In Asia, the greatest continent of the earth, lies its most extensive plain, the vast plateau of Mongolia, whose true boundaries are the mountains of Siberia and the Himalayan highlands, the Pacific Ocean and the hills of Eastern Europe, and of which the great plain of Russia is but an outlying section. This mighty plateau, largely a desert, is the home of the nomad shepherd and warrior, the nesting-place of the emigrant invader. From these broad levels in the past horde after horde of savage horsemen rode over Europe and Asia,--the frightful Huns, the devastating Turks, the desolating Mongols. It is with the last that we are here concerned, for Russia fell beneath their arms, and was held for two centuries as a captive realm. The nomads are born warriors. They live on horseback; the care of their great herds teaches them military discipline; they are always in motion, have no cities to defend, no homes to abandon, no crops to harvest. Their home is a camp; when they move it moves with them; their food is on the hoof and accompanies them on the march; they can go hungry for a week and then eat like cormorants; their tools are weapons, always in hand, always ready to use; a dozen times they have burst like a devouring torrent from their desert and overwhelmed the South and West. While the Turks were still engaged in their work of conquest, the Mongols arose, and under the formidable Genghis Khan swept over Southern Asia like a tornado, leaving death and desolation in their track. The conqueror died in 1227,--for death is a foe that vanquishes even the greatest of warriors,--and was succeeded by his son Octoi, as Great Khan of the Mongols and Tartars. In 1235, Batou, nephew of the khan, was sent with an army of half a million men to the conquest of Europe. This flood of barbarians fell upon Russia at an unfortunate time, one of anarchy and civil war, when the whole nation was rent and torn and there were almost as many sovereigns as there were cities. The system of giving a separate dominion to every son of a grand prince had ruined Russia. These small potentates were constantly at war, confusion reigned supreme, Kief was taken and degraded and a new capital, Vladimir, established, and Moscow, which was to become the fourth capital of Russia, was founded. Such was the state of affairs when Batou, with his vast horde of savage horsemen, fell on the distracted realm.