and Silesia, in order to effect an entrance into the country from the north-west; the left wing, passing through Moldavia, approached the snowy mountains of Transylvania; whilst the army of the centre was led by Batu Khan himself across the northwestern Carpathians to the pass of Bereczke. Thus the two arms of the Mongol armies were preparing to crush, in a deadly embrace, the doomed country. Batu Khan crossed the Carpathians on the 12th of March, 1241, and, having dispersed the troops of Palatine Héderváry, at the foot of the mountains, the active Mongol cavalry troops overran with such suddenness the plain watered by the Theiss, that four days later the smoke of the burning villages, set on fire by the ruthless enemy, could be discerned from the walls of Pesth. The Hungarian lords, even at this critical moment, failed to arrive with their contingents, and those who were under arms near Pesth nursed their wrath, not against the enemy, but against the hated Kun immigrants whom they denounced as the spies and allies of the Mongols, and as traitors to Hungary. They rushed upon the unsuspecting Kuns with savage rage, massacring their king, Kuthen, together with his household, at his quarters in Pesth. The Kuns, incensed at this treachery, were not slow to retaliate. One portion of them left the country, killing, burning, and devastating every thing before them, whilst the other joined the Mongols in order to avenge more thoroughly their unjust persecution. Towards the latter end of March, Béla, inspired by despair rather than by any hope of success, led the royal army which had gathered around Pesth, and numbered altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 warriors, against the Mongols. This scanty force was all that the Hungarian nation, shorn of its valor and sadly wanting in public spirit, opposed to the invading enemy. The Mongol army retreated before Béla as far as the Theiss, and there Batu Khan, falling back with both wings of his army, pitched his camp in the angle formed by the Sajó and the Theiss. King Béla was intent upon reaching the same point, and placed his forces on the plain extending along the right bank of the Sajó, opposite the Mongol camp. Here on the plain of Muhi took place the dreadful conflict between the two armies. From the dawn of day to late in the night lasted the bloody engagement which ended with the complete annihilation of the Hungarian army. On the fated battle-field perished the chief prelates of the church, the highest dignitaries of the state taken from the ranks of the best patriots, thousands of the gentry, and the hope and last prop of the nation, her only army. Only few amongst those who did not fall amidst the shock of battle could escape with their lives. The pursuing enemy was everywhere close upon the track of the fugitives. “During a march of two days,” says Rogerius, a contemporary writer, who had been an eye-witness of these horrors, “thou couldst see nothing along the roads but fallen warriors.