four armies, of which Feyanku commanded the Western and Kanghi in person the Eastern. Of the march across the desert from Kukukoto towards Kobdo, where Galdan had established his head-quarters, we fortunately possess details from the narrative of the priest Gerbillon, who was among the personal attendants of the Emperor on this occasion. Despite the difficulties encountered, and the vastness of the distances to be traversed in this portion of the campaign, the Chinese armies succeeded in making good their way to the upper course of the Kerulon, where they were in the immediate vicinity of Galdan's territory. Several thousands of lives had been lost, and more than one detachment had been compelled to call a halt or even to beat a retreat; but notwithstanding these disadvantages, an overwhelming force of Chinese had made good their way across the desert. Galdan's main defence had been shown to be of little avail, and, unless he could establish some more solid claim to success on the field of battle, it was clear that his ruin was a matter that could not be long averted. Feyanku, after a march through the desert of more than three months' duration, had pitched his camp near the source of the Tula. Only 10,000 soldiers remained available for active service, and this body was reinforced by 2000 more troops, who represented all that remained of another corps. These 12,000 men were placed by their able and gallant commander in a fortified position within the Mongol camping-district of Chowmodo.

Galdan has been represented in the character of a formidable antagonist, and the question naturally suggests itself, what had he been doing while this storm was developing portentous proportions upon his eastern borders? We have seen that he had retired to a certain distance from the limits of his possessions. The Chinese found on the banks of the affluents of the Amour the traces of the camps which he had destroyed in order to concentrate his resources for the defence of the permanent camp or town of Kobdo. Either before or about this time Galdan had endeavoured to incite the powerful chief of the Kortsin Mongols to join him in a general Mongol league against Kanghi. The scheme was rejected by either the good sense or the fidelity of that prince, who, it

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will be remembered, had been put up to simulate a sympathy with the plans of the Eleuth. But in consequence of the open state of war, Kanghi had abandoned that intrigue, and now Galdan's schemes only served to increase his indignation and to whet his ardour. But it was towards Russia that Galdan mainly looked for the support which would enable him to make head against the superior power of China. He even went so far as to draw up a scheme for the invasion and conquest of the latter country, but the essential part of the arrangement was that Russia should send a contingent of 60,000 men. In this century we have known something of the slight control possessed at St. Petersburg over the authorities in Central Asia. In the days of Kanghi there was not so much as the pretence of that control exercised; yet it is not to be supposed that the mere handful of Russian colonists in the Siberian solitudes ever seriously entertained the idea of entering upon hostilities on a large scale with the Chinese. To humour Galdan supplied an easy means of occupying the attention of their neighbours, and Galdan's own wants and apprehensions led him to augur from the observations made by the few Russians with whom he came into contact that the amount of support he might expect from them was much greater than could by any possibility have been afforded to him. The hopes of Russian support were soon shown to be delusive, and Galdan could find no better hope than in the difficulties of the desert barrier which protected his territories, and in such resistance as his band of followers, weakened by the indifference of Tse Wang Rabdan, could oppose. The progress of the Chinese armies across the desert, made though it was at the cost of a great expenditure of life, showed him that the former hope was no longer tenable, and that it only remained for him to make the most of the forces at his disposal, and to resist with all his strength the invader.

The situation was indeed desperate; but there still remained a possibility that the Chinese might be so far exhausted by the labour of having traversed the barren region of Gobi that it would be possible for Galdan to overwhelm one of their detachments before the whole of the army had been able to combine on the banks of the Kerulon. In a prompt

attack lay Galdan's sole chance of safety, and, while Kanghi was employed in recruiting his troops in the country of the Northern Khalkas, the Eleuth chieftain advanced as fast as he could from Kobdo, and threw himself upon the Chinese entrenchments at Chowmodo.

