HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS

CHAPTER X.

KERAITS AND TORGUTS

The name of Prester John has an attractive interest both for those who love the romances of the nursery and for those who study the more sober facts of mediaeval history. To both it is a puzzle and a paradox, and has given rise to much discussion. That a Christian reigned in an isolated far off land over a Christian people, by pagans and barbarians, was a belief of most mediaeval writers. Some of them fixed his residence in Abyssinia, others in India, on the borders of China. The legend gradually grew more the various envoys to the Mongol Khans returned and brought news of their having been in contact with this Christian people, and opinion became settled that the Prester John of history was the King of the Mongol nation of the Keraits, a disciple of the Nestorians. This which has been held by De Guignes, Remusat, Pauthier, and most of the modern inquirers in this field, has been recently assailed by Dr. Oppert, who has written an elaborately learned book in which he has proposed a new solution. I believe that solution to be entirely faulty, and I propose to criticise it shortly. Dr. Oppert’s main position is that prester John is not to be identified with the insignificant sovereign of the Kerait Mongols, but with the much more important Gurkhan of the Kara Khitais. A few words first about the so-called letters of Prester John. These well-known epistles are found both in prose and in rhymed versions, and are undoubtedly of considerable antiquity. Colonel Yule, whose critical acumen in such matters few will question, thus spoke of them before Dr. Oppert’s book appeared:—“Letters alleged to have been addressed by him were in circulation. Large extracts of them may be seen in Assemanni, and a translation has been given by Mr. Layard. By the circulation of these letters, glaring forgeries and fictions as they are, the idea of this great Christian conqueror was planted in the mind of the European nations.” Dr. Oppert speaks of them as of similar authority to the story of Sindbad the Sailor, and every dispassionate scholar who reads them will see at once, both from their style and contents, that Colonel Yule’s strictures are well deserved. He calls himself lord of the three Indies as far as were the Apostle Thomas preached, as far also as Babylon and the tower of Babel. “Our land,” he says,“ s the home of the elephant, dromedary, crocodile, meta collinarum, cametennus, tinserete, panther, wild ass, white and red lion, white bear, ... wild men, horned men, Cyclopes, men with eyes behind and before, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pigmies, giants twenty ells high, the phoenix…”  In fact of all the repertory, real and imaginary, of mediaeval and monkish natural history. Among his subjects were cannibals, Gog and Magog, the Anie and Aget, Azenach, Fommeperi, Befari, Conei, Samante, Agrimandri, Salterei, Armei, Anafragei, Vintefolei, Casbei, Alanei. “These and many others were driven by Alexander the Great,” he says,“among the high mountains of the moon.” Assuredly the author of our letter was near akin to the author of Baron Munchausen. Who ever heard of these wonderful races save the Casbei and Alanei? But this is only a sample of the beginning, the absurdities continue to the end, nor is it profitable to quote them. They are printed at length in Dr. Oppert’s work, and are followed there by a portion of the journal of the travels of Johannes de Hese in several parts of the world, in which may be seen the confused geographical notions about India the greater and India the less, about the Asiatic and the African Ethiopians, and how easily the legends about Prester John, when his existence in Asia became doubtful, gradually fixed themselves in Abyssinia, where a Christian king ruling over a Christian people had existed for many generations, and whose language and descriptions make it probable that the letters of Prester John were written after Abyssinia had been fixed upon as his home, most of the marvels described in them being such as have their home in Africa; while to suit the topography with the old stories about the evangelising of the further East by St. Thomas, the land of Prester John was made to include the further India, which was the special field of his labours, and the intervening country; and other details were filled in from the accounts brought home by the missionaries of Thibet, where another pontiff ruler reigned. The river Yconus, whose source was in Paradise, which flowed through Prester John’s country, according to the letters, is no other than the river of Paradise Gyon or Gihon, thus described by John de Marignolli in the middle of the fourteenth century. “Gyon is that which circleth the land of Ethiopia, where are now the negroes, and which is called the land of Prester John. It is indeed believed to be the Nile which descends into Egypt by a breach made in the place which is called Abasty (Abyssinia). Colonel Yule adds the note that many fathers of the Church believed the Gihon passed underground from Paradise to reappear as the Nile, that Pomponius Mela supposes the Nile to come under the sea from the Antichthonic world, and other heathen writers believed it to be a resurrection of the Euphrates. The extract from Marignolli is interesting as showing that Abyssinia was deemed the land of Prester John as early as the former half of the fourteenth century. The name of Abyssinia in Marignolli is doubtless, as Colonel Yule suggests, a corruption of the Abascy, the Abasci of Marco Polo, from the Arabic name of Abyssinia Habsh. This name led to a curious complication. It is well known that a large district in the Caucasus is called Abassia or Abkhasia. This district was in the middle ages more or less under the domination of Georgia. Like Abyssinia, it was also occupied by a Christian people and ruled over by a Christian king, and it was even called Abyssinia, as is shown in the recent memoirs of M. Bruun of Odessa, a transcript of which I owe to the courtesy of Colonel Yule. It therefore came about that it was confounded with the African Abassia, and in its turn was made the home of Prester John, and this, too, at an early date, for I find in a note to Karamzin that among the papers sent to him from Konigsberg there were two letters addressed the 20th of January, 1407, by Conrad of Jungingen, grand master of the Teutonic knights, to the Kings of Armenia and Abassia, or Prester John. M. Bruun, in the very learned and ingenious essay to which I have already referred, has argued on the same side, and has tried to identify the country of Prester John with Georgia and Abassia; but I confess that his arguments have not moved my judgment, and they amount in reality to little more than this—that Georgia was a Christian country, that some of its kings were called Ivan or John, and others were called David, and that some of the accounts of the Syrian and Jewish chroniclers may be so explained as to allow of this view being urged; but, as in the case of Abyssinia and other places where kings answering many of the attributes of Prester John lived, this view gains its strength by ignoring the statements of those travellers who claim to have come into immediate contact with Prester John’s country and his descendants, and by relying upon generalised evidence, which can be made to suit almost any theory, and this is the objection I have to M. Oppert, whose important work I must now treat of very shortly. The contention of M. Oppert is based entirely, or almost entirely upon the statements of three authors, namely, Otto of Freisingen, Benjamin of Tudela, and Rubruquis.

The mainstay of M. Oppert’s theory is the chronicle of Bishop Otto of Freisingen, a work which has acquired a factitious reputation in this controversy, because it has been stated with some authority that the story of Prester John depends eventually upon its statements. I believe, on the contrary, that it is of much less value in the solution of the question than some other authorities to which I shall presently refer.

Otto of Freisingen tells us that when at Rome in 1145 he saw the Syrian Bishop of Gabala, who had gone there to lay before Pope Eugenius the Third the peril of the Church in the East since the capture of Edessa. “He also told us,” says Otto, “how not many years before one John, king and priest, who dwells in the extreme Orient beyond Persia and Armenia, and is with his people a Christian, but a Nestorian had waged war against the brother kings of the Persians and the Medes, who are called the Samiardes, and had captured Ecbatana (of which he had spoken above), the seat of their dominion. The said kings having met him with their forces, made up of Persians, Medes, and Syrians. The battle had been maintained for three days, either party preferring death to flight. But at last Presbyter John, for so they are wont to style him, having routed the Persians, came forth the victor from a most sanguinary battle. After this victory (he went on to say) the aforesaid John was advancing to fight in aid of the Church at Jerusalem; but when he arrived at the Tigris and found there no possible means of transport for his army he turned northward, as he had heard that the river in that quarter was frozen over in winter time. Halting there for some years in expectation of a frost, which never came owing to the mildness of the season, he lost many of his people through the unaccustomed climate, and was obliged to return homewards. This personage was said to be of the ancient race of those Magi who were mentioned in the Gospel, and to rule the same nations as they did, and to have such glory and wealth that he used (they say) only an emerald sceptre. It was (they say) from his being fired by the example of his fathers, who came to adore Christ in the cradle, that he was proposing to go to Jerusalem when he was prevented by the cause already alleged.”  We may add that Otto elsewhere identifies Ecbatana with the Armenian tower Ani. Such is the statement upon which the theory of M. Oppert is mainly founded. He identifies the “Persarum et Medorum reges fratres Samiardos dictos” with Sanjar and his brother Borkeyarok, the Seljuk rulers of Khorasan and Persia, &c., arguing that Samiardos and Sanjar are the same word. He then goes on to identify the battle above named with the great defeat sustained by Sultan Sanjar at the hands of the Gurkhan of Kara Khitai, whom he in turn identifies with Prester John. But, as has been urged by M. Bruun, at the time of Sultan Sanjar’s celebrated defeat his brothers had been long dead. Ani was certainly not his royal residence, nor yet was Hamadan, which M. Oppert identifies with the Ecbatana of Otto in spite of the latter’s own interpretation of the name. Nor is there the slightest evidence in the Persian and Arabic historians, so far as I know, that the Gurkhan either captured Ani or advanced to the Tigris, nor that he and his people were Christians; in fact, there is very great probability that they were something very different. The fact is, the narrative of Otto is unreliable from end to end. The only foundation of fact it probably contains is this: A belief in an Eastern powerful Christian king named Prester John was then prevalent in the East, and the Christians there, who were being harassed by the attacks of the Seljuk Turks and the Saracens, were only too ready to identify any potent enemy of their oppressors who came from the East with Prester John. Such an enemy was he who defeated Sultan Sanjar, and it may be that his victory is the foundation of Otto’s distorted narrative; and that is all we can say.

We will now consider the statements of Benjamin of Tudela. Few mediaeval authors read more suspiciously in many places than does Benjamin of Tudela, and so fly-blown are his pages that his work has been pronounced a forgery by some critics. Mr. Asher, his latest editor, who has published an elaborate translation of the work with notes, has to make apologies for his narrative, and tells us that he did not go to many places described in his itinerary. Among the suspicious passages in his narrative few are more suspicious, and even incomprehensible, than the passage relied upon by M. Oppert, as has been hinted by Mr. Asher.

This passage I shall abstract from Mr. Asher’s translation; it says “the cities of Nishapur were inhabited in his day by four tribes of Israel, namely, Dan, Zabulon, Asser, and Naphtali, being part of the exiles who were carried into captivity by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, as mentioned in Scripture, who banished them to Lachlach and Chabor, and the mountains of Gozen and the mountains of Media; their country was twenty days’ journey in extent, and they possessed many towns and cities in the mountains; the river Kizil Ozein was their boundary on one side, and they were subject to their own prince, who bore the name of Rabbi Joseph Amarkh ’la Halevi ... some of them were excellent scholars and others carried on agriculture, others again were engaged in war with the country of Cuth by way of the desert. They were in alliance with the Caphar Tarac, or infidel Turks, who adored the wind and lived in the desert. They ate no bread and drank no wine, but devoured their meat raw and quite unprepared. They had no noses, but drew breath through two small holes, and ate all sorts of meat, whether from clean or unclean beasts, and were on very friendly terms with the Jews.

About eighteen years before this nation invaded Persia with a numerous host and took the city of Rai, which they smote with the edge of the sword, took all the spoil, and returned to their deserts. Nothing similar was seen before in the kingdom of Persia, and when the king of that country heard of the occurrence he was wrath ... he raised a war cry in his whole empire, collected all his troops, and made inquiry for a guide to show him where the enemy had pitched his tents. A man was found who said he would show the king the place of their retreat, for he was one of them. The king promised to enrich him if he would. He told them fifteen days’ provisions of bread and water would be needed for crossing the desert, for there were no provisions to be had on the way. They accordingly marched for fifteen days, and at length suffered great distress; the guide excused himself by saying he had missed his way, and his head was cut off by the king’s command. The remaining provisions were equally divided, but at length everything eatable was consumed, and after travelling for thirteen additional days in the desert, they at length reached the mountains of Khazbin, where the Jews dwelt. They encamped in the gardens and orchards, and near the springs, which are on the river Kizil Ozein. It was the fruit season, and they made free and destroyed much, but no living being came forward. On the mountains, however, they discovered cities and many towers, and the king commanded two of his servants to go and ask the name of the nation which inhabited those mountains, and to cross over to them either in boats or by swimming the river. They at last discovered a large bridge, fortified by towers and secured by a locked gate, and on the other side of the bridge a considerable city. They shouted; when a man came out to ask what they wanted they could not make themselves understood, and sent for an interpreter who spoke both languages. Upon the questions being repeated, they replied, “We are the servants of the King of Persia, and have come to inquire who you are and whose subjects.” The answer was, “We are Jews, we acknowledge no king nor prince of the Gentiles, but are subjects of a Jewish prince.” Upon inquiries after the Ghuzi, the Caphar Tarac or infidel Turks, the Jews made answer, “Verily they are our allies, whoever seeks to harm them we consider our own enemy.”

The two men returned and reported to the King of Persia, who became much afraid, and especially when after two days the Jews sent a herald to offer him battle. The king said: “I am not come to war against you, but against the Caphar Tarac, who are my enemies; and if you attack me I will certainly take my vengeance, and will destroy all the Jews in my kingdom, for I am well aware of your superiority over me in my present position ; but I entreat you to act kindly, and not to harass me, but allow me to fight with the Caphar Tarac, my enemy, and also to sell me as much provision as I need for my host.” The Jews took counsel together and determined to comply with the Persian king’s request for the sake of his Jewish subjects. They were thereupon admitted, and for fifteen days were treated with most honourable distinction and respect. The Jews, however, meanwhile sent information to their allies the Caphar Tarac. These took possession of all the mountain passes and assembled a large host, consisting of all the inhabitants of that desert, and when the King of Persia went forth to give them battle the Caphar Tarac conquered and slew so many of the Persians that the king escaped to his country with only very few followers.” In his escape he carried off a Jew named R. Moshé, and it was from this person that Benjamin claims to have heard the story.

I have preferred to extract the whole piece, so that it may speak for itself. The Caphar Tarac, or rather Kofar al Turak or infidel Turks, of Benjamin M. Oppert identifies with the Kara Khitai, and the defeated Persian king with Sanjar. He alters the Nishapur of Asher into Nisbun, which he also writes where Asher writes Khazbin; the Kizil ozein of the latter he reads Gosan, and identifies the country described as the neighbourhood of Samarkand. Granting that these emendations are good, what a marvellous geographical jumble Benjamin’s story remains. But it is not with this we have to deal. We know the history of the campaign which Sanjar fought against the Kara Khitai in tolerable detail from Persian and other sources, but not one syllable of this queer romantic story is found among them; but we need not trouble ourselves to go outside the document itself, does not it identify the Caphar Tarac not with the Kara Khitai, but with the Ghusses, who were infidel Turks, although the Mussulman Seljuks and other Turkomans sprang from them? Were not these Ghusses at this very time harassing Persia, and did not they eventually carry off Sanjar as their prisoner? There is surely no answer to this except M. Oppert’s, who makes the passage to be a corruption,—surely a very easy way out of the difficulty. From end to end of it there is nothing about Kara Khitai or Prester John; nor, as M. Bruun has remarked, is it to be forgotten that Benjamin expressly tells that the Caphar Tarac worshipped the wind, while the subjects of Prester John were Christians. This second authority of M. Oppert’s therefore fails entirely. Now for the third.

The story of Rubruquis is as follows :—“At the time when the Franks took Antioch the sovereignty in these Northern regions was held by a certain Coir Cham. Coir was his proper name, Cham his title, the word having the meaning of soothsayer, which is applied to their princes because they govern by means of divination. And we read in the history of Antioch that the Turks sent for succour against the Franks to King Coir Cham, for all the Turks came originally from those parts of the world. Now this Coir was of Cara Catay; Cara meaning Black and Catay being the name of a nation, so that Cara Catay is as much as to say the Black Cathayens. And they were so called to distinguish them from the proper Cathayens, who dwelt upon the ocean in the far East. But those Black Cathayens inhabited certain mountain pastures (alpes) which I passed through, and in a certain plain among those mountains dwelt a certain Nestorian, who was a mighty shepherd and lord over the people called Naiman, who were Nestorian Christians; and when Coir Cham died that Nestorian raised himself to be king (in his place), and the Nestorians used to call him King John, and to tell things of him ten times in excess of the truth.”

