in the city, and the Kin Emperor foolishly took into his service a Mongol general who had deserted. He was received with great honour, and created Prince of Yen, but his treachery was speedily rewarded, for the Mongols seized and slaughtered all his family without regard to age or sex. Disgusted by these acts, Ogotai ordered the negotiations for peace to be broken off and the siege to be once more pressed. The Mongols invested the chief approaches to the capital, while the armies that came to the rescue of the Kin Emperor dispersed at the sight of the besiegers. Famine began to appear in the city, and Ninkiassu, the Emperor, determined to abandon it. He left behind him his wives and children, and escaped with some troops beyond the Yellow River, where he tried to raise the provinces, but his troops were everywhere beaten or scattered, and the city, whose hopes were kept up by the expectation that the Emperor would speedily inflict a telling defeat on the besieging army, began to despair.

Its inhabitants suffered terribly from want; houses were destroyed to obtain firewood, while men ate the corpses of their wives and children.

During this terrible period, a rebel commander, Tsuili, seized upon the chief authority: he killed several of the other generals, and then entered into negotiations with Subutai. He sent him the Imperial jewels, and the state robes of the Emperor and Empress: he also burnt the defensive structures on the city walls, to show his submission. He then ordered that everybody should surrender his jewels and valuables, and a terrible scene of pillage and slaughter ensued, during which, according to De Mailla, in less than seven or eight days more than a million coffins were seen to leave the city by its different gates. Tsuili ordered the Empress to write to her husband that all was lost and that he must submit, and sent the message by the Emperor’s nurse. He then placed the two empresses and all the princes and princesses of the Kin Imperial family, to the number of 500, in thirty-two carriages, and sent them to Subutai, who was encamped at Tsing-cheng. The princes were killed, while the princesses were sent on to Karakorum: he also sent to the Mongols a descendant of Confucius, and many jurists, priests, doctors, artists, embroiderers, comedians, &c. He then opened the gates, and the Mongols marched in. Subutai demanded from the Khakan that, as the town had not sur­rendered when summoned, but had cost the Mongols much blood, after the practice of Genghis it should be given up to pillage; but the better counsels of Yeliu Chutsai prevailed, and Ogotai ordered it to be spared, and only those members of the royal family who bore the soubriquet Wanien to be killed. Besides the garrison, the number of people saved by the entreaties of Yeliu Chutsai on this occasion (in which he urged upon the Emperor the value to him of the artisans who lived in Kai fong fu) was 1,400,000 families.

Soon after this, Temutai, a Mongol general, who was laying siege to the town of Po-chau, was treacherously attacked by Kuannu, a general of the Kin Emperor’s, when he was having negotiations with the latter. The Mongols were beaten, and suffered severely; and Kuannu was appointed generalissimo. He seized the reigns of government, and left the Emperor merely the shadow of authority; the latter soon grew weary of the surveillance, and had him assassinated.

Wushan, another of the Kin generals, had assembled an army of 70,000 men in the south of Honan, where the Emperor Ninkiassu set out to join him; but meanwhile Wushan was attacked by the army of the Chinese Emperor of the Sung dynasty, who had entered into an alliance with Ogotai against the Kins.

This attack was made with great vigour; Wushan, or Usien as De Mailla calls him, was forced to take refuge in the mountains of Ma teng, where he took possession of nine forts. The Chinese troops pressed their advantage, and with such vigour that seven of these forts were captured in six days. They pursued Usien among the defiles and recesses of the mountains, and having again fought with him, compelled him to become a fugitive, and then retired towards Siang yang.

Meanwhile the Mongols continued their successes; they captured Lo yang, which made a brave resistance, but one of its gates was treacherously surrendered by the officer in charge. The commander of the town, Kiang chan, who had so distinguished himself the year before, refused to surrender, and, covered with wounds, was taken before Tachar, the Mongol commander, who would have gladly enlisted such a hero in the Mongol ranks, but he refused, and turned towards the south to salute the Kin Emperor; he was put to death. Meanwhile Ninkiassu, the Emperor, had been pressed by one of his generals in the south to march towards him, and to take shelter at Tsai-chau, a town of Southern Honan. He now set out escorted by only 300 men, of whom only fifty were mounted. He was well received by the people, and named Wanian Huchahu, a prince of the Royal family, and of great repute for his wisdom, commander-in-chief, and first minister. The Emperor was a weak person, and as the Mongols did not pursue him very closely he began to grow lethargic in his new refuge, collected a harem of young girls, and made himself a pleasure garden, &c. His faithful general pressed upon him the indecency of the proceeding, and he altered his behaviour. Huchahu collected a force of 10,000 cavalry. The presence of the court and of this force made Tsai-chau the resort of a vast crowd of fugitives, and it began to be feared that there would be a famine. The Emperor thereupon wrote to the Sung Emperor Li tsong, to ask him to send some provisions. He drew his attention to the favours he had during his reign done the Sung, and bade them beware of the Mongols, that after destroying forty kingdoms, and the empire of Hia, they were now uprooting that of the Kins, and that their turn would follow, and he urged upon them the Chinese proverb that when the lips are gone the teeth are no longer protected from the cold; but the message was all in vain. Meanwhile the Mongols were close at hand. They invested Tsai-chau under the command of Tachar, a son of the Noyan Burgul, a favourite general of Genghis. With them were 20,000 Chinese sent by the Sung Emperor, who also sent 300,000 sacks of rice to provision the besieging army. In two months the famine inside was so excessive that they began to eat human flesh; everybody, including women, were armed and did duty, and the defence was continued with great energy.

Near the town there was a deep lake, raised fifty or sixty feet above the river Jou; in its midst was a tower called Chaitan, in which the Kins had placed a garrison. It was deemed impregnable, not only because of the depth of the lake, but because it was guarded by a dragon, while its lower storey was protected by cross-bows. Mong-kong, the commander of the Sung contingent, caused the lake to be drained into the river Jou, then making a road with fascines across its bottom, and amidst a storm of arrows, the fort was attacked and stormed : 537 prisoners were captured. This outwork having fallen, the main siege was pressed. The town was surrounded by two lines of fortifications; after a vigorous assault the confederated Mongols and Chinese captured the exterior one. Ninkiassu saw that his time was drawing near. He deplored, we are told, the fate which made him, who had neither great vices nor faults, have to suffer the fate awarded to the most wicked princes. Death had only one terror for him, namely, that as he was the last of a dynasty which had flourished for 100 years, he might be confounded with those princes whose ill deeds had put an end to their empires. Most of them had mourned in captivity or suffered from the public scorn; heaven knew he had a resolution which would prevent him reaching that depth. The besieged, according to D’Ohsson, were reduced to the pass of boiling all their leather articles, saddles, bottles, old drums, &c.; they made soup with human bones mixed with those of animals and with greens; they ate the old, the infirm, the wounded, and the prisoners. The Mongols made an ineffectual assault, which however caused the besieged a heavy loss. The night after, the Emperor abdicated in favour of Wanien Chinglin, brother of Wanien Baksan, a prince of the blood, who descended directly from Horipu. He gave him the Imperial seal, telling him that his own stout­ness prevented him riding on horseback and escaping, but that he was more nimble and might be fated to restore the fortunes of the house. But it was too late, the Mongols and Chinese were already on the walls while the ceremony of inauguration was going on. Ninkiassu now entered a house which was surrounded by bundles of straw, and having given orders that it should be fired, hanged himself. The intrepid Huchahu said he would not die by a plebeian hand, and now that it was useless to continue the struggle he would drown himself in the ditch. His example was followed by four other general officers and 500 soldiers; another example of that heroic devotion which was so characteristic of the sup­porters of the Kin dynasty. The attendants of Ninkiassu had barely time to pour the libations on the corpse when the Mongols rushed into the city; the body was burnt, and the bones, with such of the Imperial ornaments as were to be found, were divided between the conquerors. Chinglin was soon after assassinated by his soldiers. Thus ended the dynasty of the Kins, which had lasted for 118 years, and during the reign of nine princes.

The various towns in Honan, all now surrendered to the Mongols, except Kungchangfu in Shensi. The Sung Emperor celebrated the victory with great rejoicings, and offered up some of the ashes and the spoils of Ninkiassu to the manes of his own ancestors. The fall of the Kin dynasty took place in May, 1234. The Khakan and his brother Tului had eighteen months before retired from China and gone to Mongolia. There Ogotai fell ill, and we are told by Raschid that his brother Tului approached the bed, and raising aloft the wooden vessel in which the Shamans had placed their consecrated liquor, he thus addressed his God, “Great God, eternal being, if thou punishest according to man’s guilt, thou knowest that I am more culpable than he; I have killed more people in war, I have harried more women and children, I have made more tears to flow from fathers and mothers; if thou summonest one of thy servants because of his beauty or merit, I still claim to be more worthy; take me in the place of Ogotai and make his disease pass into me.” Ogotai recovered, and Tului soon after died, Juveni says, chiefly from excessive drinking; he had been the favourite son of Genghis, and was only forty years old when he expired in October, 1232. According to custom, his name was no longer pronounced after his death. Tului in Mongol means “mirror”, and the Turkish synonym for the word, viz., guezugu, was eradicated from the language. He was referred to as the Great Novan.

While the Kin empire was being conquered, the Mongols were extending their empire in the West. The retreat of Genghis Khan had left Persia almost a desert. Of the three sons of the Khuarezm Shah Muhammed, Jelal-ud-din was a fugitive in India; and Roku-ud-din had been killed by the Mongols. The third, Ghiath-ud-din, who had taken refuge in Mazanderan, marched on the retreat of the Mongols upon Ispahan, and was speedily master of Irac Adjem, Khorasan, and Mazenderan. Jelal-ud- din having won considerable fame in India, and married the daughter of the Sultan of Delhi, determined to cross the Indus and recover his hereditary dominions. On his long march from the Indus many of his men died from fatigue, &c., and he arrived in Kerman with only 4,000 men. Here he was well received by Borak, an illustrious man, a Kara Kitayen by birth, who founded the dynasty of the Karakitayens of Kerman. Having married a daughter of Borak and received his sub­mission, Jelal passed into Fars, where an independent dynasty had long reigned under the name of Salgarids. It was now represented by the Atabeg Saad, whose friendship Jelal secured by marrying his daughter. He then advanced into Irak, where his brother reigned, or rather made a pretence of reigning. A weak and voluptuous prince, he was barely acknowledged by his dependents, and was at the mercy of his mercenary troops. He was, however, surrounded by a considerable army, and Jelal seeing no chance of defeating it, had recourse to deception; he feigned to be only marching to be near his brother, and without any other ambitious motive. Ghiath was deceived, upon which Jelal proceeded to corrupt his troops, and succeeded so well that his brother fled. The authority of Jelal-ud-din was speedily acknowledged. The generals presented themselves with sheets about their necks and asked his pardon, and various independent princes who had sprung up during the Mongol troubles in Khorasan, Mazenderan, and Iraq, all came and did homage.

Jelal’s first exploit when he was firmly settled on the throne was an attack on the Caliph of Baghdad, the enemy of his father and grand­father, whom he accused of having called in the Mongols. He invaded Khuzistan, which with Irac Areb formed the appanage of the Caliphs, and laid siege to its chief town, Tusster. The Caliph gave the com­mand of his troops to Kushtimur, and sent a pigeon express to the Prince of Arbil to come to his support. Jelal, although very inferior in strength, won a victory; Kushtimur was killed, and his troops pursued to the neighbourhood of Baghdad. Having taken the town of Dakuka, he turned aside from his intentions against the Caliph while he subdued Azerbaijan, then governed by the Atabeg Uzbeg, a drunken boor. Jelal took its capital, Tabriz, and having made the province into an appanage, he advanced into Georgia, whose Christian inhabitants have always been the special objects of hatred to their Mussulman neighbours. Having taken the town of Tovin, he defeated an army of 70,000 Georgians, of whom 20,000 were disabled, and his army then spread over Georgia and ravaged it The Georgians collected a second army, which consisted of Alans, Lesghs, Kipchaks, and other Caucasians, as well as their own people. This was also defeated.

The Sultan now, March, 1226, advanced upon Tiflis, which he captured, and killed all the Georgians who would not accept this religion of the Prophet. He then returned to Ispahan, where he received the renewed submission of Borak, the chief of Kerman, who had shown signs of turbulence. In October, 1226, he made an incursion into Abkhazia, or Southern Circassia; he only remained there ten days, when he returned and laid siege to the town of Khelat, which was bravely defended. The Sultan was called away from here to put down a horde of Turkomans who had invaded Azerbaijan. The next year, in 1227, he ravaged the country of the Assarians, and defeated a body of Mongols who had advanced as far as Damegan. The following year the Mongols appeared in greater force, and marched in five divisions, commanded by their generals Tadji, Baku, Assatogan, Taimaz, and Ta, to within a day's journey of Ispahan, the headquarters of Jelal. He was ever a courageous, bold man, and seemed little affected by this advance. His generals, who timidly came to consult with him in the palace, were enter­tained with irrelevant matter for some time, to show how little the Sultan was affected; they eventually swore not to turn their backs on the enemy or to prefer life to a glorious end, and the Cadhi and Reis, the two chief officials of Ispahan, were ordered to hold a review of the armed citizens.

Meanwhile a body of 2,000 Mongols was detached to Luristan to collect provisions. These were surprised by some of the Sultan’s troops, and 400 were made prisoners. It is said that Jelal abandoned these to the fury of the populace, who massacred them in the streets of Ispahan; he set them the example by cutting off some of their heads in the palace yard, their bodies being given to the dogs. The day of battle was fixed according to the predictions of the court astrologer. No sooner had Jelal ranged his army in battle array than his brother Ghiath deserted with a body of troops. Notwithstanding this, Jelal engaged the enemy, and was at first victorious, but as usual, the Mongols prepared an ambuscade, and ended by dispersing the Khuarezmian forces, some of which fled to Fars, others to Kerman, and others to Azerbaijan. The loss of the Mongols was so great, however, that they merely showed themselves at the gates of Ispahan, and then retreated in all haste by Rayi and Nischapoor, and recrossed the Oxus, after losing a great many of their men. Wolff makes Chin Timur, who had been left as Mongol governor in Khorasan, to control these operations, and says he retired on hearing the news of the death of Azerbaijan. Jelal-ud-din had disappeared in the recent battle, and arrangements were already being made for the election of another ruler, but the Cadhi persuaded the people to wait till the feast of Bairam, when, if the Sultan did not return, they should elect the Atabeg Togan Taissi in his place. But on the day of the feast he appeared. His return was the signal for great rejoicings. He promoted those who had distinguished themselves, and made those who had disgraced themselves promenade the town with women’s veils over their heads. Meanwhile his brother Ghiath had gone to Khuzestan to ask assistance from the Caliph in recovering his dominions. He had been insulted by one Muhammed, a favourite of Jelal-ud-din, and in revenge had assassinated him. This incensed Jelal, who ordered the funeral procession of the murdered man to pass twice before the door of his murderer. This public affront was the cause of the desertion of his brother by Ghiath on the day of the recent battle.

Jelal having despatched a body of troops in pursuit of the Mongols was enjoying his ease at Tabriz when he heard that his brother was marching on Ispahan. He marched to meet him, upon which he fled, and took refuge, first among the Assassins and then in Kerman, where he was at length strangled by order of Borak.

Jelal now had to meet a great army of the confederated Caucasian tribes, Georgians, Armenians, Alans, Serirs (Sirhghers or Kubechi), Lesghs, Kipchaks, Soussans (? Souans), Abkhazes, and Djanites. He first detached the Kipchaks by recounting to them how many of their people’s lives had been saved by his intercession with his father.

The Kipchaks having retired, he next suggested to the Georgians a truce, during which champions on each side should fight in view of the two armies. A gallant Georgian having entered the arena he was met by the Sultan himself and transfixed with a stroke of his lance; three of his sons who came forward to revenge their father were successively killed. A gigantic Georgian then came forward, who was also killed by the dexterous Sultan. After which, notwithstanding the truce, he gave orders for a general attack, in which the Georgians were put to flight. Jelal now once more laid siege to Khelat; while before the town he received the submission of Roku-ud-din Jehanshah, a relative of the Seljuk ruler of Rum. He also received an embassy from the new Caliph of Baghdad, who demanded first that Jelal should not exercise any act of sovereignty over the princes of Mosul, Erbil, Abouyé, and Jebal, who were his feudatories; secondly, that he would restore the name of the Caliph in the public prayers of Persia, from which it had been defaced by his father Muhammed. Both requests were granted, and in return the Caliph sent him the robe of investiture of the government of Persia, with presents for himself and his grandees.

