In India, whose most striking history in modern ages is Mongol, nearly all populations save Aryans and Semites are classified with Mongols. In Persia where the dynasty is Mongol that race is preponderant in places and important throughout the whole kingdom, [[2]]though in a minority. In Asia Minor the Mongol is master, for the Turk is still sovereign, and will be till a great rearrangement is effected.
Five groups of Mongols have made themselves famous in Europe: the Huns with their mighty chief Attila, the Bulgars, the Magyars, the Turks or Osmanli, and the Mongol invaders of Russia. All these five will have their due places later on in this history.
In Africa there have been and are still Mongol people. The Mamelukes and their forces at Cairo were in their time remarkable, and Turkish dominion exists till the present, at least theoretically, in Egypt, and west of it.
Not restricted to the Eastern hemisphere the word Mongol is still further used to include aboriginal man in America.
Thus this great aggregation of people is found in each part of both hemispheres, and we cannot consider the Mongols historically in a wide sense unless we consider all mankind.
In the first, that is the original and narrowest sense of the word it applies to those Mongols alone who during twelve centuries or longer have inhabited the country just south of Lake Baikal, and north of the great Gobi desert. It is from these Mongols proper that the name has at last been extended to the whole yellow race in both hemispheres.
The word Mongol began, it is said, with the Chinese, but this is not certain. It is certain, however, that the Chinese made it known to the great world outside, and thus opened the way to that immense application now given it. The Tang dynasty lasted from 618 to 907 and left its own history. In that history the term Mongol appears as Mong-ku, and in the annals of the Kitan dynasty which followed the Tang Mong-ku-li is the form which is given us. The Kitans were succeeded by the Golden Khans, or Kin Emperors, and in the annals of their line the Mong-ku are mentioned very often.
The Mongols began their career somewhat south of Lake Baikal where six rivers rise in a very remarkable mountain land. The Onon, the Ingoda and the Kerulon are the main western sources of that immense stream the Amoor, which enters the Sea of Okhotsk and thus finds the Pacific. The second three rivers: the Tula, Orhon, and Selinga flow into Lake Baikal, and thence, through the [[3]]Lower Angara and Yenissei, are merged in Arctic waters directly in front of Nova Zembla.
These two water systems begin in the Kentei Khan mountains which have as their chief elevation Mount Burhan. The six rivers while flowing toward the Amoor and Lake Baikal water the whole stretch of country where the Mongols began their activity as known to us. There they moved about with their large and small cattle, fought, robbed, and hunted, ate and drank and slew one another during ages without reckoning. In that region of forest and grass land, of mountains and valleys, of great and small rivers the air is wholesome though piercingly cold during winter, and exceedingly hot in the summer months. There was subsistence enough for a primitive life in that country, but men had to fight for it savagely. Flocks and herds when grown numerous need immense spaces to feed in, and those spaces of land caused unending struggle and bloodshed. The flocks and herds were also objects of struggle, not flocks and herds only, but women. The desirable woman was snatched away, kidnapped; the good herd of cattle was stolen, and afterward fought for; the grass covered mountain or valley, or the forest with grass or good branches, or shrubbery for browsing was seized and then kept by the men who were able to hold it.
This stealing of cattle, this grabbing of pasture and forest, this fighting, this killing, this capture of women continued for ages with no apparent results except those which were personal, local, and transient till Temudjin the great Mongol appeared in that harsh mountain country. This man summed up in himself, and intensified to the utmost the ideas, strength, temper and spirit of his race as presented in action and life up to his day. He placed the Mongols on the stage of the world with a skill and a power that were simply colossal and all-conquering. The results which he won were immediate and terrifying. No man born of woman has had thus far in history a success so peculiar, so thorough and perfect, so completely acknowledged by mankind as the success won by Temudjin. There is in his career an unconquerable sequence, a finish, a oneness of character that sets it apart among all the careers of those mighty ones in history who worked for this life and no other, and strove for no object save that which is tangible, material and present; success of such kind and success so enormous that a common intelligence might yearn for it, but have no [[4]]more chance of winning than of reaching the stars, or of seeing the sun during night hours.