had reigned, extending his sway from the
Caspian Sea to the Ganges, dictating laws even to the Caliph at
Bagdad, who was the Pope of the Mohammedans. Mahomet II. now held the
throne, a prince so haughty and warlike, that he arrogated the name of
the second Alexander the Great. With two such spirits heading their
armies, a horrible war ensued. The capital of this region, Bokhara,
had attained a very considerable degree of civilization, and was
renowned for its university, where the Mohammedan youth, of noble
families, were educated. The city, after an unavailing attempt at
defense, was compelled to capitulate. The elders of the metropolis
brought the keys and laid them at the feet of the conqueror. Genghis
Khan rode contemptuously on horseback into the sacred mosque, and
seizing the Alcoran from the altar, threw it upon the floor and
trampled it beneath the hoofs of his steed. The whole city was
inhumanly reduced to ashes.

From Bokhara he advanced to Samarcande. This city was strongly
fortified, and contained a hundred thousand soldiers within its walls,
besides an immense number of elephants trained to fight. The city was
soon taken. Thirty thousand were slain, and thirty thousand carried
into perpetual slavery. All the adjacent cities soon shared a similar
fate. For three years the armies of Genghis Khan ravaged the whole
country between the Aral lake and the Indus, with such fearful
devastation that for six hundred years the region did not recover from
the calamity. Mahomet II., pursued by his indefatigable foe, fled to
one of the islands of the Caspian Sea, where he perished in paroxysms
of rage and despair.

Genghis Khan having thoroughly subdued this whole region, now sent a
division of his army, under two of his most distinguished generals,
across the Caspian Sea to subjugate the regions on the western shore.
Here, as before, victory accompanied their standards, and, with
merciless severity, they swept the whole country to the sea of Azof.
The tidings of their advance, so bloody, so resistless, spread into
Russia, exciting universal terror. The conquerors, elated with
success, rushed on over the plains of Russia, and were already pouring
down into the valley of the Dnieper. Mstislaf, prince of Galitch,
already so renowned for his warlike exploits, was eager to measure
arms with those soldiers, the terror of whose ravages now filled the
world. He hurriedly assembled all the neighboring princes at Kief, and
urg