of Kief, and brother of Georges II., hoping that the dreadful storm had passed away, hastened to the smouldering ruins of Vladimir to take the title and the shadowy authority of Grand Prince.  Never before were more conspicuously seen the energies of a noble soul.  At first it seemed that his reign could be extended only over gory corpses and smouldering ruins.  Undismayed by the magnitude of the disaster, he consecrated all the activity of his genius and the loftiness of his spirit to the regeneration of the desolated land.

In the spacious valleys of the Don and its tributaries lived the powerful nation of the Polovtsi, who had often bid defiance to the whole strength of Russia.  Kothian, their prince, for a short time made vigorous opposition to the march of the conquerors.  But, overwhelmed by numbers, he was at length compelled to retreat, and, with his army of forty thousand men, to seek a refuge in Hungary.  The country of the Polovtsi was then abandoned to the Tartars.  Having ravaged the central valleys of the Don and the Volga, these demoniac warriors turned their steps again into southern Russia.  The inhabitants, frantic with terror, fled from their line of march as lambs fly from wolves.  The blasts of their trumpets and the clatter of their horses’ hoofs were speedily resounding in the valley of the Dnieper.  Soon from the steeples of Kief the banners of the terrible army were seen approaching from the east.  They crossed the Dnieper and surrounded the imperial city, which, for some time anticipating the storm, had been making preparation for the most desperate resistance.  The ancient annalists say that the noise of their innumerable chariots, the lowing of camels and of the vast herds of cattle which accompanied their march, the neighing of horses and the ferocious cries of the barbarians, created such a clamor that no ordinary voice could be heard in the heart of the city.

The attack was speedily commenced, and the walls were assailed with all the then-known instruments of war.  Day and night, without a moment’s intermission, the besiegers, like incarnate fiends, plied their works.  The Tartars, as ever, were victorious, and Kief, with all its thronging population and all its treasures of wealth, architecture and art, sank in an abyss of flame and blood.  It sank to rise no more.  Though it has since been partially rebuilt, this ancient capital of the grand princes of Russia, even now presents but the shadow of its pristine splendor.

Onward, still onward, was the cry of the barbarians.

Leaving smoking brands and half-burnt corpses where the imperial city once stood, the insatiable Bati pressed on hundreds of miles further west, assailing, storming, destroying the provinces of Gallicia as far as southern Vladimir within a few leagues of the frontiers of Poland.  Russia being thus entirely devastated and at the feet of the conquerors, Bati wheeled his army around toward the south and descended into Hungary.  Novgorod was almost the only important city in Russia which escaped the ravages of this terrible foe.