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excessive height of the crown. When the Lombards passed into Italy the 
Avars were left unopposed, and in consequence extended their dominions 
into "Western Hungary during the seventh and eighth centuries, and 
became a very powerful people. At length, Charlemagne, King of the Franks 
and Emperor of the West, led an army down the Danube and forced his 
way through the " Ring," or sevenfold line of fortifications, within which 
was stored the plunder of centuries. This broke the power of the Avars 
and at once new movements of population began, as a result of which the 
Bavarians gained a little, and the Sclavonians so much as to stretch in a 
compact mass from Bohemia and Moravia to Croatia, Servia, and Bosnia, 
with some other districts in the same direction. After the destruction of 
the power of the Avars a new wave of migration set in from the east. A 
people of Finnish relationship, according to some, calling themselves 
Magyars, from the neighbourhood of the Volga and the Oural, moved 
towards Transylvania. They were a nomad, equestrian race, and overran 
the wide plains of Hungary, south of the Carpathians. They attacked 
Bavaria and even the eastern parts of France and Italy nor was their 
course stopped until the siege of Augsburg, about 50 years later, A.D. 955. 
The tide then turned and the Bavarians have ever since continued to gain 
ground on the east. Bohemia was occupied for ages by Sclavonic races 
who in course of time were almost isolated by the constant southward 
movement of the Germans so as to form a Sclavonic peninsula in the midst 
of a Teutonic population. Continual advances along the borders have still 
further reduced this area until now only the middle of Bohemia is held by 
the Czecks. This is the more remarkable as the Czecks are quite equal to 
the Germans in intellect and spirit, The Wallachs or Roumanians who 
once dwelt in the basin of the Danube disappeared from history for 
centuries, having been, as some supposed, driven into the mountains 
whence they afterwards redescended. This view derives some confirmation 
from the fact that, besides the main body of the Wallachs on the Danube, 
there are several smaller ones to the southward and even as far as the 
northern part of Greece. They all speak the same language, which is 
more like the ancient Latin than is any other living dialect, with, how- 
ever, the addition of not a few Sclavonic words, and others whose origin 
is unknown, but which might be recognised as Dacian if the Dacian 
tongue could be recovered. Some ethnologists think they can trace a 
resemblance between these people and the figures of the Dacians on the 
Arch of Trajan. Whatever their origin, however, they appear to be 
rapidly multiplying and ousting the Saxons who settled peacefully as 
