PREFATORY NOTE

As difficult as it was to acquire a strange language without the aid of books, he accomplished the feat in a few weeks. At sixty, he learned a new language as quickly as he did when a Harvard student. Having acquired a language, Curtin always wished to learn the history, principal achievements, myths, folklore, and religious beliefs and customs of the people who spoke that language. Hence his great learning and his numerous publications on myths and folktales. Curtin is also known to the learned world for his translations from the Polish of Quo Vadis and eight other works by Henry Sienkiewicz. He published many valuable translations from the Russian and the Polish.

In the year 1900, between July 19th and September 15th, Curtin made the journey in southern Siberia which is the subject of the following volume. His object was to visit the birthplace of the Mongol race and to see for himself the origins and survivals of a powerful people prepotent: having superior power or influence who once subdued and ruled China, devastated Russia, conquered Burma and other lands east of India, overran Persia, established themselves in Asia Minor and Constantinople, and covered Hungary with blood and ashes, thus occupying at different eras most of Asia and a large part of Europe.

The Buriats, who are the surviving Mongols of today, inhabit three sides of Lake Baikal and the only island therein. Lake Baikal is the largest body of fresh water in the Old World. From the regions south of Lake Baikal came Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, the two greatest personages in the Mongol division of mankind.