which transported the merchandises of India into
Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the Phasis, and the
Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea, were possessed by the
Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l'Esprit des Loix, l. xxi.)]

[Footnote 48: Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]

[Footnote 49: In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who
traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the court of
the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of Hungary, with the traces
of a common language and origin, (Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]

[Footnote 50: Bell, (vol. i. p. 29--34,) and the editors of the
Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the Calmucks of the Volga
in the beginning of the present century.]

[Footnote 51: This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or
Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of
Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for the
inscription of a column, has been translated by the missionaries of
Pekin, (Memoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p. 401--418.) The emperor affects
the smooth and specious language of the Son of Heaven, and the Father of
his People.]

It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which elapsed, after
the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, and before
they showed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason,
however, to apprehend, that the same force which had driven them from
their native seats, still continued to impel their march towards the
frontiers of Europe. The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies,
which extended above three thousand miles from East to West, [52] must
have gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably
tend to increase the strength or to contract the territories, of the
Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend
the ear, without informing the understanding, of the reader; but I
cannot suppress the very natural suspicion, that the Huns of the North
derived a considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of
the South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the
dominion of China; that the bravest warriors marched away in search
of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as they had been
divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by the common hards