ABSTRACT
Menaced by no external foes, with only weak neighbours in all directions whose lands invited onslaught. And without fixed frontiers except for the narrow southward boundary adjoining the realms of the Ilkhans, the Golden Horde could develop unhindered into the mightiest empire of the Asiatic West. Caravans brought to the Volga whatever China and Western Asia could offer; and Islam, the deadly enemy of the Ilkhans, had been, since Bereke's time, a faithful friend and civilising influence for the Golden Horde. With the products of the two great Asiatic civilisations, the wares of the West found their way to the Volga. From the south, Italian merchants travelled to the horde. In the vast steppe-land which stretched from the Sea of Aral to the Carpathians, pastured the Mongolian mares, unhampered by tillage, and the Mongolian hordes with their huge herds of cattle could wander whithersoever they pleased.