Jelal ordered a splendid tomb to be built at Ispahan to hold his father’s remains; until this was finished he them placed in safe custody in the strong fort of Erdehan, on the mountain Demavend, three days’ journey from Rayi. When a few years after, the Mongols captured this place they also captured the corpse of Muhammed and sent it to the Khakan, who ordered it to be burnt. We are told they did the same to all the royal remains they came across, fancying they belonged to Khuarezmian princes, and thus even the bones of Mahmud of Ghazni were exhumed and burnt The same year, 1229, Jelal proposed an alliance with Alai-ud-din Kei Kubad, the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, or Asia Minor, suggesting to him that they two were the bulwarks, one in the east, the other in the west, of the true faith against the infidels, but the envoys of Alai-ud-din were so badly and cavalierly treated by the Khuarezmians, chiefly, as Muhammed of Nessa tells us, because the vizier deemed their presents of too little value, that they returned disgusted.

Khelat at length fell, after a siege of six months. Jelal would have spared it the horrors of a sack, but his officers insisted that the troops had suffered so terribly in the siege that they would desert unless permitted to loot The town was consequently given up to pillage for three days, and many of its inhabitants perished from torture inflicted to make them disclose where their riches were hid.

Khelat belonged to Ashraf, Prince of Damascus. That prince now formed a confederacy to oppose Jelal. He was supported by Kei-Kubad, Sultan of Rum, and princes of Aleppo, Mosul, and Mesopotamia. Them joint army assembled at Sivas, and thence marched on Khelat Jehij marched to. meet them with a very inferior force, and meanwhile sent round the Chaushes and Pehluvans, the heralds with red arrows, the Khuarezmian signal for a rendezvous. He hoped to attack the enemy before they had united their forces, but was seized with sickness, and before he recovered they had amalgamated their troops. In the battle which followed Jelal was badly beaten, and fled towards Manazguerd, and then to Khelat, whence he removed all the rich things he could transport, and burnt the rest, leaving his vizier to watch the enemy. He retreated through Azerbaijan, and was deserted by his generals. At this critical point he received offers of peace from the confederate princes, who were perhaps afraid to leave the wide empire of Persia at the mercy of the Mongols. The peace was hurried on by the arrival of a large Mongol army under the orders of the generals Churmagun and Baidshu, who had been sent into Khorasan at the head of 30,000 men by the Grand Kuriltai held at the accession of Ogotai. This army speedily traversed Khorasan by way of Esferan and Rayí. Jelal thought the Mongols would winter in Iraq, so he leisurely retreated to Tabriz; he was, however, mistaken, for they followed closely on his heels, and he was obliged to retire hastily to Mukan, a district of Arran, where he expected to rendezvous his troops. He fled so hastily that he left his harem behind him. While waiting for his troops to concentrate, and engaged in hunting, he was nearly sur­prised by the Mongols, and only just escaped into Azerbaijan, whence he sent to ask assistance of Ashraf, Prince of Damascus. The messenger was intercepted by Sheref-ul Mulk, his own vizier, who had begun to intrigue against his master. He had conducted the Sultan’s treasures and his harem into the safe fastnesses of Arran, and had then raised the standard of revolt; his motive for revolt being the extravagance and pro­fuseness of the Sultan, which left him bare when he had to pay his soldiers. He wrote numerous letters to the neighbouring princes, in which he described his master as the fallen tyrant. These fell into the hands of Jelal, who deprived him of his viziership, and sent messengers throughout the province with orders to no longer obey his authority. He shortly after, by feigning to forgive him, got him into his power, but dissatisfaction was very wide spread in the newly conquered provinces of Azerbaijan and Arran.

A messenger of the Mongols who was sent to summon Bailecan was brought to Jelal, who promised him his life if he would tell him the strength of the Mongol forces; he told him that when Churmagun reviewed the army near Bokhara the muster rolls showed it to be 20,000 strong. Jelal basely killed him for fear this news might discourage his own troops. He then, doubting the sincerity of his late vizier Sheref-ul Mulk, had him strangled; this was an aristocratic privilege, the commonalty were decapitated. He next put down a rebellion in Ganja, and punished the inhabitants for murdering some of his people. He then tried ineffectually to get assistance from the Prince of Damascus or Syria and his brother the Prince of Khelat. The historian Mohammed of Nessa was his envoy and trusty councillor on these occasions. Meanwhile the Mongols continued their advance. The hesitating Sultan was led astray by the advice of Messaud, Prince of Amid, who persuaded him to try and capture the kingdom of Rum, or Asia Minor, an easy task, and that he would then be in a much better position to resist the Mongols. While on this fool’s errand and near Amid he was sur­prised by the Mongols, and only escaped with a few followers. He was hotly pursued and his followers killed; he at length reached the Kurdish mountains. The Kurds, as was their custom, proceeded to strip him and his companions. Having made himself known to their chief, he took him home and left him with his wife while he went to search for his horses. While absent a Kurd came into the tent and asked who this Khuarezmian was, and how it came that they did hot kill him; the hostess replied that he was the Sultan, upon which he said, “How do you know? and if it be true, he killed at Khelat one of my brothers, a better man than himself,” upon which he killed him. Thus perished the last of the Khuarezm Shahs.

Jelal, according to his biographer Nessaui, was of a middle stature, had a Turkish physiognomy, and a dark complexion, his mother having been an Indian. He was brave to excess, calm, grave, and silent. He spoke both Turki and Persian.

D’Ohsson has made some judicious remarks about his character; he says he was a true Turkoman, had all the good qualities of a soldier rather than of a general or a ruler, without prudence or foresight, living by pillage, profiting by the respite allowed him by the Mongols to attack his neighbours, given to luxury, drinking, and music; always going to bed drunk, even when the Mongols were after him. His troops, without pay, subsisted on plunder. After his death many impostors appeared, who claimed to be Jelal-ud-din.

After the Sultan’s death the scattered Khuarezmian troops were set upon by the peasants and the nomads (Bedouins, Kurds, &c.), and de­stroyed. The Mongols proceeded to ravage the country in their usual manner. Two months after the disappearance of Jelal, says D’Ohsson, they had pillaged the districts of Diarbekr, Mesopotamia, Erbil, and Khelat, without encountering any resistance, the people seemed stupefied. The historian Ibn-al-athir gives some examples of the decrepitude to which they were reduced: a Mongol entered a populous village, and pro­ceeded to kill the inhabitants one after another without any one raising a hand. Another wishing to kill a man, and having no weapon by him, told him to lie down while he went for a sword, with this he returned and killed the man, who in the meantime had not moved. An officer and Behai ud din Muhammed, of Juveni, father of the author of the History of Genghis Khan, to be Sahib Divan, or Finance Minister; each of the representatives of the three other branches of the Imperial family had an agent in the treasury to watch his master's interest. Chin Timur died in 1235, and was succeeded by an old man named Nussal, who directly after gave way to Kurguz, a protégé of Chin Timur. Like him and so many other able servants of the Mongols, Kurguz was a Uighur Turk who had risen successively from being tutor and writing master to the children of Juji to be secretary of Chin Timur, when the latter was made governor of Khuarezm. We are told that he organised the administration of Khorasan and repressed the exactions of a crowd of small tyrants. This made him many enemies, the chief of whom were Sheref-ud-din and Kelilat, the vizier and general of Chin Timur; they intrigued at court to get him removed. At length Ogotai despatched one Argun to make inquiries on the spot, Kurguz went to meet him, and came to high words, in which blood was shed. In the night he despatched a messenger to Ogotai with his coat marked with blood. This dramatic stroke had the desired effect, and the different parties were summoned to the presence of Ogotai to give account of themselves. The malcontents had supported Ungu Timur, the son of Chin Timur, as a candidate for the governorship of Khorasan. One day the Khakan was entertained by Ungu Timur, but directly after he left the tent it blew down; Ogotai had the tent destroyed. A few days after he supped with Kurguz, who furnished his tent sumptuously and provided the Khakan inter alia with a coronet adorned with the stones called yarcan (? Jade from Yarkand).

After a few months’ deliberation Ogotai decided in favour of Kurguz, and condemned Ungu Timur and his followers to be punished as calum­niators, but he added, “As you belong to Batu I will remit the matter to him, and he will punish you.” Ungu Timur, by the advice of Chinkai, a trusty councillor of the Khakan, replied, “The Khakan is the overlord of Batu; is a dog like myself to be the cause of two sovereigns deliberating  The Khakan shall decide.” “You speak well,” said Ogotai, “for Batu would not have mercy on his own son if he were to do what you have done.” Kurguz was made governor of all the country south of the Oxus, including the conquests of Churmagun; he fixed his court at Thus, where he sum­moned the grandees of Khorasan and Irak and the Mongol general, and held a fete, at which the new Imperial ordinances were promulgated. The Mongol governors appointed by Churmagun had been most oppressive, and had appropriated much of the revenue, many of them were now displaced; he protected the Persians and civilians against the Mongol soldiery, and was generally feared and respected; he rebuilt the city of Thus, of which only fifty houses remained. Herat, too, by orders of Ogotai began to rise from its ruins. It had been almost deserted for fifteen years, but now an Emir named Yzz-ud-din, who had been trans­ported to Bishbalig in Uighuria by Tului, received orders to return to Herat with 100 families. They found the canals choked, and had to go to Afghanistan for ploughs and long tails (sheep). In a short time people assembled there once more, and a census made in 1240 showed there were then 6,900 inhabitants.

Such was the condition of affairs in Persia during Ogotai’s reign. We will now turn to another corner of his empire, the mysterious peninsula of Corea. In 1218 Vangtung, the King of Corea, had acknowledged himself as the vassal of Genghis Khan. In 1231 an ambassador of Ogotai’s was killed there, and the murderers were not punished. Salitai, a Mongol general, was sent against the rebels, captured forty of their towns, received the submission of the King, and before retiring appointed seventy-two Darugas, or prefects, in the different districts. These were treacherously murdered during the following year. The Corean King with many of his subjects grew frightened, and leaving his general Hong-fu-yuen in com­mand of his troops, fled to the island of Tsiang-hua, off the west coast of Corea. Salitai, who re-entered Corea with an army, was killed by an archer. It was about this time, namely, in 1235, that Ogotai held the grand Kuriltai, when three armies for the conquest of Corea, the Sung empire, and the country west of the Volga were organised. A fourth body of troops under the general Hukatu was sent to the borders of Kashmir.

Before attacking Corea, Ogotai wrote to its King a list of his com­plaints : first, that he had failed to send any one to his court to do homage; secondly, that he had maltreated his envoy who had gone to remind him of his fault; thirdly, he accused him of the murder of his ambassador by the Coreans; fourthly, of having evaded sending a con­tingent of troops to assist the Mongols, and of having failed to send an enumeration of his people; fifthly, of having killed his prefects. Ogotai summoned him to his court to give account of these crimes. He refused: but Hong-fu-yuen feeling himself too weak to resist the Mongols, sent in his submission, and was appointed governor of Tungking. Soon after this a Mongol army overran Corea, defeated the King in several engagements, and forced him once more to become tributary, and to send a hostage to Ogotai. This was in 1241.

When the empire of the Kins was destroyed, it had been agreed between the confederated Sung and Mongol Emperors that Honan should be abandoned to the former; the Mongols now refused to evacuate their conquest, except that portion of Honan situated to the south-east of the towns of Chingchau and Tsaichau (Yu-ning-fu).

The Sung Emperor was easily persuaded by some of his courtiers to resent this, and to try and forcibly occupy the three ancient Imperial residences of Changan (Si-ngan-fu) in Shensi, Loyang (Ho-nan-fu) in Honan, and Pianking, the Nanking, and sent an army of 15,000 against Pianking (Kai fong fu). Here the rebel Tsuili, whom we have already named, kept up a nominal authority in the palace of the Kin Emperors; he speedily disgusted the Mongol prefects who assisted him, and was by them assassinated. His body was dragged at a horse’s tail to the city court amidst a crowd of people. Li pe yuen, one of his officers, denounced the crimes he had committed, and when some one interrupted him, a general cry arose approving his remarks and affirming that he deserved even a worse fate. His head was fastened to a stake, his body was cut in pieces, while his heart was tom out and eaten by some of the barbarous crowd.

The Sung general now occupied Pianking and Lo-yang. These towns had not recovered the effects of the former sieges, and when reinvested by the Mongols the Sung garrisons soon felt the effects of want; they abandoned them, and the Mongols retook them. The Sung authorities would now have made peace, but the invasion of their country had already been decided upon at the great Kuriltai of 1235, at which three armies were appointed for the task, one under Kutan, the second son of Ogotai, and the general Tagai, was to invade Suchuan; the second, under the generals Temutai and Changju, marched upon Hukuang; the third, with the Prince Kutchu, the third son of Ogotai, Prince Khunbuca, and the general Chagan, was to act in Kiangnan. Kutan marched through Shensi, and received on the way the submission of Kungchangfu, the only town that still remained faithful to the Kins. It then, after some checks, forced the mountains that separate Shensi and Suchuan; in a month it captured many of the chief towns of Suchuan, including Mian chau (Mian hien), whose commander, Kaokia, was killed after a brave struggle. Tsing ye yuen, considered the bulwark and key of Suchuan, was then attacked by the vanguard of Kutan. A Chinese commander boldly advanced against the Mongol camp and defeated the Mongols. He then raised the siege of Veng shi hien, and, after defeating a large body of them, found refuge at Sian jin, south-west of Fong hien; but these were only evanescent victories, the Mongols consolidated their troops, forced the mountains between Shensi and Suchuan, and in a month made themselves masters of two-thirds of that province, and massacred many of its inhabitants. The governor of Ventchau poisoned all his family, burnt their bodies, fired the chief valuables in his custody, including his diploma as governor, and then stabbed himself: this species of heroism is common in Chinese history. Having ruined Western Suchuan, Kutan retired into Shensi, and the Chinese reoccupied some of the conquered towns. Meanwhile his brother Kutchu had, in March, 1236, advanced from Tang chau in Honan into Hu kuang, and captured Siang yang, the foremost city of the Sung. It was given up to the Mongols by treachery. It then contained 47,000 inhabitants, 300,000 taels of treasure, twenty-four arsenals stocked with arms, and a large store of provisions, which fell into the hands of the Mongols. They also captured Tsao yang and Tengan fu. About this time Kutchu died. He was the favourite son of Ogotai, and had been named by him as his successor. During the next two years the Mongols fought with varying success, and captured several towns north of the river Kiang, but no further important conquest was made in this direction during the reign of Ogotai, and the Sung empire survived, as is well known, till the reign of the Great Khan Kublai.

Let us now turn once more to the western frontiers of the Mongol empire.

When Genghis returned home again after his great expedition in the West he left a contingent of troops in Persia; another was apparently left in the steppes beyond the Jaik; and so early as 1226 this contingent seems to have attacked the city of Bulgar, for on a gravestone found among its ruins this year is named as the year of oppression. Two or three years later, Von Hammer says in 1228 and Wolff in 1230, Ogotai sent Suntai, the ninth son of Juji, with 30,000 men into the West. They attacked the Saksins and Comans, who took refuge in the country of Bulgar, and in 1232 they approached that city, which was apparently saved from capture by the timely arrival of a Russian army commanded by the princes of Smolensk and Kief. I have mentioned that at the Kuriltai held in 1235 it was determined to send an army westward. Ogotai was wishful to take command of this army destined to cross the Volga, and to bring the greater portion of Eastern Europe under the dominion of the Mongols, but he was easily persuaded that he ought now to enjoy the fruits of so much victory, and to leave the arduous task of conquest for his generals; and he accordingly gave the command of the forces to Batu, the son of his eldest brother Juji, who had shown skill in war. This choice was regulated also probably by the fact that the special appanage of the house of Juji lay in the deserts of Kipchak, adjoining the Volga, and that such conquests as might be made would be an addition to it; with Batu went his brothers Orda, Sheiban, and Tangut. Baidar and Kaidu, sons of Jagatai; Kuyuk and Kadan Ogul, sons of Ogotai; Mangu, Buri, and Budjek, sons of Tului. Batu, as I have said, had the first command, and his chief adviser was the great general Subutai Behadur, who had won renown in so many campaigns. The general rendezvous was fixed for the spring of 1237, on the borders of Great Bulgaria. One division of the Mongol army, commanded by Subutai, penetrated into that country; two of its chiefs came to do homage, but were afterwards rebellious. It then returned and attacked the capital, Bulgar. Its inhabitants seem to been exterminated, and the city, which in the early middle ages was the greatest mart perhaps in Eastern Europe for leather, furs, salt fish, &c., was so destroyed that it never again looked up.

