l people,
can not be written in English letters nor spoken with English sounds.

Indeed, in all languages so entirely distinct from each other as the
Mongul language was from ours, the sounds are different, and the
letters by which the sounds are represented are different too. Some of
the sounds are so utterly unlike any sounds that we have in English
that it is as impossible to write them in English characters as it is
for us to write in English letters the sound that a man makes when he
chirps to his horse or his dog, or when he whistles. Sometimes writers
attempt to represent the latter sound by the word _whew_; and when,
in reading a dialogue, we come to the word whew, inserted to express a
part of what one of the speakers uttered, we understand by it that he
whistled; but how different, after all, is the sound of the spoken
word _whew_ from the whistling sound that it is intended to represent!

Now, in all the languages of Asia, there are many sounds as impossible
to be rendered by the European letters as this, and in making the
attempt every different writer falls into a different mode. Thus the
first name of Genghis Khan's father is spelled by different travelers
and historians, Yezonkai, Yesukay, Yessuki, Yesughi, Bissukay,
Bisukay, Pisukay, and in several other ways. The real sound was
undoubtedly as different from any of these as they were all different
from each other. In this narrative I shall adopt the first of these
methods, and call him Yezonkai Behadr.

[Illustration: Map of the Empire of Genghis Khan.]

Yezonkai was a great khan, and he descended in a direct line through
ten generations, so it was said, from a deity. Great sovereigns in
those countries and times were very fond of tracing back their descent
to some divine origin, by way of establishing more fully in the minds
of the people their divine right to the throne. Yezonkai's residence
was at a great palace in the country, called by a name, the sound of
which, as nearly as it can be represented in English letters, was
_Diloneldak_. From this, his capital, he used to make warlike
excursions at the head of hordes of Monguls into the surrounding
countries, in the prosecution of quarrels which he made with them
under various pretexts; and as he was a skillful commander, and had
great influence in inducing all the inferior khans to bring large
troops of men from their various tribes to add to his army, he was
usually victorious, and in this way he