THE PEOPLE OF THE WILDERNESS 



507 



ment, such a system, consisting of five or 

 six federated states between the Urals 

 and the Pacific, would be better than one 

 huge unitary empire or republic. 



What sort of political future may this 

 or the next generation expect to see? 



Neither Russia nor Siberia is likely to 

 enjoy free popular constitutional govern- 

 ment within any period which conjecture 

 can now assign. But neither is it likely 

 that the economically ruinous despotism 

 which now rules both countries will long 

 endure, or that the incompetent despotism 

 of the Tsars will return. 



There may be a time of strife, for the 

 habit of obedience has been broken, and 

 there is now no legally constituted au- 



thority for the citizen to obey. But 

 anarchy never lasts long. 



Nothing forbids the hope that the 

 natural action of economic forces will, 

 perhaps within a few years, install some 

 sort of settled government, able to en- 

 force order and to permit men to resume 

 their daily work in a normal way. 



So soon as Siberia obtains such a gov- 

 ernment, her economic resources and the 

 industry of her people will enable ma- 

 terial progress to start afresh, and she 

 will some day become what western 

 America became fifty years ago and 

 Argentina became thirty years ago — one 

 of the great food-producing countries of 

 the world. 



THE PEOPLE OF THE WILDERNESS 



The Mongols, Once the Terror of All Christendom, Now 

 a Primitive, Harmless Nomad Race 



By Adam Warwick 



THE cancellation of Mongolian 

 autonomy by China in November, 

 19 19, and the subsequent trouble 

 at Urga, their capital, have once more 

 drawn attention to the "People of the 

 Wilderness," as the Chinese, with thinly 

 veiled contempt for all who dwell beyond 

 the borders of their own civilization, call 

 their neighbors, the Mongols. 



Mongolia is a land with a great past. 

 Seven hundred years ago Genghiz Khan 

 set out from its barren steppes to con- 

 quer the world, and swept all before him 

 from the Yellow Sea to the Adriatic. 

 Dazzled though we may be by the magni- 

 tude of modern warfare, we stand aghast 

 at the unexampled record of his hundred 

 thousand horsemen, who made a three 

 days' victorious march across a hostile 

 land from the Carpathians to Budapest, 

 with minor expeditions deep into Bohe- 

 mia, Germany, and Serbia. 



AU, CHRISTENDOM FEARKD THE TATAR 

 CHIKE 



In those stirring times the world so 

 feared the Great Captain that a special 

 prayer, "Save us from the fury of the 



Tatars," was introduced into the Chris- 

 tian litany. 



It was no idle dread. But for the death 

 of his successor, which imposed three 

 years of mourning and inactivity on the 

 troops, the Mongol forces could not have 

 been stopped by any earthly power until 

 they had reached the limit of the conti- 

 nent of Europe. 



Forty years after the disappearance of 

 the Mighty Conqueror (1227), a grand- 

 son, Kublai, crowned his triumphs by be- 

 coming, not only the master, but the en- 

 lightened, magnificent monarch of the 

 whole of China, Indo - China, Burma, 

 Korea, Borneo, and Sumatra. Unfortu- 

 nately for his dynasty, the settled life of 

 ease and luxury in Peking sapped the 

 vigor of his followers in a single century. 



One more great leader was to appear 

 among them in the person of Timur the 

 Lame (Tamerlane), born to subdue Iran 

 and Turan, defeat the growing power 

 of the Turks, and fire Moscow, thus blaz- 

 ing the way for his last descendant, the 

 kindly knight-errant and poet. Sultan 

 Baber, to found the Empire oi the Great 

 Mogul. 



