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THE CHRISTIAN ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS

CHAPTER XII

THE HUNS

(A)
THE ASIATIC BACKGROUND

THE Asiatic background has its basis in the immense zone of steppes and deserts which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Khin-gan Mountains, and is divided into two regions by the Pamir and the Thian Shan ranges. The western region, like the whole lowland district of West Asia, even to the extreme north, is a deserted sea-bed; the eastern (Tarim basin and Gobi) seems formerly to have been covered with great fresh-water lakes. The water-basins began to evaporate and to shrink to inland seas, while the intervening country became a desert. The largest remains of former enormous water-basins are the salt Caspian Sea and the sweet-water Aral Sea. In both regions all the moisture that falls evaporates, so that no rivers reach the open sea; most of them ooze away in the sand, and only the greatest, such as the Syr, Amu, Hi, Chu, Tarim, flow into large inland seas. The fact that the evaporation is greater than the fall of moisture, and that the latter takes place chiefly in the cold season, has important consequences, which account for the desert nature of the land. All the salt which is released by the weathering and decomposition of the soil remains in the ground, and only in the higher regions with greater falls of moisture, and by the banks of rivers is the soil sufficiently lixiviated to be fit for cultivation. Everywhere else is steppe and desert absolutely uncultivable. The surface of the land can be divided into six categories: sand-deserts, grave deserts, salt-steppes, loam-steppes, loess-land, and rocky mountains.

Of these the sand-deserts form by far the greatest part. They consist of fine drift-sand, which the driving storm wind forms into sickleshaped shifting dunes (barkhans). The loose drift-sand is waterless, and for the most part without vegetation; the barkhans, however, here and there display a few poor saxaul and other shrubs; human life is impossible. The gravel-deserts, also very extensive, which form the transition between the sand deserts and the steppes, have a sparse vegetation and serve the nomads as grazing-grounds in their wanderings to and from winter quarters and summer pastures. The adjoining salt-steppes, consisting of loam and sand, are so impregnated with salt that the latter settles down on the surface like rime. In spring they bear a scanty vegetation, which, on account of its saline nature, affords excellent pasture for numerous flocks of sheep. During the rain of autumn and spring the loam-steppes, consisting of loess-soil mixed with much sand, are covered with luxuriant verdure and myriads of wild flowers, especially tulips, and, on the drier ground, with camel-thorn (Alhagi camelorum), without which the camel could not exist for any length of time. These steppes form the real pastures of the nomads. In the loess-land agriculture and gardening are only possible where the soil has been sufficiently softened by rainfall and artificial canals, and is constantly irrigated. It forms the sub-soil of all cultivable oases. Without irrigation the soil becomes in summer as hard as concrete, and its vegetation dies completely. The oases comprise only two per cent, of the total area of Turkestan. As a rule the rocky mountains are quite bare; they consist of black gleaming stone cracked by frost and heat, and are waterless.

Roughly speaking these differences of vegetation follow one another from south to north, viz. the salt-, the sand-, and the grass-steppes. A little below 50 N. latitude the landscape of West Asia changes in consequence of a greater fall of moisture. The undrained lakes become less frequent, the rivers reach the sea (Ishim, Tobol, etc.) , and trees-appear. Here begins, as a transition to the compact forest-land, the tree-steppe on the very fertile "black earth." On the Yenisei are park-like districts with splendid grass plains, and luxuriant trees. Northward come endless pine-forests, and beyond them, towards the Arctic Sea, is the moss-steppe or tundra.

