THE EAST IN MEDIEVAL TIMES -'305

reaching effects. With him may be said to begin tffc.im-
pulse which culminated in the great geographical discoveries -
ol the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

China w£s ruled by the famous Kublai Khan, a descen-
dant of the still more famous Chengiz Khan, when Marco
Polo visited. The former who founded the Yuan dynasty
in China reigned over only a portion of the vast empire
created by the latter. Chengiz Khan, the leader of the
Mongol hordes, was the greatest conqueror the world has
ever seen. His dominions extended from the Western
shores of the Pacific Ocean to Eastern Europe, and inclu-
ded China, Mongolia, Turkestan, Persia, Afghanistan,
North-West India, Asia-Minor, and Eastern Europe. His
army, in spite of its great size, was well organised and was
provided with fire-arms which were first invented in China.
Chengiz was born in the steppes of Mongolia in 1155. He
was a Mongol Bagatur (Bahadur) or nobleman (literally,
'hero') and was elected leader of all the tribes only when
he was fifty-one years of age.

'And so, when all the generations living in felt tents became
united under a single authority, in the year of the Leopard,
they assembled near the sources of the Onon, and raising the
White Banner on Nine Legs, they conferred on Chengiz the
title of Kagan.'

He commenced his great march in 1219 and died in 1227
at the age of seventy-two. But these nine years were not
only the most momentous in his own career, but also some
of the most memorable in the history of the world. Though,
like Attila, he is regarded as a * Scourge of God'—for he
moved like a tempest and demolished kingdoms and em-
pires, massacring millions and piling up mountains of
skulls—he yet rendered a valuable service to civilisation :
The Mongols poured fresh and- vigorous blood into the de;-