Turcomans and the Usbeks speak
familiarly of the time of a gallop. But as to houses, on the other hand,
the Tartars contemptuously called them the sepulchres of the living,
and, when abroad, could hardly be persuaded to cross a threshold. Their
women, indeed, and children could not live on horseback; them some kind
of locomotive dwelling must receive, and a less noble animal must draw.
The old historians and poets of Greece and Rome describe it, and the
travellers of the middle ages repeat and enlarge the classical
description of it The strangers from Europe gazed with astonishment on
huge wattled houses set on wheels, and drawn by no less than twenty-two
oxen.

3.

From the age of Job, the horse has been the emblem of battle; a mounted
shepherd is but one remove from a knight-errant, except in the object of
his excursions; and the discipline of a pastoral station from the nature
of the case is not very different from that of a camp. There can be no
community without order, and a community in motion demands a special
kind of organization. Provision must be made for the separation, the
protection, and the sustenance of men, women, and children, horses,
flocks, and cattle. To march without straggling, to halt without
confusion, to make good their ground, to reconnoitre neighbourhoods, to
ascertain the character and capabilities of places in the distance, and
to determine their future route, is to be versed in some of the most
important duties of the military art. Such pastoral tribes are already
an army in the field, if not as yet against any human foe, at least
against the elements. They have to subdue, or to check, or to
circumvent, or to endure the opposition of earth, water, and wind, in
their pursuits of the mere necessaries of life. The war with wild beasts
naturally follows, and then the war on their own kind. Thus when they
are at length provoked or allured to direct their fury against the
inhabitants of other regions, they are ready-made soldiers. They have a
soldier's qualifications in their independence of soil, freedom from
local ties, and practice in discipline; nay, in one respect they are
superior to any troops which civilized countries can produce. One of the
problems of warfare is how to feed the vast masses which its operations
require; and hence it is commonly said, that a well-managed commissariat
is a chief condition of victory. Few people can fight without
eating;--Englishmen as little as any. I