Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/650

622 J E N J E N certain palaces wore the only buildings left to marl* the spot where the " centre of science " once stood. From the ruins of Bokhara Jenghiz advanced along the valley of the Sogd to Samarkand, which, weakened by treachery, surrendered to him, as did also Balkh. But in neither case did submission save either the inhabitants from slaughter or the city from pillage. Beyond this point Jenghiz went no further westward, but sent Tule", at the head of 70,000 men, to ravage Khorassan, and two flying columns under Chepe and Sabutai Bahadar to pursue after Muhammed, who had taken refuge in Nishapoor. Defeated and almost alone, Muhammed fled before his .pursuers to the village of Astara on the shore of the Caspian Sea, where he died of an attack of pleurisy, leaving the cause of his empire to his son Jalaluddin. Meanwhile Tul6 carried his arms into the fertile province of Khorassan, and after having captured Nessa by assault appeared before Merv. By an act of atrocious treachery the Mongols gained possession i>f the city, and, after their manner, sacked and burnt the town. From Merv Tule" marched upon Nishapoor, where he met with a most determined resistance. For four days the garrison fought desperately on the walls and in the streets, but at length they were overpowered, and, with the excep tion of 400 artisans who were sent into Mongolia, every man, woman, and child was slain. Herat escaped the fate which had overtaken Merv and Nishapoor by opening its gates to the Mongols. At this point of his victorious career Tule" received an order to join Jenghiz before Talikhan in Badakshan, where that chieftain was preparing to renew his pursuit of Jalaluddin, after a check he sustained in an engagement fought before Ghazni. As soon as sufficient reinforcements arrived Jenghiz advanced against Jalaluddin, who had taken up a position on the banks of the Indus. Here a desperate battle was fought. The Turks, though far outnumbered, defended their ground with undaunted courage, until, beaten at all points, they fled in confusion. Jalaluddin, seeing that all was lost, mounted a fresh horse and jumped into the river, which flowed 20 feet below. With admiring gaze Jenghiz watched the desperate venture of his enemy, and even saw without regret the dripping horseman mount the opposite bank. From the Indus Jenghiz sent in pursuit of Jalaluddin, who fled to Delhi, but failing to capture the fugitive the Mongols returned to Ghazni after having ravaged the provinces of Lahore, Peshawur, and Melikpoor. At this moment news reached Jenghiz that the inhabitants of Herat had deposed the governor whom Tule had appointed over the city, and had placed one of their own choice in his room. To punish this act of rebellion Jenghiz sent an army of 80,000 men against the offending city, which after a siege of six months was taken by assault. For a whole week the Mongols ceased not to kill, burn, and destroy, and 1,600,000 persons are said to have been massacred within the walls. Having 3onsummated this act of vengeance, Jenghiz returned to Mongolia by way of Balkh, Bokhara, and Samarkand. Meanwhile Che pe and Sabutai marched through Azer- bijan, and in the spring of 1222 advanced into Georgia. Here they defeated a combined force of Lesghs, Circassians, and Kipchaks, and after taking Astrakhan followed the retreating Kipchaks to the Don. The news of the approach of the mysterious enemy of whose name even they were ignorant was received by the Russian princes at Kief with dismay. At the instigation, however, of Mitislaf, prince of Gulicia, they assembled an opposing force on the Dnieper. Here they received envoys from the Mongol camp, whom they barbarously put to death. " You have killed our envoys," was the answer made by the Mongols ; " well, as you wish for war you shall have it. We have done you no harm. God is impartial ; He will decide our quarrel." If the arbitrament was to be thus decided, the Russians must have been grievously in the wrong. In the first battle, on the river Kaleza, they were utterly routed, and fled before the invaders, who after ravaging Great Bulgaria retired, gorged with booty, through the country of Saksin, along the river Aktuba, on their way to Mongolia. In China the same success had attended the Mongol arms as in western Asia. The whole of the country north of the Yellow river, with the exception of one or two cities, was added to the Mongol rule, and, on the death of the Kin emperor Seuen Tsung in 1223, the Kin empire virtually ceased to be, and Jenghiz s frontiers thus became conter minous with those of the Sung emperors who held sway over the whole of central and southern China. After his return from central Asia, Jenghiz once more took the field in western China. While on this campaign the five planets appeared in a certain conjunction which to the supersti- tiously minded Mongol chief foretold that evil was await ing him. With this presentiment strongly impressed upon him he turned his face homewards, and had advanced no farther than the Se-Keang river in Kansuh when he was seized with an illness of which lie died a short time after wards (1227) at his travelling palace at Ha-laou-tu, on the banks of the river Sale in Mongolia. By the terms of his will Oghotai was appointed his successor, but so essential was it considered to be that his death should remain a secret until Oghotai was proclaimed that, as the funeral proces sion moved northwards to the great ordu on the banks of the Kerulon, the escort killed every one they met. The body was then carried successively to the ordus of his several wives, and was finally laid to rest in the valley of Keleen. Thus ended the career of one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen. Born and nurtured as the chief of a petty Mongolian tribe, he livei to see his armies victorious from the China Sea to the banks of the Dnieper; and, though the empire which he created ultimately dwindled away under the hands of his degenerate descend ants, leaving not a wrack behind, we have in the presence of the Turks in Europe a consequence of his rule, since it was the advance of his armies which drove their Osmanli ancestors from their original home in northern Asia, and thus led to their invasion of Bithynia under Othman, and finally their advance into Europe under Amurath I. See H. H. Howorth, The History of the Mongols ; Robert K. Douglas, The Life of Jenghiz Khan. (R. K. D.) JENNER, EDWARD (1749-1823), the discoverer of vac cination, was born at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, on May 17, 1749. His father, the Rev. Stephen Jenner, rector of Rockhampton and vicar of Berkeley, came of a family that had been long established in that county, and was possessed of considerable landed property ; he died when the subject of this notice was only six years old, but his place was admirably taken by his eldest son, the Rev. Stephen Jenner, who brought his brother up with paternal care and tenderness. Edward received his early education in local schools at Wotton-under-Edge and Cirencester, where he already showed a strong taste for natural history. The medical profession having been selected for him, he began his studies under Mr Lucllow, a surgeon of Sodbury near Bristol ; but in his twenty-first year he proceeded to London, where he became a favourite pupil of the cele brated John Hunter, in whose house he resided for two years. During this period he was employed by Sir Joseph Banks to arrange and prepare the valuable zoological speci mens which he had brought back from Captain Cook s first voyage in 1771. He must have acquitted himself satis factorily in this task, since he was offered the post of naturalist in the second expedition, but declined it as well as other advantageous offers, preferring rather to practise