In the dreary steppe-land of the Gobi desert, south of the Baikal Sea, where flows the Onon, a tributary of the Amur, history first locates the Mongols, in the sixth century, under the name Mongu, possibly derived from the word “mong,” signifying bold, daring. At that period they are indicated as a sub-tribe of the Shi-wei, who dwelt to the north-west of Manchuria, and did not enjoy any considerable importance. This insignificance continued till the accession, in 1175, to the Mongol Khanate, of Temudjin, known later under the world-famous name of Jingis Khan, when the number of his subjects did not exceed 40,000 families. A series of successful wars with the tribes in his immediate neighbourhood paved the way for more ambitious undertakings, and he soon carried his victorious standard, the _Tuk_ with nine yak tails, into the northern empire of China, which was ruled over by the Kin, or Tartar dynasty (South China being separately governed by the Sung dynasty). From this point Jingis carried on campaign after campaign with almost uniform success, till the greater part of Asia grovelled beneath his yoke. Pitilessly cruel, this “cormorant of conquest” marked each fresh advance, whether resisted or unopposed, with wholesale massacres, which, after allowing for Oriental exaggeration, swell to a ghastly total. “From 1211 to 1223, 18,470,000 human beings perished in China and Tangut alone at the hands of Jingis and his followers,”[35] a record which would have turned the early kings of Israel green with envy. The Mongolian policy was to scatter, ruin, and, if possible, exterminate existing civilisations and communities wherever their victorious armies passed.[36] The terror which the Mongol cruelties inspired unnerved their opponents and disinclined nations with whom they were at peace from combining against them, while their hardy desert horses, light equipment, and powers of endurance enabled them to travel enormous distances in all conditions of weather. Powerful empires like those of China and Persia writhed beneath their yoke; lesser states, such as Great Bulgaria and Georgia, were almost wiped out of existence. The conquest of this latter country by a division of the Horde, under the leadership of Chepe and Subatai, two of the Mongol chiefs, was followed by an incursion into the land occupied by the Kumans, or Polovtzi, which brought the destroying hosts on to the verge of the Russian dominion. Southward the flying Kumans were pursued as far as the Krim peninsula, at which point the Mongols first came into contact with Western civilisation, burning Sudak, where the Genoese had a flourishing commercial station. Now were ten ambassadors sent to the alarmed Russian princes, assuring them that they had nothing to fear from the Horde, but warning them against showing any support to the Polovtzi. Fear and resentment made the princes forget the customs of civilisation, and the messengers were put to death, an