This is tolerably correct history, except, as I shall show presently, in its making the Naimans Nestorians and identifying their chief with Prester John, but it is anything but a support to Dr. Oppert’s theory. Rubruquis here identifies Prester John, not with the Gurkhan of Kara Khitai but with Gushluk, the Naiman king who supplanted him, while it is the Naimans and not the Kara Khitai who are said to have been Christians.

It must be confessed that a grave theory was seldom based upon so slender a foundation as that of which Dr. Oppert is the author. There is no evidence that either the Kara Khitai or their chief were Christians, and the only basis for such a notion resolves itself really into the exceedingly vague and frail testimony of Otto of Freisingen, which I have already analysed.

Before considering the direct evidence in favour of identifying Prester John with the chief of the Keraits, I mutt now analyse the remaining very crooked story an told by Rubruquis. He goes on to say that “The Nestorians spread great tales about the King John, although when he (Rubruquis) passed over the land that had been his pasture grounds (in the Naiman country), nobody knew anything about him except a few Nestorians. Those pastures were then occupied by Ken Cham (Genghis Khan).... Now this John had a brother who was also a great pastoral chiefj whose name was Unc, and he dwelt on the other side of those alps of Cara Catay, some three weeks’ journey distant from his brother, being the lord of a certain little town called Caracorum, and ruling ever a people called Crit and Mecrit (i.e. Kerait and Merkit). These people were also Nestorian Christians, but their lord had abandoned Christianity and had taken to idolatry, keeping about him those priests of the idols who are all addicted to sorcery and invocation of demons. This account is a strange mixture of truth and error. It seems almost incredible to suppose that the Naimans were Christians. I have already identified them with the Turkish tribe Naiman, which forms a section of the middle horde of the Kirghis Kazaks, and we have no evidence anywhere etee that Christianity prevailed among them; they were probably Shamanists, like many of their descendants are still, while their chiefs were perhaps Buddhists. Rubruquis’s own statement that when he passed through their country nobody knew anything of Prester John save a few Nes- torians is conclusive. Again, it is very certain that Gushluk, chief of the Naimans, who supplanted the chief of Kara Khitai, and thus became himself Gur Khan, was no brother of Unc or Wang, the chief of the Keraits; but this mistake was easily made, for Raschid tells us that Wang had an uncle styled Gur Khan, to whom I shall refer presently and it is the uncle who has doubtless been confused by Rubraquis with the other Gur Khan, and which has led to his crooked narrative; and this seems dear when we continue his story, which goes on thus: “ Now King John being dead without leaving an heir, his brother Unc was brought in and caused himself to be called Cham, and his flocks and herds spread about even to the borders of Moal* &c. It is of course absurd to argue that Wang, chief of the Keraits, succeeded Gushluk, the Nauman chief, but not so ridiculous to suppose that he supplanted his brothers, as we know he did. The story of Rubraquis in fact, when divested of its confusion, confirms remarkably the testimony of other witnesses. Let us now turn to these. In the first place, while we have no evidence that the Kara Khitai or the Naimans were Christians, the evidence that the Keraits were so is most dear; thus Raschid, surely a very independent authority in describing them, says “the Keraits had their own rulers and professed the Christian faith. Elsewhere he tells us that “Khulagu’s principal wife was Dokuz Khatun, the daughter of Iku, son of Wang Khan. She had been his father’s wife ... As the Keraitskadfor a long time been Christians, Dokuz Khatun was much attached to the Christians, who during her life were in a flourishing condition. Khulagu favoured the Christians in consequence all over his empire, new churches were constantly built, and at the gate of the ordu ci Dokus Khatun there was a chapd where bells were constantly rung.” Khulagu’s mother was Siurkuktini Bigi, daughter of Yakembo, the brother of Wang Khan, king of the Keraits. Raschid says that, “although she was a Christian, yet she Showed great consideration for the Moslem Imaums.” These extracts will suffice without adducing the testimony of Marco Polo and others who knew their country so welt Not only were the Keraits Christians, but their country and the neighbouring province of Kansu seem to have been very strongholds of Nestorian Christianity. Tanchet, i.e., Tangut, is expressly named as the seat of one of their metropolitan sees.

Marco Polo, the most judidous and critical of all mediaeval European travellers, constantly mentions the existence of Christians in that province and on its borders, i.e., on the frontier lands of the Keraits. Thus speaking of Campichu, i.e., the modern city of Kan chau, he says: “It is the principal town of Tangut,” and continues, “its inhabitants are idolaters, Saracens (Mahomedans), and Christians, which Christians have in this city three large and beautiful churches. Five days’ east of Campichu was Erguiul, a province of Tangut. Its people also were Nestorian Christians, idolaters, and those who worshipped Mahomet.South-east of Erguiul was Singu (Si ngan fu), also in Tangut, where were also some Christians. This is the town where the celebrated Nestorian inscription of the seventh century, written in Syriac characters, which has been much written about, was found. Again, eight days’ journey west of Erguiul was Egrigaia, another province of Tangut, where there were also Christians. In its capital, Calachan (Alashan), were five churches belonging to the Nestorian Christians. These passages suffice to show, what perhaps is hardly necessary, that Nestorian Christianity was a very active faith in the north-western borders of China in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We are now in a position for quoting the direct authorities in favour of Prester John having been the chief of the Keraits.

Gregorius Bar Hebraeus, sumamed Abulfaradj, was a Jacobite Christian, of the town of Malatia in Cappadocia. He was born in 1222 and died in 1286, and wrote during the reign of Argun Khan, the Ilkhan of Persia. He composed a chronicle in Syriac, in which he tells us that “in the year 398 of the Hegira, 1007, a tribe called Keryt, living in the inner land of the Turks, was converted to Christianity, and their king was baptised ... At that time Ebedjesus, metropolitan of Meru, wrote to the Nestorian Catholicos or Patriarch saying “the king of the Keryt people, who live in the inner Turk land, while he was hunting in a high mountain of his kingdom, and having got into the snow and lost his way, suddenly saw a saint, who thus addressed him: ‘If you will believe in Christ I will show you a way on which you shall not perish.’ Then did the king promise to become a sheep in Christ’s fold. Having been shown the way, the king on reaching home summoned the Christian merchants who were at his court and adopted their faith. Having received a copy of the gospels, which he worshipped daily, he sent me a messenger with the request that I should go to him or send him a priest who should baptise him. In regard to fasting, he inquired how they should fast who had no food but flesh and milk. Finally, he mentioned that the number of his people who had been converted was 200,000.” Upon this the Catholicos sent to the metropolitan for two priests and deacons, with the necessary altar furniture, to baptise these people and convert them. And in regard to fasting, that they should abstain from meat and live on milk. Inasmuch as the meats prohibited during the forty days’ fast were not found in his country.

Here, then, is the very first mention we have in a western writer of a Christian people in Inner Asia, and strangely enough the name is Keryt, while the details of the story have all the air of truth about them. If the Keryts were an insignificant tribe, as Oppert argues, and if the real Prester John was the sovereign of Kara Khitai, how is it that the name Keryt should have reached the ears of the Syrian chronicler at ali, and why should the Catholicos have called them Keryt. Surely this one fact outweighs all M. Opperfs arguments put together. Again, the same chronicler mentions that.

“In the year of the Greeks 1514, of the Arabs 599 (a.d. 1202), Unk Khan, who is the Christian King Johannes, ruling over a tribe of the barbarian Huns called Keryt, was served with great diligence by Jingis Khan” ... The chronicler goes on to describe the struggle between the two, and then proceeds: “But it must be known that the King Johannes, the Keryt, was not overthrown without cause. This happened when he forsook the fear of Christ, who had raised him up, and had taken a wife from a Chinese nation called Karakbata, then he forsook the religion of his fetters and served strange gods. God took away his kingdom and gave it to one worthier than he, and his heart was upright before God.”

In these notices we have another important feet. If the dates attached to them are reliable, it makes it almost impossible to identify Prester John with the chief of Kara Khitai, for that empire was only founded in 1125, on the overthrow of the Khitan empire in China by the Kins, and in them we have a mention of the conversion of the Keryts more than a century earlier. We also see dearly that Abuharragius identifies the well-known Unk or Wang Khan of the Keraits with Prester John, and goes further, for he attributes his defection from the Christian faith to his marriage with a daughter of the Khan of Kara Khitai, who, according to Dr. Oppert, was himself the Presbyter Johannes of that day.

The next authority of value is Rubruquis, whose testimony I have already dissected. Then comes that of Marco Polo, the most detailed and worthy of all Eastern travellers of medieval times. He had himself traversed a part of the land of the Keraits. He was attached to the court of the Grand Khan, and he speaks with the greatest authority. Now he not only identifies Prester John with the Wang Khan of the Keraits, but tells us expressly that he ruled in Tenduk. He speaks of his descendant George as still living there in his day, and this George, who is also referred to as a descendant of Prester John, was actually converted from Nestorianism to Catholicism by John of Monte Corvino, took the lesser orders, and assisted him occasionally when performing mass, so that he was actually his companion. Again, Odoric, in travelling from Peking towards Shensi about 1326-27, also visited the country of Prester John ... He speaks as if his family still existed in authority.

These facts, which might be enlarged, gives us confidence in our conclusion that the Prester John of history must be identified with the Khan of the Keraits. Let us now collect, as far as we can, the débris of the history of the Keraits.

First, about their country and name. The Yellow River at one portion of its course makes a very extraordinary bend, almost at right angles with itself. The district bounded on the west and north by this elbow is the well-known country of the Ordus. North of the river is the camping ground of the Tumeds of Koko Khotan, the Urads, Maominggans, &c. West of the river is a great stretch of country, which before the days of Genghis was very thriving and populous, and which formed the empire of Hia, with its capital at Ninghia. To the Mongols it was known as Tangut, and was the scene of some of their most dreadful butcheries. This empire of Hia included the Ordus country, and it stretched away westward as far at least as Sachiu, while it extended northwards to Etxina, on the borders of the desert.

Marco Polo has given us the best description of this district. In describing the province of Egrigaia, which belonged to Tangut, he tells us its capital was Calachan, which Colonel Yule identifies with great probability with Din yuan yin, the capital of the modern kingdom of Alashan, situated a little west of the Yellow River. After describing this province, he continues, we shall now proceed eastward from this place and enter the territory that was formerly Prester John’s. This territory he calls Tenduc, and tells us its capital was also called Tenduc, that it had been the capital of Prester John, and that his heirs still ruled there. After leaving the province, be proceeded eastward for three days, and then arrived at Chaghan nur. This description answers exactly to the site fixed upon by Colonel Yule, namely,  the extensive and well cultivated plain which stretches from the Yellow River past the city of Koko Khotan, which still abounds in the remains of cities attributed to the Mongol era and he farther suggests that it is not improbable that the modern city of Koko Khotan, which was called Tsingchau in the middle ages, is on the same site as Prester John’s capital. I am disposed to agree most emphatically in this, one of the happiest of the very many happy suggestions of Colonel Yule, not only because the site answers the description, but because we know how constant important trading posts and cities are to their old sites in the East, and that Koko Khotan is by for the most important city of this district. M. Pauthier identifies Tenduc with Ta thung, the name of a city and fu of Northern Shansi, south of the Wall and not very far from Koko Khotan. We may take it therefore that the country of Prester John, as understood by Polo, included the district now held by the Tumeds of Koko Khotan and its neighbourhood. Now, on turning to Raschid’s account of the Keraits, we find him saying that their country is Uten and Kelurat, as well as Mongolistan and the borders of China. The borders of China answers surely with great exactness to the site of Tenduc as above fixed, while it is exceedingly probable that his authority extended across the desert as far as the Kerulon. The statement of D’Ohsson that the Keraits lived on the banks of the Orkon and the Tula, and in the neighbourhood of the Karakorum mountains, I can find no authority for, save the blundering remark of Rubruquis, that his capital was Karakorum, while we know from the very much sounder statement of Raschid, that Karakorum was within the territory of the Naimans. Having fixed their site, let us now consider their name.

Raschid tells us that in old days there was a chief who had eight sons, all of whom had black or dark skins, whence men called them Keraits. In process of time his clans, who were distributed among his children, took their names from them except one, which retained the royal authority and continued to be called Keraitt. Abulghazi says that Kerait means Kara Baran (Black Sheep), and he tells us a man had seven sons who were dark complexioned, whence people called them Kerait, a name which passed to their descendants. These are both etymologies that savour of an Eastern origin, although there can be small doubt that the word Kara (black) is an element in the name. The form in Ssanang Setzen is Kergud, whose termination would strengthen the notion that it is a family name, such as Saldshigod, Taidshigod ... The Keraits formed a very important element in the Mongol world, and at the accession of Genghis they are named as one of the four sections into which the race was divided. We are even told that in some way the Mongol sovereigns proper were subordinate to those of the Keraits; and it is probable that during the domination of the Kin Emperors (who, unlike their predecessors of the Liao dynasty, seem to have meddled little with Mongolia) they exercised supremacy in the country beyond the frontier. Putting aside the notices I have already referred to from Abubfaradj, the history of the Keraits commences with a king named Merghus Buyuruk Khan, who probably lived in the early part of the  twelfth century. At that time the chief of the Tatars, who lived on lake Buyur (not of the Naimans, as Erdmann says), was Naur Buyuruk Khan (? the Khan of the lake Buyur). He captured Merghus in an engagement and sent him as a prisoner to the Kin Emperor, who put him to death by nailing him on a wooden ass. His widow took a characteristic revenge. She sent word to the Tatar chief that she wished to give him a feast. He having accepted the invitation, she sent him ten oxen, 100 sheep, and 100 sacks of kumis. The latter, however, instead of containing drink, concealed a body of armed men, who cut their way out during the feast and killed the Tatar chief.

Merghus left two sons, called Kurjakuz Buyuruk and Gurkhan, between whom his tribes were apparently divided, the former having the chief inheritance. He had five sons, namely, Tugrul, Erke Kara, Tatimur Taishi, Buka Timur, and Ilka Sengun. On their father’s death Tugrul was apparently absent on the frontier, and his brothers Tatimur Taishi and Buka Timur took the opportunity to seize the throne. He returned and put them to death, and then occupied it himself. Erge Kara fled to the Naimans, who sent an army to his assistance. This drove Tugrul away, upon which he went and sought assistance from Yissugei, the father of Genghis Khan, and Erge Kara was in his turn expelled.

The next year Tugrul was defeated and expelled by his uncle the Gurkhan; the battle between them being fought in the defile Khalagun. He once more had recourse to Yissugei, who marched in person against the Gurkhan, and made him take refuge in Tangut. On this occasion Tugrul and Yissugei became sworn friends (anda). On the death of Yissugei, Tugrul was once more dispossessed of his throne by his brother Erge, in alliance with the chief of the Naimans, called Inaktzi by Hyacinth. He fled to the Uighurs, and thence to Kara Khitai; but finding no help there he returned across the desert, and suffered great distress, having had to drink sheep’s milk and blood from his camels’ veins. He now sent for aid to Temujin, the son of his old friend Yissugei. This was readily granted. He gave Tugrul a grand feast on the banks of the river Tura, and promised to acknowledge him as his father. It was probably soon after this that Genghis Khan fought against the Tatars, and was rewarded by the Kin Emperor for doing so. Raschid tells us that on the same occasion Tugrul received the title of Awang, whence he is generally referred to as Wang Khan or Unk Khan, which was corrupted by the Western writers into Johannes, from which came his title of Presbyter Johannes.