The following spring, Mangu and his brother Budjek, who commanded the left wing of the army, marched against the Kipchaks, or Comans, along the northern shores of the Caspian. Patchiman, or Patchimak, one of their bravest chiefs, escaped the general subjection of his countrymen, and with a body of followers hid in the woods on the banks of the Volga, and made raids upon the Mongols. Mangu prepared 200 boats or barges, armed with 100 men each, and dividing them into two sections, com­manded by himself and his brother, scoured the woods on each bank of the river. Having come to a deserted encampment, they found an old woman, who told them Patchiman had taken refuge on an island in the river, where the gathered spoil of his forays were stored. There were no boats about, but a strong wind blew and uncovered the causeway that led to the island. The Mongols rushed in, captured Patchiman, killed or drowned his followers, and captured their wives and a considerable booty. De Mailla says that Patchiman kindly warned the Mongols that they had better retire again hastily or the way would be once more under water, and that this in fact happened with some inconvenience to the conquerors. When brought before Mangu and ordered to kneel, he replied with some dignity, “Do you think I am so weak as to ask for my life? Do you mistake me for a camel?”. The Tarikh Djihankuschai says that he asked that he might die by Mangu’s own hand, but that the latter handed him over to his brother Budjek. With him also perished Catchar Ogola, a prince of the Ases or Ossetae. The Mongols wintered in this country.

Meanwhile another division of the army, under Batu, Orda, Berekdi Kadan, Buri, and Kulkan, crossed the Volga and subdued the Bokshas and Burtasses, i.e., the Mokshas and Ertsas, the two divisions of the Mordvins who had lately been beaten by the Grand Prince George the Second; they also defeated the Circassians (? the Cheremisses), and the Vezofinnaks, the Vesses or Vod. Carpino mentions that the Mongols captured three town before they attacked the Russians; these he calls Barthra (var Barchin), Jakint (var Sarguit), and Orna, a rich town, inhabited by Christians, Khazars, Russians, Alans, and others, and a place of considerable trade, situated near the mouth of the Don. Seeing that they could not capture it otherwise, they diverted the course of the river, and thus overwhelmed it and its contents. Wolff says that the Mongols were guided through the dense forests of Pensa and Tambof by the Mordvins, and appeared unex­pectedly on the frontiers of Riazan. The small principality of Riazan, dependent on the Grand Duchy of Vladimir, was then divided between the brothers George and Roman Igorovitch and their cousins Oleg Wladomirovitch and Jaroslaf Davidovitch, who held court at Riazan, Isteslawetz, Pronsk, and Murom respectively; they had carried on a severe civil strife, and when they now appealed to the Grand Duke for help, he told them that they were strong enough to resist the enemy if they were united. Batu is said, in the Russian chronicles, to have sent a sorceress, or female augur, with two officers, to demand their submission and a tenth of their goods, to which they replied, that when they no longer lived, then the Mongols might take what they would. They saw, however, that they could make no head against the invaders in the open country so they retired to their cities. The Mongols meanwhile proceeded to devastate the land. Bielogorod, Isteslawetz, Pronsk, and other towns were reduced to ashes. The beautiful city of Riazan was invested, a breastwork of palisades and earth was raised round it, on which the balistas were fixed, and after five days’ bombardment it fell on the 21st of December, 1237. The Prince, with his mother, wife, sons, the Boyars, and the inhabitants, without regard to age or sex, were slaughtered with the savage cruelty of Mongol revenge; some were impaled, some shot at with arrows for sport, others were flayed or had nails or splinters of wood driven under their nails. Priests were roasted alive, and nuns and maidens ravished in the churches before their relatives. “No eye remained open to weep for the dead,” says the chronicler of Kostroma. This slaughter, which was doubtless meant to strike terror into the rest of the Russian princes and to be an example to them, was followed by an advance, upon Kolomna. This was also taken, and to revenge Kulkan, who was severely wounded there, and shortly after died, a frightful hecatomb was slaughtered amidst its ruins.

The Prince Roman Igorovitch, who had gone with an army to relieve Kolomna, was defeated and killed. The Mongols now invaded the district of Suzdal and attacked Moscow, which was as yet an unim­portant town, the inhabitants were either destroyed or made prisoners, and Vladimir, the son of the Grand Duke George, who commanded there, was captured. The Grand Duke now became alarmed, he left Vladimir and posted his army on the banks of the Sitti, which flows into the Mologda, where he expected to be joined by his brothers. The Mongols now invested Vladimir and captured and burnt Suzdal, whose inhabitants suffered the common fate of those who opposed the Mongols, only that the monks, nuns, and other religions were here spared. The inhabitants of Vladimir were, as usual with the Russians at this date, panic stricken. Many of the chief men sought refuge in the churches, where they adopted the tonsure, so that they might die in monastic orders. The Mongols ap­proached the Golden Gate, showed their captive Vladimir and threatened to kill him if the city was not surrendered, and as this threat was treated with scorn, they accordingly killed him. After several days of incessant attack the Mongols at length broke into the city at each of its four entrances, the so-called Golden, Brazen, the Lybedian, and Kolpaian Gates. This was on Sunday, the 14th of February, during a season of fasting. The Imperial family had taken refuge in the choir of the cathedral, while the nave was crowded with other fugitives; the latter were slaughtered, and the former, to escape the same fate, set fire to the building, and all perished together : the city was sacked and burnt. The Mongol army was now divided into several bodies, which proceeded to ravage the towns of Rostof, Yaroslaf, Gorodetz, Yurief, Pereslaf, Dmitref, Tuer, Caschin, Volok, Cosniatin, and others. The Grand Duke George was still on the river Sitti awaiting succour from his brother Yaroslaf, Prince of Kief. He was there attacked by the Mongols and killed, with most of his troops.

The Mongols now marched towards Novgorod, the northern emporium of commerce, and a famous member of the Hanseatic league. They had already reached the Waldai mountains, when, according to Wolff, a thaw came on, converting the country into a huge morass. This deterred them from advancing further, especially as the country behind them was much wasted by their passage. On their return towards the south, one of their detachments received a notable check before the town of Koselsk, on the Shisdra, eight German miles S.S.W. from Kaluga; 4,000 of their men and three young princes seem to have perished in the attack. Their death was revenged by Batu, Kadan, and Buri, who brought another army against it. Its capture was followed by a general massacre, one of those atrocious acts well styled a “carnival of death” by Von Hammer. Like Bamian, the town was renamed Mobalig, City of Woe, by its captors.

Having returned to the borders of the Don, the Mongols seem once more to have divided into several sections. One of these marched against the Circassians, and during the winter of 1238 killed their chief, Tukan. They then laid siege to Mangass which they captured after an attack of six weeks, and then sent a division to conquer Derbend and the surrounding Country. Meanwhile Sheiban, Budjek, and Buri marched against the Marimes, by which the Mari, or Cheremisses, who live north of the Volga, are probably meant. Their neighbours, the red-haired Votiaks, were probably also subdued, for the Chinese accounts mention that the Mongols marched so far north that there was hardly any night, and subdued a people with red hair and blue eyes.

Another division of the invaders, under Bereke, attacked the Kipchaks, they were still governed by Kotiak, who had fought against them some years before on the Kalka. He was now defeated. Raschid says Bereke captured the chiefs of the Mekrutis. Kotiak, with 40,000 families, escaped westwards into Moldavia, and in 1240 sought refuge in Hungary. Many of the Kipchaks were sold as slaves by the conquerors. Some of these were bought by the Egyptian Sultan Malek es Saleb, and about 1254 became the founders of the Boharit dynasty of Mameluk Sultans.

Once more did the Mongols advance upon Russia. One division marched towards the Volga, and captured and burnt Gorodetz on the Kliasma, and Murom on the Oka. Another army marched towards the Dnieper. Pereslavl, with the church of St. Michael, was laid in ashes, and its bishop, Simon, and a large part of the population destroyed. Chemigof shared the same fete after a brave resistance, in which the defenders are said to have performed the Homeric feat of hurling stones that it took four men to raise. Glokhof also was destroyed. It was now the turn of Kief, the mother of cities, magnificently placed on the high banks of the Dnieper, with its white walls, its beautiful gardens, and its thirty churches, with their gilded cupolas, which gave it its pretty Tartar name, Altundash Khan (the court of the Golden Heads); it was the metropolitan city of the old Russian princes, the seat of the chief patriarch of all Russia. It had latterly, namely, in 1204, suffered from the internal broils of the Russian princes, and had been much plundered and burnt It was now to be for a while erased altogether. Batu sent his cousin Mangu, who was afterwards Grand Khan, to explore. He summoned the city to surrender; his envoys were slaughtered, but its prince, like several other Russian princes, lost heart and escaped towards Hungary. Meanwhile the terrible host of the enemy came on, and the noise of their carts, the murmurs of their herds of camels, oxen, and horses, and their own ferocious cries, drowned the voices of the inhabitants inside; the attack began and contin­ued night and day, the walls were at length breached, the defenders retired to the churches. The great metropolitan church was the chief place of refuge. Here were collected fugitives of all classes, with their various wealth, who gathered on its flat roof, this gave way under the weight, and overwhelmed a vast hecatomb in its ruins. The Mongols rushed in and slaughtered without mercy; the very bones were tom from the tombs and trampled under the horses’ hoofs. This was in December, 1240. The magnificent city, with the ancient Byzantine treasures which it con­tained, was destroyed, as were the bones of St. Vladimir, the tomb of Olga, and the grand church of the Tithe, a chef d’oeuvre of the Greek archi­tects; this was so ruined that its remains were used for the building of a fresh church, which still has in its walls some of its stones. The monastery of Petchersky suffered the same fate, and its riches, including the golden cross upon its cupola, were carried off. The only place spared, apparently, was the tomb of Yaroslaf, “to teach men,” says the quaint Karamzin, “that the glory of legislators is the most solid and durable.” The city remained in ruins apparently during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and modem Kief is but a shadow, says the same historian, of its former self. It was one of the war maxims of Genghis that those who offered aid or asylum to the opponents of the Mongols should themselves be treated as enemies, and as Hungary had been very useful to the Russian and Coman princes, the Mongols advanced against it. Their way led through Volhynia and Gallicia. They apparently annihilated the towns of Kolowgashniu or Koladashun, Gadalitsh, and Cadyshin, for they are no longer to be found. Kremenetz, Galitch, and Chemovitz, which were also cruelly visited, still exist in the district of Bukovina.

They had now reached the magnificent barriers which protect Hungary on the east and north, the Carpathians. While Batu forced their passes and entered Hungary, he sent another division of his army, under Baidar and Kaidu, the sons of Jagatai, to make a diversion in Poland. Poland was then bounded on the north by Prussia, which was still pagan, and Pomerania; on the east by Lithuania and the principality of Gallicia; on the south by the Carpathians; and on the west by the March of Brandenburgh and by Silesia, which was dependent on Prussia without forming an integral part of it. Boleslaf the Third had in 1139 divided his dominions into four parts, and this division, like that in Russia, had produced a terrible civil strife in the country. At the period of the Mongol invasion there were nine independent princes in Poland. Boleslaf, surnamed the Chaste, ruled over Cracow and Sandomir, and had a barely titular authority over the rest, the chief of whom were Henry the Second, the pious, who ruled in Lower Silesia and Great Poland, and Conrad, uncle of Boleslaf, who had authority in Mazovia and Cujavia, with his capital at Plotsk. These princes were allied with the Hungarians or had given refuge to the fugitive Russian princes, both high crimes in Mongol eyes. They seem first to have made a reconnaissance. Leaving Vladimir in Volhynia in January, 1241, they entered the district of Lublin, and ravaged the land as far as the river Vistula, burning the towns of Lublin and Zawichost. Then crossing that river on the ice they burnt and sacked Sandomir, pillaged the Cistercian monastery of Koprienick, and advanced to within a short distance of Cracow. They returned loaded with booty and driving before them the flower of the population, tied together in groups. On their retreat they were attacked by Vladimir, the Palatine of Cracow, and considerably checked. A number of the captives managed to escape during the combat, and hid away in the woods. They now rejoined the main army under Baidar, which was encamped near Sendomir.

Baidar detached another division, some authorities say one-tenth of his forces, others a tuman (10,000 men), under his brother Kaidu, which marched against and devastated Sieradia, Lancitia, and Cujavia, the patrimony of Conrad and his sons. Meanwhile with the main army he advanced towards Cracow. At a place called Chmielik or Chmielnik, eleven German miles from that town, he encountered the Polish army under the command of the Palatine of Sandomir and Cracow. This was defeated, and its chief killed. Boleslaf, the Prince of Cracow, fled with his wife, family, and treasures to his father-in-law, Bela of Hungary; but hearing that the Mongols were already in Hungary, he took refuge in a monastery in Moravia, and eventually sheltered himself until their with­drawal in the fortress of Pievnikza, in Poland. Many of the chief families also fled to Hungary and Germany, while the common folk hid themselves in the forests and marshes, so that the Mongols found the city of Cracow deserted. They entered it on Palm Sunday, the 24th of March, 1241, and having burnt it, continued their march towards Silesia. Crossing the Oder near Ratibor, some on rafts and some swimming, they appeared before Breslau. The inhabitants had already removed their wealth, and had fired the town themselves to prevent its falling into the hands of the Mongols, while they retired into the citadel with their goods. This the enemy failed to take, after a siege of some days. The story goes that it was saved by the prayers of the Prior of the Dominican convent of Saint Adelbert at Czeslaf, through which a light from heaven fell on the head of the Prior, and radiated such a glorious light that the Mongols were frightened and passed on. This miracle is represented in a painting in the little church of St. Martin, formerly the citadel chapel. It is not mentioned by Matthias of Miechof, a canon of Cracow and author of a work de Sarmatia in Grinaei orbis novus Basil, 1555, &c., who has given us a capital account of the proceedings at this time. Baidar was now joined by the contingent which he had detached under his brother Kaidu, and advanced plundering and ravaging the country towards Lignitz, where the army of Silesia, numbering some 20,000 men, was assembled under its Duke Henry the Second. Among the other chiefs the principal were Mitislaf of Oppeln; Boleslaf, son of Diepold the Third, Margrave of Moravia; and Poppo of Osterna, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights of Prussia with his order. It was con­sidered an ill omen that as Henry marched out with his forces a stone fell from the roof of the church of St. Mary and nearly hit him. He divided his small army into four divisions : the first, the contingent of the gold digging peasants, &c., from Goldberg and its neighbourhood in Silesia, under Boleslaf Syepiolka; the second, the contingent from Cracow and Great Poland, under Sulislaf, the brother of the lately slain Palatine Vladimir; the third, the contingent from Oppeln and also the Teutonic in their flight. Having turned the northern flank of Hungary, the con­tingent under Baidar and Kaidu crossed the mountains to join the main army under Batu, which was laying waste that country. It crossed by the so-called Hungarian Gates, which Wolff identifies with the Hrasinka Pass, on the road from the valley of Olschawa, to the river Hrosinka.

While this division was turning the northern defences of Hungary, Batu detached another southward to turn the opposite flank. This marched through Moldavia, crossed the river Sireth into the land of the “Bishop of Rumania” (Wallachia). Here it seems to have again divided. One section, under Subutai Behadur, continued its march through Wallachia; another, under Kuyuk, the son and successor of Ogotai, and Buri, grandson of Jagatai, crossed by the Oitosch Pass, over the mountain Magyaras into the south-eastern corner of that land of forests Tran­sylvania, called Sieben Burgen by the Germans, from the seven Saxon towns of Bistritz, Hermannstadt, Klausenberg, Kronstadt, Medevitch. Muplenbach, and Schatzburgh. This district suffered the usual fate of the lands through which the Mongols marched, and Wolff has collected much evidence from deeds, to show what places chiefly felt the scourge. Among these may be mentioned the Castle of Zeuth Leleuth, now Zent Leley, near the Ojtosa Pass, and the districts about Weissenburgh (Alba Julia), Dolok, Klausenburgh, and Szolnok, the districts of Zei£en and Zeh on the Alt. He traversed the mountains and forests of Transylvania, captured Roudan, or Rodna, a rich town near the Royal silver mines, and then advanced on Varadin, where a great body of refugees was assembled. The Mongols took it; killed all the inhabitants without regard to age or sex. They committed dreadful sacrilege in the churches, ravished there the women they captured, tore down the tombs, destroyed the relics, desecrated the holy vessels, and tortured the priests. The place was converted into a desert, which they were forced to abandon on account of the dreadful effluvia from the corpses.

