STEPPES AND DESERTS. 5 



under the character of obstructive barriers alone. Thev 

 have frequently proved the means of spreading misery and 

 devastation over the face of the earth. Some of the pastoral 

 tribes inhabiting this Steppe, — the Mongols, Getac, Alani, and 

 Usuni, — have convulsed the world. If in the course of earlier 

 ages, the dawn of civilization spread like the vivifying light 

 of the sun from east to west; so in subsequent ages and 

 from the same quarter, have barbarism and rudeness threatened 

 to overcloud Europe. 



A tawny tribe of herdsmen (11) of Tukiuish i. e., Turkish 

 origin, the Hiongnu, dwelt in tents of skins on the elevated 

 Steppe of Gobi. A portion of this race had been driven 

 southward towards the interior of Asia, after continuing for a 

 long time formidable to the Chinese power. This shock, 

 (dislodgement of the tribes) was communicated uninterrupt- 

 edly as far as the ancient land of the Fins, near the sources of 

 the Ural.* From thence poured forth bands of Huns, Avars, 

 Chasars, and a numerous admixture of Asiatic races. War- 

 like bodies of Huns first appeared on the Volga, next in 

 Pannonia, then on the Marne and the banks of the Po, 

 laying waste those richly cultivated tracts, where, since the 

 age of Antenor, man's creative art had piled monument on 

 monument. Thus swept a pestilential breath from the Mon- 

 golian deserts over the fair Cisalpine soil, stifling the tender, 

 long- cherished blossoms of art ! 



From the Salt-steppes of Asia, — from the European Heaths, 

 — smiling in summer with their scarlet, honey-yielding 

 flowers, — and from the barren deserts of Africa, we return to 

 the plains of South America, the picture of which I have 

 already begun to sketch in rude outline. 



* The Huns, on being driven from their ancient pastures by the 

 Chinese, traversed Asia, 1300 leagues,) and, swelled by the numerous 

 hordes they conquered en route, entered Europe, and gave the first 

 impulse to the great migration of nations. Deguires traces their pro- 

 gress with geographical minuteness, and Gibbon tells their story with 

 his usual eloquence in Chap. XXVI. — Ed. 