This will be the proper place to insert a curious story told by Marco Polo, but not confirmed, as far as I know, by any other authority. He says that at Caichu the Golden King (the Kin Emperor, as was first suggested by Marsden) had built a splendid palace, “and it came to pass,” says Marco Polo, “that the Golden King was at war with Prester John, and the king held a position so strong that Prester John was not able to get at him or to do him any scathe, wherefore he was in great wrath. So seventeen gallants belonging to Prester John’s court came to him in a body, and said that if he would they were ready to bring him the Golden King alive. His answer was that he desired nothing better, and would be much bounden to them if they would do so. So when they had taken leave of their lord and master Prester John, they set off together, this goodly company of gallants, and went to the Golden King and presented themselves before him, saying that they had come from foreign parts to enter his service. And he answered by telling them they were right welcome, and that he was glad to have their service, never imagining that they had any ill intent. And so these mischievous squires took service with the Golden King, and served him so well that he grew to love them dearly. And when they had abode with that king nearly two years, conducting themselves like persons who thought of anything but treason, they one day accompanied the king on a pleasure party when he hid very few else along with him, for in those gallants the long had perfect trust, and thus kept them immediately about his person. So after they had crossed a certain river that is about a mile from the castle, and saw that they were alone with the king, they said one to another that now was the time to achieve that they had came for. They all incontinently drew and told the king that he must go with them, and make no resistance or they would slay him. The king at this was in alarm and great astonishment, and said, “How then, good, my sons, what thing is this ye say, and whither would ye. have me go?” They answered and said, “You shall come with us, will ye, nill ye, to Prester John our lord”

“And on this the Golden King was so sorely grieved that he was like to die, and he said to them, “Good, my sons, for God’s sake have pity and compassion upon me. Ye wot well what honourable and kindly entertainment ye have had in my house, and now ye would deliver me into the hands of my enemy. In sooth, if ye do what ye say, ye will do a very naughty and disloyal deed, and a right villainous.” But they answered only that so it must be, and away they had him to Prester John their lord.

“And when Prester John beheld the king he was right glad, and greeted him with something like a malison. The king answered not a word, as if he wist not what behoved him to say. So Prester John ordered him to be taken straightway and to be put to look after cattle, but to be well looked after himself also. So they took him and set him to keep cattle. This did Prester John of the grudge he bore the king to heap contumely on him, and to show what a nothing he was, compared to himself.

“And when the king had thus kept cattle for two years, Prester John sent for him, and treated him with honour and clothed him in rich robes, and said to him: Now, Sir King, art thou satisfied that thou wast in no way a man to stand against me? Truly, my good lord, I know well, and always did know, that I was in no way a man to stand against thee. And when he had said this Prester John replied: I ask no more; but henceforth thou shalt be waited on and honourably treated. So he caused horses and harness of war to be given to him, with a goodly train, and sent him back to his own country. And after that he remained ever friendly to Prester John and held fast by him.”

I have abstracted the account as given by Colonel Yule in his graphic language. The whole story seems to me to be fabulous, and is unsupported, so far as I know, by the Chinese annals. It is perhaps a tale belonging to some other period, and with some other actors which has been attached to the Kin Emperor and Prester John by the old traveller.

Temujin had now acquired a considerable power in Mongolia, although he would seem to have been in some way a subordinate chief to Wang Khan, whom he treated with considerable deference. In 1197 he fought with the Merkits, and when he defeated them he surrendered the booty to his patron, who was then apparently at his courtt Wang Khan after this, we are told, returned to the country Wang ho, i.e., to tbe Hoang ho or Yellow River, where, being joined by many adventurers, be was able to attack the Merkits alone, as be judged that their power had been broken by the campaign of Jingis in the previous year. He defeated them and forced their chief to fly, but he did not reciprocate the generosity of his protégé.

In 1199 Wang Khan and Temujin had a joint campaign against the Naimans, whom they defeated and forced their chief, Buyuruk, to escape to the country of Kern Kemjut (the Upper Yenissei). This defeat was, however, not a crushing one, for some months later we find Gugsu Seirak, a Naiman general, plundering the camp of Wang Khan’s brother, Ilka Sengun, and also some of Wang Khan’s own people. He advanced as far as a place named Baiberak biljizeh, where a fight took place, which was only stopped at nightfall. Wang Khan and Genghis had fought as allies in this battle, but before it could be renewed discord was sown between them, as I have described, by the insinuations of Jamuka, the chief of the Jadjerats. Petis de la Croix assigns a different reason for Jamuka’s jealousy of Genghis to that there cited, namely, that he had supplanted him in obtaining the hand of Wisulugine, the daughter of Wang Khan. The result of his intrigue was that Wang Khan withdrew his forces and retired along the river Asauli, and then passed to the Tula, while his brother Ilka went to Badrua Altai. Genghis was also forced to retire, and went home to his “Yellow Plains.” Gugsu Seirak went in pursuit of Ilka Sengun, and plundered him of his cattle and food. He then marched against Wang Khan, whose ulus he overtook on the borders of Lidua maserah, and also plundered. The latter gave his son Sengun command of an army corps, and sent him against the enemy; he also sent for assistance to Genghis. Genghis sent his four bravest generals to his assistance, namely, Bughurdshi Noyan, Mukuli Guiwang, Jilukan Behadur, and Buraghul Noyan. Before their arrival Sengun had been defeated, Wang Khan’s two generals, Tegin Kuri and Iturgan Edeku, had been killed, and Sengun himself barely escaped on a wounded horse. The four generals of Genghis attacked and defeated the Naimans, and restored the captured booty to Wang Khan, who expressed himself in terms of cordial gratitude for the help which his protégé  had sent him, while he rewarded Bughurdshi with a present of a state robe and ten great cups of gold. Temujin now appointed a Kuriltai for the following year, which was to meet on his own Yellow Plains, and where his recent gracious acts would probably increase his reputation. Wang Khan was invited and attended the meeting, and it was there determined to make war upon the Taijuts.

The latter were commanded by their chiefs Angku Hukuju (the Hang hu of De Mailla), Kuril Behader, Terkutai Kiriltuk, and Kududar, and with them was a contingent sent by the chief of the Merkits, under his brothers Kudua and Redshaneg. Their rendezvous was on the river Onon, while Genghis and his friend had theirs on the Yellow Plains. In the fight which ensued the Taijuts were beaten, as I have described.

These victories aroused jealousies elsewhere, and the two allies were now forced to struggle with a confederacy of the tribes of Eastern Mongolia, headed apparently by the Tatars. The allies were successful, and we are told that after the victory Wang Khan returned by way of the river Lolin.

Wang Khan seems to have been an unruly person at home, and we are told that when at the approach of winter he was en route from the Kerulon to Kura Kia (? the Tenduc of Marco Polo), his brother Ilka Sengun made overtures to four of his generals, named Ilkutu, Ilkungkur, Narin Tugrul, and Alin Taishi, to dethrone him. De Mailla calls the generals Antun, Asu, and Yenhotor. He says that the former two informed their master, who had Ilka Sengun and Yenhotor imprisoned. He reproached the latter with having broken the word he had given him when they returned from Hia together, that they would aid one another. Ilka Sengun was treated with so much severity that he fled to the Naimans. Wang Khan spent the winter at Kuta Kia, and Genghis at Jaghachar, on the Chinese frontier.

Genghis Khan by his various victories had made himself greatly feared in Mongolia, and we some time after this find him, when in alliance with Wang Khan, threatened by a very dangerous confederacy.

The confederated tribes were the Naimans, under Buyuruk Khan, the Merkits, under their chief Tukta Bigi, and the several tribes allied with him, as the Durbans, Tatars, Katakins, and Saljuts. The two allies were posted on the Olkhui. Gaubil tells us that besides his four great generals Genghis had with him a member of a Western Royal family, named Say y(? a relict of the Sassanians); he was a great adept in the art of war, and was a fire-worshipper, whence he was called Chapar or the Guebre. The advance posts of the two princes were situated at a place called Gui-jagjeru-jiwerki, they had determined to fight on the plain of Kiueitan, but on the approach of the enemy they retired to Karaun Jidun, in the neighbourhood of Tajar Atguh. Sengun, the son of Wang Khan, who was in command of the advance guard, was first attacked, and withdrew into the mountains, where he caused snow to fall by magical arts. The confederated princes were defeated by the elements, as I have described.

After the fight Wang Khan and Genghis went to encamp on the borders of the Aral. They then took up their winter quarters at Alchia Kungur. Here proposals were made for mutual intermarriages. Juji, the eldest son of Genghis, was to marry Jaur Bigi, daughter of Wang Khan, while Kudshin Bigi, daughter of Genghis, was betrothed to Kush Buka, the son of Sengun

These negotiations broke down, and led to a coolness between the two friends, which was fanned into vigour by Jamuka, the old enemy of Genghis, who incited the jealousy of Sengun, Wang Khan’s son, and suggested that Genghis was in communication with the Naimans, the old enemies of tbe Keraits. His words were no doubt confirmed by those of Altun, Kudsher, and Dariti Utsuken, three relations of Genghis, who had disobeyed him in his campaign against the Tatars, and on being reproved had gone over to Wang Khan. They now promised Sengun to kill the mother and all the children of Genghis. With them were allied the Mengkut Thugai Kulkai and the Hedergin Mukurkuran. Sengun urged upon his father the necessity of punishing Genghis, but he was only angry, said he had sworn anda with him, that he owed him his life, and further, that he was growing old and wished for peace, and that if they wished to fight they might go themselves, but they were not to return to complain if they failed. Sengun now tried to get Genghis into his power by craft. He pretended to prepare a feast to celebrate the betrothal of his daughter, and invited Genghis to it. The latter innocently set out, and had gone a two days’ journey when, as he passed the camp of his stepfather Mengelig Itshigeh, of the Kunkurats, he was warned by him of his danger and returned home. Sengun’s first attempt having failed, be now, in the spring of 1203, determined to assassinate his rival. One of the chief officers of Wang Khan, named Yegeh Jaran, on returning to his tent told his wife Alak Sendun of the intended mischief. This was overheard by one of his herdsmen named Kishlik, who was returning with milk; he confided the secret to another named Badai, and they went and warned Genghis of his danger. They also told him that it was in his tent that he was to be seized; he accordingly ordered everything valuable to be removed from it, but ordered it to be left standing, and marched away with his troops to the hills of Siludeljit. He had hardly gone when Sengun and Ilka Sengun arrived with their troops, and seeing the camp standing and the fires lit, they fired an immense volley of arrows into it, but they soon found that it was abandoned, and determined to pursue the Mongol chief.

Genghis had posted an advance guard on the mountain Muundurdisku. Sengun, who pursued, halted for the night at a place called Kulun Berkat by the Mongols (some place near the lake Kulun), situated near the mountain Nemudarend. This place was covered with a wood of red willows. They were first seen by two servants of Iljidai Noyan, who went to apprise Genghis. The latter had gone to Kalanchin alt, in the Khinggan mountains. At sunrise the armies were in presence of each other; that of Temujin being much inferior in numbers, but it were animated by the courage of Kubuldar Sejan, who was anda or sworn friend to Temujin, and who offered to plant his tuk or standard on a hill behind the enemy. This he succeeded in doing. The hill was called Gubtan. Inspired by this act, Genghis and his companions marched upon the enemy; he routed tho Jirkins, their best tribe, and also that of the Tungkaits. Hyacinthe says he first defeated the tribes Julgyn, Dunga, and Chor Tiremin, and then fell on the main body of Wang Khan’s army. Sengun was shot in the eye with an arrow. The battle of Kalanchin alt became famous among the Mongols as-Raschid reports, but we dearly have not a full account of it, for immediately after what should be an immense victory we find the victor a hopeless fugitive at Baljuna. The probability is, that although he was successfill at first, the issue of the battle was really against Genghis. This is confirmed by the fact that after the battle Wang Khan attacked the ulus or camp of Khassar, Genghis Khan’s brother, who had become separated from him, and carried off his harem. When he had been a recluse at Bajuna for some time, Genghis came out from his hiding quarters and went along the river Ur, whence he moved on to a place called Galtakai kada, near the river Kala, where his forces were raised to 4,600 men. Following the Kala he posted his forces near the lake Tunga (the Naur Turukah of Erdmann), at a place named Turuka Kurgan. Thence he sent off messengers to Wang Khan with the letter which I have already abstracted.

This letter concluded with a request that he, his son Sengun, Ilka Sengun, Kujer, Atam, and the other chiefs would each send an officer to make peace with him, and he appointed lake Buyur as the rendezvous. Wang Khan was disposed to treat, but his intemperate son refused, was very wrath, and ordered his generals Belgeh Biji and Tudan to assemble the army, to plant the tuk or standard, and sound the drums and trumpets. After the fight at Kalanchin alt Wang Khan had encamped at Kait Kulgat alt, where Ilka Sengun, the relatives of Temujin, who had taken refuge with him, and others formed a plot against him. This was discovered, and he attacked them and took their goods from them. Dariti Utsuken upon this abandoned him and went over to Genghis, with a Niran tribe and the Sakiat tribe of the Keraits, while Kujer, Altun and Kuta Timur, the chief of the Tatars, escaped to the Naimans. Genghis, to put Wang Khan off his guard, practised the ruse I described, and advanced rapidly with his troops, whom he ordered to put gags in their mouths, and at length arrived at the mountains Jejir. A sharp battle ensued there, in which the Keraits were defeated, the victors captured a vast booty, and Wang Khan and Sengim fled; the former bitterly blamed his son for the result. The site of the Jejir mountains, where the battle was fought, is not very certain. Gaubil places them in the high land between the Tula and the Kerulon, not far therefore from the modem Urga. I believe they were on the Chinese frontier and are to be identified with the Jadjar ula of Hyacinthe.

The battle is described by Marco Polo with a good deal of rhetorical effort, but with few Homeric touches. He tells us the cause of the quarrel between the two chiefs was that Genghis asked for the daughter of Prester John, who deemed it a piece of presumption that one of his liegemen should do so, and refused somewhat harshly. This enraged Genghis, who mustered his forces. Prester John also mustered his. At length the former arrived in the beautiful plain of Tenduc (in Prester John’s country), and Prester John pitched his camp twenty miles away, and both armies rested so that they might be fresher and heartier for the battle. During this interval Genghis summoned his astrologers to see with whom the victory would remain.

“The Saracens tried to ascertain, but were unable to give a true answer. The Christians, however, did give a true answer, and showed manifestly beforehand how the event should be. For they got a cane and split it lengthwise, and laid one-half on this side and one-half on that, allowing no one to touch the pieces, and one piece of cane they called Genghis Khan, and the other piece they called Prester John, and they said to Genghis, “now mark and you will see the event of the battle and who shall have the best of it, for whose cane soever shall get above the other, to him shall the victory be given.” Then they read a psalm out of the Psalter and went through other incantations, and lo, while all were beholding the cane that bore the name of Genghis Khan, without being touched by anybody, advanced to the other that bore the name of Prester John and got to the top of it. When Genghis saw that, he was greatly delighted, and seeing how in this matter he found the Christians to tell the truth, he always treated them with great respect, and held them for men of truth for ever after.

The Venetian traveller merely says of the battle that it was the greatest battle that ever was seen. That the numbers slain on both sides were very great, and that in the end Genghis won the victory. This simplicity may be contrasted with the high flown language of Mirkhond in describing the same fight, in which he says the neighing of the horses and the cries of the soldiers obliged heaven to shut its ears, and the air seemed to be a field of canes and reeds, because of the arrows.