They then captured and destroyed a German bulwark on the Black Koros, called Thomas’ Bridge (Pontem Thomas). While the army com­manded by Kuyuk was ravaging Transylvania, that of Subutai had made the circuit of Wallachia as far as Orsova, and had crossed the mountains by the Mahadia Pass, on the road which leads from the Danube into the Banat of Temesvar, and advanced to the river Maros, where it captured the town of Czanad. It was probably this division which stormed the Island on the Maros where a large number of refugees from Agra, Waydam, Geroth, and other towns had taken refuge. A general massacre took place here. Those who fled to the woods thought it safe to return on the third day to search for food among the ruins, but were set upon by some of the prowling invaders and killed. Having spent the winter in this neighbourhood, the Mongols in the early spring laid siege to Perg (Pecksa), where the inhabitants of sixty-nine villages had taken refuge, and also to the Cistercian monastery of Egres, which was fortified like a castle. Their army was largely increased by Hungarian, Russian, and Comanian prisoners, whom they forced to do the harder work for them. When the Hungarians were exhausted they put the Russians to the work, and when these were done the Comans. The town was at length captured and everybody destroyed except two young girls. The devastation is sickening to describe; many of the inhabitants had taken refuge in the forests, these were induced to return to their homes by the promise of the Mongols to spare their lives if they came back by a certain day. They were allowed to sow and reap the year’s harvest, when they were all collected together and destroyed.

The various contingents which had marched through Moravia, Tran­sylvania, and Wallachia, seem to have concentrated at Pesth.

Let us now follow the main army under Batu. This marched directly upon Hungary. Hungary then stretched from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, and from the Carpathians to the Balkan range. Bela the Fourth ruled over it, while his brother Kalmany, or Koloman, was dependent upon him, and had authority in Slavonia, Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. Moldavia and Wallachia, then called Comania; and Bessarabia the land of the Bessi or Petchenegs), were also subject to the Hungarian crown. Bela was a pious and weak prince, and had to control a strong­handed and turbulent aristocracy. At this juncture there was a bitter feeling against him, caused by his attempt to restrict their feudal rights and otherwise. Some of them had secretly intrigued to supersede him by offering the Hungarian crown to the Duke of Austria and the Emperor Frederick II, and having been punished, their families swelled the number of the discontented. Another cause of discontent was that the Comans under Kutan, whom we have already mentioned as having sought refuge in Hungary, were allowed by Bela to settle there on condition of their becoming Christians. They had traversed the country, and being robbers by profession, had laid their hands violently on many things not their due. And although at a Diet convened in 1240 it was decided that they should be scattered about the country to pasture the more desolate portions of it, and their chief had consented to be baptised, the people were very much irritated against them.

Thus in the face of this terrible scourge, the Hungarian nation was disintegrated and dissatisfied. Bela sent the Palatine of the kingdom, Dionysius Mederwary, Count of Zalnuk, with a body of troops to guard the passes of the Carpathians, and then convened a Council at Gran, which was attended by his brother Koloman and the great civil magnates of the kingdom, and by the greater prelates of the Church; Matthias, Archbishop of Gran and Ugolin of Calocza, with a vast following of the lower clergy, which in Hungary seems to have been a very warlike body.

Meanwhile Batu was advancing. He had, even while in Russia, sent a letter of warning to the King of Hungary. It was written, says the Monk Julian, “in heathen characters” (probably Uighur), in the Tartar speech, so that many in Hungary could read it, but none understood it. Julian had met a heathen in Moldavia who read it. It was to this effect:—“I, am Chaym (Sain), the messenger of the Heavenly King (of the Khakan), who has given me authority over the earth, to raise up those who submit and to crush those who oppose me. I am surprised that you, King of Hungary, should have taken no notice of the three envoys I have sent you, and that you should have sent me neither envoy nor letter. I know you are a rich and powerful King, who have many warriors and a great kingdom; this makes it seem irksome that you should submit willingly to me, yet it will prove your best course. I have heard that you have taken the Comans, our dependents, under your protection. I charge you to cease harbouring them, and to avoid in favouring them making an enemy of me. It will be much easier for them, who have no houses and live in tents, to escape, than for you who live in houses and are settled in towns. How can you fly from me?” This is probably the letter mentioned by Matthew Paris, which he says was delivered by an outlawed Englishman, who had joined the Mongols. Batu now advanced with 40,000 warriors and forced the so-called Ruthenian Gates, the passes in the neigh­bourhood of Bereckze, Munkacz, and Unghwar. They defeated and almost annihilated the force which had been entrusted to the Palatine. This was on the 12th of March, 1241. As usual, they pressed quickly on, and in three days had advanced, plundering and burning, within half a day’s journey of Pesth. Bela, having sent his Queen and children into Austria, ordered a general rendezvous of his troops at Pesth, a German town on the Danube. By a show of bravado the Mongols attempted to draw the garrison into a sortie. This irritated Ugolin, the Archbishop of Calocza, who ventured out, and allowed himself to be drawn into a marsh, where his followers were destroyed, he returned much chagrined, and annoyed also with the King, who had not supported him.

We are told that the Hungarians were persuaded that Kutan and his Comans had invited the Mongols into Hungary, and that they were per­suaded that Comans and Mongols were the same race : a fresh proof of how thoroughly Turkish the army of Batu was. The people at length attacked the house where Kutan and his chief men were living; killed them, and threw their heads into the street. Their innocence was afterwards fully proved. The peasants in the country made a fierce attack on the other Comans. The latter, driven to bay, retorted, and began a general ravaging of the country. Bulzo, Basilius, or Blasius, Bishop of Czanad, was, with a number of his people, going to the assistance of the King when he was attacked by them at Reiskemet. Most of his people were killed, and he barely escaped. They then devastated Steier- mark, and having plundered the best towns in the land, Friburg, Stein-on- the-Anger (the Hungarian Szombately), &c., they passed with a large booty of gold, horses, and cattle through Hungary and Sirmium into Bulgaria. Another bishop suffered at the hands of the Mongols. This was Benedict of Varadin. While he was on the march with a body of troops he heard that a body of Mongols had pillaged the town of Erlau, and carried off the episcopal treasure. He pursued them. Being inferior in numbers they dressed a number of puppets and put them on horseback, as they had done at Peruan, in the western campaign of Jingis. Feigning to be beaten they retired in the direction of these dolls, who were mistaken for supports by the Hungarians. The latter turned tail, and lost many of their number.

Meanwhile the tragedy was thickening elsewhere. Bela had assembled his forces on the wide heath of Mohi, bounded on the east by the vineclad hills of Tokay, on the west by the dark woods of Diosgyor, and on the north by the great hills of Lomnitz. The plain was watered by the Sayo, a tributary of the Theiss. The Mongols had fixed their camp on the other side of this river, in the corner formed by it, the Theiss, and the Hernard, where their position was so hidden by brushwood, &c., that it could not be reconnoitered from the river side. The Hungarian army was very discontented, and many of the grandees apparently looked forward with complacency to the King being defeated. Several of the bishops acted as generals, the Archbishop Ugolin being especially pro­minent. Batu is said to have pointed out to his generals the ill-chosen position of the enemy's troops. Like a herd of cattle pent up in a narrow stable, there was not room to escape. The Mongols made their attack in the night; sent a division to turn one flank of the Hungarian army while another advanced against the bridge over the Sayo, and as their passage across the river was somewhat opposed, they cleared the opposite bank by a battery of seven catapults. They then advanced and overlapped the Hungarian army in the form of a half moon. The Hungarians seem to have been taken by surprise, and were panic-stricken. The Archbishop Ugolin, Koloman, and a few brave men, including the Templars, fought desperately, but the rest refused to leave the camp, and at length broke away. As they fled, the Mongols, as usual, assisted the retreat by opening their ranks; they then pursued them, and overtaking them when overcome with fatigue, destroyed a large portion of them. A space of two days’ journey was strewn with corpses. Among the dead were the Archbishops of Strigonia or Gran, and Calocza, three bishops, and a vast crowd of lords. Bela escaped by the virtues of his horse to the country of Thurocz in the Carpathians, where he met his relative Boleslaf, the Duke of Cracow. The King’s brother, Coloman, who had fought splendidly, escaped to his appanage of Dalmatia and Croatia, where he shortly after died of his wounds. Among the captured booty was the seal of the Hungarian Chancellor. This was used by Batu to prevent a muster of the inhabitants. A proclamation in the King’s name, and signed with his seal, was issued: “Do not fear the rage and ferocity of these dogs; do not quit your houses; we have only been surprised; we shall soon, with God’s help, recapture our camp. Continue to pray to God to assist us in destroying our enemies.” This had the desired effect of preventing a general muster, while the Mongols overran the country. In the recent battle, the slaughter had been the most terrible that had occurred in Hungarian history. One authority says 65,000 men perished. Thurocz and the chronicle of Klostenburgh put the loss at 100,000. Riderless horses, with gorgeous trappings, rushed to and fro, and the Mongols divided a magnificent booty. They now marched upon Pesth, which they captured.

Budapest was not then what it has since become, the most important city in Hungary. That position was then filled by Gran or Strigonia, situated on the right bank of the Danube, and occupying in the commercial history of the middle ages a correlative position with Kief, Novgorod, Constantinople, &c., a great emporium of traffic where merchants from distant climes congregated, we are told that Frenchmen, Lombards, Greeks, and Armenians were gathered there; and a document in which Bela the Fourth renewed certain privileges to the Armenians after the retreat of the Mongols, is one of the first evidences we have of the enterprise of that indomitable race of pedlars in Central Europe. It was on the 25th of December, 1241, when the Danube was frozen over that the Mongols crossed the ice to attack Strigonia, or Gran; the old city was protected by ramparts and towers of wood. They battered it with thirty catapults, made a breach and filled the ditch with sacks of earth; the inhabitants set fire to all the wooden part of the town, de­stroyed large magazines of merchandise and buried much of their treasure. The enraged Mongols took a speedy revenge, they stormed the town and destroyed its inhabitants, many of whom were burnt over fires to make them disclose where their buried treasures lay. The citadel, defended by a gallant Spaniard, the Count Simeon, defied their attacks.

While Batu was engaged in capturing Gran, it would seem that Kadan was detached in pursuit of Bela. That unfortunate prince had taken refuge with the Duke of Austria, at Presburg. There he was detained and compelled to pay a large ransom in silver and other valuables. Not satisfied with this cruel conduct, Frederick caused the western provinces of Hungary to be invaded while the eastern ones were being desolated by the Mongols. Bela on quitting Austria took refuge with his family in Croatia, where he spent the summer. Here he collected the chief treasures of his kingdom, which he sent on with his family into Dalmatia, whose towns were now crowded by Hungarian refugees. Bela with a great number of prelates and nobles went first to Spalatro and then to Trau.

Kadan first captured Buda, or Ozen, the twin town to Pesth, situated on the opposite side of the Danube. He then advanced upon Stuhlweissenburg, the burial place of the old Hungarian kings. They burnt the outskirts, but the town was saved, Von Hammer says on account of a sudden thaw, which partially laid the country under water. Some of the credit was also due to its Italian garrison. At all events the old tombs were spared for their later fate when the town was attacked by the Turks 300 years after. The monastery of St. Martin of Pannonia, now called St. Martinsberg, situated two and a half German miles S.E. of Raab, was so well defended by its Abbot that the Mongols also passed it by. They were famous pursuers, and seldom gave their victims much breathing time. Their way now led them along the shores of the Platten See, the great Hungarian lake, and on towards Croatia; they broke through places that were virgin soil to hostile feet, and whose inhabitants went for shelter to the mountains and forests.

At a stream or lake called Sirbium by D’Ohsson, but corrected to Verbium by Wolff, and identified by him with the Verbacz or Verbas in the valley of Wintshutz and Bolitze, thirteen German miles N.E. of Spalatro, in consequence perhaps of some act of treachery, he collected all his Hungarian captives of both sexes, and made a general slaughter. Leaving the bulk of his army there, he went on with a portion only to the coast of the Adriatic.

At Spalatro was collected a vast crowd of people with their wealth; they overflowed the houses, and were encamped in the squares and streets. The list of notabilities has a stately sound about it. Among the clerics were Stephen de Vancza, Bishop of Waizen, later Arch­bishop of Gran, and afterwards distinguished as the first Hungarian Cardinal; the Bishops of Agram, Funfkirchen, and Varadin; the Provost Benedict of Weissenburgh, Archbishop elect of Calocza, &c. Among the laymen, Dionysius Ban of Slavonia and the Coastlands, and Count of Shumegh; the Palatine, Arnold; the High Steward, Wladislaf; the Treasurer, Matthaias: the Master of the Horse, Orlando; the Chief Cook, Roland; the Chief Herald, Tristram; the Chief Cup-bearer, Mauritius, &c., &c., with a vast body of others. When Bela came near the city the chief inhabitants, under their Podestà, came out to greet him; but he did not intend staying there, although it was well situated for defence, being built on a peninsula, like many of the strongholds of the old Greeks and the Norsemen, but he took ship and retired to Trau, on the Gulf of Castello. Kadan approached Spalatro and hovered near it for some days, but did not attack it. He probably found it too strong. He had also heard of Bela’s flight, so he advanced with his Mongols towards Trau. On the way he attacked the fortress of Clissa, but was sharply answered. The Mongols prepared to attack Trau with vigour, but seem to have found it unassailable, and found also that as Bela had taken refuge on shipboard, he was practically out of their reach. They marched through Herzegovina and Servia into Upper Dalmatia; passed through the district of Ragusa; laid Cataro in ashes; entered Albania, and ruined the towns of Doivach (Suagium) and Drivasto, 42.15 N.L., two German miles N.E. of Scutari. This was the most southern point reached by their arms in this expedition. Having been summoned by Batu to return, they made their way towards the beginning of May over the Glubotin mountains through Servia into Bulgaria.

While Kadan was sent in pursuit of Bela, another body of Mongols made an excursion to the borders of Austria. They were met on the borders of the river March, in the district of Theben or Devin, by the Duke of Austria, and sustained a defeat, which is mentioned by the Chinese account in Gaubil, as well as by Haithon the Armenian Prince, and the Western chroniclers. There is also an account in the narrative of Ivo of Narbonne, and others, which would make it appear that the Mongols made another raid into Austria, south of the Danube, and advanced as far as Vienna; but that the Duke of Austria collected a force of Bohemians, Carinthians, &c., and this caused them to retire. Among eight captives whom they secured was a renegade Englishman, who spoke seven languages, namely, his own tongue, Hungarian, Russian, German, Comanian (? Turkish), Saracenic (Arabic), and Tartar (Mongol).

Banished from England for some crime, he had wandered from Tana eastwards, and had entered the service of the Mongols as an interpreter. Ivo’s narrative seems to be not altogether consistent, but it is in itself highly probable that while encamped in Hungary the Mongols made some raids upon the eastern marches of Austria. It is more certain that during the pursuit of Bela, Subutai with another Mongol army made a terrible invasion of Southern Hungary, on the left bank of the Danube, and Transylvania. These proceedings were described by an eye-witness, Roger, a canon of Varadin, in a work styled miserabile carmen. At the sack of Varadin he took shelter in the woods, where he lived for a while a miserable fugitive, furtively returning at night to some ruined village to search among the corpses for food. When the Mongols offered to spare the lives of those who returned to their own villages, he preferred to go to their camp, where he entered the service of a Hun­garian who had joined the invaders, and half naked he tended his equipage. Here he was in constant fear of death, and noticed how the Mongols preserved the houses and barns, the wheat and straw, and even the farmers when they intended to winter, and how they destroyed every­thing as soon as they left. They seem to have utterly wasted a large part of the country, and to have slaughtered its inhabitants without mercy. They now received orders to march homewards. Roger tells us that they traversed the forests to spy out and destroy everything that had escaped their first invasion, the captives were fed on the entrails, the feet, and heads of the cattle, which served for food to the Tartars. At length, hearing from the interpreters that after their retreat from Hungary they proposed to make a general massacre, Roger and his servant escaped and hid in a hole in the forest for two days, and then returned over the desolate country feeding on roots and herbs. After eight days they arrived at Alba (probably Alba Julia), where they found only human bones, and the walls of churches and palaces red with blood. The cause of the Mongol retreat was the death of Ogotai, which occurred on the nth of December, 1241. On hearing of this, Batu collected his various contingents together, and prepared to return towards the Volga. Before returning, the Mongols published in their camp a decree that all strangers, whether free or captive, were at liberty to return home. A crowd of Hungarians and slaves accordingly left the camp on a fixed day, but whether from some caprice or as a part of their general policy, they were pursued and cut to pieces.

Bela did not return to Hungary until he was well assured of the definite retreat of the Mongols. He found his country a desert, in which famine was completing the work of the sword.

The battle of Lignitz, and the subsequent barbarities of the victors filled the empire with terror, and a crusade was preached against them, to which all were asked to contribute. Pope Gregory the Ninth issued letters to the faithful couched in the language of grief and terror: “Many things,” he says, “the sad state of the Holy Land, and the deplorable condition of the Roman empire, occupy our attention; but we will not name them, we will forget them in the presence of the ills caused by the Tartars. The notion that they will eradicate the name of Christian shatters all our bones, dries up our marrow, &c., we know not which way to turn.”

