The Ta-ta, Das, or Tatars were Mongol, pastoral tribes, settled at the base of the Altai Mountains. Occupied exclusively with their flocks, they wandered from pasture to pasture, from river to river. The Land of Grass is the name given to-day, by the inhabitants, to modern Tartary. They built no walls nor towns, knew nothing of writing or of arts beyond the simplest. Their treaties were made orally. They were equally destitute of laws and of religion, save perhaps a vague adoration of the sun. They respected nothing but strength and bravery: age and weakness they despised, and like other barbarians, they left the pining, the feeble and the aged among them to perish. Their food was milk and the flesh of their herds: their clothing was made of the skins of their animals. They practiced polygamy, and had a community of wives; when the father died the son married his younger wives. Trained to ride from their infancy, they were taught also to let fly their arrows at birds and other small creatures, and thus acquired the courage and skill essential to their predatory existence. They had no infantry, and laid no sieges. When they would capture a town, they fell upon the suburban villages. Each leader seized ten men and compelled them to carry wood, stones, and whatever material was accessible for the filling up of fosses. The prisoners were also forced to dig trenches. But save for purposes of utility, they took no prisoners, choosing rather the extermination of the entire population. This barbarous and appalling people, in their earlier advances, invaded China, whither they passed with incomprehensible suddenness: nor of the direction of their movements, nor of their departure could aught be presaged. The present dynasty of that country is of the Mantchoo Tatars, who, in respect of political influence, are dominant in the empire. As they increased and formed a rude nationality, a mighty chief arose among them, Temutchin, or Genghis Khan. In a general congress of their princes, assembled early in the thirteenth century, he proclaimed himself emperor, averring that as but one sun shone in the heavens, in like manner the whole earth should be subject to one sole sovereign. Placing himself at the head of this nation, composed of half a million armed cavalry, he initiated a widely devastating conquest, by destroying the teeming populations of Mantchuria, Tangut, Northern China, Turkestan, Great Bokhara, and the remainder of Western Asia to the plains of the Crimea.