Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/155

143 BATTLE OF LIEGNITZ. — DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY. 143 The Polish army was entirely defeated. Prince Henry had a horse killed under him during the rout, and he had just mounted another, when he was sur- rounded by a squadron of the enemy, and while raising his lance to defend himself, he received a wound in the armpit, and was thrown down. The Tartars cut off his head, and after having placed it on the point of a lance, presented themselves, armed with this bloody trophy, before the citadel of Lieo-nitz, and summoned it to surrender. The loss of the Poles was very considerable ; it is said, that in order to make known the number of their enemies left dead on the held, the Mongols cut off an ear from each, and that they filled nine sacks with these barbarous tokens of their victory. The practice was common enough with them, and in Russia in 1239, when the Khan had given a similar order, they arc said to have found themselves in possession of two hundred and seventy thousand human ears. The town of Liegnitz, having been delivered to the flames by the Christians themselves, the Mongols laid waste all the surrounding country, and then entered Moravia, marking their course by fire and blood, and advanced as far as the frontiers of Bohemia and Austria. Vinceslas, the king of Bohemia, saw, with terror, the approach of the storm that threatened to burst over his country ; and feeling little confidence in any force he could oppose to them, had taken the resolution to con- centrate his strength within his fortresses, and to write to the neighbouring princes to urge them to form a coalition against the common enemy. In his letter to the Duke of Brabant, he says : — "A nation of ferocious savages, in countless numbers, is