ard down the slopes which led to the low
level of Turkistan, they found themselves close to a fertile region
between the Jaxartes and the Oxus, the present Bukharia, then called
Sogdiana by the Greeks, afterwards the native land of Timour. Here was
the first of the three thoroughfares for a descent southwards, which I
have pointed out as open to the choice of adventurers. A portion of
these Huns, attracted by the rich pasture-land and general beauty of
Sogdiana, took up their abode there; the main body wandered on.
Persevering in their original course, they skirted Siberia and the north
of the Caspian, crossed the Volga, then the Don, and thus in the fifth
century of the Christian era, as I just now mentioned, came upon the
Goths, who were in undisturbed possession of the country. Now it would
appear that, in this long march from the wall of China to the Danube,
lasting as it did through some centuries, they lost hold of no part of
the tracts which they traversed. They remained on each successive
encampment long enough (if I may so express myself) to sow themselves
there. They left behind them at least a remnant of their own population
while they went forward, like a rocket thrown up in the sky, which,
while it shoots forward, keeps possession of its track by its train of
fire. And hence it was that Attila, when he found himself at length in
Hungary, and elevated to the headship of his people, became at once the
acknowledged king of the vast territories and the untold populations
which that people had been leaving behind them in its advance during the
foregoing 350 years.

Such a power indeed had none of the elements of permanence in it, but it
was appalling at the moment, whenever there was a vigorous and
unscrupulous hand to put it into motion. Such was Attila; it was his
boast, that, where his horse once trod, there grass never grew again. As
he fulfilled his terrible destiny, religious men looked on with awe, and
called him the "Scourge of God." He burst as a thunder-cloud upon the
whole extent of country, now called Turkey in Europe, along a line of
more than five hundred miles from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Venice.
He defeated the Roman armies in three pitched battles, and then set
about destroying the cities of the Empire. Three of the greatest,
Constantinople, Adrianople, and another, escaped: but as for the rest,
the barbarian fury fell on as many as seventy; they were sacked,
levelled to the ground, and the