The terrible apparition of the savage hordes gave rise to many hyper­bolic descriptions. Vincent Of Beauvais tells us “that before Batu invaded Hungary he sacrificed to the demons, one of whom who lived in an idol addressed him and bade him march on hopefully; that he would send three spirits before him, before whom his enemies should not be able to stand;” and that this came to pass, the three spirits being the spirit of discord, the spirit of mistrust, and the spirit of fear. Ivo of Narbonne has a marvellous account: he tells us, inter alia, that the Mongol princes who had dogs’ heads ate the bodies of the dead, leaving only the bones for the vultures, which foul birds, however, despised and rejected these remnants. The old and ugly women were divided into daily portions among the common folk; the pretty young women having been ravished, had their breasts tom open, and were reserved as titbits for the grandees.

These hyperbolic phrases of the European chroniclers may be matched by those of the Persians. In enumerating the various qualities of the Mongols, we are told by Vassaf that they had the courage of lions, the endurance of dogs, the prudence of cranes, the cunning of foxes, the far­sightedness of ravens, the rapacity of wolves, the keenness for fighting of cocks, the tenderness for their offspring of hens, the wiliness of cats in approaching, and the impetuosity of boars in overthrowing their prey; for as Von Hammer says, we may enumerate their virtues in condensing the various qualities of the twelve animals that made up their Zodiac :— Thievish as mice, strong as oxen, fierce as panthers, cautious as hares, artful as serpents, frightful as dragons, mettlesome as horses, obedient as sheep, loving of their offspring as apes, domestic as hens, faithful as dogs, and unclean as swine. Gibbon tells us how the dread of their invasion spread to the further comers of Europe, and how through fear of them the fishermen of Gothia (i.e., of Sweden) and of Frisia, in 1238, failed to attend the herring fishery on the English coast, and how in consequence the price of herrings was largely augmented.

Europe was then so divided, the great feud between the Emperor Frederick the Second and the Popes being one chief cause of it, and the extreme development of feudal notions being another, that, as D’Ohsson says, it is probable that it only escaped the fate of Hungary by the opportune death of the Khakan Ogotai. The severe discipline of the Mongols proved more than a match for the personal bravery of a few knights, hampered, if protected, by heavy armour, and an undisciplined crowd of peasants, their retainers. To their discipline they also added other soldierly virtues, fertility of invention, and very able strategy and tactics. In fact, if we only consider that the Mongols came from an obscure corner of Asia, had neither maps of the country, nor even any definite means of learning its topography; that they were complete strangers not only to Europe, but also to western modes of thought, &c.; that they did not prepare themselves for a campaign by a long series of experiments, but rushed over a country like an avalanche; that their commissariat and transport was adapted to the steppes and deserts of Asia and not to the very different state of things in Europe; we must consider it as little short of miraculous, not only that they should have been so successful, but also that their strategic plans should have been so scientifically laid. No doubt their terrible system of wholesale slaughter and cruelty cowed and unnerved their opponents; no doubt, also, they were served by Comans, Russians, &c., some of those vagabond and mercenary spirits ready enough to act as guides and pioneers to any invader who promises plunder. But granting this, we shall still not cease to wonder at the exploit, and to compare it as a military achievement. with any in the world’s history.

While Batu was absent in Hungary, the Kipchaks attacked the Mongol reserves on the Volga, commanded by Sinkur, his ninth brother, but were defeated. An army was sent in pursuit of the fugitives under Ilmika. This advanced into Daghestan beyond Derbend, and even into Shirvan. Sinkur himself made a campaign on the Kama against the Bulgarians and their neighbours. It was probably to this occasion that we must refer the statement of Torfaeus, who tells us that during the reign of Hakon the Second of Norway (1217-1263), there arrived in the country many Permian fugitives who had emigrated to escape the cruelty of the Tartars. These fugitives were settled about the Malanger Gulf. Wolff says that the Mongol arms reached to the Upper Kama and the Wytshegda, and as far as Petschova. Raschid mentions a campaign undertaken by the Mongol princes against the land of Uriungkut Badadj. Von Hammer has identified this with the land of the Eastern Urianguts, or Soyol; but this seems to me to be altogether wrong, and Raschid’s reference is probably to the Samoyedic and Finnic tribes of Permia or Archangel.

Having traced out the progress of the three military expeditions authorised by the Kuriltai of 1235, we will return once more to Ogotai. He proceeded to build himself a palace, called the Ordu Balik, or the city of the Ordu, at Karakorum, where he had fixed his court. The position of the celebrated city has been much debated and was discussed at great length by Abel Rémusat. It is generally agreed that it was situated near the river Orkhon, or Orgon. Gaubil, from data furnished by the Chinese astronomer Ko-cheou-king, who lived in the reign of Kubilai Khan, places it in 42.21 N.L. and 103.40 E.L. of the meridian of Paris. Rémusat argues that the calculation is wrong, and Ikho, and Bin chau and Lai chau to Adjitai. The Prince Kutan, Cheku (a relative of Ogotai’s), the Princesses Alikha and Gatchin, the Princes Chalakhu, Jagatai Tankin, Mongu, and Khantcha, and the Noyans Angui Tsing, and Khoss kissu received lands in the department of Tung ping fu, in Shantung.

The princes of the blood had been wont to seize upon as many post horses as they needed, and to make requisition at their will for other articles. In 1237 Yeliu Chutsai fixed the number of horses a person of each rank was entitled to, and prescribed the use of passports or warrants, which were to be presented when any demand was made. He also renewed the old examinations in the various towns, and made proficiency in them the test of capacity for public appointments. Death was the penalty awarded to those who prevented their slaves from attending. He also founded two colleges, one at Yanking, the other at Pin Yang, in Shansi, where the Mongol youth were taught history, geography, arith­metic, and astronomy.tSuch was the reform instituted in the empire by the Imperial Chancellor. Let us now turn to his master.

Ogotai, the powerful over-lord of the vast empire, gave himself up to luxury and excessive drinking. He only lived for one month in the spring at Karakorum, the rest of this season he spent at a place called Kertchagan, a day’s journey thence, where his Persian architects had built a palace to rival that built for him at Karakorum by the Chinese. The summer he passed at a place called Ormektua. There is a mountain and station called Urmukhtui near the river Shara, a tributary of the Orgon, twenty-two leagues south of Kiakhta, on the way to Urga. There Ogotai lived under a Chinese pavilion made of white felt lined with gold embroidered silken tissue; this tent, which would hold 1,000 people, was known as the Sira Ordu. In autumn he spent a month near the lake Keuke. The winter, the great hunting season, he passed at Ongki, where he had enclosed a space two leagues in circumference, with a ramp of earth and stakes. Into this the game was driven. Ogotai was an habitual drunkard. In vain his brother Jagatai and his minister Yeliu Chutsai counselled him of the danger he ran, the latter showing him a piece of iron corroded with wine as a warning of its effects on the stomach. In March, 1241, he fell ill, and on his partial recovery he granted a general amnesty to all prisoners and exiles, but his malady returned, and he at length died on the nth of December, 1241, at the age of fifty-six, and was buried in the valley of Kinien, another name for the Imperial cemetery, whose site we have already described sub voce, Genghis Khan. He was a benevolent and very generous prince. “Every­body is a traveller here, it is well therefore to perpetuate oneself in the memory of men.” “Money cannot stave off death, and, as we cannot return from the other world, we ought to deposit our treasures in the hearts of our people,” were among his favourite mottoes. But, like all rich heirs, his generosity was apt to be prodigal. When Karakorum was being built he entered his treasury one day and found it full of money. “What use is this money to me,” he said, “ it only costs me pain to guard it,” and he ordered all who wanted balishs (silver coin) to come and help themselves. He always paid exorbitantly for what he bought, on principle, because he wished to encourage merchants to come to him, and bought the whole of a merchant’s stock to distribute it in largess. In a freak of generosity he gave a beggar from Baghdad a thousand balishs, furnished him with horses to carry his coin, and also with an escort to protect him on his long journey home; the old man died on the way, and the Khakan ordered the money to be forwarded for his daughters.

One day when hunting, a poor man gave him three melons, having no money by him he told his wife Monga to give him two great pearls that hung from her ears, and when she said he did not know their value, and that he had better return the following day, the Khakan said, “Can a poor man wait till tomorrow?” and ordered the pearls to be given him at once; they were immediately sold for very little, and the purchaser, who did not know their history, presented them to the Khakan as an act of homage, by whom they were returned to Monga. When an envoy from Fars brought him a present of two vases full of pearls, Ogotai produced a chest full, and ordered them to be served out in wine glasses to the guests at the evening banquet as a present.

Ogotai was also very good-natured: by the law of Genghis the punish­ment awarded to those who bathed in running water in the spring or summer was death; one day returning from hunting with his brother Jagatai, they found a poor Mussulman bathing; Jagatai would have had him killed immediately, but his brother secretly caused a silver coin to be thrown into the stream, and the Mussulman was allowed to plead that as a poor man who had lost his coin in the stream grace might be extended to him. Ogotai being privy of course to the deception.

An enemy of the Mussulmans once came to him and said that Genghis had sent him to tell him to exterminate the Mussulmans; having thought a minute, Ogotai asked him if Genghis Khan employed an interpreter, he said “No.” “And dost thou know Mongol?” he said he only knew Turk. “ Thou art a liar then, for Genghis only knew Mongol,” and he had him put to death.

One day some Chinese showmen were performing before him and exhibiting their celebrated shadow figures, one of these, a figure of an old man with a white beard dragged by the neck at the tail of a horse, was somewhat exultingly pointed out by the conceited Chinese as showing how the Mussulmans were treated by the Mongol horsemen. Ogotai stopped them, and having produced the richest articles in his treasury of Chinese and of Persian make, he showed them how inferior the former were; he said that many of his rich Mussulman subjects had many Chinese slaves, but no Chinaman had any Mussulman slaves. You know that by the laws of Jingis a Mussulman’s life is valued at forty balishs, while a Chinaman’s is valued the same as a donkey; how dare you then insult the Mussulmans.

Ogotai was very fond of wrestling, and imported famous wrestlers from Persia, one of whom, Pilé, was especially celebrated. The Khakan gave him a beautiful girl for a wife, but he would not sleep with her; and on being asked why by the Khakan, he replied that having won such great fame at his court he did not wish to be beaten, but to retain his strength and preserve the favour of the Khakan; the latter replied that he wished to have more of his race, and that he would dispense with his trials of strength for the future.

One anecdote is told which speaks of his severity. It was reported among the Uirats that the Khakan intended to marry their daughters to men of other tribes, and they immediately affianced them. When Ogotai heard of this he ordered all the girls above seven years old of that tribe, and those who had been married during the year, to be ranged in a row to the number of 4,000. Having picked out the fairest for himself and his officers, and sent others to the public brothels, he ordered all the rest to be scrambled for by his soldiers, and this before their fathers, husbands, and brothers, and it is said no one murmured. These anecdotes give one a good idea of some traits of Mongol life at this period. The chief wife of Ogotai was Turakina, by whom he had five sons, Kuyuk, Kutan, Kutchu, Karadjar, and Kashi; his two other sons, Kadan Ogul and Melik, were by concubines.

Whether we rank him as a most fortunate conqueror, as a mighty potentate ruling an empire to which that of Napoleon or Alexander was very small, or as an administrator who managed to frame rules by which the vast mass was riveted together for a long period, we must concede to Ogotai the character of one of the greatest monarchs the world has seen. Nor does it detract from his position that most of the work was done for him by other hands, it is in the choice of fit servants that the masters of large empires oftenest fail. The great name of Jingis has at least in English literature almost eclipsed that of his son, nor can this be other than a very modest attempt to draw more attention to him.

KUYUK KHAN.

OGOTAI had named his third son Kutchu as his successor, but he had died in 1236 in China. He next named his grandson Shiramun, the son of Kutchu; but Ogotai’s widow, the Empress Turakina, wished the honour for Kuyuk, her eldest son, who had distinguished himself in the campaign against the Kins and also under Batu, and who, according to the usual Mongol rule of succession, was the next heir. He had in 1241 received orders to return to Tartary, and heard of his father’s death en route. Turakina now issued a summons to the different princes of the house to come to a Kuriltai for the election of a successor. Jagatai and those princes who were at hand appointed Turakina regent during the interregnum. This appointment was the beginning of long troubles to the Mongol dynasty. The regent commenced by displacing Chinkai, who had been Imperial Chancellor, and one of whose duties it was to take down daily the sayings of the Emperor. Her next act was more im­portant. A Muhammedan merchant named Abd-ur-Rahman had gained her entire confidence. The taxes imposed upon China had been calcu­lated and levied by the celebrated Yeliu Chutsai, and on the final con­quest of the Kins had been fixed at 1,100,000 ounces of silver annually. Abd-ur-Rahman offered 2,200,000 to be allowed to farm them, and not­withstanding the opposition of Yeliu Chutsai, he was appointed head of the Imperial finances. Yeliu Chutsai died of grief at the prospect of seeing the fruits of his labours, for the improved condition of his country, thus sacrificed. This was in June, 1244, when he was fifty-five years old. It was suggested that one who had been so long Finance Minister must have accumulated a large fortune. They accordingly searched his house, but only found there books, maps, medals, stones with ancient inscrip­tions, and instruments of music, the surroundings in fact of a student. One of Ogotai’s successors gave him the posthumous title of King of Kuana hing, and the style Ven tcheng. His tomb still remains at the foot of the mountain Wan Shen, three leagues and a half from Peking. In 1757 the Government built a new temple on the spot, and also a monument with an inscription, the old one being decayed. In it are statues of himself and his wife. His, like that of Moses by Michael Angelo, has a majestic beard reaching to his knees.

The empire soon after lost a very valuable servant in Massudbey, the governor of Turkestan and Transoxiana, which, though nominally attached to the Khanate of Jagatai, now that there was a minor on the throne of that Khanate, were more immediately under the Imperial control. Massud had been a capital administrator and had restored pros­perity to those provinces so much ravaged by Jingis. He did not trust the new regime, and deemed it prudent to fly; he escaped to Batu Khan. The Regent also sent one of her favourites called Argun into Persia to replace Kurguz, its governor, who had long been obnoxious to her; he was imprisoned and Argun placed in his office. We are told that Turakina was entirely guided by the advice of one of her females, Fatima, a Persian who had been captured at the sack of Thus.

Temugu Utsuken, the youngest brother of Genhis, as the last survivor of his generation, had some claims to the throne. He seems to have made a feeble effort to obtain it, but was apparently so little encouraged that he converted his journey in search of a throne into one of con­gratulation.

The general Kuriltai had been summoned to meet at the place near lake Keukee, where Ogotai generally spent the summer. Its meeting was delayed until the spring of 1246 by the tardy march of Batu Khan, who was now the most important prince among the Mongols. He pre­tended that his horses’ feet were bad, but his real reason was his hatred fat the Regent and her son Kuyuk. After all he did not attend the Diet, which was held without him. We are told that the different routes that converged from-all parts of Asia upon Sira Ordu, where the Kuriltai was held, were crowded with travellers; there came Utsuken, the brother of Genghis, with his forty-eight sons; the widow of Tului and her sons; the various descendants of Ogotai, Juji, and Jagatai; the military and civil governors of the Mongol possessions in China; Argun and Massud, the governors of Persia and Turkestan and Transoxiana; Rokn-ud-din, the Seljuk Sultan of Rum; Yaroslaf, Grand Duke of Russia; two rivals for the crown of Georgia, both called David; the brother of the Sultan of Aleppo; the ambassadors of the Khalif of Baghdad, of the Ismailyen Prince of Alamut, of the Princes of Mosul, Fars and Kerman, and Sempad, brother of Haithon, King of Cilicia, each bearing magnificent presents. “Among the great magnates two obscure monks were conspicuous by their humble dress and the greatness of their mission;” they came from the Pope and the council of Lyons to convert the Mongols, one of the two was Du Plano Carpino, who has described for us the ceremonies of installation.

Two thousand white tents were erected for the grandees, who were so numerous that they had barely opportunity to bow their heads and pass on. A vast multitude of the commonalty were camped outside them. The princes of the blood and great generals met in a large tent which would hold 2,000 people, surrounded at some distance by a balustrade covered with pictures. The tent had two entrances, one for the Emperor was unguarded, no one would have the audacity to attempt an entrance there; the other was guarded by soldiers with bows and swords. Each morning the assembly spent in discussing the business of the meeting; the afternoons were consumed in drinking kumis. Each day the members were dressed in a different colour. The first day in white, the second in red, the third in purple, and the fourth in scarlet. Some of the grandees were mounted on horses whose harness cost more than twenty silver marks.