The climate is typically continental, with icy cold winters, hot summers, cold nights, and hot days with enormous fluctuations of temperature. The warmth increases quickly from winter to spring and decreases just as quickly from summer to autumn. In West Turkestan, the summer is almost cloudless and rainless, and at this time the steppes become deserts. On account of the dryness little snow falls; as a rule it remains loose and is whirled aloft by the north-east storm wind (buran) . These storm burans are just as terrible as the summer storms of salt-dust in Trans-Caspia at a temperature of 104 to 113 Fahr. Considering that in summer the temperature sometimes reaches 118 in the shade, exceeding body-heat by 20, and that in winter it sinks below 31, and further that the heat, especially in the sand-deserts, reaches a degree at which the white of egg coagulates, the climate, even if not deadly, should be very injurious to man; Hindustan, which is far less hot, enervates the European on account of the greater moisture, and has changed the Aryan, once so energetic, to the weak and cowardly Hindu. Nevertheless the contrary is the case. The climate of Turkestan is wholesome, and its people are long-lived and healthy, and that especially in the hot summer, on account of the unparalleled dryness of the air. Once acclimatised, one bears the heat very well, and likewise the extreme cold of winter. The climate of Central Asia furthers a rapid bodily and mental development and premature ageing, as well as corpulence, especially among the Altaians. Obesity is even regarded as a distinction, and it became so native to the mounted nomads that it accompanied them to Europe; it is characteristic of all the nomads who have invaded Europe; and Hippocrates mentions it expressly as a characteristic of the Scythians. The climate of Turkestan also influences the character, leading to an apathy which creates indifference to the heaviest blows of fate, and even accompanies the condemned to the scaffold.

Use of the Soil. Mounted Nomadism

The entire West Asiatic region from the salt-steppes to the compact forest-land forms one economic whole. The well-watered northern part, which remains green throughout the summer, feeds countless herds in the warm season, but affords no pasturage in winter owing to the deep snow. On the other hand, the southern part, which is poor in water the grass-, sand-, and salt-steppes is uninhabitable in summer. Thus the northern part provides summer pastures, the southern the Aral-Caspian basin winter pastures to one and the same nomad people.

The nomad then is the son and product of the peculiar and variable constitution which nevertheless is an indivisible economic whole of the Asiatic background. Any agriculture, worthy of the name, is impossible, in the steppes and deserts the few oases excepted on account of the dryness of the summer, when animals also find no food. Life on the steppes and deserts is only possible in connection either with the Siberian grass-region or with the mountains. This life is necessarily extremely hard and restless for man and beast and it creates a condition of nomadism, which must at the same time be a mounted nomadism, seeing that a wagon would be an impossibility in the long trackless wanderings over mountain and valley, river and swamp, and that goods and chattels, together with the disjoinable dwellings, can only be carried on the backs of beasts of burden.

Setting aside the Glacial Period and the small Bruckner cycle of 35 years or so, the climatic changes of Central Asia, according to Huntington, fall into cycles of several hundred years' duration within which the aridity rises and sinks considerably. All Central Asia has undergone a series of climatic pulsations during historic times. There seems to be strong evidence that at the time of Christ or earlier the climate was much moister and more propitious than it now is. Then during the first few centuries of the Christian era there appears to have been an epoch of increasing aridity. It culminated about AD 500, at which time the climate appears to have been drier than at present. Next came an epoch of more propitious climate which reached its acme about AD 900. There is a little evidence of a second epoch of aridity which was especially marked in the twelfth century. Finally, in the later Middle Ages, a rise in the level of the Caspian Sea and the condition of certain ruins render it probable that climatic conditions once again became somewhat favorable, only to give place ere long to the present aridity.

But Central Asia has not been, since the beginning of historic records, in a state of desiccation. The process of "geological" desiccation was already ended in prehistoric times, and even the oldest historic accounts testify to the same climatic conditions as those of today. The earliest Babylonian kings maintained irrigation works, and Hammurabi had canals made through the land, one of which bore his name. Thus, as at present, without artificial irrigation agriculture was not possible there 4200 years ago. Palestine's climate too has not changed in the least since Biblical times : its present waste condition is the result of Turkish mismanagement, and Biot has proved from the cultivated plants grown in the earliest times that the temperature of China has remained the same for 3300 years. Curtius Rufus and Arrian give similar accounts of Bactria.

Ruins in the Wastes.Irrigation and the Causes of its Destruction

Amid the enormous wastes there are countless sand-buried ruins of populous cities, monasteries, and villages and choked-up canals standing on ground won from the waste by systematic canalisation; where the system of irrigation was destroyed, the earlier natural state, the desert, returned. The causes of such destruction are manifold.

