A Child's History of the World

by V. M. Hillyer

’Way beyond Italy and Jerusalem and the Tigris and Euphrates and Persia and all the other places we have so far heard about, was a country called Cathay—C-A-T-H-A-Y.

If you looked down at your feet, and the world were glass, you would see it on the other side.

Cathay is the same place we now call China. The people in Cathay belonged to the yellow race, the same race to which the Chinese belong.

There had been people living in Cathay, of course, all through the centuries that had passed, but little was known of this land or of its people.

But in the thirteenth century or twelve hundreds, one of these tribes of yellow people called Mongols or Tartars, arose out of the East, like a black and terrifying thunderstorm, and it seemed for a while as if they might destroy all the other countries whose histories we have been hearing about. The ruler of these people was a terrible fighter named Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan had an army of Tartar horsemen who were terrific fighters. Genghis and his Tartars were a good deal like Attila and his Huns—only worse. Indeed, some people think Attila and his Huns were Tartars also.

Genghis usually found some excuse for making war on others, but if he couldn’t find a good excuse he made up one, for he was bent on conquering. He and his Tartars thought no more of killing than would tigers or lions let loose.

So Genghis and his horsemen swept over the land from Cathay toward Europe. They burned and destroyed thousands upon thousands of towns and cities and everything in their way. They slew men, women, and children by the million. No one was able to stop them. It seemed as if they were going to wipe off of the face of the earth all white people and everything that white people had built.

Genghis Khan had conquered the whole land from the Pacific Ocean to the eastern part of Europe. But at last he stopped. With this kingdom he seemed to be satisfied. And he might well have been satisfied, for it was larger than the Roman Empire or that of even Alexander the Great.

Even when Genghis died, things were no better, for his son was just as frightful as his father and conquered still more country.

But the grandson of Genghis Khan was much less ferocious than his grandfather had been. He was named Kublai Khan, and he was quite different from his father and grandfather. He made his capital at a place in China now called Peking and ruled over this vast empire that he had inherited from his father. Kublai’s chief interest was in building magnificent palaces and surrounding himself with beautiful gardens, and he made such a wonderful capital for himself that Solomon in all his glory did not live in such splendor as did Kublai Khan.