a
stream. The post was a strong one, and the Eleuths fought stubbornly,
but they were too greatly outnumbered, and in the end were put to
flight, after having inflicted severe loss on their foes, an uncle of
the emperor being among the slain. Galdan now, finding that the war was
going against him, offered fealty and obedience to the emperor, which
Kanghi, glad to withdraw his army from its difficult position in the
desert, accepted, sending the chieftain a letter of forgiveness. Thus
ended the campaign of 1690.

It was a truce, not a peace. Galdan's ambition remained unsatisfied, and
Kanghi put little confidence in his promises. He was right: the desert
chief occupied himself in sowing the seeds of dissension among the
hordes, and in 1693, finding the Dalai Lama his opponent, took the step
of professing himself a Mohammedan, in the hope of gaining the
assistance of the Mussulman Tartars and Chinese. Yet he kept up
negotiations with the Dalai Lama, with the purpose of retaining the
Buddhist support. Meanwhile conflicts between the tribes went on, and in
1695 Kanghi, incensed at the constant encroachments of the ambitious
chief, which failed to sustain his peaceful professions, resolved to put
an end to the trouble by his complete and irretrievable overthrow.

The despatch of a large army into the recesses of Central Asia was a
difficult and hazardous enterprise, yet it seemed the only means of
ending the strained situation, and by 1696 a large force was got ready
for a protracted desert war, the principal command being given to a
frontier soldier named Feyanku, who in the preceding troubles had shown
marked ability.

On the eve of the great national holiday of China, the Feast of
Lanterns, the imperial court reviewed a section of the army, drawn up in
military array along the principal street of Peking. The emperor,
surrounded by the principal functionaries of the government, occupied a
throne on a raised platform from which the whole scene could be
surveyed, while strains of martial music filled the air. The culminating
scene in the ceremony took place when Feyanku approached the throne,
received on his knees from the emperor's hand a cup of wine, and retired
down the steps, at whose foot he quaffed the wine amid the shouts of
thousands of spectators. This ceremony was repeated with each of the
subordinate generals, and then with the lower officers of the army, ten
at a time. Success being thus drunk to the army, Fe