lently round their fire of argols[1], smoking their long pipes, whilst their camels peaceably ruminated the grass of the desert, there would have been seen, six hundred years ago, hosts of men of the same race, restless, daring, impetuous warriors, breathing only battle, and planning the conquest of the whole world.
It was in the spring of the year 1206, that Temoutchin, after the death of Ung-Khan, and the destruction of the kingdom of the Keraites, convoked a Kouriltai, or general assembly of the chiefs of all the hordes. The meeting was to take place near the source of the Onan, and on the day fixed for this "Champ de Mai" a multitude of tents, with streamers of various colours floating above them, to indicate the tribe they belonged to, were seen pitched upon the plain; and behind each were ranged numerous squadrons of Tartar horsemen. Fierce impetuous-looking warriors were galloping to and fro, calling to one another in the guttural tones of their rude language; and the strangeness of their costume, their hardy and ferocious aspect, and everything about the assembly, bore the character of indomitable barbarism. In the midst of the camp was a standard formed of a long pike, to which were attached seven white yak's tails[2], one above another.
As soon as Temoutchin, the supreme chief of these
- ↑ The dried dung of animals, used for fuel in Tartary.
- ↑ These standards are called tou by the Chinese; and, doubtless, it is from them that the name of the Turkish standard, the "toug" has been derived. "It is," says Cuvier, "with the tail of the yak, a kind of small buffalo, with a long-haired tail, like that of the horse,—itself a native of the mountains of Thibet,—that those standards were first made which are still in use among the Turks."—"Regne Animal," vol. i. p. 270.