1. Earthquake.

2. Violent rain-spouts after which the river does not find its former bed, and the canals receive no more water from it.

3. On the highest edge of the steppe, at the foot of the glacier, lie enormous flat heaps of débris, and here the canalisation begins. If one side of this heap rises higher than the other, the direction of the current is shifted, and the oases nurtured by the now forsaken stream become derelict. But the habitable ground simply migrates with the river. If, for example, a river altered its course four times in historic times, three series of ruins remain behind; but it is erroneous simply to add these ruins together, and to conclude from them that the whole once formed a flourishing land which has become waste, when in reality the three series of settlements did not flourish side by side but consecutively. This fallacy vitiates all accounts which assume a progressive or periodic desiccation as the chief cause of the abandonment of oases.

4. Continuous drought in consequence of which the rivers become so waterless that they cannot feed the canals of the lower river-basin, and thus the oases affected must become parched, and are not always re-settled in more favorable years.

5. Neglect of the extreme care demanded in the administration of the canal system. If irrigation is extended in the district next the mountain from which the water comes, just so much water is taken from the lower oases. But in this case too nothing is lost which cannot be replaced in another direction : vice versa if an oasis on the upper course of the river disappears through losing its canal system, the lower river course thus becomes well watered and makes possible the formation of a new oasis.

6. The most terrible mischief is the work of enemies. In order to make the whole oasis liable to tribute they need only seize the main canal; and the nomads often blindly plundered and destroyed everything. A single raid was enough to transform hundreds of oases into ashes and desert. The nomads moreover not only ruined countless cities and villages of Central Asia, but they also denuded the steppe itself, and promoted drift-sand by senseless uprooting of trees and bushes for the sake of firewood. But for them, according to Berg, there would be little driftsand in Central Asia, for, in his opinion, all sand-formatfons must in time become firm. All the sand-deserts which he observed on the Aral Sea and in Semiryechensk were originally firm, and even now most of them are still kept firm by the vegetation.

With the varied dangers of irrigation systems it is impossible to decide in the case of each group of ruins what causes have produced them; it is therefore doubtful whether we can place in the foreground the secular changes of climate. It is not even true that the cultivation of the oases throve better in the damper and cooler periods than in the arid and hot ones. Thus the oases of Turfan in Chinese Turkestan, which is so extremely arid and so unendurably hot in summer, are exceptionally fertile. We may therefore conclude that the cultivation of the oases was considerably more extended in the damper and cooler periods, but considerably less productive than in the arid and hot ones of today.

Changes in the volume of water of single rivers and lakes are clearly apparent within short periods, and these lead to frequent local migrations of the peasant population and to new constructions as well as to the abandonment of irrigation canals. Thus there is here a continual local fluctuation in the settlements, but history knows nothing of regular migrations of agriculturists. Still less is an unfavorable climatic change the cause of the nomad invasions of Europe. The nomad does not remain at all during the summer in the parched steppe and desert; and in the periods of increasing aridity and summer heat South Siberia was warmer and the mountain glaciers retreated, and hence the pastures in both these directions were extended. The only consequence of this was that the distance between summer and winter pastures increased and the nomad had to wander further and quicker. The computation is correct in itself, that the number of animals that can be reared to the square mile depends on and varies with the annual rainfall; but the nomad is not hampered by square miles; the poorer or richer the growth of grass the shorter or longer time he remains, and he is accustomed from year to year to fluctuations in the abundance of his flocks. Moreover a shifting of the winter pastures is not impossible, for their autumn and spring vegetation is not destroyed by a progressive aridity, and if the water current changes its bed, the nomad simply follows it. Further, the effect of a secular progressive aridity is spread over so many generations that it is not catastrophic for any one of them.

The nomad invasions of China and Europe must therefore have had other causes; and we know something about the invasions of several nomad hordes of the Avars, Turks (Osmans), and Cumans, for example.