Some authors, including Marco Polo, and apparently Mirkhond, make Wang Khan perish in this battle, but this is a mistake. He fled towards the west. When he reached a place named Negun Ussun, he was seized by Kuri Subaju and Iteng Shal, two officers of Baibuka Taiwang, chief of the Naimans. By them he was put to death, and his head was taken to their master, who (according to Raschid) was much displeased, and told them they should have captured him alive.

Abulkhair, on the other hand, says he insulted the dead in words full of scorn and spite, and he adds the moral, “It is a base action to tear off a lion’s beard.” His skull was made into a drinking cup by the conqueror. Several writers made Genghis marry a daughter of Wang Khan, which is a mistake; he really married his niece, named Abtka, which is perhaps the foundation of the story.

Abulfaradj mentions the great conqueror having in a dream seen a religious person who promised him success; when he told this to his wife, she said the description answered that of a Christian bishop who used to visit her father Prester John. Genghis then inquired for a bishop among the Uighur Christians in his camp, and they pointed out Mar Denha. After this he treated the Christians with much less severity, and showed them many distinctions. Vincent of Beauvais also speaks of Rabbanta, a Nestorian monk who lived in the confidence of Genghis’s wife, daughter of the Christian King David or Prester John, and who used by divination to make many revelations to the Tatars.

When Wang Khan fled to the country of the Naimans his son Sengun escaped by way of Istu Balghasun towards Thibet, where he plundered some of the inhabitants, who rose against him, and he again fled to a place named Gusatu jau gasmeh, on the borders of Kashgar. D’Ohsson says to the country of Kuman, on the borders of Kashgar and Khoten.

There he was slan by Kilij Arslan, the chief of the Turkish tribe of the Kalajes. His wives and children were sent to Genghis Khan. The great Mongol chief appropriated the territory of his former friend and patron, but it is not in accordance with the usual Mongol custom that he should entirely have displaced his family. It is much more probable that he placed some at least of the late chiefs tribes under the control of his relatives, and we accordingly read in Marco Polo and elsewhere that a portion of Tenduc was governed long afterwards by one of Wang Khan's descendants.

Marco Polo, in describing the district of Tenduc, says the king of the province is of the lineage of Prester John, George by name, not that he holds anything like the whole of what Prester John possessed. “It is the custom,” he adds, “that the kings of the lineage of Prester John always obtain to wife either daughters of the Grand Khan or other princesses of his family. This George may be either the western name George or a corruption of the Thibetan and Mongol name Jurji or Dorje, which is more probable. He is again mentioned by Marco Polo as having taken part in a fight against Kaidu, the great rival of Khubilai, near Karakorum. He is there called the grandson of Prester John, and also the younger Prester John, and it is not improbable therefore that he was a son of Sengun’s. The name George b mentioned, as I shall show presently, by John of Monte Corvino, who knew him very intimately. It is not likely that either he or Marco Polo were mistaken as to his lineage; on the other hand, it is generally supposed that we have no notice of him except in European authors. I believe, on the contrary, that we have, and that he was no other than the Jurji who is made the eldest son of Khubilai in Von Hammer’s tables, while by Gaubil Ching kin is called the heir to the throne, Wassaf also says the latter was Khubilai’s eldest son. Colonel Yule suggests that he died young. I would rather suggest that Juiji, who is not named in the succession, as he would assuredly have been if he was Khubilai’s eldest son, was no son of Khubilai at all, but was in fact the son of Wang Khan, mentioned by Polo as fighting on Khubilai’s side against Kaidu. As I said, he is mentioned by John of Monte Corvino, who speaks thus of him: “A certain king of this part of the world, by name George, belonging to the sect of the Nestorian Christians, and of the illustrious lineage of that great king who was called Prester John of India, in the first year of my arrival here attached himself to me, and after he had been converted by me to the verity of the Catholic faith took the lesser orders, and when I celebrated mass used to attend me wearing his royal robes. Certain others of the Nestorians on this account accused him of apostacy, but he brought over a great part of his people with him to the true Catholic faith, and built a church of royal magnificence in honour of our God, of the Holy Trinity, and of our lord the Pope, giving it the name of the Roman Church. This King Geotge, six years ago (1299), departed to the Lord, leaving as his heir a son scarcely out of the cradle, and who is now, in 1305, nine years old. And after King George’s death his brothers, perfidious followers of the errors of Nestorius, perverted again all those whom he had brought over to the Church and carried them back to their original schismatical creed. And being all alone and not able to leave his majesty the Cham, I could not go to visit the church above mentioned, which is twenty days’ journey distant. Yet if I could get some good fellow-workers to help me I trust in God that all this might be retrieved, for I still possess the grant which was made in our favour by the late King George before mentioned ... I had been in treaty with the late King George, if he had lived, to translate the whole Latin ritual, that it might be sung throughout the whole eartent of his territory; and whilst he was alive I used to celebrate mass in his church according to the Latin ritual, reading in the before mentioned language and character the words of both the preface and the canon.” Colonel Yule says “the distance mentioned, twenty days’ journey from Peking, suits quite well with the position assigned to Tenduc, and no doubt the Roman Church was in the city to which Marco Polo gives that name.”

Friar Odoric, travelling westwards from China in 1336 and 1327, says he arrived after a journey of fifty days at the country of Prester John, whose principal city was Tosan, which although the chief city, Vicenza would be considered its superior. Besides it, he bad many other cities under him, and by a standing compact always received to wife the Great Khan’s daughter. This Tozan Colonel Yule identifies with Tathung, a circle of administration immediately east of Ninghia and embracing a part of the Ordus country. This notice concludes the list of Western authorities who refer to Prester John and his people.

Let us now approach the subject from another point of view. At the accession of Genghis the Mongol race was divided into four great sections, the Mongob proper, foe Tatars, the Meridts, and the Karaite. Of these the last were no doubt at that date the most important, what then has become of their descendants? The Mongols of Genghis Khan, that of the Yeka or Great Mongols, are no doubt represented by the Khalkhas and the Forty-nine banners. The Tatars were terribly punished and scattered. The Merkits I believe to have been the ancestors of the modern Buriats. And by a process of exhaustion we arrive at the conclusion that the Kalmuks represent the ancient Keraits, and this view may be supported by other canriderations, but first a few words about the name by which the Kalmuks are generally spoken of by the Chinese and Mongol writers and those who draw inspiration from them.

This name is Durben Uirad, and it means, according to good authorities, the four allies, and is used by Ssanang Setsen as the correlative of the term “the Forty” which ho applies to the Mongols proper. The name arose no doubt from the Kalmuks having in the middle ages formed a confederacy of four tribes or sections. These four sections are named by Ssanang Setsen as the Kergud, Baghatud, Choit, and the Ogheled. It is therefore a descriptive term, which may be fitly compared with the term “allies”, by which the English and French were known in the Russian war, and it has no specific value as a race name.

It has been confounded, as I believe most improperly, with the name of another tribe which does not belong to the purely Mongol race. This tribe is called Uirad or Uirat by Raschid. He tells us it lived on the Segias Muran. Abulghazi, who follows Raschid, calls the place Sikis Muran, and adds that it means the eight rivers. These eight rivers were the head streams of the Kem or Upper Yenissei. Now it is curious that close to this area there still remains a people whose indigenous name is Uirad, and who are known to the Russians as Telenguts, and, as I have said in the first chapter, it is these Uirads who I believe are the descendants of the Uirads of Raschid, with whom the Kalmuks had nothing to do. Having rid ourselves of this impediment, let us now proceed. As I have said, one of the four divisions of the Durben Uirads in Ssanang Setsen is that of the Kerguds or Keraits. This is a hint that the ancient Keraits were closely related to the modern Kalmuks.

Now, on turning to die account of the early history of the Torguts given by Pallas, which he derived from a chronicle written by Gabung Sharrap, a prince of the Torguts, we find their royal house derived from one Kas wang or Ki wang, who separated himself with the Torguts from his sovereign Wang Khan. Both Pallas and Remusat identify this Wang Khan with the great chief of the Keraits. One of the principal tribes or clans of the Torguts is still called Keret or Karat. De Mailla tells us the family name of Wang Khan was Yeliku. This seems like a Chinese transcription of the famous Torgut clan-name Erketh. The name Torgut is derived by certain of tbe Kalmuks from the word Turuk or Turugut, which means giants or great people, and say further it was given them by Genghis Khan. It is not improbable, however, that it is derived, like many other Mongol names, from the place where they lived, and it is curious that in the country of the Tumeds of Koko Khotan, which has been identified as the probable position of Wang Khan’s country, there is a river Turguen and a place called Torghi. Lastly, it is very remarkable that when the Durben Uirads first appear in history after the expulsion of the Mongols from China that the chieftain who claimed to be by right their sovereign was Ugetshi Khaskhagha, of the Kergud or Keraits. These facts make it very probable indeed that the Keraits are now represented by the Kalmuks.

As I have said, the Torgut chiefs claim descent from Kas wang or Ki wang, the brother of Wang Khan. Ki wang or Gui wang is merely a Chinese title, meaning Great Khan, and we find it applied to one of Genghis’s great generals, namely, Mukuli Guiwang. The Ki wang who separated himself from his brother and suzereign Wang Khan was doubtless Ilka Seugun, whose prowess got him the Thibetan title of Yakembo Keraiti, i.e., great Kerait Prince, and we are expressly told that he detached one of Wang Khan’s tribes, namely, the Tungkaits, from their allegiance to him. Yakembo was very closely connected with the family of Genghis; his eldest daughter Abika married the great conqueror himself. Another named Bigtutemish Fudshin was married to his eldest son Juji; the third, Siurkukteni, married Tului, and became the mother of the great Khans Mangu and Khubilai; while the fourth was married to a chief of the Onguts. And it is very probable indeed that when Genghis appropriated the country of Wang Khan that he left a number of his clans under the authority of Yakembo, and that these clans are the modern Torguts. We will now try and trace out the story of Yakembo’s descendants.

Pallas tells us Ki wang had a son called Soflai, otherwise entitled Buyani Tetkukshi, who had a son Bayar, whose grandson was called Makhachi Menggo, with the surname of Karat. He says it is the most famous name among the ancestors of the Torgut princes, and that all his descendants are called Karat. He also tells us that Makhachi means a murderer, and that the name was derived from his having married his seven daughters to seven princes, whom he afterwards murdered and appropriated their lands. He is dearly looked upon by the Torguts as the hero of their royal line. Now, on turning to Ssanang Setzen’s history of the Mongols under the years 1393-1399, we read that the Khakan of the Mongols, named Elbek Khakan, rewarded one Chuchai Dadshu for some important services he had rendered him by promising to appoint him Chin sang, and to give him authority over the four Uirads. By his counsel the Khakan murdered his brother Khargotsok Khungtaidshi and appropriated his widow. The Utter revenged herself by poisoning the Khakan’s mind against Chuchai Dadshu so much that he had him put to death. Finding out soon after that the charges against his favourite were groundless, he raised his son Batula to his father’s rank, and gave him the command of the four Uirads. We are told that these events aroused the anger of one Ugetshi Khaskhagha of the Kerguds, who claimed himself to be the chief of the four Uirads. He marched against the Khakan, defeated and killed him, appropriated his widow Oldshei Chung Beidshi, and subdued the greater part of the Mongol race. I believe that Ugetshi is no other than the Makhatshi of Pallas. The former was a Kergud (a Kerait), the latter is especially distinguished by the name Keraiti. One was succeeded by a son Yassun, the other by Esseku. Their names ate in fact the same, with the exception of the initial M in Makhatschi; and further, in the lists of Pallas, which give the names of most of the Uirad princes of any renown, Makhatshi is the only one which can be correlated with Ugetshi. For these reasons I shall treat them as the same. I have already shown reason for identifying the Ugetshi of Ssanang Setzen with the Gultsi of Timkowski, and the Kulichi of the Chinese authors. The Ming annals say he usurped the throne under the title of Kohan (Khakan). De Mailla tells us that Kulichi, who had authority among the people of the North, arrogated to himself the title of Khan or king of the Tatars, not daring to take that of Khan of the Mongols, for fear of arousing against him the princes of the Mongol royal family. This was in 1388. The Chinese Emperor sent him a seal and patent of office confirming him in the title which he had usurped. He also sent him four pieces of gold brocade. These marks of favour were displeasing to certain other princes, who were impatient of obeying one that did not belong to the old Imperial stock. These chiefs having collected an army, attacked and drove him away. This was in 1404. There can be no doubt that for some years Ugetshi reigned supreme in Mongolia, the legitimate Khan Adsai being a kind of state prisoner or puppet in his hands. The chronology of this period of Mongol history is terribly confused. Ssanang Setzen makes Ugetshi murder his rival Batula in 1415, while the Ming annals make Kulichi be killed by Aroktai in 1409.Ugetshi was succeeded by his son Esseku, whom I identify with the Yassun of Pallas. This was, according to Ssanang Setzen, hi 1415. He was then twenty-nine years old. He married the widow of Batula, and was known as Esseku Khakan. Adsai and Aroktai continued to live in his house, as they had done in that of his father. He reigned for eleven years, and died in 1425. After his death confusion reigned among the Uirads. When this was overcome, we find them ruled over by the rival house descended from Chuchai Dadshu. Ssanang Setsen tells us nothing more, so far as we can see, about the descendants of Ugetshi, and we are now left to the meagre relation of Pallas. He tells us the son of Yassun was called Boegho or Boibego Urlifk, and was the ancestor of the many Torgut princes who lived on the Volga. He had six sons by his two wives, namely, Sulsega, Baura, Goori, Mangkhai, Wefln Zansen, and Bollikhun.

The eldest son of Sulsega Urluk was the real founder of the later Torgut power, he was called Khu Urluk. Up to his time the Torguts seem to have lived in close neighbourhood with the other Kalmuks, and, like them, suffered in the terrible campaigns waged against them by Altan Khan. It is probable that up to that time their princes exercised a considerable authority in Sungaria, but that campaign seems to have shattered and disintegrated the nation very considerably. We read that ta 1562 Altan Khan’s great-nephew, Khutuktai Setsen, marched against the four Uirads, and that on the river Erchis (the Irtish) he defeated the Torgagods (the Torguts). As a token of their subjection, he caused a black camel to be killed and its skin to be planted as a standard on the hearth of the royal tent. He also carried off a number of Torguts as his prisoners.

This defeat no doubt considerably shattered the power of the Torguts. Some years later the Sungars began to grow very powerful, and we read that about 1616 their great chief Baatur separated himself from his father and settled ta the country of the Irtish. This was probably after a struggle with the Torguts, for Pallas assigns quarrels with the Sungars as the motives of their migration; and the Scotch traveller Bell, who travelled on the Volga in 1715, says their separation from the other Kalmuks took place on account of a domestic quarrel. Whatever the cause, it would seem that about 1616 they left their old home in Sungaria, under the leadership of Urluk, and migrated across the Kirghiz steppes. On their way, Bell tells us they defeated the Tartar chieftain Eyball Utzik, who lived beyond the Yemba, whose subjects were no doubt the Yimbulatian Tartars of Pallas. He also defeated the Astrakhan Nogays, and the same year (1616) made peace with the Russians.

