History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0142/01422.txt

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$Title{Genghis Khan
Chapter XII: Dominions Of Genghis Khan}
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Title:       Genghis Khan
Author:      Abbott, Jacob

Chapter XII: Dominions Of Genghis Khan

     After the ceremonies of the inauguration were concluded, Genghis Khan
returned, with the officers of his court and his immediate followers, to
Karakorom.  This town, though nominally the capital of the empire, was, after
all, quite an insignificant place.  Indeed, but little importance was attached
to any villages or towns in those days, and there were very few fixed places
of residence that were of any considerable account.  The reason is, that towns
are the seats of commerce and manufactures, and they derive their chief
importance from those pursuits; whereas the Monguls and Tartars led almost
exclusively a wandering and pastoral life, and all their ideas of wealth and
grandeur were associated with great flocks and herds of cattle, and handsome
tents, and long trains of wagons loaded with stores of clothing, arms, and
other movables, and vast encampments in the neighborhood of rich and extended
pasture-grounds.  Those who lived permanently in fixed houses they looked down
upon as an inferior class, confined to one spot by their poverty or their
toil, while they themselves could roam at liberty with their flocks and herds
over the plains, riding fleet horses or dromedaries, and encamping where they
pleased in the green valleys or on the banks of the meandering streams.

     Karakorom was accordingly by no means a great and splendid city.  It was
surrounded by what was called a mud wall - that is, a wall made of blocks of
clay dried in the sun.  The houses of the inhabitants were mere hovels, and
even the palace of the king, and all the other public buildings, were of very
frail construction; for all the architecture of the Monguls in those days took
its character from the tent, which was the type and model, so to speak, of all
other buildings.

     The new emperor, however, did not spend a great deal of his time at
Karakorom.  He was occupied for some years in making excursions at the head of
his troops to various parts of his dominions, for the purpose of putting down
insurrections, overawing discontented and insubordinate khans, and settling
disputes of various kinds arising between the different hordes.  In these
expeditions he was accustomed to move by easy marches across the plains at the
head of his army, and sometimes would establish himself in a sort of permanent
camp, where he would remain, perhaps, as in a fixed residence, for weeks or
months at a time.

     Not only Genghis Khan himself, but many of the other great chieftains,
were accustomed to live in this manner, and one of their encampments, if we
could have seen it, would have been regarded by us as a great curiosity.  The
ground was regularly laid out, like a town, into quarters, squares, and
streets, and the space which it covered was sometimes so large as to extend
nearly a mile in each direction.  The tent of the khan himself was in the
centre.  A space was reserved for it there large enough not only for the grand
tent itself, but also for the rows of smaller tents near, for the wives and
for other women belonging to the khan's family, and also for the rows of carts
or wagons containing the stores of provisions, the supplies of clothing and
arms, and the other valuables which these wandering chieftains always took
with them in all their peregrinations.

     The tent of the khan in summer was made of a sort of calico, and in
winter of felt, which was much warmer.  It was raised very high, so as to be
seen above all the rest of the encampment, and it was painted in gay colors,
and adorned with other barbaric decorations.

     The dwellings in which the women were lodged, which were around or near
the great tent, were sometimes tents, and sometimes little huts made of wood.
When they were of wood they were made very light, and were constructed in such
a manner that they could be taken to pieces at the shortest notice, and packed
on carts or wagons, in order to be transported to the next place of
encampment, whenever, for any reason, it became necessary for their lord and
master to remove his domicil to a different ground.

     A large portion of the country which was included within the limits of
Genghis Khan's dominions was fertile ground, which produced abundance of grass
for the pasturage of the flocks and herds, and many springs and streams of
water.  There were, however, several districts of mountainous country, which
were the refuge of tigers, leopards, wolves, and other ferocious beasts of
prey.  It was among these mountains that the great hunting parties which
Genghis Khan organized from time to time went in search of their game.  There
was a great officer of the kingdom, called the grand huntsman, who had the
superintendence and charge of every thing relating to hunting and to game
throughout the empire.  The grand huntsman was an officer of the very highest
rank.  He even took precedence of the first ministers of state.  Genghis Khan
appointed his son Jughi, who has already been mentioned in connection with the
great council of war called by his father, and with the battle which was
subsequently fought, and in which he gained great renown, to the office of
grand huntsman, and, at the same time, made two of the older and more
experienced khans his ministers of state.

