ld racial characteristics, their old dialects, and their old tribal
organisation.

The germ of the vast horde which swept over Asia and advanced into the
centre of Europe was a small pastoral tribe of Mongols living in the
hilly country to the north of China, near the sources of the Amur. This
tribe was neither more warlike nor more formidable than its neighbours
till near the close of the twelfth century, when there appeared in it
a man who is described as "a mighty hunter before the Lord." Of him and
his people we have a brief description by a Chinese author of the time:
"A man of gigantic stature, with broad forehead and long beard, and
remarkable for his bravery. As to his people, their faces are broad,
flat, and four-cornered, with prominent cheek-bones; their eyes have
no upper eyelashes; they have very little hair in their beards and
moustaches; their exterior is very repulsive." This man of gigantic
stature was no other than Genghis Khan. He began by subduing and
incorporating into his army the surrounding tribes, conquered with their
assistance a great part of Northern China, and then, leaving one of his
generals to complete the conquest of the Celestial Empire, he led his
army westward with the ambitious design of conquering the whole world.
"As there is but one God in heaven," he was wont to say, "so there
should be but one ruler on earth"; and this one universal ruler he
himself aspired to be.

A European army necessarily diminishes in force and its existence
becomes more and more imperilled as it advances from its base of
operations into a foreign and hostile country. Not so a horde like that
of Genghis Khan in a country such as that which it had to traverse. It
needed no base of operations, for it took with it its flocks, its tents,
and all its worldly goods. Properly speaking, it was not an army at all,
but rather a people in movement. The grassy Steppes fed the flocks, and
the flocks fed the warriors; and with such a simple commissariat system
there was no necessity for keeping up communications with the point
of departure. Instead of diminishing in numbers, the horde constantly
increased as it moved forwards. The nomadic tribes which it encountered
on its way, composed of men who found a home wherever they found pasture
and drinking-water, required little persuasion to make them join the
onward movement. By means of this terrible instrument of conquest
Genghis succeeded in creating a colossal Empire, s