DEATH OF TCHINGUIZ-KIIAN. 127 were not very guilty, he would not have hurled me at you."* He was indeed a terrible and inevitable scourge. Without pity or mercy for the unfortunate victims of his wars, he seemed actually to delight in carnage and devastation. One day, the fierce barbarian asked Bour- goul, one of his principal generals, what was, in his opinion, the greatest pleasure of man. " To go hunting," was the reply, " on a spring day, mounted on a fine horse, and holding a falcon on your fist, to see him bring down his prey." " No," said Tchinguiz-Khan, "the greatest enjoyment of man is, to conquer his ene- mies, to drive them before him, to snatch from them all that they possess, to see the persons dear to them with their faces bathed in tears, to mount their horses, and carry away captive their daughters and their wives." f Death came at last to this ravager of nations, and at the moment when he was preparing to lay waste the kingdom of Tangout. He expired, after a week's illness, on the 18th of August, 1227, at the age of sixty-six, and in the twenty-second year of his reign. Before he died, he recommended his sons to finish the conquest of the world. " My children," said he, " I have raised an empire so vast, that from the centre to one of its ex- tremities is a year's journey. If you wish to preserve it, remain united." Tchinguiz-Khan, even after his death, seemed still to preside over carnage and destruction. His body was secretly transported to Mongolia; and to prevent the news of his decease from spreading, the troops that
- D'Ohsson, vol. i. p. 231.
t D'Ohsson, "Hist, of the Mongols," vol. i. p. 404.