     The hunting of wild beasts as ferocious as those that infested the
mountains of Asia is a very dangerous amusement even at the present day,
notwithstanding the advantage which the huntsman derives from the use of
gunpowder, and rifled barrels, and fulminating bullets.  But in those days,
when the huntsman had no better weapons than bows and arrows, javelins, and
spears, the undertaking was dangerous in the extreme.  An African lion of full
size used to be considered as a match for forty men in the days when only
ordinary weapons were used against him, and it was considered almost hopeless
to attack him with less than that number.  And even with that number to waylay
and assail him he was not usually conquered until he had killed or disabled
two or three of his foes.

     Now, however, with the terrible artillery invented in modern times, a
single man, if he has the requisite courage, coolness, and steadiness of
nerve, is a match for such a lion.  The weapon used is a double-barreled
carabine, both barrels being rifled, that is, provided with spiral grooves
within, that operate to give the bullets a rotary motion as they issue from
the muzzle, by which they bore their way through the air, as it were, to their
destination, with a surprising directness and precision.  The bullets
discharged by these carabines are noe balls, but cylinders, pointed with a
cone at the forward end.  They are hollow, and are filled with a fulminating
composition which is capable of exploding with a force vastly greater than
that of gunpowder.  The conical point at the end is made separate from the
body of the cylinder, and slides into it by a sort of shank, which, when the
bullet strikes the body of the lion or other wild beast, acts like a sort of
percussion cap to explode the fulminating powder, and thus the instant that
the missile enters the animal's body it bursts with a terrible explosion, and
scatters the iron fragments of the cylinder among his vitals. Thus, while an
ordinary musket ball might lodge in his flesh, or even pass entirely through
some parts of his body, without producing any other effect than to arouse him
to a phrensy, and redouble the force with which he would spring upon his foe,
the bursting of one of these fulminating bullets almost any where within his
body brings him down in an instant, and leaves him writhing and rolling upon
the ground in the agonies of death.

     On the Boulevard des Italiens, in Paris, is the manufactory of Devisme,
who makes these carabines for the lion-hunters of Algiers.  Promenaders, in
passing by his windows, stop to look at specimens of these bullets exhibited
there.  They are of various sizes, adapted to barrels of different bores. Some
are entire; others are rent and torn in pieces, having been fired into a bank
of earth, that they might burst there as they would do in the body of a wild
beast, and then be recovered and preserved to show the effect of the
explosion.

     Even with such terrible weapons as these, it requires at the present day
great courage, great coolness, and very extraordinary steadiness of nerve to
face a lion or a tiger in his mountain fastness, with any hope of coming off
victorious in the contest.  But the danger was, of course, infinitely greater
in the days of Genghis Khan, when pikes and spears, and bows and arrows, were
the only weapons with which the body of huntsmen could arm themselves for the
combat.  Indeed, in those days wild beasts were even in some respects more
formidable enemies than men.  For men, however excited by angry passions, are,
in some degree, under the influence of fear.  They will not rush headlong upon
absolute and certain destruction, but may be driven back by a mere display of
force, if it is obvious that it is a force which they are wholly incapable of
resisting.  Thus a party of men, however desperate, may be attacked without
much danger to the assailants, provided that the force which the assailants
bring against them is overwhelming.

     But it is not so with wild beasts.  A lion, a tiger, or a panther, once
aroused, is wholly insensible to fear.  He will rush headlong upon his foes,
however numerous they may be, and however formidably armed.  He makes his own
destruction sure, it is true, but, at the same time, he renders almost
inevitable the destruction of some one or more of his enemies, and, in going
out to attack him, no one can be sure of not becoming himself one of the
victims of his fury.

     Thus the hunting of wild beasts in the mountains was very dangerous work,
and it is not surprising that the office of grand huntsman was one of great
consideration and honor.