When next we read of the Torguts it is in connection with Siberia. After the final defeat of Kuchum, Khan oi Siberia, several princes of his house attempted to revive his authority; among these was one called Ishim, who styled himself Khan of Siberia. We are told that ta order to strengthen his position he married the daughter of Urluk, the Torgut chief. The latter had his camp apparently on the upper Tobol, whence his influence was widely felt. It was no doubt his subjects who made occasional raids upon the territory of Khuarezm, as described by Abulghazi Khan. They first appeared there early in the reign of Arab Muhammed Khan. They were 1,000 in number, and marchtag between the lake of Khodja and the mountain of Cheikh Jelil, they pillaged the villages on both sides of the river as far as the fort of Tuk, whence they returned home, passing by Burichi. Arab Muhammed pursued them, and recovered the prisoners and booty they had taken, but did not capture a single Kalmuk. Twelve years later, and just at the end of the reign of Arab Muhammed, they made another incursion by way of Bakirghan, and succeeded in carrying off a considerable booty. They returned again some years later, about 1624, and carried off a large number of prisoners belonging to the il or clan of Abulghazi.

Meanwhile Khu Urluk was a powerful influence elsewhere. He was suspected by the Russians of intriguing with the troublesome Nogays of Astrakhan against them, but on their sending an envoy to him, about 1632, he received him well, arranged for a mutual trade between the two nations, and himself sent back envoys to Tumen to promise on behalf of himself, his brothers …, that they would live peaceably with the Russians. The Kalmuk merchants who accompanied the envoy found a good market for their wares, especially their horses, and a Russian caravan accompanied them on their return home. Meanwhile he covertly intrigued with the Nogays, gained over one of their chiefs named Sultanai, and threatened the rest, who appealed to the Russians for aid. This was in 1633. He seems to have dominated over the whole of the steppes of the Kirghiz Kazaks, and it is clear from the narrative of Abulghazi that the inhabitants of Khuarezm suffered severely at his hands. We are told that about 1639 the Turkomans of Mangushlak were entirely crushed, only 700 families of them remained, and they were subject to the Kalmuks. Abulghazi adds that the sovereign of the Kalmuks, having heard of his arrival at Mangushlak, sent for him, and having detained him for a year, afterwards let him return to his people at Urgendj. It is probable that at this time the Kalmuks had their winter quarters on the Yaik or Yemba, and their summer camps on the upper Tobol.

In 1643 Urluk moved his camp to the neighbourhood of Astrakhan, and intrigued again with the Nogays to detach them from their allegiance to Russia. Upon this the inhabitants of Astrakhan marched against him, defeated and killed him, with several of his sons and grandsons. His following numbered about 50,000 tents. While he lived he was suspicious of his sons, and only gave them small inheritances, but on his death the horde was divided between his three sons, Daitshing, Yeldeng, and Loosang. The eldest was offered the patent of Khan by the Bogda Lama, but he refused it.

The two younger sons were the first to cross the Yaik into the Volga steppe, where they defeated the Nogays of the tribes Kitai-Kaptchak, Mailebash, and Etissan. They also conquered the Turkmans or Truckmen of the Red Camel clan (Ulan temàne), who lived south of the Yemba. Later in the same year Daitshing followed his brothers, and, like them, had to fight with the Nogays and with the Bashkirs. In 1650 the brothers quarrelled, and Loosang recrossed the Yaik, and went towards Siberia. He was pursued by an officer named Saissan Khoshootshi, overtaken on the river Or, and deprived of the greater portion of his followers, while he himself escaped to the Tobol. Yeldeng must soon after this have died, at least when in 1656 Daitshing Taidshi and his son Punzuk or Bantshuk formally submitted to the Czar Alexis Michselovitch, no mention is made of him. In 1663 Daitshing repeated for the second time on the brook Bereket, sixty versts from Astrakhan, the treaty with the Russians.

During the reigns of Urluk’s sons the Kalmuks continued their attacks upon the country of Khuarezm. Thus in 1648 they made an attatk, which I have already described. At this time Abulghazi sent home to his own country a prince (turé) of the uruk of the Torguts, named Buyan, who was then at Khuarezm, having gone there for purposes of commerce.

In 1652 the Torguts, under command of three of their chiefs named Mergen Taishi (probably the Mergen mentioned below), Okchutebé, and Toghul, plundered the villages near Hezarasb, and advanced as far as Sedur and Darughan, and retired with a great number of prisoners. Abulghazi determined to pursue them, contrary to the advice of his Begs, who urged that they had been gone ten days, and were now far enough away. He overtook a party of them near the mountain Irder, and having taken them prisoners, put them to death. He then pursued the main body, which on his approach scattered, each of its three chiefs going a different way, leaving the weak and the laggards to look after themselves. Okchutebé and Toghul were overtaken at Sakin Rabat. There they fortified themselves, and sent envoys to say they had entered upon his (Abulghazi’s) territory by mistake. They were very humble, offered to give back all the booty they had captured in the district of Uigenj, and swore not to molest it again. Abulghazi listened to their prayer, since, as he says, neither their fathers nor elder brothers had ever been enemies of his state, and he sent them home with rich presents.

Yeldeng’s son Mergen quarrelled with his brothers, a quarrel which was made use of by Daitshing’s son Punzuk, who imprisoned and killed him and appropriated his subjects. He had to struggle for the prize, however, with Dugar, the son of his uncle Kirossan, who had stood by Mergen. He also was defeated, and forced to take refuge with the Krim Tatars. This happened in 1670. Punzuk, who was now master of the greater part of the Torgut horde, was soon after this surprised by the Khoshote Ablai Taidshi. He died in his hands, and left the principality of the Torguts to his eldest son Ayuka Taidshi. Namoseran had next to Punsuk the greatest inheritance among the son of Daitshing. He had not the same luck in increasing it, and his descendants were considered only as princes of the second tank, ranking next to the Khans.

In 1672 Ayuka had some intercourse with the Russians. He then lived on the river Sarpa, on the steppe between the Don and the Volga. Since the time of Daitshing the Torguts had annually received a payment of gold, merchandise, and victuals in return for acting as policemen to some of the turbulent tribes north of the Caucasus. Ayuka had compelled some of the Nogays to give him hostages. He was not at this time in a very contented mood, as the payment of his donative by the Russians was in arrear, but he promised to go to Astrakhan to renew the oath of allegiance. He arrived on the 26th of February, 1673. The governor prepared a splendid tent and an imposing guard to receive him, and the following day he took the oath, as did his cousins Melush, Nasarmamut, Tugul, and Dordsha Taidshi, and all the Saissans present, both in the name of themselves and of the other princes (among whom the Derbet Solom Zeren is especially named), and for the Nogays under their authority. The oath was sworn in Kalmuk fashion, each one with his sword on his head touching a figure of Buddha, a rosary, and a sacred book. Ayuka swore to serve faithfully the “Czar Alexis Michselovitch and his sons Ivan and Peter against their enemies, especially the Turks and Tatars, and to protect their towns and subjects. Not to molest the Nogays, the Ediesanian, Jimbulatian, and other Tatars under the jurisdiction of Astrakhan. To have no dealings with the Turkish Sultan, the Shah of Persia, the Krim Khan, the Bey of Axoz, they of Temruk, Taban, and Beslenez, the Kumuks, or other enemies of Russia. Toprevent the Tatar (i.e, Nogay) Mursas from committing depredations, to shelter no deserters from Astrakhan, and to allow the Mursas who wished to visit Astrakhan to go there freely. Not to demand back escaped Christian slaves, not to ask exorbitant ransom for fugitives who might fell in their way. To assist the Russian merchants’ barks on the Volga and to send their horses for sale to the Russian markets at Tambof, Kasimof, Wofodomir, and Moscow. To be content with the annual payment the Russians made them, to make an annual campaign against the Kumuks, and Krim Tatars, and, lastly, to deliver up to the Russians the Khoshote prince Ablai and Ayuka’s uncle Dugar, whom they had imprisoned. This treaty, like many of those made by Russia with her barbarous neighbours, seems transparently onesided. On the other hand there was only a promise to deliver up all heathen and Muhammedan escaped prisoners, to prohibit the Yaik Cossacks and the Bashkirs from making incursions upon the Kalmuks, and the payment of the arrears of the donative due to them. To the delight and at the desire of Ayuka and his followers, the Russians after the ceremony performed some military manoeuvres, fired off guns …, and both parties left the conference highly pleased.

The position of Ayuka and his people was an awkward one. Placed on the confines of the Russian empire and its hereditary and (then anything but helpless foe) the Turks, whose vanguard was formed by the Khanate of Krim, he was naturally made the subject of intrigues by both. He had among his subjects the Nogays, a turbulent and uneasy race, and his northern neighbours were the Cossacks of the Yaik and the Bashkirs. The three latter were constantly making inroads into each other’s country and into that of the Kalmuks. Inroads which led naturally to reprisals, in which the Russian frontier was not always respected. In 1676 Ayuka was encamped in the steppes of the Yaik, where he had gone to await the arrival of the Khoshote chief Dordshi Taidshi. The Russians complained to him of the disturbances on the frontier, and invited him to another conference at Astrakhan, where he went with the Derbet prince Solomzeren and many others. There mutual complaints were made, and it was agreed that Ayuka should renew his former oath.

Ten years later the Russians grew more uneasy on bearing that Ayuka bad been in communication with the Krim Khan, and that gifts had passed between them. They sent him a note, reminding him of his oath. Ayuka retorted that the Bashkirs and Cossacks were permitted to attack him. But he was afraid of falling between the two stools, and he sent the letters of Nart Girei, the Krim Khan, to Astrakhan and promised the Russians not only to assist them in any war they had with the Tatars, but also to send a contingent in any struggle they might have with the Poles and the Turks. The Russian policy towards their border tribes was the favourite policy of our own country until lately. To set one tribe’s jealousies against another, and to bind the more intractable to their duties by an annual donative. This policy was followed in the case of Ayuka with indifferent success. He was either dissafisfied with their bounty, or else, like the Kazak chiefs, he was unable to restrain the more turbulent of his subjects, and one of these causes led to constant interference with his liberty and to his being summoned constantly to a council to repeat his oath of allegiance, and to his being threatened with the invasion of his territory by the Cossacks. It was thus that in 1682 the complaints of the neighbouring peoples were made the excuse for sending Ayuka a fresh missive, in which he was ordered to make some recompense for the past, and to give up three of his nearest relatives as hostages for the future. These demands only embittered him, and he refused compliance. In the August of that year, on the invitation of the Uralian Bashkirs, he marched a large body of Kalmuks and Nogays and revolted Baskirs into the Ufa province as far as Kasan. He burnt and laid waste many villages, and carried away everything living, but failed to take Ufa itself. Thus a large body of Russians, Chuvashes, and Cheremisses were carried into captivity, and a portion of the Bashkirs attached themselves to Ayuka’s horde. The same year a troop of Kalmuks and Bashkirs fell upon Samara, drove away its garrison, and beat a body of Cossacks in the neighbourhood. Ayuka was, not unnaturally, rather afraid of his success. He knew the vengeance of the Russians would follow him. Having placed the property and baggage of the horde in a place of safety, near the lake of Samar, and the Ufa river, he tried to come to terms, promised to make amends, and even to execute one of his principal chiefs. In case his overtures were rejected, he threatened to desert the Russian borders, and to depart beyond the Yemba. He also took the conciliatory step of forbidding tbe sale as slaves of the prisoners taken in the late campaign. His envoys were told at Astrakhan that the only terms the Russians would forward to Moscow were the giving of hostages and the payment of an annual tribute of 500 horses. He was also told that in future he must forego his annual donative. These terms were not agreeable to Ayuka, and the negotiations were broken off. Towards the end of March, 1683, as he was marching from the Volga towards the steppes of the Narym, a party of the Bashkirs fell on the Kalmuk outposts, who were watching the Yaik Cossacks. He accordingly marched towards their country with a large army, but thought better of it, turned aside, and crossed the Yaik. Meanwhile the Russians offered to restore him to his former favour if he would restore the prisoners, surrender some fugitive Bashkirs, and give three good hostages. Although he was at this time attacked by two parties of Cossacks of the Don and the Yaik he fulfilled these conditions. We are told that he was by no means humble in his attitude, and reminded the Russians that he was their ally and not their subject, and that his friendship was sought by others besides them, namely, by the Krim Tatars and the Turks. At length he once more renewed his oath with Solom Zeren.

We next hear of Ayuka in 1693, when he was engaged in punishing the Bashkirs. He would seem to have been at this time on good terms with the Russians, and to have carried out their policy of punishing the neighbouring unruly tribes. He pushed his excursions, we are told, up to the foot of the Caucasus, and being opposed on his march by the Nogays of the Kuban, he completely defeated them. The bodies of his slain foes were cast by his orders into a pit dug under a great tumulus situated on the field of battle, and still known in the country by the name of Bairin Tolkon (mountain of joy), bestowed on it by the victorious Khan. About this time he seems to have been granted the title of Khan by the Russian Emperor, for after the year 1700 he is so styled in official documents, and is no longer called Taishi.

By his three wives Ayuka had eight sons and five daughters, the eldest of the latter, named Sederdshap, was married to the Sungar chief Tse wang Arabian, and was murdered by her stepson. Two others, named Loosangshap and Galdanshap, were married to Arabian, the son of the Sungar chief Setzen Akhai. A fourth, named Buntar, was married to the Derbet prince Menko Timur, while the fifth died unmarried.

He had great trouble with his sons, which chiefly arose from the intrigues he carried on with his daughters-in-law. His eldest son, Bjak or Chakdurdshap, who had married a daughter of the Khoshote Setzen Khan, was especially aggrieved. He rebelled in 1701, and was supported by the horde. Ayuka was forced to fly to the Cossack towns on the Yaik; his son followed him towards the Yaik, and sent messengers to the Sungarian Kontaish. Ayuka upon this gave his inheritance to another son, Gundshep, who employed a murderer to kill his brother. The attempt failed, and Gundshep fled to Saratof. In the meanwhile a third son, Sandship, set out with 15,000 followers (?) on the Quixotic errand of possessing himself, by craft or otherwise, of the empire of Sungaria, then held by Tse wang Araptan. Without striking a blow his plans were frustrated. His followers were appropriated, and he himself with several of his immediate friends were sept back again to Ayuka. This was in 1704. He was soon afterwards killed by an explosion of gunpowder. Ayuka and his eldest son were reconciled to one another with the help of the Russian Knas Boris Alex Galizin. Soon afterwards Gunshep, who his father had formerly appointed his heir, also died. In 1711 a solemn and memorable conference took place between Ayuka and the Russians. It was agreed that as Khan he should receive an annual stipend of 2,000 rubles, besides 2,000 sacks of flour and a quantity of powder and shot for his troops. He promised to be faithful to the Emperor till his death, to send a body of 10,000 Kalmuks into the Kuban steppe whenever the Azof Cossacks should prove rebellious, and to give assistance when the Bashkirs were troublesome. In 1713 Ayuka declared his eldest son Chakdurdshap to be his successor, and in confirmation gave him the Khan’s seal which he had received from the Dalai Lama, and used another one himself. He died, however, before his father, having meanwhile chosen from among his many children his son Dassang to be the head of the house and given him the seal he had received from Ayuka. Gunshep had also died some years before.

In 1722 Peter the Great stayed at Astrakhan on his expedition to Persia; he gave Ayuka a very gracious audience, and received him on board his galley on the Volga, near Saratof, treating him and his wife like sovereign prince; but he arbitrarily fixed upon his cousin Dordshi, who had a good reputation, to succeed to the Khan’s power, and exacted from him that in that case he would give the Russian hostages. Ayuka’s plans were different. Forgetting his duties to the hereditary representative Dassang, and under pretence of his disobedience, he drove him away and chose one of his younger sons called Cheren Donduk as his heir. At this unfortunate juncture Ayuka died, aged eighty-three, and left everything in confusion. No sooner was he dead than one of his widows, Darmabala, strove to secure the chief power to Donduk Ombo, his grandson. Dordshi Taidshi, the Russian nominee, refused the honour on the ground that he was too weak to restrain the other princes, but really because he was unwilling to give his sons as hostages. He suggested Dassang or Cheren Donduk as the candidates who had the best title. In this difficulty the Russian governor named Cheren Donduk, who was a son of Danaabalas, an imbecile and the last choice of Ayuka, as we have seen, to hold the position of Vice-Khan, pending the confirmation of the court. Soon after Cheren Donduk was duly appointed Khan of the Torguts by the Russians. He was very weak. He allowed himself to be baptised, which disgusted his people, and then became a Lamaist, which disgusted the Russians. Donduk Ombo, by bis address and skill, had formed a large party among the Torguts favourable to himselfi He acquired by his perseverance some small brass cannons which could be carried on camels. The Khan did the same, and the Russians, fearful of a general conflagration, forbade the sale of powder and ammunition to the Kalmuks.

