Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/127

115 THE LAST SOVEREIGN OF THE KERAITES. 115 talions across the river, and come to the assistance of the Christians of Syria and Palestine, when suddenly he seemed to be arrested by some mysterious obstacle, checked his course, and led his powerful and victorious army back into the arid and sandy deserts of Tartary.* It is to this prince the pompous letters addressed to the Pope Alexander III., the King of France, and the Emperor, are generally attributed. Ung-Khan was the last sovereign who governed the nation of the Keraites. After having increased and strengthened the power bequeathed to him by his pre- decessors, he exercised an uncontested supremacy over the numerous hordes of Tartary ; but he subsequently found himself brought into collision with a formidable chief named Temoutchin ; and the two perceiving that their rivalry would be injurious or fatal to both, formed an alliance, cemented by the ceremony of drinking from a cup of fermented mare's milk, in which they had both mingled their blood. Their friendship, nevertheless, was not eternal, as had been mutually promised, and they did not continue to share " the sweet and the bitter." f In fact, there arose between them a long and obstinate contest, and they finally prepared for a great battle. The two armies were in presence of each other, and preparing for an engagement, when Temoutchin called together the soothsayers who always accompanied him in his wars, and demanded of them what would be the result of the decisive struggle. The soothsayers took a bamboo cane, split it into two halves, wrote the name of Temoutchin on one, and that t When two Tartars form an alliance, they reciprocally promise to share " the sweet and the bitter." i 2
 * Ottoni's Chron. ch. xxxiii. p. 146. ; Alberni Chron. pp. 307-8.