cks, and always holding their heads
high in their pride. To sum up, these beings under the form of
man hide the fierce nature of the beast.

That was a view very much coloured by race prejudice and the
superstitious fears of the time. It suggests that at a very early period
of Balkan history the different races there had learned how to abuse one
another. English readers might contrast it with Matthew Arnold's picture
of a Tartar camp in _Sohrab and Rustum_:

The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog
From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands.
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed
Into the open plain; so Haman bade--
Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled
The host, and still was in his lusty prime.
From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd;
As when some grey November morn the files,
In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes
Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes
Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries,
Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound
For the warm Persian sea-board--so they stream'd.
The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard,
First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears;
Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come
And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.
Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south,
The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,
And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands;
Light men and on light steeds, who only drink
The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.
And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came
From far, and a more doubtful service own'd;
The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks
Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards
And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes
Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste,
Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray
Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes,
Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere;
These all filed out from camp into the plain.

Matthew Arnold gives to the Tartar camp tents of lattice-work,
thick-piled carpets; to the Tartar leaders woollen coats, sandals,
and the sheep-skin cap which is still the national head-dress of the
Bulgarians. More important, in proof of his idea of their civilisation,
he credits them with a high sense of chivalry and a faithful regard for
facts. _Sohrab and Rustum_ is, of course, a flight of poetic fancy;