Having seduced a great portion of the Kalmuks to his side, and having beaten the Khan in an engagement and compelled him to take refuge at Zaritzin, and fearful of the Russian commander, he now fled with his people to the Kuban, and put himself under the protection of the Turks. Hence he made inroads into the Russian territory, and returned thence with other portions of the Volga horde, the only Kalmuks who remained there were scattered and disintegrated.

The Khan, in order to renew his authority, had recourse to the Dalai Lama, who in the summer of 1735 sent him the Patent, a copy of which, Pallas says, was in the library of the Imperial Academy. The ceremony of investiture is imposing. It took place on the 10th September, 1735. The Khan’s felt tent was hung with silken tissues, and two seats were placed in it, one for the Khan and a lesser one at its side for Shakur Lama, the then chief priest of the Torgut. The idols were set out in an adjoining tent, where some Lamas performed the services amidst the sound of trumpets and other instruments. The Khan sat on his seat and awaited the arrival of the Grand Lama, who at length set out from his dwelling amidst solemn prayers, accompanied by a long procession of other Lamas. Having taken his seat on the appointed place, there then arrived Baatur Ombo, who had been sent by the Khan as his envoy to the Dalai Lama, and who had himself become a Lama, and was now styled Baatur Gellong. He was accompanied by many other Lamas on horseback. He entered bearing on his head the Holy Missive or Patent of the Dalai Lama, escorted by two mandshis (neophytes), one with a number of lighted pastils, the other bearing a vessel with glowing coals, on which some Thibetan roots (sweet-scented roots) were burning. Behind Baatur was another Lama with the sacred statues and relics, and then came the Khan’s state riding horse, accompanied by other Lamas. Upon this was the saddle sent him as a present by the Dalai Lama. Others bore his state robes, cap, and girdle (from the latter of which hung a dagger and a knife), his sword, gun, quiver, and bow. Lastly came two small standards or tuks, one sent by the Dalai Lama as the symbol of the authority of Khan, the other sent by the living Buddha Choidshing (? the Bogda Lama). This procession was also accompanied by a number of Lamas with music. The two standards were planted before the Khan’s tent, the remaining things were taken inside, except the arms and horse which were left outside. The Khan having put on his state robes, Shakur Lama took the sacred missive, which was written in Thibetan, and read it out, first in the tent and then outside. It ran thus:

“To tbe wise, holy, and prosperous Shasobense Daitshing Khan (this was the new name conferred by the Dalai Lama) our blessing. We wish thee and thy people the former happy times, that thy power may increase, that as a wise householder and a noble flower thou mayest shine, and that thou as well as others may remain steadfast in the faith. Thy good wishes and thy well-intentioned gifts, namely, a good chadak (a silken hanging for a temple) and carpet, two rosaries of eight beads, eighty pieces of gold money, two pieces of cloth, have been delivered to us, and have been accepted in the name of the Almighty Tsong khapa and the high clergy of the Yellow caps (the adherents of the Dalai Lama). We wish that thereby peace and happiness, both internal and external, may be secured to thy people and all living beings; strengthen thyself in the faith that thou mayest do right to all thy subjects. Thy forefather, as a defender of the faith and as our constant adorer, has gone to his eternal repose, and as followers of his example all the Torgut and other princes ought in a fatherly and grandfatherly way to rule their people in peace and love, so that they may acquire beneficent knowledge to the increase of the power and authority of the true faith of the Yellow caps, that they be indulgent to its professors and help them on their good path, diligently remember the prescribed prayers, conform benevolently in all matters pertaining to religion, and have in view the precepts of the gods, the holy writings, and the priesthood. Then will we always be favourably disposed to thee, and thou tnayest rely confidently on our spiritual assistance in all things. As a proof of our well wishing, we send thee a sacred Sangia (a symbol of authority in the form of a yellow fillet, and answering to a crown among European sovereigns), my portrait, a true Shalir (a relic) of the ruler of the world Sakiamuni, besides sacred pills (Urulu) and other consecrated things, and three pieces of red lacquer. Given at Budala on a propitious day of the white month.”

The various Kalmuk grandees now came to Shakur Lama to receive his blessing, while the Khan mounted his horse, girt himself with the sword, quiver, and bow which the Dalai Lama had sent him, and repaired to the temple, or rather sacred tent, where he deposited his arms and adored the several gods. He then returned to his state tent, where a feast was held amidst music and the distribution of drink, while he sat on his throne decked in his robes, among which a scarf of white Chinese sarcenet was conspicuous. He afterwards granted honorary dries to several of his dependants, and acquainted the Russian commissary at his court that he had received consecration by the Dalai Lama. This investiture was of small avail to Cheren Donduk. His rival, Donduk Ombo, made peace with the Russians, and having secured the obedience of the greater part of the Kalmuks, he in 1735 left the Kuban and arrived in the Volga steppes, and Cheren Donduk prudently escaped to St. Petersburgh, where he died. At length it was determined to recognise the de facto Khan as Khan also de jure, and Donduk Ombo was accordingly, in 1735, invested with the Khanate by Ismailof, the governor of Astrakhan, an authority which be held till his death in 1741. He governed the horde with great skill, and gained much credit by his successful wars with the Kuban and Krim Tartan, and acquired for himself the reputation of the greatest of the Kalmuk Khans of the Volga. For his important service in defeating the Kuban Tartars in 1736 his stipend was raised to 3,000 rubles in money and 3,000 sacks of flour. In 1738 his eldest son Galdan Norbo, a favourite with the horde, rebelled, and was so successful that his father took strong measures. He divorced Norbo’s mother, shut him out fom the succession, and sent an embassy to the Dalai Lama to secure it for a younger son, Kandul, by another wife. Norbo seems to have escaped to Kazan, and to have there died in 1740. Donduk Ombo removed about 6,000 families of the Turkmans of Mangishlak, belonging to the Red Camel horde. These he augmented by some 8,000 families of Khunduran Mankats or Mountain Nogays, whom he had subdued in his expedition against the Kuban Tatars. The combined tribes were settled in the Kuban steppe and made tributay.

Donduk Ombo died in 1741, and left as his successor his young son Kandul, whom I have just named, and who was then only ten years old. His mother Dshan acted as regent. She was unscrupulous and had several distinguished Kalmuks killed, among others Galdan Dandshin, a son of the Khan Ayuka, and her proceedings produced great confusion in the horde. She was a Circassian, from the Kabarda, was suspected of being a Muhammedan, and of being in collusion with the tribes of the Caucasus, and unfaithful to the horde. Her coquettings with the Caucasian Tartars and the mountain tribes was not favourably viewed by the Russians. The Russian governor of Astrakhan, Tatitschef, therefore proceeded to appoint Donduk Taishi, a grandson of Ayuka’s, to the temporary Khanate pending the confirmation by the authorities at Moscow, and to grant him a yearly allowance of 1,000 golden rubles and as many sacks of flour. He was not only the legitimate heir to the power as representative of Chakdordshap, the eldest son of Ayuka, but had proved faithful to Russia in Donduk Ombo’s rebellion. The restless widow Dshan escaped with her children and 700 families, being the clan to which Donduk Ombo belonged, to the Kabarda, and sent gn embassy to the renowned Shah of Persia, Nadir, to ask for assistance. The Shah held out hopes, but they came to nothing, and she was persuaded to submit to the Russians. Her eldest son Kandul returned to his father’s ulus or horde, called Baga Zoochor, while she and her other children were sent to Moscow, where they were shortly afterwards baptised and raised to the dignity of princes. She was christened Wiera, while her two daughters received the names of Nadeshda and Linbof, and her sons those of Alexei, Jonas, and Philip. A christening gift of 1,000 rubles was given to each of them, and 1,700 rubles for then dress. Their offences were forgiven, but to prevent a recurrence of disturbances among the Kalmuks, they were assigned a residence at Moscow. The sons entered the Russian service and received a yearly stipend. Alexei and Jonas rose to the rank of brigadier, with an income of 1,000 rubies.

On the death of the Khan Donduk Taishi she was permitted, in conjunction with one of her sons, to rule over an ulus of 2,500 families, and settled in the fortress of Yenataewa, where a large house was built for her. One of her daughters died at Moscow, the other, who was a Kalmuk beauty, was married to Prince Derbetef, of the Kalmuks of Stavropol.

Let us now return once more to Donduk Taishi. In 1743 he went to Moscow to attend the coronation of the Empress Elizabeth and to swear fealty to the Russian authorities. He was still only Vice-Khan, the dignity of Khan being for a time in abeyance. In 1757 he applied to the Russian authorities to have his son Ubasha nominated as his successor. The Russians were not displeased at this request, which implied that the Emperor rather than the Grand Lama was to be considered as the investing authority. They determined to confer at the same time the dignity of Khan on Donduk Taishi, and that of Vice-Khan upon his son, which was accordingly done with all the stately ceremonial which the Russian authorities practise when they wish to impress their barbarous dependants with a notion of their grandeur. The account is given at some length by Pallas. The Khan received the dignity standing, and afterwards knelt and kowtowed three times in honour of the Empress. The oath of allegiance was sworn in the presence of a statue of Buddha, which the princes touched with their hands, and the solemn deed containing the Khan’s oath was signed with his tamgha or seal. The state sword was girt on him by the Imperial assessor himself, while other Russian officers dressed him in his sable-lined robes and cap, and another officer bore the tuk, which was handed to a saissan who planted it in front of the tent. At the parting interview the new Khan showed the Russian assessor a hill, not for from the Solanoi Saymistshi, and which is called Wetan Kharatokhoi by the Kalmuks, and told him he wished to have a monument erected there, at his own cost, commemorating tbe Imperial favour conferred on him. He had charged his Bodoktshei or market judge with the matter, and asked assistance from the Russians in building it. This monument was in feet put up, but was made of such perishable materials (of wood and cement) that it soon decayed, and Pallas says that only its rains remained when he wrote.

Donduk Taishi did not live very long after his promotion, but died on the 21st of January, 1761, and was succeeded by his son Ubasha, who was then only seventeen years old, and who had lately married Mandere, the daughter of the Khoshote chief Erranpal. He succeeded to the chieftainship of 100,000 families, and their camping ground extended from the Yaik to the Don, and from Zaritzin on the Volga to the northern slopes of the Caucasus. At the time of Ubasha’s accession there was a young prince named Zebek Dordshi, a grandson of the Khan Donduk Ombo, who set up pretensions to the throne, and to escape, as he said, from some Kalmuk nobles who had threatened to assassinate him, be fled with sixty-five followers to the Russian town of Cherkask, whence he forwarded his complaints to the Russian court. The opportunity of lessening the authority of the Khan during his minority was too fevburable to be lost by the Russians. They had already abridged It sometfhat in the year of his accession by deciding that the Sargatshis or members of the Khan’s council should be attached to the ministry of foreign affairs, with an annual salary of 100 rubles, while the Khan’s absolute power was reduced practically to being president of this council. Zebek Dordshi was now appointed chief of the Sargatshis by the Russian authorities. The meddling and patronage of the Russians was becoming intolerably vexatious, interferences on every small pretext were frequent, his power was also harshly employed by the then Russian Grand Pristof Kishinskoi. Ubasha, through the intrigues of ambitious dependants, the discontent of the Kalmuks, and the Russian policy, was being reduced to a nonentity, and listened with avidity to the only scheme for escaping from his difficulties. This was no less a remedy than the transplanting of himself and his people from the banks of the Volga to the borders of China, a gigantic plan, which was carried out in a marvellous manner, for it will be admitted that to transport several hundred thousand people, not soldiers but families with women and children, across the steppes and sand wastes of Siberia, exposed to the attacks of the Kazaks, to terrible privations; and to bring it to a successful issue, constitutes one of the heroic chapters in the history of human endurance. The original suggestion of the migration has been credited to several people. Bergmann would assign it to Zebek Dordshi; arguing that he was not content with the promotion the Russians had given him, and that he had expected by their means to supplant his relative altogether, and determined, as they did not place him on the Khan’s throne, to revenge himself by persuading the race to leave Russia and to seek quarters elsewhere. But, as Madame de Hell says, this is a wholly inadequate, and in fact an incredible reason. The real fountain head and source of the movement was, I believe, the invitation or suggestion of the Manchu court. In order to understand this we must revert somewhat

About 1703 war broke out, between Ayuka Khan and the chief of the Sungars, and in that year Ayuka Khan’s nephew Karapuchin (the Arabshur of Remusat) set out with his mother on a pilgrimage to Thibet. As the war was going on the young prince did not venture to return, but went on to China, where he was well received and settled on the western frontier of Shensi. His name was Chereng or Tsereng. After a stay of nine years, he in 1712 received permission to return from the Emperor Kanghi. At the same time, under pretence of escorting him, but really in order to report upon the reason of the migration of the Torguts from Sungaria, to secure them as allies, and perhaps to persuade them to return, the Emperor sent some companions with him, headed by a Chinese official named Tulishen. Whatever the arguments of Tulishen, they had no immediate fruit in regard to inducing a return of the Torguts to their old country. They, however, probably sowed seed which was now, fifty-eight years later, to be harvested. There was a constant communication going on between the Volga Kalmuks and their brethren in the East, and also with Thibet, and parties of Mongols were constantly passing to and fro, and during Ubasha’s reign his people had been thus largely recruited. On one occasion the Khoit chief Chereng, sometimes called the perfidious Chereng, retired apparently before the victorious Manchus and settled with 10,000 of his people among the Torguts. He also has been credited with the suggesting the greet migration, but the chief instrument of all in the work, according to Pallas, was the then chief Lama of the Volga horde, Loosangjatzar Arantshimba, a son of the prince Bainbar. He had filled that position for fifteen years, and was held to be a Khubilgan or regenerate Buddha by the Volga Kalmuks. He is described by Pallas as a treacherous impostor. However this may be, he seems to have continuously urged the Kalmuks to leave the country of heretics and to return towards the fatherland and focus of their religion, their ancient home on the borders of Thibet

These various persons joined in urging upon the Khan the propriety of his migrating, and he was at length persuaded. It seems that he took part in the Russian war with Turkey in 1769 and 1770, and that he marched himself with 30,000 men to assist the Russians, and made a diversion in the Kuban, while one of his principal officers, Momotubash, with 5,000 men, assisted at the siege of Otshakof. The former body fought a severe battle on the river Kalaus, in which 5,000 of the enemy perished. Ubasha returned home flushed with victory, and not in a condition to be dragooned by the Russian Grand Pristof Kishinskoi. The latter seems to have been a violent and imprudent person. He heard of the rumours about the migration, but instead of using pacifying used very irritating language. At his interview with Ubasha he jeered him, and concluded his speech with the words: “You flatter yourself that there will be a fortunate issue to the business, but you must know that you are merely a bear fastened to a chain, who cannot go where he will but where he is driven.” This language was unpardonable, and it is quite clear that the Russian yoke was becoming unbearable, and necessarily so, for as Madame de Hell says, “It was impossible to allow that the whole southern portion of the empire should be given up to turbulent hordes which, though nominally subject to the crown, still indulged their propensity to pillage without scruple. Placed, as they were, between the central and southern provinces, and occupying almost all the approaches to the Caucasus, the Kalmuks were destined of necessity (if they stayed there) to lose their independence and fall beneath the immediate yoke ofRusia.” And their country was in fact being rapidly encroached upon. The Yaik  was lined with Cossack forts, German colonists were settling on the northern borders, while the fine country on the Don and the Terek, the Kuma and the Volga was not likely to remain long unappropriated by other settlers. The Russians had demanded that a son of Ubasha’s should be surrendered to them as a hostage, while it had been determined to remove 300 young men of their best families and to bring them up under Russian surveillance.