Before his election Kuyuk was treated with great deference; when he went abroad they sang songs in his praise and bent towards him wands terminated by bunches of scarlet wool. When the time of election came the Regent and the members of the assembly repaired to a tent two or three leagues away from the Sira Ordu, called the golden tent, because its pillars were covered with plates of gold fastened with golden studs, car­peted with scarlet, and covered with drapery, and debated about the choice of an Emperor. Shiramun was the late Emperor’s choice, but the Regent pointed out that he was still a minor, and persuaded them to elect Kuyuk. He coyly refused the honour for a while, according to the usual custom, and at length accepted it as Ogotai had done, on condition that they swore to maintain it in his family. According to Simon de St. Quentin and the Armenian Haiton, the grandees of the court placed him and his wife on a piece of square black felt, and having raised him aloft proclaimed him Khakan; this is evidently a very ancient and wide­spread custom. The members of the assembly did homage by pros­trating themselves nine times, and the vast multitude outside at the same time bent their foreheads to the ground. Kuyuk with his followers then left the tent and did obeisance three times to the sun. The ceremony concluded with a feast, during which the newly-elected Khakan was seated on a throne with the princes on his right and the princesses on his left. The repast lasted until midnight, and the hall resounded with music and martial songs. The banquet was renewed for seven days, and then a general largess was distributed, each one receiving a present according to his rank. Kuyuk wished to surpass the liberality of his father. We are told that he bought merchandise to the value of 70,000 balishes, and paid for it with drafts upon the conquered countries. It was lavishly distributed among the crowd; even the children and servants received presents. A second distribution was made, which did not exhaust the vast stores, and Kuyuk ended by ordering the remains to be given up to pillage. Carpino says that there were placed on a hill, not far from the Imperial residence, more than 500 chariots filled with gold, silver, and silken robes, which were all distributed.

The first business gone into by Kuyuk was an inquiry into the conduct of his great uncle Utsuken, who, as I said, had some pretensions to the throne. Mangu, son of Tului, and Orda, son of Juji, were appointed to investigate the matter, and it led to several of Utsuken’s officers being punished.

The election took place in August, 1246. Immediately afterwards the Kuriltai busied itself with repairing many of the breaches of government which had occurred during the regency. The Khakan severely repri­manded the members of the Imperial family who had abused their power, and given indiscriminately to some, exemption from taxes, to others, the right to levy them. The family of Tului was excepted from this censure, and received a special eulogium. He then invested Yissu Manga, son of Jagatai, with his father’s Khanate, contrary to the directions of Jagatai himself, who had left it to his grandson Kara Hulagu. Kuyuk in altering the disposition said it was strange the grandson should be preferred to the son. In 1247 he sent an army to Corea, whose King had refused to pay tribute; another army, under Subutai and Chagan, was sent against the Sung empire in China; a third, commanded by Iltchikadai, was sent into Persia. To raise it each of the princes of the blood had to furnish two men out of every ten, and Iltchikadai was ordered to raise a similar proportion in Persia itself; the king­doms of Georgia and Rum, and the principalities of Mosul, Diarbekir, and Aleppo were placed under his exclusive jurisdic­tion, with the sole right of levying taxes there. Argun retained the government of Persia, and Massud that of Turkestan and Transoxiana, and each of them had his diploma sealed with the lion, as had also the various petty princes who acknowledged the Mongol supremacy and retained their independence. Abd-ur-Rahman was put to death; and the chancellary was apparently divided between Chinkai and Kaidak.t

Izz-ud-din Ki-kavuss, the Seljuk Sultan of Rum or Iconium, was deposed and replaced by his brother Rokn-ud-din Kilidjarslan. Georgia was divided between the two competitors who had come to the installation.

The ambassadors of the Khalif and of the chief of the Ismailyens or Assassins were sent home with severe threats for their masters, against whom many complaints were brought by the Mongol generals; the Kuriltai was then dissolved, and the several princes set out to their various duties.

The two Franciscan missionaries who attended the Kuriltai were John de Plano Carpino and Benedict, they had traversed Bohemia, Silesia, and Poland; living on alms, they were ill prepared to present themselves at a court where every one was expected to bring a present. The Polish Duke Conrad and his courtiers supplied them with rich furs as offerings, they then proceeded to Kief, and in six days arrived at the Mongol out­posts on the Dnieper; the Mongol general sent them on to the court of Batu, and he forwarded them on again; they arrived at the Grand Ordu on the 22nd of July, 1246, five months after leaving the Mongol outposts on the Dnieper. They were admitted to an audience some days after Kuyulds election with a party of other ambassadors, whose names were announced in a loud voice by the Chancellor Chinkai. They made the usual obeisance before entering, were searched to see they had no weapons, and instructed on no account to tread on the wooden threshold of the tent. The papal letters were then read; one of them exhorted the Mongol chief to become a Christian, the other rated the nation severely for its cruelties to its enemies, and implored the Khakan not to molest the Christians any more. The Khakan dictated an answer, which was sealed with his seal and translated into Arabic. If we are to credit the version of it conveyed in a letter which the King of Cyprus received from the constable of Armenia and forwarded to Louis the Ninth, it was not very conciliatory: “God has commanded my ancestors and myself to send our people to exterminate the wicked nations. You ask if I am a Christian; God knows, and if the Pope wishes to know also, he had better come and see.”

Turakina died two months after her son’s election; her death was followed by that of her favourite, Fatima; who was accused by one Shir£ of having by her sorceries caused Kutan, the Khakan’s brother, to be ill. He himself sent to his brother to complain of her baneful influence, and when he shortly after died, Chinkai reminded Kuyuk of his brother’s message. She was ordered to be tried, and having confessed under the pressure of the bastinado, her eyes, mouth, &c., were sewn up; she was wrapped in a felt and thrown into the river. Her friends were also punished with death. It is strange that shortly after, her accuser, Shir£, was himself accused of having bewitched Kuyuk’s son Khodja Ogul, and was put to death with his wives and children.

Ssanang Setzen has a curious tale about a Kutan, or Godan as he calls him. He makes him succeed Kuyuk and reign until 1251; but it is very clear that he has mixed up Kutan, the brother of Kuyuk, with Kutan or Godan, the brother of Kublai. The latter was a very influential person, as I shall show later, in introducing Lamaism among the Mongols; and the story told by Ssanang Setzen of his intercourse with the Grand Lama is in accordance with what we know elsewhere of him. It is quite clear that Kuyuk was succeeded by his cousin Mangu, as Grand Khan, and that his brother Kutan died before him.

In the spring of 1248 Kuyuk set out for the banks of the Imil, his own special uluss, where he distributed largess widely. The widow of Tului suspected that the object of his march was an attack upon Batu, and put him on his guard, but Kuyuk died suddenly at seven days’ journey from Bish Balig, the capital of Uiguria, aged forty-three. He was a great victim to gout, the result of drinking and dissipation. He abandoned the conduct of affairs entirely to his two ministers Kaidak and Chinkai, both Christians, and through their influence a great number of monks from Asia Minor, Syria, Bagdad, Russia, and the Caucasus were attracted to his court; his doctors also were Christians. Carpino saw before his tent a Christian chapel; Raschid, on the other hand, complains of the severities exercised towards the Muhammedans during his reign. The seal of Kuyuk bore these words: “God in heaven and Kuyuk on earth, by the power of God the ruler of all men”.

Carpino describes Kuyuk as of middle stature, grave and serious in disposition, and as seldom laughing.

The names of two of his sons are recorded, namely, Khodja Ogul and Nagu, but neither of them succeeded him.

In the life of Ogotai I carried down the Mongol campaign in Persia to the death of the great general Churmagun; he was replaced by Baiju, whose first campaign was against Ghiath-ud-din Kei Khosru, Sultan of Rum or Iconium; with him marched contingents of Armenians and Georgians. They attacked Erzurum, and after two months’ siege, in which the walls were broken down by catapults, they captured it, put all the soldiery to death, and reduced the artisans and women to captivity. The following year the Sultan of Iconium advanced to meet them with 20,000 men; with him marched 2,000 Frank auxiliaries under the “Free Lance” John Liminata from Cyprus, and Boniface de Castro, a Genoese. A curious lesson for the crusades to teach, that Christian soldiers should so early be found doing the work of mercenaries for the Moslems. The Sultan advanced from Sivas, and encountered the Mongols near the mountains of Alakuh or Kussadag; with the first flight of Mongol arrows his army was seized with panic and fled. The Sultan sent his harem to Haithon, the Armenian chief of Cilicia, for protection, and then abandoned his camp with the baggage and treasure. The Mongols at first suspected it was a ruse to draw them into an ambush, and it was only after waiting for a day that they advanced and pillaged the abandoned camp, marched upon Sivas, which purchased easy terms by a prompt submission; Tocate and Caesarea were successively sacked. Baiju now agreed to make peace upon the terms that the Sultan should pay the Mongols an annual tribute of 400,000 dinars, and a certain number of slaves, horses, and other valuables. This campaign lasted two months. In retiring from Rum the Mongols demanded a contribution in silver from the town of Erzenjan, which being refused, it was taken by assault and its inhabitants murdered. This campaign took place in June and July, 1243.

Meanwhile another body of Mongols had made a diversion into Syria, where they advanced as far as Aleppo; they levied a contribution and retired. On their return they appeared before the town of Malattiya, but we are told its Prefect having collected a great quantity of money, of gold and silver vases, having further collected the reliquaries of the saints and other precious objects preserved in the Jacobite cathedral, altogether worth 40,000 pieces of gold, delivered them all to the Mongols who there­upon retired. Soon after this Bohemund, Prince of Antioch, and many other Christian princes agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols. Their example was followed by Haithon the First, the King of Little Armenia or Cilicia, with whom the mother, wife, and daughter of the Sultan of Rum had taken refuge; the Mongols insisted that they should be sur­rendered, and Haithon had to comply; at the same time he received from them a diploma constituting him a vassal of the Khakan. This was in 1244. The following year they overran the country north of lake Van, and took the town of Khelatt, which by order of Ogatai was made over to Thamtha, the sister of Avak, who had married the Prince Achraf (? the Prince of Damas). They soon after captured Amid, and, entering Mesopotamia, occupied Roha, Nisibin, and other towns, which were deserted by the inhabitants at their approach. This expedition, according to Chamchean, was made in summer, and the Mongols lost many of their horses and were obliged to retire.

Their dominion, however, constantly widened, for we find the Prince of Mosul sending word to the Prince of Damascus that he had concluded a treaty with them, by which Syria became tributary. The same year, 1245, news arrived at Bagdad that the town of Sheherzur, eight days’ journey to the north, had been pillaged by them. In 1246 they advanced as far as Yakuba, but were there beaten by the troops of the Caliph.

Ruzutan, the Queen of Georgia, had never submitted to the Mongols. She remained in her impregnable fortress of Usaneth, and no cajolery could make her come out. Baiju thereupon determined to appoint a fresh ruler who should be more subservient, and chose a nephew of hers, a natural son of her brother George Lacha, the late ruler of Georgia; he sent an Armenian Vahram to bring him from Caesarea, where he had been living for some years. The greater part of the Georgian princes, and the, Armenian princes Avak, Chabanchah, and Alpugh, acknowledged him. They conducted him to Metskhitha, the ancient patriarchal city of Georgia, where he was crowned. They then marched to invest Usaneth, where the Queen driven to bay, poisoned herself. The Armenian historian I have already quoted says that she was very beautiful, and that she had received offers of love from Batu, the Khan of Kipchak; she left her son to his protection.

At the inauguration of Kuyuk, the proteges of Batu and Baiju appeared, as I have said, to claim the throne. It was decided to divide Georgia between them. To David, son of Lacha, was given Georgia proper, with a certain authority over his cousin who ruled in Imeretia, Mingrelia, and Abkhazia, the boundary between the two being the watershed between the Kur and the Phasis.

At the same Kuriltai, Sempad, the brother of Haithon of Cilicia, who was sent to do homage, obtained the restitution of certain towns which had been taken from* his brother by the Sultans of Rum.

At the council of Lyons, in 1245, it was determined to send some missionaries into Tartary, and accordingly Innocent the Fourth wrote to the Prior of the Dominicans at Paris to tell him to choose some suitable persons. There were numerous volunteers, from whom four were chosen, namely : Anselm of Lombardy, Simon de St. Quentin, Alberic, and Alexander. They received orders to go to the first Mongol army they should meet in Persia. It was in 1247 that they reached the camp of Baiju, which Simon says was at a place named Sitiens, forty-nine days’ journey from Acre. They were charged with letters from the Pope to the Khakan, these were not addressed specifically and merely to the chief of the Tartars, which incensed the Mongols : “Does not your master know,” they said, “that the Khan is the son of God, that Baiju Noyan is his lieutenant; their names ought to be known everywhere.” They then required the monks to honour Baiju with three genuflections, but supposing that this would be interpreted into an act of homage, they refused, saying, they were prepared to pay him the same honour they paid their own master. The retort was a somewhat protestant one : “You who adore wood and stone ought not to refuse to adore Baiju Noyan, to whom the Khakan, the son of God, has ordered that the same honours are to be paid as to himself.” The whole account is quaint, it is given at length by D’Ohsson in his second volume, the Pope’s letters were translated into Persian, and from that language into Mongol. At length after long delays the monks were sent back to the Pope with the following answer : “By the order of the divine Khan; Baiju sends you this reply, know O Pope that your envoys have come and brought your letters. They have spoken in a haughty tone, we don’t know if you ordered them to speak thus. Your letters contain among other things the following complaint, ‘You have killed many people,’ but see the commandment of God and of him who is master of all the earth. Whoever obeys us remains in possession of his land, of his water and patrimony .... but whoever resists us shall be destroyed. We transmit you this order, Pope, so that if you would preserve your land and water and patrimony you must come to us in person and thence pass on to present yourself before him who is master of all the earth. If you don’t obey... we don’t know what will happen, God only knows”. With this document was sent a copy of the instructions furnished to Baiju of how he was to deal with those who obeyed or disobeyed the precepts contained in the letter, which were those of Jingis Khan. This correspondence is a good instance of the intoler­able arrogance of the Mongols. The missionaries, says Simon (one of them), were treated as dogs unworthy of answer, the freedom of their language irritated Baiju very much, and he three times ordered their execution.

Meanwhile the Mongols continued their conquests. In 1252-3 they entered Mesopotamia, pillaged Diarbekr and Meyafarkin, and advanced as far as Rees ain and Surudj, in which expedition they killed more than 10,000 men, and captured a caravan on its way from Harran to Bagdad. Inter alia they thus acquired 600 loads of sugar and of Egyptian cotton, besides 600,000 dinars. The same year another body of Mongols ravaged the country in the neighbourhood of Malattya.

Let us now turn to the doings of the civil governors of Persia.

Kurguz, whom I described as setting out towards the Imperial court, and as having retraced his steps when he heard of the death of Ogotai, unfortunately, as he was passing through Transoxiana, quarrelled with an officer of the Uluss of Jagatai. The latter threatened to report him to his mistress, the widow of Jagatai, and as he returned a some­what saucy answer, which came to her ears, she was much irritated.

On the death of Ogotai, the chiefs of the Uluss of Jagatai sent Argun with orders to bring Kurguz alive or dead, he resisted; but was given up readily by the dependents whom his strong hand had controlled. His seizure was the signal for fresh anarchy in Khorasan and Mazanderan. He was sent on to the Khakan’s court where his friends had disappeared, and thence remitted back to the Uluss of Jagatai, where after a show of trial he was put to death by order of Kara Hulagu, son of Jagatai. He is said to have abjured Buddhism in his later days, and to have become a Mussulman. Argun was thereupon appointed governor of Persia by Turakina, the widow of Ogotai. He was a Uirat by birth, and had been sold by his father during a famine for a quarter of beef to a Jelair officer, who was tutor to Ogotai. As he knew how to write the Uighur character, he eventually entered the chancellary of Ogotai, and was by him charged with an important commission in China. He was also named com­missioner to settle the dispute between Ongu Timur and Kurguz, which he decided in favour of the latter, and was appointed co-adminis­trator with him; but Kurguz preferred to be supreme, and Argun retired to the court of the Jagatai princes.

On his return to Persia he asked that Sheref-ud-din should go with him as Ulug Bitikudji, an office which he obtained through the influence of Fatima. Originally the son of a porter, in Khuarezm, he became secre­tary to Chin Timur, when he got his appointment in Khorassan.

