92 THE MONGOL RACE. 



supreme divinity inhabits the sun, and reigns over a host of lesser 

 gods. 



Finally, between Lake Baikal and the Altai' Mountains to the 

 north, the Ala-Tau mountains west, the Great Wall of China south, 

 and the sea east, stretches the immense territory commonly known 

 as Mongolia, and inhabited in part by the tribes which represent the 

 Mongol type in all its primitive purity. This great desert, where 

 grassy lands alternate with dry and sandy or saline plains, was 

 formerly the seat of a flourishing empire, established by Chingis- 

 Khan in 1227, which gave birth to the three Mongol kingdoms 

 of Krim, Kasan, and Astrachan. Mongolic empires, at a later period, 

 arose in China, Turkistan, Siberia, Southern Russia, and Persia. The 

 Mongolian dynasty lost its hold on China in 13 GO, and a -century 

 later was driven out of Russia. In Central Asia it was rehabilitated 

 in 1369, by the illustrious Timur ; but a hundred years afterwards 

 the empire was again crushed by its own weight. Baber, a descendant 

 of Timur, conquered India, and erected there a Mongolian throne, 

 which endured until the soldiers of Great Britain defeated Tippoo 

 Saib and captured Delhi. Most Mongolic tribes are now under 

 the rule of the nations whom they once had conquered, the 

 Tungusic sovereigns of China, the Russian Czars, and the Turkish 

 Sultans.* 



The ruins of Mongolian grandeur are still visible in those solitary 

 cities, which the traveller in the desert discovers half overwhelmed 

 in sand. "We met," says the Abbe' Hue, "with an imposing and 

 majestic memorial of antiquity. It was a great city, desolate and 

 abandoned. The crenellated ramparts, the watch-towers, the four 

 great gates, situated at the four cardinal points, were all in perfect 

 preservation ; but all was buried three-fourths deep in the ground, 

 and covered with a thick sward. We entered its vast precinct with 

 a profound emotion of awe and melancholy. We saw neither debris 

 nor ruins, but only the outline of a beautiful and spacious city, 

 * Max Miiller. " Origin of Language," pp. 311, 312. 



