THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 211 



animal ; and the old Greek historians related that they ate and 

 slept and lived on the backs of their steeds. Every circumstance 

 of their habits and surroundings contributed to make them bold 

 in battle and rapid on the march. 



The earlier chieftains of the Huns had extended their con- 

 quests and dominions so widely that, at the time when they 

 became formidable to the empire of China, they were found to 

 be the rulers of the entire northern part of Asia. On the one 

 side the Pacific Ocean, and on the other the Ural Mountains, had 

 stayed their conquests. On the south they were bounded by the 

 empires of China and Persia ; while on the north their arms had 

 pierced the frozen regions of Siberia as far as it were glory to 

 conquer or resistance had been met with. 



In the third century before the Christian era (B. C. 215) the 

 incessant forages and incursions of the Huns had come to be such 

 a terror to the timorous Chinamen that it entered into their wise 

 little heads to build a high wall of defense from the sea to the 

 farthest mountains of the west. So they set to work, and for 

 fifteen hundred miles, over hills and ranges and every obstacle, 

 they reared a cemented wall of brick and stone, 20 feet high and 

 23 feet broad, with towers and parapets and a highway for armies 

 on the top, the most stupendous work ever accomplished by 

 human hands. But it was a vain and delusive security. The 

 myriads of the horsemen of the north, w4iose impetuous march 

 had never been stayed by the chasms and precipices of their 

 mountain land, found but a feeble barrier in the Chinamen's 

 rampart of stone. It seemed rather to invite attack than to 

 repel invasion ; for we read that within a few years after its 

 construction the stately armies of the empire had all been sur- 

 rounded, cut off, or defeated, by the restless and resistless cavalry 

 of the Huns.* For more than a century then did the rude 

 warriors of the mountains levy their tribute on the luxury and 

 handicraft of the foremost nation of antiquity. Not only bales 

 of silks and embroideries, but bevies of fair maidens from the 

 south, found their way yearly to the rude and unaccustomed 

 service of border chieftains. 



* In the reign of the Chinese Emperor Kaoti. B. C. 201. 



