if true, of his
future career. According to De Guignes, Karachar Nevian was named his
tutor.

Ssanang Setzen has a story that his father set out one day to find him
a partner among the relatives of his wife, the Olchonods, and that on
the way he was met by Dai Setzen, the chief of the Kunkurats, who thus
addressed him: "Descendant of the Kiyots and of the race of the
Bordshigs, whither hiest thou?"

"I am seeking a bride for my son," was his reply. Dai Setzen then said
that he recently had a dream, during which a white falcon had alighted
on his hand. "This," he said, "Bordshig, was your token. From ancient
days our daughters have been wedded to the Bordshigs, and I now have a
daughter named Burte who is nine years old. I will give her to thy
son."

"She is too young," he said; but Temudjin, who was present, urged that
she would suit him by and by. The bargain was thereupon closed, and,
having taken a draught of koumiss and presented his host with two
horses, Yissugei returned home.

On his father's death Temudjin was only thirteen years old, an age
that seldom carries authority in the desert, where the chief is
expected to command, and his mother acted as regent. This enabled
several of the tribes which had submitted to the strong hand of
Yissugei to reassert their independence. The Taidshuts, under their
leaders Terkutai, named Kiriltuk, _i.e._, the Spiteful, the
great-grandson of Hemukai, and his nephew Kurul Bahadur, were the
first to break away, and they were soon after joined by one of
Yissugei's generals with a considerable following. To the reproaches
of Temudjin the latter answered: "The deepest wells are sometimes dry,
and the hardest stones sometimes split; why should I cling to thee?"
Temudjin's mother, we are told, mounted her horse, and taking the
royal standard called Tuk (this was mounted with the tails of the yak
or mountain cow, or, in default, with that of a horse; it is the _tau_
or _tu_ of the Chinese, used as the imperial standard, and conferred
as a token of royalty upon their vassals, the Tartar princes) in her
hand, she led her people in pursuit of the fugitives, and brought a
good number of them back to their allegiance.

After the dispersion of the Jelairs, many of them became the slaves
and herdsmen of the Mongol royal family. They were encamped near
Sarikihar, the Saligol of Hyacinthe, in the district of Ulagai Bulak,
which D'Ohsson identifies with the Ulengai, a tributary of the Ingo