It was not only the princes who felt the burden of the yoke, the common people were also in a fit state to listen to the temptation of quitting the Volga. They suffered severely in their contests with the Kazaks and the Krim Khans (in which the Russians were not always faithful allies). Especially had they been victims in their last war with the latter, when their cattle, having been moved on to a sterile steppe, suffered terribly from fiunine and pestilence. These facts concurred to make the flight popular with all classes, except perhaps the Derbets, a portion of whose disintegrated horde had long lived with the Torguts. They seem to have informed the authorities of the projected flight, and to have stayed behind in considerable numbers, not because the river was not frozen, as some suggest, but because they disapproved of the flight. The Russians were not taken by surprise, they were fully warned, but were either indifferent or incredulous, and even supplied the Kalmuks with two cannon and their equipment, on the hollow pretence of the latter that they wanted them in their struggles with the Kirghiz Kazaks. “It was on the $th of January, 1771, the day appointed by tbe high priests, that Ubasha began bis march with 70/300 families. Most of the hordes were then assembled in the steppes on the left bank of the Volga, and the whole multitude followed him. Only 15/300 families remained in Russia.)

The Kalmuks before their retreat, as a rule, behaved well; they no doubt deemed it prudent not to attract vengeance upon themselves by ravaging the neighbouring towns. There were some exceptions to this, however, and one piece of atrocious cruelty is especially dwelt upon by Bergmann. It would seem that, having captured a small body of dragoons and Cossacks, they wrapped the head and hands of their leader, Dudin, tightly in the “green” and bloody straps made from a freshly flayed ox hide. These shrunk of course as they dried, and put the unfortunate victim to frightful torture. One of his Cossacks managed to escape to the Kirghises, and was by them sold at Khiva, and having escaped again told this story, and reported that he had seen Dudin two months after, still with the straps upon him and at the point of death. All the Russians of this troop seem to have perished.

The cavalcade marched as lightly as possible, and the heavier things were abandoned on the route, Ubasha himself setting the example by having his large yurts cut down and the poles made into spear handles, kettles, furniture, and hordes of Russian copper money were thrown away, and Pallas says that some of them were recovered years after. The procession necessarily occupied a vast space on account of forage. The cattle, women, and children travelled in the centre, while the men protected the front, rear, and flanks. Ubasha himself, with 15,000 men, went up the Yaik to cover them from any attacks by the Cossacks. They traversed the steppe between the Volga and Yaik in safety in eight days. The Cossacks of the Yaik were then absent at the Caspian fishing, except a few hundreds who occupied the forts on that river, one of these named Kulagina the Kalmuks tried in vain to take, making use of the two small cannons they had carried off. They crossed the Yaik easily on the ice, and hastened on over the snow-covered Kirghiz steppes. Hardly had they crossed the river when some 2,000 Cossacks, under the Starshin Mitrassof, went in pursuit, and overtook a portion of them, the ulus Yeka Zookhor, under the princes Assarkho, Mashi, and the tribe of the Erkets, consisting of 1,000 yurts, at once gave in, and turned once more to Russia. The section of the Erkets was commanded by twenty Saissans, and had committed some outrages. To conceal the evidence of this they determined to put to death thirty Russian prisoners whom they had with them, and to leave their bodies in the steppe. The outrage was reported to the Empress, who ordered the chief culprits to be knouted and degraded, while their goods were sold and the produce given to the families of the thirty murdered men. The Kalmuks now began to suffer considerably. The terrible wastes of the Kirghises are in spring, when the snow melts, almost impassable; horses and cattle began to grow meagre and fail, and many of the poor bad to trudge on on foot, and complaints began to be heard from rich and poor alike.

After journeying for two months they arrived at the river Irgitch. They were buoyed up by delusive hopes held out by the princes that the goal of their journey was not far off, but they now began to see the real extent of the dangers that surrounded them, and they loudly upbraided the princes for bringing them into such a pass, and even prayed, according to Bergmann, for the arrival of some Russian troops to whom they might surrender, and with whom they might return. After crossing the Irgitch the country becomes very difficult, especially in spring, from the number of rivers and watercourses that have to be traversed; these tried the strength of the fugitives very much. The larger streams the Kalmuks cross by means of curious floating bridges, made of bundles of reeds fastened together. Between the Irgitch and the Torgai they lost a huge portion of their herds, and their misery increased considerably.

They still continued to drag along with them the two cannons which they had obtained from the Russians, but at length the carriages on which they were drawn were worn out, and they abandoned them on the other side of the Torgai. As they neared the Torgai a body of Russian troops, under the command of General Traubenberg, set out from the fort of Orsk, on the river Ural, in pursuit of them, and joined a body of the Kirghiz Kazaks of the Little horde, under their Khan Nurali, not far from the river Torgai. They marched on together to the farther Torgai river, where the Russian general determined to stop. The Kalmuks were already ten days’ march from there; his troops had been much harassed, and were many of them sick; and having contented himself with sending on two messengers to bid the Kalmuks return, he made his way to the fort of Uisk, on the Tobol. He has been a good deal blamed for his want of enterprise and energy, but his prudence would seem to be amply justified. The messengers having arrived at the Kalmuk camp, an assembly was there summoned, and a debate ensued as to whether they should return or not It was determined to go on, for the way back was as bad as the way forward. They had now reached the better country of the Ishim, where they seem to have loitered awhile, and where they had two sharp brushes with the Kirghiz Kazaks.

They were now to cross a more dreadfal country. The terrible steppe of Kangarbein sharra ussun, which is 150 versts across, and which for three days the wearied wanderers had to traverse, takes its name from the yellow colour of the unwholesome water that alone can be got there. Fatigue, heat, and thirst drove them to drink this, and the consequence was that many of them suffered horribly. Many hundreds must have perished there. When they emerged from this yellow waste they were assailed by the Kazaks. Nurali, with the Little horde, and Ablai, with the Middle horde, attacked them vigorously, and a bloody two days’ battle was fought against these old enemies. At length the Kalmuks reached the banks of the Balkhash sea, where a second battle was fought with the Kazaks. I notice on the map attached to Michell’s Russians in Central Asia there is a place called Kalmak kargan, near the Balkhash; this ought doubtless to be Kalmak kurgan, the Kalmuk mound, and probably marks where the dead rested. The Kazaks now returned home again. The fugitives had lastly to run the gauntlet of the Buruts or Black Kirghises, renowned as robbers and plunderers, and at length arrived within the borders of the Chinese empire, namely, at Charapen, not far from the river Ili. This was in the middle of 1771, and after a march of eight months. “Thus was accomplished,” says Madame de Hell, “the most extraordinary emigration of modern times. The empire was suddenly deprived of a pastoral and warlike people, whose habits accorded so well with the Caspian steppes; and the regions in which many thousand families had fed their innumerable flocks and herds for a long series of years were left desolate and unpeopled.”

The Manchu Emperor had been informed of the march of the Torguts, and he gave orders for their settlement on their arrival in the province of Ili. Khuhedd, one of the general councillors, was told to go there and make preparations for their reception. There were some about the court who distrusted the Kalmuks, and urged that the perfidious Chereng, among others, was with them; but the Emperor was not moved from his design. He ordered Khuhedé, however, to take the precaution of fortifying some strong posts. He also ordered him to get together sufficient provisions for their sustenance.

When they at length arrived, in a very forlorn condition, they were supplied with food for a year's consumption and also with clothing. It would seem that they had lost a large number of their herds, and each family was accordingly assigned land for tilling as well as pasturage. They were also granted furniture, and several ounces of silver each to buy what they needed, and with cattle, to make a fresh start with.

The vanity of the Chinese Emperor was touched in no small degree by this arduous journey, performed, as he satisfied himself, and perhaps with justice, in order that the Torguts might voluntarily place themselves under his protection. Such confidence and affection was indeed testimony to the grandeur of China much more valuable than the deference extorted from conquered subjects. He caused a record of the event to be written in four languages and engraved on a stone, which was set up in the province of Ili, the new home of the Torguts. This famous historical document was translated by Father Amiot.Listen to one paragraph. “No one need blush when he can limit his desires; no one has occasion to fear when he knows how to desist in due time. Such are the sentiments that actuate me. In all places under heaven, to the remotest corners beyond the sea, there are men who obey under the names of slaves or subjects. Shall I persuade myself that they are all submitted to me and that they own themselves my vassals? Far from me be so a chimerical a pretension. What I persuade myself, and what is strictly true, is that the Torgouths, without any interference on my part, have come of their own fall accord to live henceforth under my laws. Heaven has no doubt inspired them with this design; they have only obeyed Heaven in putting it in force. I should do wrong not to oommemorate this event in an authentic monument”.

Although the suffering of the Torguts on their march must have been excessive, there is clearly great exaggeration in the account of Bergmann. We moot remember that they were nomades by origin, and that long marches were familiar to them as were also the various incidents that accompany a caravan-journey over such a country as the Kirghis, and although they arrived poor and without almost everything, it is not probable that they lost a very large portion of their numbers on the way, as Bergmann would have us believe. There to considerable discrepancy between the Russian numbers and those supplied by the Chinese. The farmer make out that only 40,000 families left Russia, while the latter claim that 50,000 families, numbering 300,000 mouths arrived in China. This kind of discrepancy shows that the loss of life on the journey could not have been so great as Bergmann supposes.

The followng register of the strength of the European Kalmuks subject to Ubasha in 1767 to taken from a document prepared by the Vice-Khan Ubasha himself and printed by Pallas.)

1. The Khan’s special horde, including the families of the higher clergy…….... 7,672

The Kerats .......................................................................................................... 3,861

The Zaatun ......................................................................................................... 3,57o

TheBuuron ……………………………………………………………………………………….......3,645

The Sapsor ......................................................................................................... 3,990

The so-called Koktshinar ………………………………………………………………………..... 727

Those free from taxes............................................................................................. 250

Khundur Tatars ..................................................................................................... 755

Turkmens living with the horde …………………………………………………………………. 331

Bashkirs…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 45

2. The Ulus of prince Bainbar and his family...................................................... 2,642

3. Prince Dondukof ............................................................................................ 2,187

4. Prince Zebek Dordshi and his brothers Kirep and Aksakal……………………...2,089

5. The Ulus of prince Assarkho ........................................................................... 597

6. Mashi ……………………………………………………………………………………………….... 714

7. Yandik................................................................................................................ 409

8. The Derbet Ulus………………………………………………………………………………….3,968

9- The Ulus of the Khoshote prince Tukchi ………………………………………………... 921

10. Menghan……………………………………………………………………………………………..100

11. Erranpal ……………………………………………………………………………………………...220

12. Gungi Baljur…………………………………………………………………………………………182

13. Samiang ............................................................................................................279

14. A number of small dans belonging to various Torgut, Khoshote, and Sungar princes, as follows

Emegta Ubashi…………………………………………………………………………………………. 183

Bayadritich……………………………………………………………………………………………..…165

Bare Kasha.............................................................................................................. 159

Bossurman Taidshi……………………………………………………………………………………305

Moomut Ubashi ………………………………………………………………………………………..311

Janshiri ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..60

Garashiri ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 25

Dipsan  ………………………………………………………………………………………………………59

Bayariako  ………………………………………………………………………………………………….34

Bokko Ulan …………………………………………………………………………………………………11

Attain Ubashri …………………………………………………………………………………………. 105

Usenga. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………41

Arabdashur………………………………………………………………………………………………… 51

15. The so-called tittle princes Shereng, Sharakokon, Urarittai, Loosangjap, Janama, Deldesh, Ereng, and Noriradrtum had about 980.

That is altogether 41,843 tents.

Pallas remarks that the Kalmuks made the return as small as possible on account of the levy of men that might er required of them, and he further adds that in the above enumeration the Lamas are net included, so that the whole number of families may well be increased by a third, and we may calculate that Ubashis’ subjects numbered not far from 65,000 or 70,000 families.

After the Torguts had been relieved their princes went on to the Imperial court to pay their respects there. “They were conducted,” says the Emperor, “with honour and free of expense by the Imperial post roads to the place where I then was. I saw them, spoke to them, and was pleased that they should enjoy the pleasures of the chase with me; and after the days allotted to that recreation were ended they repaired in suite to Ge Ho. There I gave them the banquet of ceremony.” This was in the palace of I mien yu (the ordinary residence) in the garden of 10,000 trees, and they were accorded various titles according to their rank.

We know tittle of the history of the Eastern Torguts after their migration. Pallas tells us that Ubasha and Chereng were the first to do homage to the Manchus, and that they went to Peking for the purpose, white Zebekdordshi and Bambar imitated their example the year following. Their subjects were divided into banners, like the other Mongols. The poor were taught agriculture, and the princes were assigned considerable stipends. A portion of them were settled in the Altai, others in the western part of the Gobi desert. The Khosbote prince Erranpal became a Lama and lived at Peking, white Shereng was killed by the Buruts. In enumerating the various contingents that formed the garrison of lli, the Chinese author translated by Stamilas Julien mentions 25,595 Targuts. In the same memoir, which is a topographical description of the Chinese province or district of Ili, different places are mentioned as the former camping grounds of various tribes; thus Yuldus, south-east of Kungghes, and one of the valleys of the Bogda Ula cluster of mountains, it mentioned as the ancient pastum ground of the Sungars and the Keliyet. The latter name is assuredly the Chinese’ form of Karat or Kerait. Again it is said that in Yamlek, north of Ili, were the ancient pastures of the Erket. The Erkets still form a notable section of the Torguts, and I find some reference to them in Pallas, thus: The second son of Boegho Urluk was called Buura. He had four sons, of whom the eldest, Zazen Noyon, had thirteen wives and many children; and Pallas tells us that the branch of the family was so multiplied that the individuals became very poor and weak. They wittingly submitted themselves to the Torgut hero Khu Urluk, who admitted them with certain privileges as his subjects, and made their princes Saissans. Their ottuk or clan was known as Yike Erket or Great Erket (great freemen), both the commonalty and Saissans were of princely descent. The descendants of a third son of Boegho Urluk, Boke Taidshi, joined the Volga horde; they were known as Bags Erket (little freemen).

Having followed the fortunes of those Torguts who migrated, we must now shortly revert to the fragment of them which remained behind. They formed but a small section of the Volga Kalmuks, the larger portion of whom belong to the tribe of Derbets, of whom I shall speak in the next chapter. The European Torguts consist of several small sections. The most important of these, consisting of 3,593 tents, was controlled in Pallas's day by the princes Dondukoft I have already explained how on the death of Donduk Ombo in 1741, his widow Dashan, with her children, after a short and turbulent reign, took refuge with the Russians, and how her eldest son Kandul returned to his people. This tribe or ulus was that especially subject to her late husband and called Bags Zookhor (little Zookhor). The horde was visited by the missionary Zwick, whose narrative I have previously quoted, and he says it then consisted of 1,700 families, and was governed by the Saissans Onker, Jedjib, and Otskfir. The missionaries were not well received. When they told him that the books they offered him contained the word of the Most High God, Onker jestingly retorted, “how it happened that they had never taken them long before, and whether it were right to keep such precious and important things to themselves.” They were more civilly treated by the Lamas, but they also resolutely refused to take any of the books. On the arrival of the Pristof or Russian superintendent of the hordes, they had a conference with him, and he tried to forward their objects. With him they visited an old Lama, but “he was as firm as a rock in his determination that he would receive none of the books,” and the Pristof’s eloquence was expended upon him for two hours in vain, till at last the latter laid two of the books on the altar. The Lama quietly observed that they might be there, but that he should take care to proclaim that the High Pristof had left them there against his consent. This enraged the latter, and he hinted that the governors of the horde bad been guilty of maladministration and of embezzlement, “If they have been guilty of dishonesty let them be punished, said the Lama, calmly, they are in your hands.” The Pristof replied he would depose them and choose others. “That is contrary to precedent,” said the Lama, “for the elders have always elected their governors, but” added he, “do as you please, for you have the power in your own hands.”

