6 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



of milder manners, and of artistic and intellectual cultivation 

 in northern Asia. 



But, in the history of the past, it is not alone as an 

 opposing barrier that we must regard the plains of Central 

 Asia : more than once they have proved the source from 

 whence devastation has spread over distant lauds. The 

 pastoral nations of these Steppes,- Moguls, Getse, Alani, 

 and Usuni, have shaken the world. As in the course of 

 past ages, early intellectual culture has come like the 

 cheering light of the sun from the East, so, at a later period, 

 from the same direction barbaric rudeness has threatened 

 to overspread and involve Europe in darkness. A brown 

 pastoral race, ( n ) of Tukiuishor Turkish descent, theHiongnu, 

 dwelling in tents of skins, inhabited the elevated Steppe of 

 Gobi. Long terrible to the Chinese power, a part of this 

 tribe was driven back into Central Asia. The shock or im- 

 pulse thus given passed from nation to nation, until it 

 reached the ancient land of the Finns, near the Ural moun- 

 tains. From thence, Huns, Avari, Ghazares, and various 

 admixtures of Asiatic races, broke forth. Armies of Huns 

 appeared successively on the Volga, in Pannonia, on the 

 Marne, and on the Po, desolating those fair and fertile 

 fields which, since the time of Antenor, civilised man had 

 adorned with monument after monument. Thus went 

 forth from the Mongolian deserts a deadly blast, which 

 withered on Cisalpine ground the tender long-cherished 

 flower of art. 



From the salt Steppes of Asia, from the European Heaths 

 smiling in summer with their purple blossoms rich in honey, 



