MONGOLIA 



141 



the city after making a breach. The 

 prince, with his mother, wife, sons, the 

 boyars (nobles), and the inhabitants 

 were slaughtered with savage cruelty. 

 Some were impaled, some shot at with 

 arrows for sport; others were flayed 

 alive. Priests were roasted, and nuns 

 and maidens ravished in the churches. 

 " No eye remained open to weep for the 

 dead." Next, Moscow fell into the hands 

 of the invaders, who then advanced 

 against Vladimir. After holding out 

 for several days the city succumbed, and 

 the horrors of Riazan were repeated. 

 The imperial family, with a vast crowd 

 of fugitives, sought shelter in the 

 cathedral, only to perish by the swords 

 of the conquerors or by the flames 

 which reduced the building to ashes. 

 An even worse fate overtook the in- 

 habitants of Kozelsk, near Kaluga, where 

 the Mongols held so terrible a "carnival 

 of death" that the city was called "'the 

 city of woe." Krief was also captured, 

 with the inevitable massacre. Having 

 desolated this portion of Russia, they 

 invaded both Hungary and Poland. 

 They even conquered China, but did not 

 stay there long. Brave and hardy as 

 the Mongols have always shown them- 

 selves to be, they could not gain the 

 allegiance of those whom they con- 

 quered, nor establish settled forms of government. For a time their prowess and the ability 

 of some of their first emperors held China in bondage; but at last the long pent-up hatred of 

 a foreign yoke broke out, and the invaders were driven back to their old home in Mongolia. 

 This took place in the fourteenth century of our era. 



Since the last century the Mongols have ceased to be of any political, importance. During 

 centuries of migration and fighting they have mingled with other races, such as the Chinese, 

 Turki, Tibetans, and the non-Mongolian Iranians. The whole Mongol tribe is usually divided 

 into three branches East Mongols, West Mongols, and Buriats. Captain Younghusband 

 noticed a distinct difference between the Eastern and the Western Mongols, the features of 

 the former beiug rounder and fuller than those of the Western Mongols. 



The writer is greatly indebted to Mr. E. Delmar Morgan, F.R.G.S., for his kindness in 

 allowing him to reproduce here some of the excellent photographs taken for him during his 

 travels in Eastern Turkestan. The originals are in the possession of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, the Council of which also kindly gave their permission. Others of Mr. Morgan's 

 photographs appear in Chapter X. 



The Mongol countenance is an exaggeration of the Chinese type: the face is flat and 

 broad, the nose low, and the eyes are oblique. Living most of their lives on horseback, the 

 .Mongols have short legs and small feet; the calves are undeveloped, and the knees bent out. 

 The famous Venetian traveller Marco Polo, who visited them in the thirteenth century, thus 

 describes their habits, in words which are equally true even now: "The Tartars never remain 



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A FAMILY GUOUP OF MONGOLS, KULDJA. 