One section of the Torguts was af the time of the flight governed by the prince Assarkho and his nephew Mashi. It was called Yike Zookor or Great Zookor. I have described how, on being pursued by the Russian troops, these chiefs with their followers gave in, and once more returned to Russia. The chiefs were sent on to St. Petersburg, where they died. I have small doubt that the two clans are the same as those mentioned by Zwick as governed in his day by the princes Erdeni and Zerren Ubashi, who had their winter quarters in the Sarpa marshes. He describes a visit he paid to them; their camp was then at a place called Baktur Malep (place of heroes’ whips). “The tents of the two princes were about a quarter of a mile asunder, and between them was a multitude of tents and cars belonging to the Russian, Armenian, and Tatar merchants, forming the market or bazaar of the horde. He thus describes his audience with prince Erdeni:—

“ Having learned from the Kalmuks that the day of our arrival (the end of June) was marked as fortunate in their astrological calendar, we hastened to make our first visit to the prince the same evening. When we approached the tent a servant came out to meet us and inquired what we wanted; we desired to be announced as people who had brought letters from the capital to the prince, upon which we were readily admitted. We drew near to the tent from the right side, according to the Kalmuk custom, for it is considered unmannerly to advance directly to the door, or to approach from the left side. We also took care not to tread on the threshold, an old Mogul ceremonial, which Ruisbrok observed in the camp of Mangu Khan. We made the usual salutation to the prince—‘Are you quite hale and well?’ to which he replied ‘Munde’(well); after which we were obliged to sit cross-legged upon a carpet, in the Asiatic fashion. The prince sat in the same position, on his cushion in foe interior of foe tent, by his wife Dellek; on their left was foe little prince Rashi Sangjai Docdje, attended by his nurse. Erdeni is in his forty-second year, of a short squat figure, and good countenance. He is intelligent, good-natured, lively, and agreeable. When we entered he was playing on the Domber er Kalmuk guitar. His wife Dellek is six-and-twenty, of a robust figure, and truly Kalmuk face, with prominent cheek-bones. The prince was dressed in a short Kalmuk coat of blue doth, white trousers, a mottled silk waistcoat, and a thick velvet cap trimmed with sable and ornamented with a red tassel and gold loop. The princess wore a blue and white dress over a red silk petticoat ornamented with gold flowers; she had on her head a high square Kalmuk cap of Persian gold muslin, trimmed (like her husband’s) with sable, and with a large silk tassel.

“The tent was about ten yards in diameter, and as many in height, and furnished all round in the inside with carpets for the accommodation of visitors. Opposite to the door was the prince’s throne or cushion, about an ell high, and covered with green cotton, and over it a kind of canopy of the same material. On each side was suspended an image; the left represented one of their dreadful idols, Bansarakza; the right was a collection of astrological circles and many figures of different colours. Both were designed for the protection of the young prince, and to shield him from evil. To the left of the prince’s couch was the altar, with a bench in front of it, and on the altar were silver vessels, with rice and other offerings ; behind it a number of chests piled upon one another, and covered with a Persian doth. Above was a wooden shrine, with a well-formed gilt image of one of their principal idol-deities, Sakiamuni, the founder of their religion. On the right of the prince there was also a heap of chests, covered with Persian cloth, on which stood a few trinket boxes belonging to the princess. These chests probably contained the valuables of the royal family, and those on the left of the throne the sacred writings, the idols, and other things pertaining to the altar. In the middle of the tent there was a hearth, with a cresset and a common tea-kettle; on the left of the door stood a few pails and cans, ornamented with brass hoops, containing sour mares’ milk, or chigan, the chief subsistence of the Kalmuks at this time of the year.

“ Erdeni read the letter twice through with care, and then asked us our names and the immediate object of our journey, which we endeavoured to explain in the most satisfactory manner. He next inquired, in a friendly manner, after his old acquaintances, Brother Schmidt, of Peters­burgh (the editor of Ssanang Setzen), and Loos, of Sarepta, and rejoiced to hear of their welfare. After we had been treated with Kalmuk tea and chigan, we took our leave, and returned to our carriages.”

The missionaries afterwards visited the other Torgut prince named Zerren Ubashi. He was then about thirty years old, and is described as above the middle height, slender, and well looking. He wore a loose violet-coloured robe of cotton. He was sitting on a cushion in the interior of his tent, opposite to the door; the tent was roomy and clean, without any splendour; was arranged for the most part like that of Erdem’s, but was smaller, as he was a widower. After the salutation he invited them to sit down, as they had done at Erdem’s, on the right of the throne, on the same side with the altar. He asked about their business, name, and profession, and seemed piqued that they were not bearers of a letter to him from the Russian minister like the one sent to Erdeni. As usual, there was no desire to become better acquainted with Christianity.

They afterwards visited the chief priest of the horde. “We took with us,” Zwick says, “a present of tobacco and gingerbread. He is about thirty with a countenance indicating at the same time good-nature, and bigotry. Contrary to the custom of other ecclesiastics of his rank, who, to counterfeit sanctity, put on a grave insensibility, and speak little and like an oracle, to give themselves an appearance of wisdom, he was both polite and conversable, without in any way lowering his dignity. When we arrived he was sitting cross-legged on a high cushion, in a loose yellow robe, with the red Orkimchi (or scarf) of a Gellong over his left shoulder, and a large cap trimmed with fur on his head, like those which the Gellongs usually wear. He was playing mechanically with the beads of his rosary, without seeming to know what he was doing. His handsome tent was well furnished with religious vessels, and on the splendid altar­table, besides cups, there was a stand for books, many beautiful Krudns (or prayer machines) with Sanskrit characters in gold, and some images and pictures of their gods. On the carpets, which were spread all around tire interior of the tent, there were two rows of Gellongs, clad according to their respective dignities, in red and yellow, and drinking chigan with great assiduity; this liquor was supplied by the Gezuls, from two large vessels full of it which stood in the middle of the hut. After the salutation, the bald-headed Gellongs, at a wink from their chief, drew their ranks closer to make room for us, and we were treated with chigan, out of cups of honour of maplewood. The Lama pretended to be ignorant of the object of our journey, though he had no doubt been informed of it, both by his watchful servants and by the prince himself; for it is that anything is determined in a horde without the advice of the Lama, and the business in question belonged especially to his own department. It seemed however to all the rulers of the horde a matter of considerable importance, and therefore they endeavoured each to shift the responsibility to another. When we had explained to the Lama the cause of our visit he turned the conversation, and inquired after Brother Loos, whom he had known many years ago, and then asked if we meant to leave the horde the next day? We replied, that our plans depended upon the prince’s answer, and that we were therefore unable to fix the time of our departure. The sign was then given, by a few strokes on a metal basin in the neighbouring Khurul, for the priests to assemble, and we took our leave.”

Two days later they paid Erdeni another visit, “but only found the princess and her servants at home: the prince himself with a numerous company of Gellongs and nobles, was playing at cards in the hut of justice, a few steps from his tent. They drank chigan in great abundance; this liquor, taken to excess, produces a alight intoxication. The princess took the opportunity of bringing out her ornaments fer our admiration. Amongst these we particularly noticed a golden earring, with a fine pear-shaped pearl of the sire of a large hasel-nut; this, she said, was an heir-loom in her family. We also perceived a beautiful rosary, made of the smooth black kernels of an unknown fruit, with coral and round onyx-stones interspersed. In showing us a richly-embroidered purse, and a pair ef red Morocco boots, the princess asked us if the German ladies had any ornaments to compare with hers, which we wore compelled to answer very humbly. The conversation afterwards fell upon images, and she took the opportunity of inquiring whether the images of our gods were as splendid as theirs. We informed her that we had statues, but that we did not worship them, but addressed our prayers to the Supreme Being, in spirit, and with the heart. She replied that it was the same amongst themselves, but as the senses could not reach the invisible Deity they liked to have a visible representation before them in prayer, but that this was not essential, and that in cases where they could not have the images (in travelling across the steppes for example), they were accustomed to worship without any symbol addressed to the senses. ‘For,’ said she, ‘the All-wise knows and sees everything, even the interior of the heart, and observes whether we pray to him, at home, or on the steppes, with an image, or as the Invisible.’ After this, when we were conversing about the formation of the world, the princess expressed a wish to see a map, which we promised we would show her before long. During our stay the prince took so much notice of us as to leave his game for a few moments to welcome us, apologising at the sense time fer not receiving our visit, as he was eager to join a party in the next hut. After he returned the company became loud and riotous, upon which the princess seemed uneasy, and looked often through the lattice-work of her own tent into the hut of justice, which she could easily do, as the lower felts of both tents were turned up to let in the air. She said once to her maid, ‘The chigan has made them merry over there; the Germans will think they are all drunk!’ We were obliged to take our leave for this time, without any further conference with the prince, and to wait for a better opportunity. On the following day, the 6th of June, it presented itself. We took with us the promised maps (some good surveys of these steppes), with which the prince, his wife, and daughter were all highly delighted. Dellek looked for her early home on the Volga, by the Bogdo mountain, where her father, a potty prince, fed his herds; Mingmer wanted to see the situation of the Khoshote camp, into which she had married; and Erdeni the position of his own horde, and the road by which we had reached it: they were all amazed to find these place correctly laid down. I prepared a copy of this chart for the prince, at his request”

I have abstracted these sentences as giving a good picture of Kalmuk life; for other details I must refer to a subsequent volume. When Zwick was travelling among the Torguts, the two clans subject to Erdeni and Zerren Ubashi were at war with the Derbets.

We read in Bergmann’s account of the migration of the Kalmuks that, beside the tribe of Yike Zookor, there was another section of the Torguts who thought it prudent to return when pursued by the Russians. This was the tribe of the Erkets, which had no special prince, but was governed by twenty Saissans. This tribe is not mentioned by Pallas in his enumeration of the Kalmuks who stayed behind, but it was visited by Zwick. He tells us it had its usual residence between the Don and the Sarpa, and passed the winter on the well-wooded shores of the Caspian, above Kislar. He says its strength was estimated at 1,000 tents, and was entirely dependant on Russia, being governed by Saissans or nobles of its own body appointed by the Russian Emperor. “As there is here no Oeigo (Forda) or princes’ court,” says Zwick, “the Kura or circle of ecclesiastical huts surrounding the Lama may be considered as the centre or headquarters of the encampment, and one of the Saissans in command is usually residing in this Kura. In all the Kalmuk hordes the administration of public affairs, which is divided between the princes and the superior priests, is transacted within this circle.” The missionaries were cordially received, but made no way in their special work, the Lamas, as usual, opposing, saying “they wished to abide by their old religion, and wanted no other; that in the meantime they should always remain good and peaceable subjects, and pray for the Emperor and the welfare of the kingdom in their own way”

Another section of the Torguts is known as the Yandikshan horde, from Yandik, a Torgut prince who ruled at the time of the migration. In Pallas’s day it consisted of 1,216 tents; when Zwick visited it it consisted of 1,000 tents, and was governed by a young widow of Derbet origin named Nadmid or Bagush; she had married Sandshi Ubashi, father of Zerren Ubashi. Pallas mentions a fourth small section of Torguts, under the sons and brothers of prince Arabshur, who, according to his genealogical tables, was a brother of Sandshi. This small section consisted of forty-seven tents. Zwick also mentions another section of them, but as he tells us their princes were the sons of Zebek Ubashi, who was the chief of the Derbets, it is very probable that he was mistaken in making them Torguts.

Note 1.—It is a curious fact that among the tribe of the Kirghises met with by the early Russian explorers in Siberia was one named Karait, which lived on the river Abakan. This is probably the tribe named Kerei, which is still dominant in the valley of the Black Irtish. Pallas speaks of Kharaits and Kharatshins as still living in bis day near Kaigamt

Note 2.— In regard to the divination by twigs, mentioned in this chapter, Petis de la Croix quotes from Thevenot thus: “This experiment of the canes was then in use among the Tatars, and is still among the Africans, Turks, and other Mohammedan nations. The Cojas or registers of their corsairs or pirate ships commonly try this trick before they fight, and this is what they call Do the book. It is true that they oftener use arrows. Two men sit on the ground over against one another, and hold each of them two arrows by the iron part or heads. The ends of the two contrary arrows are fixed together, one in another by the notches where the bowstring comes in shooting, so that the four arrows together make, as it were, but two sticks in a parallel line. Then the Coja reads a certain Arabian prayer. They pretend that during the reading these two pairs of arrows, two of which represent the Christians, the other the Turks, shall approach one another in spite of these that hold them, and after fighting the one pair shall get above the other. Colonel Yule has collected some other curious instances. He says the Chinese method of divination is conducted by two persons tossing in the air two symmetrical pieces of wood or bamboo of a particular form. It is described, he says, by Mendosa, and more particularly, with illustrations, by Doolittle. Rubraquis was the witness of a similar process at the Mongol court. He says that on visiting Kuktai, a Christian queen of Mangu Khan, who was ill, he found the Nestorians repeating certain verses, he knew not what (they said it was part of a psalm), over two twigs which were brought into contact in the hands of two men. Colonel Yule goes on to say, Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahani, there are many different ways of divination practised among the Buddhists, and that also mentioned by Marco Polo is known to our Lama, but in a slightly different way, making use of two arrows instead of a cane split up, wherefore this kind is called “arrow divination,” and, he adds, the practice is not extinct in India, for in 1833 Mr. Vigne witnessed its application to detect the robber of a Government chest at Lodiana.

Note 3.—In the account of the migration of the Torguts, translated by the Jesuits and elsewhere, it is stated that they originally left their fatherland under the leadership of Ayuka, and that they left there in consequence of a dispute between him and Tse wang Rabtan, the Sungarian chief. This is not correct as we have seen, the migration having taken place, at least into Siberia, two generations before. It is not improbable that it was really caused in a great measure by the wars of Altan Khan of the Khalkhas (not the great Altan Khan of the Tumeds, from whom they suffered so much in the preceding century). Their camping ground, after they left the Irtish and before they crossed the Yemba, seems to have been the old country of the Usbegs before their emigration, namely, that watered by the Irgitch, the Ulkoiak, the Upper Tobol, the Ishim.... It is curious that two important rivers in this area are respectively called Turgai and Kara Toigai; whether this name be connected with Torgut I don’t know.

Note 4.—In regard to the fate of Dudin, the Russian officer, and his troops who were captured as I have mentioned, I find a reference in the account of the migration of the Torguts translated by the Jesuits. It is there said that among the Russians whom the Torguts carried off was a certain Dudin. When the Torgut chiefs had an audience with the Manchu Emperor he asked them if it was true that before their departure they had pillaged the possessions of the Russians and had carried off one of their officers and one hundred soldiers. “We did to” said the Torgut prince, “we could not avoid it in the position in which we were placed. It is probable they perished on the way. I recollect that when they were divided among us eight of them fell to my share. I will inquire of my people if any of these Russians survive, and if so will send them on to your Majesty when I return to Ili”