We are told the wives, daughters, granddaughters, and the sons of Kuchum, named Asmanak, Shaim, Babaja, Kumush, and Mollah, entered the city riding in beautiful sledges, the women dressed in pelisses made of velvet, satin, and cloth of gold, and decorated with gold and silver embroidery and with lace; the Tzarevitches in long red robes, trimmed with rare furs. They were preceded and followed by a number of the feudal soldiery I have called Bayard-followers, dressed in sable pelisses. The streets were filled with crowds of people.
—from “Kuchum Khan”

This 1876 work is a comprehensive history of the nomad tribes who dominated Central Asia during the early centuries of the last millennium, and of their great rulers: the khans. Drawing firsthand on numerous scholarly sources and full of illustrative detail and entertaining anecdotes, this remains a vital reference on a civilization now lost to time.

The final volume of this three-volume work, covers in detail the fall of the khans to Russia domination in the 15th century, and follows the disappearance of Mongol influence into the 19th century.


British ethnologist and historian SIR HENRY HOYLE HOWORTH (1842–1923) served as president of the Royal Archaeological Institute, and is the author of Glacial Nightmare and the Flood (1893) and Methods of Archaeological Research (1896), among other works.