THE LAND OF THE HUNS 107 



right in front of our line of march. If the exhibition was 

 a brave one, it certainly had the wrong effect on us ; for 

 so funny and quaint a crowd of little hump-backed, 

 broad-cheeked, greasy bundles of dirty clothes, calling 

 themselves sowars, and mounted on shaggy little ewe- 

 necked, ragged-hipped ponies, with long manes and tails 

 streaming in the wind, the trappings held together by 

 bits of string, never was seen before. We simply stood 

 still and roared with laughter. Their open countenances, 

 without a particle of beard, and slit eyes and squat noses, 

 and pigtails flying behind, and hair plastered down each 

 side, like a woman of the early Victorian period, were too 

 irresistibly provocative of laughter. They tried hard to 

 look ferocious, but soon catching the infection from us, 

 they began to grin all over, and ended by laughing heartily 

 and enjoying the fun, and putting out their long red 

 tongues in rows, which started us laughing more furiously. 

 This is the recognised form of friendly salute among the 

 Hunias. It takes the place of hand-shaking, and I 

 believe one is expected to do likewise, and touch tongues, 

 a part of the ceremony we felt inclined to omit. 



For a description of the Huns of the old Scythian 

 family it is only necessary to refer to Gibbon. He shows 

 that they were little and deformed men with flat noses and 

 no beards, big heads, ' broad shoulders, and a short, 

 square body of nervous strength, though of a dispropor- 

 tioned form,'* that they marched incredible distances 

 mounted on small horses, and under Attila overran the 

 whole of Europe. Learned writers have endeavoured to 

 locate the origin of this people. Strange to say, they seem 

 to have placed it everywhere but in the place which is 

 called at this day Hundace, or Hundes, the country of the 

 Huns. Here we had an actual exhibition in modern real 



* Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' chap, xxxiv. 



