The scourge of the Mongol conquests was terrible beyond belief, so that even where a land was flooded but for a moment, the memory long remained. It is not long since in certain churches in Eastern Europe the litany still contained the prayer, “From the fury of the Mongols, good Lord deliver us.” The Mongol armies developed a certain ant-like or bee-like power of joint action which enabled them to win without much regard to the personality of the leader; a French writer has well contrasted the great “anonymous victories” of the Mongols with the purely personal triumphs of that grim Turkish conqueror whom we know best as Timour the Tartar, or Tamerlane. The civil administration the Mongols established in a conquered country was borrowed from China, and where they settled as conquerors the conduct of the Chinese bureaucracy maddened the subject peoples almost as much as the wild and lawless brutality of the Mongol soldiers themselves. Gradually their empire, after splitting up, passed away and left little direct influence in any country; but it was at the time so prodigious a phenomenon, fraught with such vast and dire possibilities, that a full knowledge of the history of the Mongol people is imperatively necessary to all who would understand the development of Asia and of Eastern Europe. No other writer of English was so well fitted to tell this history as Jeremiah Curtin. Theodore Roosevelt. Sagamore Hill, September 1, 1907. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Geographical spread of the word Mongol.—Beginning of the Mongol career.—Mythical account of Temudjin’s origin.—Kaidu, ancestor of the great historical Mongols.—Origin of the Urudai and Manhudai tribes.—Family of Kaidu.—Origin of the Taidjuts.—Bartan, grandfather of Temudjin.—Yessugai, father of Temudjin.—Kabul’s visit to China.—Capture and escape of Kabul.—Shaman killed for the death of a patient.—Death of Ambagai.—Death of Okin Barka.—March of Kutula against China.—Kaidan, Tuda and Yessugai hold a council.—Attack of the Durbans.—Bartan, the father of Yessugai, dies.—Triumph of Yessugai 1 CHAPTER II