     The hunting was, however, not all of the dangerous character above
described.  Some animals are timid and inoffensive by nature, and attempt to
save themselves only by flight.  Such animals as these were to be pursued and
overtaken by the superior speed of horses and dogs, or to be circumvented by
stratagem.  There was a species of deer, in certain parts of the Mongul
country, that the huntsmen were accustomed to take in this way, namely:

     The huntsmen, when they began to draw near to a place where a herd of
deer were feeding, would divide themselves into two parties.  One party would
provide themselves with the antlers of stags, which they arranged in such a
manner that they could hold them up over their heads in the thickets, as if
real stags were there.  The others, armed with bows and arrows, javelins,
spears, and other such weapons, would place themselves in ambush near by.
Those who had the antlers would then make a sort of cry, imitating that
uttered by the hinds.  The stags of the herd, hearing the cry, would
immediately come toward the spot.  The men in the thicket then would raise the
antlers and move them about, so as to deceive the stags, and excite their
feelings of rivalry and ire, while those who were appointed to that office
continued to counterfeit the cry of the hind.  The stags immediately would
begin to paw the ground and to prepare for a conflict, and then, while their
attention was thus wholly taken up by the tossing of the false antlers in the
thicket, the men in ambush would creep up as near as they could, take good
aim, and shoot their poor deluded victims through the heart.

     Of course, it required a great deal of practice and much skill to perform
successfully such feats as these; and there were many other branches of the
huntsman's art, as practiced in those days, which could only be acquired by a
systematic and special course of training.  One of the most difficult things
was to train the horses so that they would advance to meet tigers and other
wild beasts without fear.  Horses have naturally a strong and instinctive
terror for such beasts, and this terror it was very difficult to overcome.
The Mongul huntsmen, however, contrived means to inspire the horses with so
much courage in this respect that they would advance to the encounter of these
terrible foes with as much ardor as a trained charger shows in advancing to
meet other horses and horsemen on the field of battle.

     Besides the mountainous regions above described, there were several
deserts in the country of the Monguls.  The greatest of these deserts extends
through the very heart of Asia, and is one of the most extensive districts of
barren land in the world.  Unlike most other great deserts, however, the land
is very elevated, and it is to this elevation that its barrenness is, in a
great measure, due.  A large part of this desert consists of rocks and barren
sands, and, in the time of which we are writing, was totally uninhabitable.
It was so cold, too, on account of the great elevation of the land, that it
was almost impossible to traverse it except in the warmest season of the year.

     Other parts of this district, which were not so elevated, and where the
land was not quite so barren, produced grass and herbage on which the flocks
and herds could feed, and thus, in certain seasons of the year, people
resorted to them for pasturage.

     Throughout the whole country there were no extensive forests.  There were
a few tangled thickets among the mountains, where the wild beasts concealed
themselves and made their lairs, but this was ill.  One reason why forests did
not spring up was, as is supposed, the custom of the people to burn over the
plains every spring, as the Indians were accustomed to do on the American
prairies.  In the spring the dead grass of the preceding year lay dry and
withered, and sometimes closely matted together, on the ground, thus
hindering, as the people thought, the fresh grass from growing up.  So the
people were accustomed, on some spring morning when there was a good breeze
blowing, to set it on fire.  The fire would run rapidly over the plains,
burning up every thing in its way that was above the ground.  But the roots of
the grass, being below, were safe from it.  Very soon afterward the new grass
would spring up with great luxuriance.  The people thought that the rich
verdure which the new grass displayed, and its subsequent rapid growth, were
owing simply to the fact that the old dead grass was out of the way. It is now
known, however, that the burning of the old grass leaves an ash upon the
ground which acts powerfully as a fertilizer, and that the richness of the
fresh vegetation is due, in a great measure, to this cause.

     Such was the country which was inhabited by the wandering pastoral tribes
that were now under the sway of Genghis Khan.  His dominion had no settled
boundaries, for it was a dominion over certain tribes rather than over a
certain district of country.  Nearly all the tribes composing both the Mongul
and the Tartar nations had now submitted to him, though he still had some
small wars to wage from time to time with some of the more distant tribes
before his authority was fully and finally acknowledged.  The history of some
of these conflicts will be narrated in the next chapter.