pe by raising terrific shouts
and outcries, and by brandishing weapons before them wherever they
attempted to turn.

At length the animals were all driven in to the inner circle, a
comparatively small space, which had been previously marked out.
Around this space double and triple lines of troops were drawn up,
armed with pikes and spears, which they pointed in toward the centre,
thus forming a sort of wall by which the beasts were closely shut in.
The plan was now for the officers and khans, and all the great
personages of the court and the army, to go into the circle, and show
their courage and their prowess by attacking the beasts and slaying
them.

But the courage required for such an exploit was not so great as it
might seem, for it was always found on these occasions that the
beasts, though they had been very wild and ferocious when first
aroused from their lairs, and had appeared excessively irritated when
they found the circle beginning to narrow around them, ended at last
in losing all their spirit, and in becoming discouraged, dejected,
and tame. This was owing partly, perhaps, to their having become, in
some degree, familiar with the sight of men, but more probably to the
exhaustion produced by long-continued fatigue and excitement, and to
their having been for so many days deprived in a great degree of their
accustomed food and rest.

Thus in this, as in a great many other similar instances, the poor
soldiers and common people incurred the danger and the toil, and then
the great men came in at the end to reap the glory.

Genghis Khan himself was the first to enter the circle for the purpose
of attacking the beasts. He was followed by the princes of his family,
and by other great chieftains and khans. As they went in, the whole
army surrounded the inclosure, and completely filled the air with the
sound of drums, timbrels, trumpets, and other such instruments, and
with the noise of the most terrific shouts and outcries which they
could make, in order to terrify and overawe the beasts as much as
possible, and to destroy in them all thought and hope of resistance.

And, indeed, so much effect was produced by these means of
intimidation, that the beasts, it is said, became completely
stupefied. "They were so affrighted that they lost all their
fierceness. The lions and tigers became as tame as lambs, and the
bears and wild boars, like the most timorous creatures, became
dejected and amazed."

Still, the