Page:From Kulja, across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).djvu/26

Rh the capital of the Middle Empire. There we built a church, bought a piece of ground, dug wells, sung masses, and baptized several, preaching freely and openly, notwithstanding the fact that only the year before the Bishop and six other minor friars had there imdergone for Christ's sake a glorious martyrdom."

During the supremacy of the descendants of Jinghiz, Jungaria, or Dzungaria, as all this country has been indifferently called, was the camping-ground of three powerful Mongol tribes—Choros, Hoshot, and Torgut, who subsequently took the name of Oirat, or confederates.

About the middle of the fourteenth century the Chinese threw off the Mongol yoke, and remained independent till the middle of the fifteenth century, when, after frequent wars, the Oirat defeated the Chinese in a very sanguinary battle, took the Emperor prisoner, and marched to the walls of Peking. Chance alone saved China. The Mongols retired to the steppes, the taitsi or Wuzeer Esen, who had killed his brother-in-law, the Khan, was assassinated, and the most brilliant period of the Oirat power was at an end. They were unable to maintain their influence in Mongolia, and for a century and a half almost disappeared from history.

We shall see a little farther on, how, in the present time, China has on another occasion been indebted to the assassin's hand for extrication