Argun at once proceeded to Iraq and Azerbaijan to relieve those provinces from the exactions of the Mongol governors. At Tabriz he received the submission of the sovereigns of Rum or Iconium, and of Syria, and sent commissaries to those countries to receive their tribute. Sherif-ud-din was an arbitrary, cruel man, whose exactions were pressed by torture and other means. He was equally hard on the Moslem ministers of religion, and on the widows and orphans, who had been tenderly treated by Genghis; parents sold their children to pay the taxes, and where nothing else was to be had, the sheet was taken from the dying man.

At Rayi, the various treasures that had been collected by his agents were taken to the mosque into which the sumpter beasts were driven, and their loads were covered with the sacred carpets. Fortunately his reign was short, and he died in 1244.

In 1246 Argun was summoned to the Kuriltai, where Kuyuk was elected Khakan. He went with many rich presents, and we are told the most acceptable of these to the court was a collection of the warrants, &c., which had been unlawfully granted during the interregnum, which exempted some from taxes and gave others the right of levying them, covering the country with petty tyrants. Argun was confirmed in the government of Persia. On his return he was met at Meru by a great number of grandees, and held a grand fete. On the death of Kuyuk fresh anarchy ensued, warrants for exemption and collection of taxes were again indiscriminately granted.

On the death of Kuyuk, Batu, who had set out and had gone as far as the Alak Tak mountains on his way to do homage to the Khakan, halted. Pending the assembling of a Kuriltai, Ogul Gaimish, the widow of Kuyuk, was appointed Regent with the consent of Batu. During the interregnum there arrived at the court an embassy from Louis the Ninth, who was then engaged in his crusade, and who like the rest of the world looked upon the Mongol chief as the great Prester John, who had been sent to assist him in his campaign against the Muhammedans. This embassy took with it some magnificent presents, including a tent fitted up as a chapel, made of scarlet cloth, embroidered with the chief events of the life of Christ; with it were sent chalices, books, and the vessels used in the service. He also sent a portion of the true cross. The two envoys, who were Dominicans, travelled through Persia and Transoxiana. They were well received by the Regent; but the whole affair was misunderstood by the Mongols, who looked upon it as an act of homage, and afterwards considered Louis, much to his chagrin, as one of their dependents.

I have now to describe a revolution which caused very great mischief to the Mongols, and which led eventually in a large degree to the dis­integration of their empire.

On the death of Kuyuk, measures were taken as usual to prevent the news spreading until the heads of the house had been informed of it; travellers were stopped, communications intercepted, and messengers sent off to tell Batu and Siurkukteni, the widow of Tului. I have already said that Batu, who was on his way to the court, halted at Alaktak, seven days' journey from Kayalic. There he called a general Kuriltai. The family of Ogotai objected, and said that it ought to have been summoned in the ancient country of the Mongols, but they sent Timur Noyan, governor of Karakorum, to assent in their name to whatever was done. The result was somewhat unexpected.

Since Juji had quarrelled with his brothers Ogotai and Jagatai, there seems to have been a constant feud between the families. Tului and Juji had married two sisters, so that their children were doubly cousins, and naturally clung together. The Mongol world was divided into two sec­tions, to each of which two of the great houses belonged. It is probable also that the family of Juji, the eldest son, never quite acquiesced in the appointment of the younger son Ogotai and his family to the headship of the whole house. At all events Batu did not disguise his dislike for the descendants of Ogotai; a good opportunity was now offered of putting them aside. At the Kuriltai, the general Ilchikidai reminded the assembly that they had promised never to elect a member of any other house than that of Ogotai so long as a morsel of his flesh remained. Khubilai, a son of Tului, replied that the wishes of Ogotai had already been contravened. Had they not put to death Altalun (the favourite daughter of Jingis) without trial, against the laws of Jingis, which forbade the killing of any of the royal house until he or she had been tried in the general assembly of the princes. Again, had they not raised Kuyuk to the Khakanship, against the will of Ogotai, who had named Shiramun as his successor.

The general Mangussar was the first who in the general assembly pro­posed that Mangu, the eldest son of Tului, should be raised to the throne. He spoke of his valiant deeds both in China and in the West under Batu. He was supported by Batu himself, and after the usual coy resistance was elected. Batu offered him the cup, and the assembly greeted him as Khan; the Kuriltai then adjourned till the spring following, when it was to meet again in the ancient territory of Jingis Khan, where all the princes of the house were to assemble to confirm the election. Meanwhile Ogul Gaimish, the widow of Kuyuk, and his two sons Khodja Ogul and Nagu were to continue Regents. They spent the interregnum in disposing in advance of the revenues of the empire, which was given up to anarchy. Khodja and Nagu disavowed the act of their deputy Timur Noyan, and with Yissu Manga, the son of Jagatai, who now ruled over his horde, refused to attend the new Kuriltai or to surrender the rights of the house of Ogotai. After vainly trying persuasion of different kinds, Batu at length ordered his brother Bereke to proceed with the installation of Mangu, and threatened those who disturbed the State with the loss of their heads.

There can be no doubt that this was a very arbitrary proceeding, and that it involved a complete departure from Mongol traditions. The princes had sworn to retain the chief Khanship in the family of Ogotai, and if Kuyuk usurped the throne which had been left to Shiramun by his grandfather, that excuse could not cover the additional injustice of excluding him from the throne now. It is not surprising that he and his cousins, &c., should have objected to Mangu’s pretensions, and should have conspired against him. During the festivities that succeeded the elevation of Mangu, a man entered the Imperial tent who said he had been in search of a strayed mule and had met with a caravan of carts laden with concealed arms. Having dexterously examined the drivers, he had ascertained that they were on their way to the Kuriltai with the princes Shiramun, Nagu, and Kutuku, of the house of Ogotai, who intended to take advantage of the feast to displace Mangu and his supporters; and that he had come with great haste to warn them. Upon this a force was sent out to meet the conspirators. When surrounded they pretended to be coming to do homage, and on being conducted before Mangu offered him nine presents, each consisting of nine articles, according to Mongol custom, which especially regards the number nine. They were ordered to dismiss their troops and were treated for some days with courtesy and took part in the feast, but were then put under arrest. When brought before Mangu himself for interrogation they stoutly denied the plot, but a special commission was appointed to examine the whole affair. This satisfied Mangu of their guilt. Hesitating about the punishment to be awarded he consulted an old counsellor of the family, Mahmud Yelvaje, who repeated to him the advice given by Aristotle to Alexander under similar circumstances, when he took Alexander into the garden and tore up the deeply rooted vigorous trees and let the saplings remain, namely, to destroy the principal conspirators and spare the others.

Seventy of the chief conspirators were put to death, among them were two sons of Ilchikidai, the governor of Persia. The father was arrested at Badghis in Khorassan, and being conducted to Batu, was also put to death. While the Imperial princes were generally put to death by being fastened in felts and then rolled and trampled, the Noyans were choked by having earth or stones forced into their mouths* The three princes were saved, we are told, by the intercession of Siurkukteni, the mother of Mangu, whose good offices had been secured by Katakush, the mother of Shiramun.

The following year, in 1252, a Kuriltai was summoned at Kara­korum for the trial of the princes, &c. Mangu was especially irritated against the dowagers Ogul Gaimish and Katakush, who refused to admit his claims, and who were accused of doing him harm by their sorceries. On being disrobed, the former reproached the judge Mangussar with having unveiled a body which had never been seen except by a sovereign. They were found guilty, fastened up in sacks of felt, and drowned.

Kadiak and Chinkai, the principal councillors of Ogul Gaimish, were put to death, and Buri, a grandson of Jagatai, was handed over to Batu, who had a private grudge against him, and had him killed. The princes of the house of Ogotai were distributed in different parts of the empire. Khodja Ogul was given a yurt on the Selinga; Nagu and Shiramun joined the army. The latter accompanied Khubilai in his expedition to China, and was eventually killed there to satisfy the jealousy of Mangu. Those members of Ogotai’s family who had remained faithful to Mangu, namely, Kadan, Melik, and the sons of Kutan, not only retained their commands, but were each granted one of the Ordus and a widow of Ogotai’s.t During the remainder of Mangu’s reign the family of Ogotai seem to have acquiesced in his supremacy.

KAIDU KHAN.

The distribution of the empire of Genhis among his sons has not been properly understood. Among nomadic races, territorial provinces are not so well recognised as tribal ones. A potentate distributes his clans, and not his acres, among his children. Each of these has of course its camping ground, but the exact limits are not to be definitely measured. We thus find in the legacy of power left by Jingis, which is given at length by Erdmann in his Temudjin des Unerschutterliche, that nearly all his relatives were remembered. Each of them has a certain number of Mongols assigned to him. The same rule was probably applied to his sons. Thus Juji, the eldest, received as his heritage the various tribes that formed the old Turkish Khanate of Kipchak. Jagatai received the various tribes of Karluks, &c., that formed the great empire of Kara Kitai. To Tului, the youngest, the homechild, were left the tribes of Mongol blood. While Ogotai, who was made Khakan or Grand Khan, had, besides his superior power, a special authority over the tribes that formed the powerful confederacy of the Naimans, and probably also of the ancestors of the modem Kalmuks. His Khanate was bounded on the south by the long chain of mountains commencing near lake Balkash, and successively called the Kabyrgan, Talki, Bogdo Oola, and Bokda Thian Shan ranges; having on its south the countries of Kayalic, Amalig, and Bishbalig, which belonged to Jagatai; on the west it was conterminous with that portion of the Khanate of Juji subject to Orda and his descendants, and known as the White Horde; on the east and north-east it was probably bounded by the river Jabkan and the Kooke Sirke Ula mountains; on the north its boundary was uncertain, but probably included the mountains where the headwaters of the Irtish and the Obi spring.

It thus included a large portion of Sungaria, or that portion of the Chinese province of Ili known as Thian Shan Pelu, a land very little known, of which the river Imil, the Black Irtish, the lakes Saisan, Kara Noor, Kizil Bashi Noor, and the Ayar Noor, with their confluent streams, form the chief water system. This was the special appanage of Ogotai and his family, or rather, to be more strictly correct, the camping ground of the various tribes that formed his uluss. These he held inde­pendently of his Imperial authority, and they passed no doubt to his sons and grandsons. I have said that after the arbitrary accession of Mangu and the punishment of the refractory descendants of Ogotai, that there was internal peace among the Mongols until that Khan’s death.

On the death of Mangu, Khubilai was absent on an expedition in China, and his brother Arik Buka, who was governor of Karakorum, thinking it a good opportunity, raised the standard of revolt. He was joined by several of the discontented and dispossessed princes of the house of Ogotai, of whom Kaidu, the son of Kashi, the fifth son, was the most conspicuous. I shall describe the struggle between the two brothers in the next chapter, and merely say here that it ended by the suppression of Arik Buka.

When he submitted in 1264, several of the princes of the blood refused to recognise Khubilai, among whom Kaidu was conspicuous. He retired to the country watered by the lmil, and began to assemble some troops. D’Ohsson says that he was crafty and fertile in resources, and he gained the friendship of the princes of the house of Juji, with whose assist­ance he made himself master of the country about the lmil, the ancient patrimony of Ogotai and Kuyuk. Summoned to the presence of Khubilai he evaded the call, urging the usual Mongol pretext that his horses were too thin to bear the journey. After three years of evasion, and no doubt also of preparation, he felt himself strong enough to attack Khubilai as a rival for the Over Khanship of the Mongol empire, which, according to the will of Jingis and the oaths of his successors, was the special heritage of his family.

In 1265 Borak was appointed Khan of Jagatai, by Khubilai, to make head against Kaidu, but instead of this he made terms with him. The families of Ogotai and Jagatai being very closely connected, and having kept up the friendship which had existed between the stemfathers of their races, the two Khans who headed these two hordes now made an arrangement. Turkestan and Transoxiana were not attached to any of the four great hordes, but were governed immediately by an Imperial deputy, and formed an appanage of the Khakanship. As such, Kaidu, who claimed to be Khakan, exercised a special authority there. The territory of Borak was rugged and barren, and in consideration probably of his alliance he was permitted to have a joint occupation of the rich pastures of Transoxiana. Kaidu encamped a force between him and Bokharah, as a precaution against further usurpations. He was called away to make head against Mangu Timur of the Golden Horde, who had marched against him, and meanwhile Borak seized upon Bokharah. Kaidu made peace with Mangu, and a battle ensued between him and Borak on the Oxus, in which Kaidu was surprised in an ambuscade and beaten. Upon this Mangu Tumir supplied him with a contingent of 50,000 troops; the battle was renewed, and Borak defeated. The latter retired to Transoxiana, which he threatened to ravage, and made a requisition upon Bokharah and Samarcand. At this stage he received proposals of peace from Kaidu, through the intervention of Kipchak Ogul, a grandson of Ogotai, and a common friend. Peace was established, the two princes met, and held a grand fete in the spring of 1268 in the open country of Talas and Kundjuk, east of the Jaxartes. In the Kuriltai held here it was decided that Borak should hold two-thirds of Transoxiana, while the remaining third should belong jointly to Kaidu and Mangu Timur. It was decided that Borak should invade Khorassan, and that meanwhile all three princes should refrain from ravaging the ruined territory of Transoxiana, should impose no taxes on the inhabi­tants, and should pasture their flocks at a distance from the cultivated ground. The peace was confirmed by rinsing gold in the cup in which they drank their mutual vows. The most important portion of the treaty for Kaidu, however, was probably the confession it implied, that he was rightful Khakan of the Mongols, and from this time on for many years we find him and his son treated as their sovereign by the Khans of Jagatai.

Abaka, the Ilkhan of Persia, acknowledged Khubilai as the rightful Khakan, and naturally excited the wrath of Kaidu, who eagerly joined in the plan of Borak for occupying Khorasan. He sent a large contingent with that prince. The invasion and its disastrous end will come properly in the history of the Khanate of Jagatai.

On his return home with the debris of his forces Borak was re­proached for his want of skill by Kaidu, and excused himself by the misconduct of some of the younger princes who had deserted him. Borak was paralysed and had become a Muhammedan. He asked his sovereign to assist him with troops in taking vengeance on the wrong­doers. Kaidu went in person with two tumans, 20,000 men, and arrived at the camp of Borak, but before they could have an inter­view the latter died. Mobarek Schah and the chief men of the horde of Jagatai, upon this, took the oath of allegiance to Kaidu, who thus became more than ever the superior Khan of the horde of Jagatai, and controlled a most dangerously powerful force as the rival of Khubilai. He appointed in rapid succession Nikbey, Toka Timur, and Dua to the vacant throne of Jagatal.

Marco Polo enlarges in many chapters on the long struggle that took place between Kaidu and Khubilai. Raschid tells us a desert of forty days’ extent divided the States of Khubilai from those of Kaidu and Dua, this frontier extended for thirty days from east to west. Along this line were posted bodies of troops at intervals, under the orders of princes of the blood and generals. Five of these corps were encamped on the edge of the desert; a sixth in the territory of Tangut, near the Chagan Nur (white lake), situated in lat. 45.45 and E. Ion. 96; a seventh in the vicinity of Karakhodja, a city of the Uighurs, which lies between the two States and maintains neutrality. It may be concluded that Kaidu’s authority extended over Kashgar and Yarkand, and all the cities bordering the south side of the Thian Shan, as far east as Karakhodja, as well as the valley of the Talas river and all the country north of the Thian Shan, from lake Balkash to the Chagan Nur, and in the further north between the Upper Yesseini and the Irtish. Marco says of Khoten, “Ils sont au grand Kaan.”

Kublai was too much afraid of the power of his rival, and the terrors of his land, or too much engaged in organising his Chinese dominions, to interfere much with Kaidu. Many battles were no doubt fought on the frontier, but they were very indecisive. At length Kaidu commenced a more active policy. In 1275, in alliance with Dua, he entered the country of the Uighurs with 100,000 men and besieged the Idikut in his capital; he wanted him to ally himself with him against Khubilai, but he refused, and soon after receiving succour was able to resist the forces of Kaidu; this succour seems to have been the army which was sent in that year by Khubilai under the command of his son Numugan, with the general Ngantung or Antung, a descendant of Mukuli. With them also went Gukdju, brother of Numugan, Shireki, son of Mangu, Tuktimur, and other princes. Numugan received the title of governor-general of the country of Almalig, the very heart of the enemy's country. In 1277, Tuktimur, discontented with Khubilai, proposed to Shireki, son of Mangu, to place him on the throne ; to this the latter agreed, and in the night the conspirators seized the Khakan’s two sons and the general Ngantung. The two princes they handed over to Mangu Timur of the Golden Horde, and the general to Kaidu, whose party they joined with Sarban, son of Jagatai, and other princes of that horde and that of Ogotai. De Mailla, however, makes the princes fight a battle near Almalig, in which the party of Kaidu was successful, and then march upon Karakorum. Marco Polo describes this battle at some length. His description is rather graphic of the Mongol system of tactics. He says that the practice of the Tartars in going to battle is to take each a bow and sixty arrows; of these, thirty are light with small sharp points for long shots and following up an enemy, while the other thirty are heavy with broad heads, which they shoot at close quarters, and with which they inflict great gashes on the face and arms, and cut the enemy's bow strings and commit great havoc. This everyone is ordered to attend to, and when they have shot away their arrows they take to their swords, and maces, and lances, which also they ply stoutly. The threatening state of things on the frontier induced Khubilai to withdraw Bayan, his most trusted general, from China, to place him in command of the western army. He found the enemy encamped on the banks of the Orgon, and after some manoeuvring Shireki was beaten and driven towards the Irtish, and Tuktimur among the Khirgises. Here he demanded assistance from Shireki, which was not forthcoming. He thereupon quarrelled with him, and set up Sarban, the son of Jagatai, as Khakan, so that there were now four pretenders to the high dignity, Khubilai, Kaidu, Shireki, and Sarban. Shireki was to weak to resist, and had to join the other princes in announcing the election of Sarban as Khakan to Kaidu and to Mangu Timur.

