but impenetrable armour, and their backs are only slightly
armed, that they may not flee in battle. They use small but strong horses,
which are maintained with little provender. In fight they use javelins,
maces, battle-axes, and swords, but are particularly expert in the use of
bows and arrows. When engaged in battle they never retire till they see the
chief standard of their general give back. When vanquished they ask no
quarter, and in victory they shew no compassion; and though many millions
in number, they all persist as one man, in resolving to subdue the whole
world under their dominion. They have 60,000 couriers who are sent before
upon light horses to prepare a place for the army to encamp, and these will
gallop in one night as far as our troops can march in three days. When they
invade a country, they suddenly diffuse themselves over the whole land,
surprising the people unarmed, unprovided, and dispersed, and make such
horrible slaughter and devastation, that the king or prince of the invaded
land cannot collect a sufficient force to give them battle.

Sometimes they say, they intend to go to Cologne to bring home the three
wise kings into their own country; sometimes they propose to punish the
avarice and pride of the Romans, who formerly oppressed them; sometimes to
conquer the barbarous nations of the north; sometimes to moderate the fury
of the Germans with their own mildness; sometimes in derision they say that
they intend going in pilgrimage to the shrine of St James in Galicia. By
means of these pretences, some indiscreet governors of provinces have
entered into league with them, and have, granted them free passage through
their territories; but which leagues they have ever violated, to the
certain ruin and destruction of these princes and their unhappy countries.

[1] Hakluyt, I, 22.

[2] Acre, in Palestine--E.

CHAP. VII.

_Sketch of the Revolutions in Tartary_.

Our limits do not admit of any detailed account of the history of those
numerous and warlike pastoral nations, which in all ages have occupied the
vast bounds of that region, which has been usually denominated Scythia by
the ancients, and Tartary by the moderns: yet it seems necessary to give in
this place, a comprehensive sketch of the revolutions which have so
strikingly characterized that storehouse of devastating conquerors, to
elucidate the various travels into Tartary which are contained in this
first book of our work;