Even with such terrible weapons as these, it requires at the present day great courage, great coolness, and very extraordinary steadiness of nerve to face a lion or a tiger in his mountain fastness, with any hope of coming off victorious in the contest. But the danger was, of course, infinitely greater in the days of Genghis Khan, when pikes and spears, and bows and arrows, were the only weapons with which the body of huntsmen could arm themselves for the combat. Indeed, in those days wild beasts were even in some respects more formidable enemies than men. For men, however excited by angry passions, are, in some degree, under the influence of fear. They will not rush headlong upon absolute and certain destruction, but may be driven back by a mere display of force, if it is obvious that it is a force which they are wholly incapable of resisting. Thus a party of men, however desperate, may be attacked without much danger to the assailants, provided that the force which the assailants bring against them is overwhelming.
But it is not so with wild beasts. A lion, a tiger, or a panther, once aroused, is wholly insensible to fear. He will rush headlong upon his foes, however numerous they may be, and however formidably armed. He makes his own destruction sure, it is true, but, at the same time, he renders almost inevitable the destruction of some one or more of his enemies, and, in going out to attack him, no one can be sure of not becoming himself one of the victims of his fury.
Thus the hunting of wild beasts in the mountains was very dangerous work, and it is not surprising that the office of grand huntsman was one of great consideration and honor.
The hunting was, however, not all of the dangerous character above described. Some animals are timid and inoffensive by nature, and attempt to save themselves only by flight. Such animals as these were to be pursued and overtaken by the superior speed of horses and dogs, or to be circumvented by stratagem. There was a species of deer, in certain parts of the Mongul country, that the huntsmen were accustomed to take in this way, namely:
The huntsmen, when they began to draw near to a place where a herd of deer were feeding, would divide themselves into two parties. One party would provide themselves with the antlers of stags, which they arranged in such a manner that they could hold them up over their heads in the thickets, as if real stags were there. The others, armed with bows and arrows, javelins, spears, and other such weapons, would place themselves in ambush near by. Those who had the antlers would then make a sort of cry, imitating that uttered by the hinds. The stags of the herd, hearing the cry, would immediately come toward the spot. The men in the thicket then would raise the antlers and move them about, so as to deceive the stags, and excite their feelings of rivalry and ire, while those who were appointed to that office continued to counterfeit the cry of the hind. The stags immediately would begin to paw the ground and to prepare for a conflict, and then, while their attention was thus wholly taken up by the tossing of the false antlers in the thicket, the men in ambush would creep up as near as they could, take good aim, and shoot their poor deluded victims through the heart.
Of course, it required a great deal of practice and much skill to perform successfully such feats as these; and there were many other branches of the huntsman's art, as practiced in those days, which could only be acquired by a systematic and special course of training. One of the most difficult things was to train the horses so that they would advance to meet tigers and other wild beasts without fear. Horses have naturally a strong and instinctive terror for such beasts, and this terror it was very difficult to overcome. The Mongul huntsmen, however, contrived means to inspire the horses with so much courage in this respect that they would advance to the encounter of these terrible foes with as much ardor as a trained charger shows in advancing to meet other horses and horsemen on the field of battle.
Besides the mountainous regions above described, there were several deserts in the country of the Monguls. The greatest of these deserts extends through the very heart of Asia, and is one of the most extensive districts of barren land in the world. Unlike most other great deserts, however, the land is very elevated, and it is to this elevation that its barrenness is, in a great measure, due. A large part of this desert consists of rocks and barren sands, and, in the time of which we are writing, was totally uninhabitable. It was so cold, too, on account of the great elevation of the land, that it was almost impossible to traverse it except in the warmest season of the year.
Other parts of this district, which were not so elevated, and where the land was not quite so barren, produced grass and herbage on which the flocks and herds could feed, and thus, in certain seasons of the year, people resorted to them for pasturage.
Throughout the whole country there were no extensive forests. There were a few tangled thickets among the mountains, where the wild beasts concealed themselves and made their lairs, but this was all. One reason why forests did not spring up was, as is supposed, the custom of the people to burn over the plains every spring, as the Indians were accustomed to do on the American prairies. In the spring the dead grass of the preceding year lay dry and withered, and sometimes closely matted together, on the ground, thus hindering, as the people thought, the fresh grass from growing up. So the people were accustomed, on some spring morning when there was a good breeze blowing, to set it on fire. The fire would run rapidly over the plains, burning up every thing in its way that was above the ground. But the roots of the grass, being below, were safe from it. Very soon afterward the new grass would spring up with great luxuriance. The people thought that the rich verdure which the new grass displayed, and its subsequent rapid growth, were owing simply to the fact that the old dead grass was out of the way. It is now known, however, that the burning of the old grass leaves an ash upon the ground which acts powerfully as a fertilizer, and that the richness of the fresh vegetation is due, in a great measure, to this cause.
Such was the country which was inhabited by the wandering pastoral tribes that were now under the sway of Genghis Khan. His dominion had no settled boundaries, for it was a dominion over certain tribes rather than over a certain district of country. Nearly all the tribes composing both the Mongul and the Tartar nations had now submitted to him, though he still had some small wars to wage from time to time with some of the more distant tribes before his authority was fully and finally acknowledged. The history of some of these conflicts will be narrated in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XIII. ADVENTURES OF PRINCE KUSHLUK.
1203-1208
Kushluk's escape.-Tukta Bey.-Kashin.-Temujin pursues Tukta Bey and Kushluk.-Retreat to Boyrak's country.--The various tribes submit.-Fall and destruction of Kashin.-Proclamation.-Temujin returns to Karakorom.-Boyrak's precautions.-Great battle.-Boyrak is taken and slain.-Flight of Kushluk and Tukta Bey.-Ardish.-River Irtish.-Tukta Bey's adherents.-Genghis Khan pursues them in winter.-Difficulties of the country.-Death of Tukta Bey.-Kushluk escapes again.-Turkestan.-He is received by Gurkhan.-Presentation of the shongar.-Urus Inal.
Prince Kushluk, as the reader will perhaps recollect, was the son of Tayian, the khan of the Naymans, who organized the grand league of khans against Temujin at the instigation of Yemuka, as related in a preceding chapter. He was the young prince who was opposed to Jughi, the son of Temujin, in the great final battle. The reader will recollect that in that battle Tayian himself was slain, as was also Yemuka, but the young prince succeeded in making his escape.