Tuktimur soon after met his end, he was trying to force Yubukur, the eldest son of Arikbuka, to recognise his nominee Sarban. This he refused, raised an army, attacked Tuk timur, who was deserted by his troops, and given up to Shireki, by whom he was put to death. He was celebrated for his bravery and his skill in archery. He rode a white horse, saying, men generally chose coloured ones so that the enemy should not see the blood from their wounds, but he thought that as women ornament them­selves with red, so ought the blood of the horseman and his horse to form the parure of a warrior. Sarban, Yubukur and Shireki had several mutual struggles, in which they were alternately deserted by their soldiers. At length Shireki was handed over to Khubilai, and was transported to a desert island, where he died. De Mailla, Gaubil, and the Chinese authorities cited by Pauthier make Shireki be killed after an engagement with Bayan, by the latter’s lieutenant Li ting. Sarban submitted to the Khakan, and was by him granted both men and lands. Yukubur also submitted to Khubilai, and Numugan was set at liberty.

For ten years we hear of no decisive actions between the two great rivals Kaidu and Kublai. The former continued to grow in power, and was undisputed master of the Khanates of Ogotai and Jagatai. He at last succeeded in forming a very powerful league against Kublai. Among his allies the chief were Nayan, Singtur, and Kadan, whose appanages were situated north of Liau Tung in Mandchuria.

Genghis Khan had divided Tartary into two sections, eastern and western, the former was apparently partitioned among his brothers and uncles, and was divided into twenty departments. Of these Utsuken had nine, and his territory was comprised between the rivers Liau, Torro, and Kueilai, and also a part between Liautung and the river of Liau.

I have mentioned how at the accession of Kuyuk, Utsuken raised some pretensions to the crown and was apparently overawed by the strength of the opposition. He was succeeded by his son Jintu, he by his son Tagajar, Tagajar by his son Agul, and he by his son Nayan, who, we are told, had greatly enlarged his heritage, and had gained great influence in Tartary. Those departments of Eastern Tartary which were not controlled by him were ruled over by the chiefs of the Tchalar (Jelair), Hongkila (Kunkurats), Mangon (Manguts), Goulou (?), and Ykiliasse (Kurulas).

Singtur was descended from Juji Kassar, and Kadan from Kadshiun, brothers of Jingis Khan. Nayan collected 40,000 men, with whom he awaited the arrival of Kaidu. He was to have joined him with 100,000, but Khubilai ordered Bayan to repair to Karakorum to hold Kaidu in check, while he himself marched against Nayan. He ordered a fleet of transports to sail from Kiang Nan for the river Liau with provisions. His army was divided into two divisions, one composed of Chinese under the order of the Niutchi general Li Ting; the other of Mongols under Yissu Timur, grandson of Bogordshi, the chief of the nine Orloks. He found the army of Nayan encamped on the river Liau and protected by a line of chariots. Having consulted his astrologers, who promised him a signal victory, he advanced rapidly and quite took Nayan by surprise. Marco Polo has a graphic account of the battle, from which, and from D'Ohsson’s account, I shall quote. The aged Khakan was mounted on a great wooden bartizan, which was borne by four well-trained elephants, with leather harness and housings of cloth of gold. Over this tower, which was guarded by archers and crossbowmen, floated the Imperial standard representing the sun and moon. His troops were ordered in three divisions of 30,000 men each, and the greater part of the horsemen had each a footsoldier armed with a lance set on the crupper behind him, the whole plain seems to be covered with his forces. When all were in battle array on both sides, then arose the sound of many instruments of various music, and the voices of the whole of the two hosts loudly singing, and playing on a certain two-stringed instrument in the Mongol fashion, and so they continued until the great naccara of Khubilai sounded, then that of Nayan sounded, when the fight began on both sides. The naccara was a great kettledrum formed like a brazen cauldron, tapering to the bottom, covered with buffalo hide, often three and a half or four feet in diameter.* It is said that Nayan was a Christian, and that he bore the emblem of the cross on his standards. After a severe struggle he was completely defeated and taken prisoner. Khubilai ordered him to be 6ewn up in felt and to be beaten to pieces, the usual way of putting royal prisoners to death, so that none of their blood should be spilt. The defeat of Nayan caused great jeering among the Jews and Muhammedans, who cast jibes at the Christians for fighting under such an emblem.

The defeat of Nayan did not conclude the strife in the further East. The princes Kadan and Singtur (De Mailla says Hadan and Huluhosan, and Gaubil, Hatan, Tieko, Arlu, and Tulukan) continued the struggle for some time. They encamped on the river Liau, and threatened Liautung. Bayan received orders to watch Kaidu, and to prevent him joining his forces to those of the confederates. Against the latter Khubilai sent his grandson Timur, with the generals Yissu timur, Tutuha, Li ting, and Polohoan. The confederates were attacked on the river Kueliei, and after a fierce battle, which lasted for two days, were utterly routed. A great number of chiefs and officers among the confederates perished. Timur was much praised by his grandfather, and by his affability gained the good opinion of the various tribes encamped on the rivers Liau, Toro, Kueliei, &c.t This battle was fought in 1288. The eastern confederates of Kaidu were thus dispersed.

Let us now turn to his own doings. Khubilai had recalled his best general, Bayan, from China, and ordered him to take command at Kara­korum to oppose his great rival, but before he could arrive there, Kanmala, the son of Khubilai, who commanded the Imperial forces on the western frontier, was defeated by Kaidu, near the Selinga. The young prince was almost captured, and was only rescued by the bravery of Tutuka, a general of Kipchak descent, who had gained great renown at this time.| It is quite clear that Kaidu gained a substantial advantage oh this occasion, and Khubilai, notwithstanding his great age, thought it necessary to go to the frontier in person. He set out from Changtii, and we are told that Tutuka was the first general who had the honour of com­manding under the Emperor. There was no battle however, for Kaidu had meanwhile retired.

Kublai died in 1294, and was succeeded by his grandson Timur. During the last years of the former’s reign we hear of no engagement on the frontier, although the strife apparently continued, for we are told that Kaidu had occupied the country of Parin, the camping ground of the Mongol tribe of Barin in South-Eastern Mongolia. The Imperial general Chohangur, son of Tutuka, marched against him, and found him encamped on the river Taluhu; his camp was defended by stockades of wood, behind which his troops were dismounted and on their knees, with their bows drawn ready to fire a volley. Not­withstanding this, Chohangur charged with such vigour that he captured the camp and drove the enemy out, and captured or killed most of them; he then retired, and encamped on the river Alei. This advantage was balanced by a decided victory gained by Dua; as I have said, the western frontier was protected by a cordon of troops posted at intervals who might support one another. Taking advantage of the fact that three of these post commanders had met together at a feast and got deserted by the greater part of his army, and had to escape with 300 horsemen to the territory of his enemy Dua. The latter received him with honour, but he also accepted the homage of his chief vassals, and appropriated the greater part of his territory.

Dua died directly after, in 1306, and was succeeded after an interval (1308-9) by his son Guebek; he was hardly installed before he was attacked by Chapar, in concert with the other princes of the house of Ogotai, who no doubt deemed this a good opportunity for regaining their lost power. Chapar was beaten in several fights, and forced to escape beyond the Hi, and into the territory of the Khakan Timur. This victory finally broke the hopes of the house of Ogotai. During the reign of his successor, Kuluk Khan, Chapar and other Mongol princes repaired to the Chinese court, where they did homage :  thus sur­rendering effectually the claims of Ogotai and his descendants to the supreme Khanship of the Mongols. With this notice apparently ends the material we possess for the history of the house of Ogotai. Its wide domains were appropriated by the Khans of Jagatai, while the clans who obeyed it were scattered, the greater part became the subjects of the same Khans; others joined the horde of Kipchak, and became renowned in after times as the main strength of the confederacy of the Uzbegs.

The family of Ogotai was however by no means extinct, but became only unimportant and obscure, and it is a curious fact that when the great Timur Lenk had conquered the greater part of Central and Southern Asia, and he like other great conquerors wished to preserve a decent show of humility, that instead of entirely displacing the Khans of Jagatai, whose servant he had been, he retained the title and office of Khan as a mere puppet, a roi fainéant, while he himself like the Merovingian mayors of the palace had all the authority. It is more curious to find that he displaced the family of Jagatai from the position, and put on the titular throne a descendant of Ogatai’s named Siurghatmich, who was apparently succeeded by his son and grandson, thus restoring once more to the family of Ogotai, in name at least, the honours that had been so long appropriated by others.

 

Note 1.—Karakorum.—The position of the capital of Ogotai has recently been a good deal discussed. It must be remembered that Ogotai did not found the city. It was there long before his day. It had been the capital of the old Uighur empire before it was destroyed by the Hakas and before the Uighurs migrated to Bishbalig, and we are expressly told that Ogotai found ancient ruins there when he began to build, among which was an inscription stating that there had stood the palace of Buku, Khan of the Uighurs in the eighth century. I myself believe that the Hakas who overthrew the Uighur empire were the ancestors of the Naimans, and that at the accession of Jingis, Karakorum was within the Naiman territory and probably one of their chief places. Since I wrote this chapter and quite recently some light has been thrown on the very crooked question by the Russian traveller Paderin, whose account has been analysed by Coronel Yule. He tells us that besides the authorities used by Remusat and by Ritter, Paderin also used the itinerary of a Chinese named Chang Chun, who in 1222 travelled from North China to Tokharistan, passing by Karakorum; and that of another Chinese traveller named Chjan de Khoi. They afford some important data. Among these are the following: 1, Karakorum was more than 100 li to the south-west of the lake Ugei Nor, this being a lake of clear water about 70 li in circuit; 2, that it stood in a valley which had a circumference of 100 li, surrounded by hills, and having the river Khorin running through it; 3, that in going from it to the river Tamir, the traveller passes a hill called Horse's Head (in Chinese, Ma-tu; in Mongol, Morintologoi), and another called Red-ear (in Chinese, Khun-er; in Mongol, Ulan Chihi); 4, that north of it there was a palace near a lake called Tsagan Gegen. During his stay at Urga, M. Paderin had ascertained that the names Kara Balghassun, Ugei Nor, Morintologoi, Ulan Chihi, and Tamir were all yet extant.

The 11th of March brought the traveller to the Ugei-Nor. This lake, about eight miles from east to west, and a little less from north to south, lies towards the north side of a wide valley enclosed by low hills. The valley is called Toglokho Tologoi; it is some forty-five to fifty-five miles in length from east to west, and twenty-five to thirty-five miles in breadth. The Orkhon River, fordable stirrup-deep, traverses the valley, and the lake discharges into it by a stream called Narin. The ground near the river is swampy, and west of it there is a series of saline lakes called Tsagan- Nor (White Lakes). Some willows and poplars grow on the banks of the river.

The hills forming the western boundary of the valley are called Ulintu, Obotu, and Ulan Khoshu. On the south and south-east are the Khadamtu Hills, sprinkled with clumps of trees having leaves like pines. The hills on the east and north are insignificant, only one having a name, viz., Khityin-Khada, “Monastery Hill.” This is so called from a kuren or fortified enclosure at the north-west end of the lake Ugei-Nor con­taining a Buddhist temple, the residence of the Khutuktu Orombyin Gegen. This little kuren is of remarkable construction, and looks as if it might have been the palace of a Khan in days of yore. The basement of the temple, both in materials and in style, resembles the ruins near the river Karukha.

M. Paderin diverged from the post track at Ugei-Nor station to visit the ruins of Kara Kharam or Kara Balghassun (for it is known by both names), and rejoined the track at the next station westward, called Ulan-Khoshu.

Four hours’ smart riding, estimated at thirty-five to forty miles, brought him to the ruins, lying in the same valley, and some four or five miles from the west bank of the Orkhon, with a fine grassy plain intervening! which, in places, rises into frequent hillocks. The remains consist of a rampart enclosing a quadrangular area of about 500 paces to the side, and still retaining traces of indented battlements. The rampart is of mud, and in some places apparently of sun-dried brick. Inside the area, on the eastern side, is a tower or mound rising above the wall; the general height of the latter being about nine feet. There are traces of a small inner rampart running parallel to the north and south sides of the square, Besides these there were to be seen no monuments or relics of antiquity.

Mongol traditions, M. Paderin observes, rarely preserve any memory of ancient times. They do not in general go beyond a vague statement that such a spot contains the bones or the treasure of Gesser Khan (as is commonly said of the tumuli scattered over the southern Kalkha country); or that such another is the relic of a fine monastery, or of the palace of Jingis Khan. Of this place, the Mongols, with M. Paderin, could only say that it was very old, and that probably Genghis Khan had lived there; but one sharp Lama came forward saying it was the city of Togon Temur Khan. Now it is a fact (already alluded to) that at least the son of this last of the Jingizide Emperors did, shortly after their expulsion from Cambaluc, establish himself at Karakorum.

But the dimensions, distances, geographical position, and aspect correspond with the old data. Thus, the place does lie southward of the Ugei-Nor from 100 to 120 li; the traveller leaving it for the westward does cross a river (indeed two rivers) called Tamir, and on his way to that river does pass hills called Horse’s Head and Red Ear. It answers all the looser conditions collected by Abel Remusat (see Ocean Highways for July, 1873; the most definite tradition met with by M. Paderin connected it with Togon-Temur Khan; and the place is still known as Kara Balghassun (Black Town) and Kara Kharam (Black Rampart), both which seem to involve memories of the ancient and proper name.

M. Paderin supposes the old name Karakorum to have been merely a corruption of Kara Kharam, with the meaning just given. But the Archimandrite Palladius, probably the best authority, in a short appended note, does not assent to this, observing that in the transcription of the Mongol text of the biography of Ogotai Khan the name of the city is rendered Khara Khorum, whilst the Chinese authors of the Mongol period are unanimous that the chief ordu of the Mongol Khans got its name from the nearest river. On the other hand, Kara Kharam, or Black Rampart, is evidently applicable, in that form, only to the deserted site.

I have taken the liberty of extracting this account almost verbatim from Colonel Yule’s graphic narrative. I would remark, that the doubts he throws out in one of the notes about the existence of a range of mountains called Karakorum, in the neighbourhood of the Mongol capital, are hardly justified.

Alai-ud-din says, “the Uighurs believe that their nation inhabited, originally, the banks of the river Orkon, which rises in the mountains called Karakorum, whose name has been given to the town recently founded by the Khan (Ogotai). These are in the Karakorum mountains. There is an ancient ditch, said to be the ditch of Pijen, and on the banks of the Orkon are the vestiges of a town and palace formerly called Ordu Balik (the Town of the Ordu), and now Mau balik (Bad Town, or Ruined Town).”|Alai-ud-din died in 1284, and this last phrase makes it clear that the city of Ogotai had already become ruinous.

Again, Raschid says that in the Uighur country there are two chains of mountains, one called Bucratu Turluk, the other Uskun-luk-tangrim between which are the mountains Karakorum, whose name was given to the town which Ogotai Khan built, and near these mountains is another called Kut-tag.

Again, Klaproth, in his criticism of Schmidt’s views about the Uighurs, gives an extract from the Su chung kian lu, from which I take this sentence, “Iduchu is the title of the ruler of the Kao tchang, who formerly lived in the land of Uighur. Here are found the mountains Chorin; two rivers flow from them called the Tuchula (Tula) and Sieling ga (Selinga).”

These extracts seem to show that the Kentei Khan chain was otherwise known as Karakorum, and that it was probably from it that the capital city of the Uighurs and of Ogotai was named.

Note 2.—The following short table will clear up somewhat the relationship of the several Mongol princes mentioned in this chapter.