rassan, and, following up his success, brought under subjection several provinces of Persia. He then made himself master of Bokhara and Samarkand, and, routing the forces of Gourkhan, Khan of Kara-Katay, or Central Tatary, took possession of Otrar. Soon after his return to Khwarezm he was startled by the intelligence that the Karakatayans had laid siege to Samarkand. Taking the field without loss of time, he forced the enemy to raise the siege and give battle. While the contest was raging a terrible dust storm arose, and both armies falling into inextricable confusion, broke up and fled.

His next exploit was less ambiguous, and Ghuznee yielded to his arms, on the death of Shahab-ood-deen, the Ghourian. His good fortune, however, now deserted him. While on the march to Baghdad he received despatches from the Governor of Otrar, informing him of the arrival of certain persons who gave themselves out to be traders, but who were evidently spies of the Mongol Chief, Chinghiz Khan. In reply, Mohammed ordered the Governor to put the spies to death, but one of the party escaped and reported the fate of his comrades to Chinghiz Khan, who, immediately, despatched an ambassador to demand reparation for this atrocious outrage. In defiance of the most elementary principles of international law, the hapless envoy was handed over to the executioner.

The Mongol leader was not of a temperament to allow such an insult to pass unavenged, and instantly prepared for the invasion of Mawaralnahr. Mohammed hurried back to avert the overthrow of his kingdom, but on reaching Nishapoor gave himself up for an entire month to drunkenness and debauchery. At last, rousing himself to action, he pushed on to Bokhara, where he again indulged in fatal excesses. Hearing that Chinghiz Khan was marching upon Samarkand in person, while his eldest son Joujee was advancing through Toorkestan, he resolved to encounter the less formidable of his enemies, and

hastened to meet the latter, but notwithstanding the overwhelming superiority of his forces Mohammed was unable to do more than hold his ground. He thereupon retreated to Samarkand, where he is said to have collected an army of 400,000 horsemen-evidently a monstrous exaggeration. Instead, however, of hurling this immense body of cavalry upon the Mongols he broke it up into detachments to garrison his frontier towns, and withdrew into Khorassan, after instructing his mother Toorkan Khatoon to convey his women and children into Mazanderan. That strong-minded lady acted up to his instructions, after flinging the youngest of the children into the Jyhoon.

From that moment the doomed prince seemed incapable of forming or fulfilling any resolution. Instead of defending the fords of the Jyhoon, and the passes of the Elburz mountains, he wandered without fixed purpose hither and thither, closely pursued by his inexorable foe, and wasting every respite in hard drinking. His wives and children falling into the hands of the Mongols were cruelly ill-treated and murdered, and at last Mohammed himself died of grief and shame on a small island in the Caspian. To such destitution had he been driven that he was buried in the clothes he wore, because he left not enough money to purchase a shroud. His eldest son, Rokkenood-deen, was captured in Firozekoh, in 1222, by Chinghiz Khan, and put to death without pity. Another son of Mohammed, named Gyath-ood-deen, after fleeing from one place to another, took refuge with Borah Hajet, a Kara-Khatayan officer in the service of his unhappy father, and who had established himself in Kerman. Regardless alike of the laws of hospitality and the claims of gratitude, the cautious barbarian murdered his defenceless guest.

Jelal-ood-deen, yet another son of Mohammed, deserved a better fate than dogged his wandering career. On his father's

death he returned to Khwarezm, which had not then been entered by the victorious Moghuls. Finding it impossible to maintain himself in that country he fought his way to Ghuznee, and overthrew the enemy in two engagements. He was compelled, however, to retreat before the vastly superior forces of Chinghiz Khan, even to the banks of the Indus. At last brought to bay, he fought with desperate resolution until his little band was completely overpowered. Then, throwing off his armour, he swam his horse across the river, and, on gaining the opposite side, coolly dismounted and laid his charger's accoutrements together with his own clothes out in the sun to dry. Chinghiz, who had been watching the young hero for some time, is said to have uttered an exclamation of admiration, which has more of the Persian than the Moghul ring:-'Like a lion, invincible in the conflict of the field of battle; like an alligator, un terrified in the foaming stream; no father could ever boast of a son like this!'

For the next two years Jelal-ood-deen plundered the country lying to the eastward of the Indus, and then directed his steps to Irak Ajem, taking to wife on the way the daughter of that Borah Hajet who, a few years later, murdered his brother Gyath-ood-deen. His next achievement was the defeat of an army of 20,000 men sent against him by the Khalif Ool Nusser, as though the Mohammedans did not need to be in perfect union and harmony among themselves, in face of the terrible foe who was sweeping their religion from off the face of the earth.

From this time the fugitive prince of Khwarezm led a restless, unsettled life, gaining many victories, but unable to secure a permanent position. Sustaining, in his turn, a severe defeat at the hands of the Mongols, he retreated to Ispahan, whence he again issued and invaded Georgia. After a while he began to indulge too freely in wine, and on the barbarians pouring into

Mazanderan he fled from Eklat, leaving his wives, children, and dependants to be ruthlessly massacred. As to his own end, nothing certain is known. According to one account, Jelalood-deen was assassinated in Kohistan by a Koord, while he slept; but others assert that he disguised himself as a Sooffee, or dervish, and so baffled further pursuit. In either case, nothing was heard of him after A. D. 1231, eleven years having then elapsed since his father's flight to Khorassan and the downfall of the first Mohammedan kingdoms of Central Asia.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MOGHULS.

ORIGIN OF THE MOGHULS -- CHINGHIZ KHAN CONQUEST OF NORTHERN CHINA-MASSACRE OF TATAR ENVOYS AT OTRAR-REDUCTION OF OTRARDEFEAT AND FLIGHT OF MOHAMMED SHAH-CAPTURE OF BOKHARACAPTURE OF SAMARKAND, TERMEDH, BALKH, TALIKHAN, MERV, NISHAPOOR, HERAT, AND URGHUNJ-DEATH OF CHINGHIZ-HIS YASAK OR CODE -BATOU KHAN'S IRRUPTION INTO EUROPE THE MOGHUL EMPIRE-PAPAL MISSIONS ΤΟ THE GREAT KHAN-REPLY OF KUYOUK KHAN-MANGOU KHAN'S REBUKE-MISSION OF WILLIAM DE RUBRUQUIS-TATAR CUSTOMS -THE MOGHUL COURT AT KARAKORAM.

MOHAMMEDAN Writers-heedless of the Horatian warning to future historians of the Trojan war to dash at once into their subject, avoiding all allusion to the twin-egg'-make a point of tracing the genealogies of heroes and nations back to the Patriarch Noah. The Tatars and Moghuls are thus made to derive their descent from Japhet, whose eldest son was named Toork, and who was also the father of Rouss, described as a fierce savage and yet the original deviser of a system of judicial inquiry. Alenjah Khan, in the fourth generation from Toork, had two sons, born at a birth, afterwards known as Tatar and Moghul, between whom, at his death, he equally divided his extensive possessions.

Among the rare objects bequeathed to the latter was a stone inscribed with one of the mysterious names of the Deity, and called by the Arabs the 'Rainstone,' owing to the virtue it was supposed to possess of compelling or dispersing the waterclouds. The Persians, however, refer to it as the Aidstone,'