At the very moment when Galdan formed this desperate resolve the Chinese commanders were so much embarrassed by the difficulty of obtaining supplies that it seemed impossible for them to maintain their positions. The advisability of retreat was under discussion when Galdan's movement rescued Feyanku from a dilemma in which it seemed next to impossible to save both his military honour and the lives of his soldiers. Few of the incidents of this battle have been preserved. Little more is known of its details than that Galdan assumed the offensive, while Feyanku, having dismounted his cavalry, long contented himself with standing on the defensive. The battle had lasted for nearly three hours when Feyanku gave the signal for attack. The Eleuths made but a brief stand against the onset of their more disciplined opponents, and Galdan, seeing that the day was lost, fled with a mere handful of his followers, leaving his camp and baggage in the hands of the victor. Two thousand Eleuths were slain, and the character of the struggle may be inferred from the fact that the Chinese took only one hundred prisoners, of whom most were women and children. The principal wife of Galdan was among the killed, his army was scattered and reduced in numbers, while that chief himself, after aspiring to be the undisputed ruler on the steppe, became a fugitive glad to hide himself in its remote recesses.

The victory of Chowmodo came like an unexpected Godsend to the Celestials, for, on the very eve of its attainment, it seemed as if all the expense and trouble to which Kanghi had been put were to result in nothing decisive. Feyanku's success removed further cause of disquietude, and enabled Kanghi to return to Pekin, leaving behind him the order to pursue Galdan with the utmost vigour, as the results of the war could only be considered partial so long as he remained at large.

The overthrow at Chowmodo marked the destruction of

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the power which Galdan had set up among the nomad and pastoral tribes of his region, and it also showed that the end of his career was approaching. There is no need to enter into the extremities to which Galdan was reduced during the last days of his life, nor would there be sufficient interest in the theme to dwell upon the schemes to which a desperate man thought of resorting for the retrieval of his fortunes. At one moment he sent an envoy to Pekin to express, in abject terms, his desire to surrender, and at another he resumed his overtures to the Russian officials for a close alliance. But the one thing that was clear was that, although he had lost the power, he still clung to the wish, to injure the cause of China among the Mongols and her other vassals of his own race. The Chinese troops were on the eve of renewing the pursuit when the news came of Galdan's death. The nature of his last illness is not clearly known, and his death may be attributed either to the hardships and mental chagrin he had undergone, or, as some say, to the act of his own hand.

The death of Galdan not only removed from Kanghi's mind the anxiety which had so long weighed upon it, but it also closed a career of remarkable adventure. Galdan was a representative man of the class of desert chiefs who, from the earliest days of Chinese history, have troubled the Western borders of the great Empire. We have seen them in the persons of Meha, Yenta, and others as a cause of anxiety and trouble rather than of absolute danger to the integrity of the State. We have also in the cases of Genghis and Noorhachu found them sufficiently prompt and capable to overthrow the existing dynasty and to substitute that of their own family. Galdan belonged to the former class. Kanghi has himself testified to the remarkable skill and courage of this chieftain. In an edict summarizing the conquests which had made him the greatest potentate in Central Asia, he concludes with the statement that Galdan was "a formidable enemy;" and the energetic and persistent manner with which he had laboured to effect his ruin proves that the Chinese Emperor was fully persuaded of the accuracy of his own statement. But the overthrow of Galdan also shows that, except under abnormal

circumstances, which have only occurred twice or, at the most, thrice in history, the unflagging determination and vastly superior resources of the Chinese have always availed to turn the scale against the ambition and even against the love of war of these independent leaders. The vitality of Chinese individuality and imperial power has always asserted itself even after long periods of apparent decay and disso lution.

Galdan overthrown, Kanghi ordered the return of his armies. Feyanku was left with a small force to completely pacify the newly conquered region; but the Emperor hoped that had been definitely assured. That this hope was soon dispelled we shall have presently to see; and the manner in which the Galdan episode gave place to a long interval of trouble, and then to the necessity of formulating a distinct Central Asian policy, will constitute one of the most important facts in the history of the next seventy years. With the death of Galdan in 1697, however, Kanghi offered up incense to Heaven in the evidently sincere persuasion that peace had been definitely obtained for himself and his people. So far as his inclination went he had had enough of arduous and unprofitable campaigns beyond China's proper frontier-and the sentiment was the more firmly rooted in his mind because he had undergone the privations of his soldiers, and knew by practical experience that even the strategical skill of his commanders might prove of little avail in face of the passive resistance of natural obstacles.