have heard of a work of a
foreign officer, who took a survey of the European armies previously to
the revolutionary war; in which he praised our troops highly, but said
they would not be effective till they were supported by a better
commissariat. Moreover, one commonly hears, that the supply of this
deficiency is one of the very merits of the great Duke of Wellington. So
it is with civilized races; but the Tartars, as is evident from what I
have already observed, have in their wars no need of any commissariat at
all; and that, not merely from the unscrupulousness of their foraging,
but because they find in the instruments of their conquests the staple
of their food. "Corn is a bulky and perishable commodity," says an
historian;[3] "and the large magazines, which are indispensably
necessary for the subsistence of civilized troops, are difficult and
slow of transport." But, not to say that even their flocks and herds
were fitted for rapid movement, like the nimble sheep of Wales and the
wild cattle of North Britain, the Tartars could even dispense with these
altogether. If straitened for provisions, they ate the chargers which
carried them to battle; indeed they seemed to account their flesh a
delicacy, above the reach of the poor, and in consequence were enjoying
a banquet in circumstances when civilized troops would be staving off
starvation. And with a view to such accidents, they have been accustomed
to carry with them in their expeditions a number of supernumerary
horses, which they might either ride or eat, according to the occasion.
It was an additional advantage to them in their warlike movements, that
they were little particular whether their food had been killed for the
purpose, or had died of disease. Nor is this all: their horses' hides
were made into tents and clothing, perhaps into bottles and coracles;
and their intestines into bowstrings.[4]

Trained then as they are, to habits which in themselves invite to war,
the inclemency of their native climate has been a constant motive for
them to seek out settlements and places of sojournment elsewhere. The
spacious plains, over which they roam, are either monotonous grazing
lands, or inhospitable deserts, relieved with green valleys or recesses.
The cold is intense in a degree of which we have no experience in
England, though we lie to the north of them.[5] This arises in a measure
from their distance from the sea, and again from their elevation of
level, and fu