a and
Russia, and its restless hordes are held in check by firm and powerful
hands, their period of conquest at an end.

It was to two of the Manchu monarchs, Kanghi and Keen Lung,--whose
combined reigns covered more than a hundred and twenty years,--that the
subjection of these long turbulent regions was due, enabling China to
enter the nineteenth century with the broad territorial expanse now
marked on our maps. The story of how the subjection of the nomads came
about is a long one, much too long for the space at our command, yet a
brief synopsis of its leading events will prove of interest and
importance to all who desire to follow the successive steps of Chinese
history.

Kanghi, the second Manchu emperor, and one of the greatest of the rulers
of China, having completed the conquest of the Chinese themselves,
turned his attention to the nomadic hordes who threatened the
tranquillity of his reign. He was one of their own race, a man of Tartar
blood, and many of the desert tribes were ready to acknowledge his
supremacy, among them the Khalkas, who prided themselves on direct
descent from Ghengis and his warriors, but had lost all desire to rule
the earth and were content to hold their own among the surrounding
tribes. They dwelt on those streams which had watered the birthplace of
the Mongol tribe, and their adhesion to the Manchu cause kept all the
Mongols quiet.

But west of these dwelt another nomad race, the Calmucks, divided into
four hordes, of which the Eleuths were by no means content to yield to
Chinese or Manchu control. Their independence of spirit might have been
of little importance but that it was sustained by an able and ambitious
leader, who not only denied Kanghi's supremacy but disputed with him the
empire of the steppes.

Galdan was the younger son of the most powerful chief of his tribe. Full
of ambition, and chafing at the subordinate position due to his birth,
he quarrelled with some of his brothers and killed one of them. Being
forced to flee, he made his way to Thibet, where he sought to obtain
admission to the ranks of the Buddhist clergy, but was refused by the
Dalai Lama on account of his deed of blood. But on his return to the
tents of his tribe he found himself in a new position. His crime was
forgotten or condoned, and the fact that he had dwelt in the palace and
under the holy influence of the Dalai Lama, the supreme religious power
in Buddhist Asia, gave him a high standing among h