animal food appears to be productive of the most solid advantages. Corn
is a bulky and perishable commodity; and the large magazines, which
are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of our troops, must be
slowly transported by the labor of men or horses. But the flocks and
herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars, afford a sure and
increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far greater part of the
uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the grass is quick and luxuriant;
and there are few places so extremely barren, that the hardy cattle of
the North cannot find some tolerable pasture.

The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing appetite,
and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They indifferently feed on the
flesh of those animals that have been killed for the table, or have
died of disease. Horseflesh, which in every age and country has been
proscribed by the civilized nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with
peculiar greediness; and this singular taste facilitates the success
of their military operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always
followed, in their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate
number of spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble
the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are the
resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a camp of
Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest part of their
cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or dried in the sun. On
the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they provide themselves with a
sufficient quantity of little balls of cheese, or rather of hard curd,
which they occasionally dissolve in water; and this unsubstantial diet
will support, for many days, the life, and even the spirits, of the
patient warrior. But this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic
would approve, and the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the
most voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate
are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity, that can
be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their industry seems
to consist in the art of extracting from mare's milk a fermented liquor,
which possesses a very strong power of intoxication. Like the animals
of prey, the savages, both of the old and new world, experience the
alternate vicissitudes of famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured
to sustain, without much incon