was couched in language equally peremptory, and a struggle began which closed in the deep humiliation of the proud Amīr. It remains for us to trace the origin of a Power which was destined to play a part of the first importance in the history of Central Asia, and to repeat the conquests of Chingiz and Tīmūr. PART II RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA CHAPTER I THE MAKING OF RUSSIA During the long dark centuries whose annals we have endeavoured to reconstruct, the tide of conquest ran westwards. It was checked at times by the might of civilisation or fanaticism, but its flow was tolerably steady and quite beyond control. Had it not been for the evolution of a still greater force on her eastern borders, the whole of Europe would have been enveloped in the coils of a Mongolian invasion. The world was saved from this calamity by the unconscious agency of Russia. It remains to trace succinctly the history of her rise, and to show how she combated the Yellow Terror, and, by a reflex action, carried the banner of European civilisation eastwards. Long ages before the Christian era the vast plains of Eastern Europe were invaded by an Aryan race called the Veneti by Ptolemy.[520] In the fourth century we find them struggling for existence with the Goths on the plains watered by the Vistula.[521] They afterwards split into three branches--the Veneti proper, afterwards known as the Wends, the Antes, and Slavi. The first-named pitched their tents in north-eastern Europe, and have left indelible traces in the Baltic provinces of Prussia.[522] The second spread over the plain between the Dnieper and Dniester; while the Slavs[523] occupied the land between the latter river and the Vistula. Their progress was impeded for a while by contests with the Huns, but the overthrow of their fierce foes which followed the death of Attila gave full scope to their expansion. They crossed the Danube and occupied the rich country between the Adriatic and the Black Sea; then, spreading northwards, they took possession of the lake region of Pskov and Novogorod. These movements ceased in the seventh century, the close of which saw the Slavs firmly established in European Russia, Illyria, and Bulgaria. They were employed in agriculture and stock-raising, and their characteristics appear to have been much the same as those observed at the present day in the rural populations of Eastern Europe. Ancient writers agree in depicting them as being hospitable and cheerful, firmly attached to ancient customs, courageous, and fighting only in self-defence. In point of culture the Slavs of a thousand years ago failed to reach the low standard attained by their contemporaries of the West; for they were sparsely scattered over vast areas and plunged in continual warfare with aggressive neighbours. Society was organised on a patriarchal basis. The soil was held in common by the tribe or “land,” whose affairs were discussed and whose chiefs were elected at a general gathering of the members.