THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA 125 



eastern sky. To roll one's bed down beside the 

 waning camp fire, to turn in and smoke the 

 evening pipe, to lie looking up at the stars, is to 

 know that one is only a speck of loose dust on a 

 flying sphere, flung eastward at a thousand 

 miles an hour, yet held down by the pull of the 

 Earth's weight safe from being whirled aw^ay 

 into space. Loose adventurers like me, loose 

 air, dust, water, and loose tribes of men are all 

 being flung with the surface, pulled by the 

 centre of the Earth, and drifted about all the 

 time without our knowing why. 



Of course the weaker tribes have been flung 

 eastward so far as there was land, and stay 

 where they were thrown in China, Indo-China, 

 Burma, and Bengal. Only the stronger races 

 have thrust against the motion of the planet. 

 These dark-haired sallow Asiatics, Scythian, 

 Hun, Tartar and the rest were bred in regions 

 of strong sunlight, filling their native steppes 

 until they were overcrowded. They were 

 harmless shepherds and herders who did a little 

 hunting. But for the Dun pony we might not 

 have heard much about them. When they 

 tamed the pony the savages became bar- 

 barians, the Httle scattered tribes were welded 

 into formidable hordes. And then they 

 swarmed like locusts eating up the world under 