Since the second half of the fifth century AD that is, the time to which Huntington assigns the greatest aridity there had existed in the Oxus basin the powerful empire of the Ephthalite horde, on the ruins of which the empire of the West Turks was founded in the middle of the sixth century. Had Central Asia been at that time so arid and therefore poor in pasture, the then victorious horde would have driven out the other hordes in order to secure for themselves more pasture land. Yet exactly the opposite took place; the Turks enslaved the other hordes, and when the Avars fled to Europe, the Turkish Khagan claimed them back at the Byzantine Court. In like manner the Turks (Osmans) fled from the sword of the Mongols in 1225 from Khorasan to Armenia, and in 1235 the Cumans fled to Hungary. The violence of the Mongols is strikingly described by Gibbon : "from the Caspian to the Indus they ruined a tract of many hundred miles which was adorned with the habitations and labors of mankind, and five centuries have not been sufficient to repair the ravages of four years." Therefore the main cause of the nomad invasions of Europe is not increasing aridity but political changes.

Origin of the Nomads

There remains the question : How did the nomads originate? On the theory of a progressive desiccation it is assumed that the Aryan peasantry of Turkestan were compelled to take to a nomad life through the degeneration of their fields to steppes and wastes. But the peasant bound to the soil is incapable of a mode of life so unsettled, and requiring of him much new experience. Robbed of his corn-fields and reduced to beggary, could he be at the same time so rich as to procure himself the herds of cattle necessary to his existence, and so gifted with divination as suddenly to wander with them in search of pasture over immeasurable distances? A decrease of cultivable soil would bring about only a continual decrease in the number of inhabitants. The peasant as such disappeared, emigrated, or perished, and his home became a desert, and was occupied by another people who knew from experience how to make use of it in its changed state, i.e. as winter grazing-ground. This new people must have been already nomadic, and have made their way from the pastures of the North and therefore they must have belonged to the Altaian race.

The delta oases have been the home of man from early prehistoric time, throughout Turkestan and northern Persia. The two oldest culturestrata of Anau prove that the settlers of the first Culture cultivated wheat and barley, had rectangular houses of air-dried bricks, but only wild animals at first, out of which were locally domesticated the longhorned ox, the pig, and horse, and successively two breeds of sheep. The second Culture had the domestic ox, both long- and short-horned, the pig, and the horse. The domestic goat, camel, and dog appear, and a new hornless breed of sheep. The cultivation of cereals was discovered in Asia long before BC 8000. The domestication of cattle, pigs, and sheep, and probably of the horse, was accomplished at Anau between BC 8000 and 6800. Consequently, the agricultural stage preceded the nomadic shepherd stage in Asia. It follows, therefore, that before domestication of animals was accomplished, mankind in Central Asia was divided sharply into two classes settled agriculturists on the one hand, and hunters who wandered within a limited range on the other hand. When the nomadic hunters became shepherds, they necessarily wandered between ever-widening limits as the seasons and pasturage required for increasing herds. The establishment of the first domestic breeds of pigs, long-horned cattle, large sheep and horses, was followed by a deteriorating climate which may have as Pumpelly, though questionably, assumes changed these to smaller breeds. Dr Duerst identifies the second breed of sheep with the turbary sheep (Torfschaf), and the pig with the turbary pig (Torfschwein), which appear as already domesticated in the neolithic stations of Europe. They must therefore have been descendants of those domesticated on the oases of the Anau district.

They make their appearance in European neolithic stations apparently contemporaneously with an immigration of a people of a round-headed Asiatic type which seems to have infiltrated gradually among the prevailing long-headed Europeans. The presumption is, therefore, that these animals were brought from Asia by this round-headed people, and that we have in this immigration perhaps the earliest post-glacial factor in the problem of Asiatic influence in European racial as well as cultural origins, for they brought with them both the art of cattle-breeding and some knowledge of agriculture.

The skulls of the first and second cultures in Anau are all dolichocephalic or mesocephalic, without a trace of the round-headed element. We are therefore justified in assuming that the domestication and the forming of the several breeds of domestic animals were effected by a long-headed people. And since the people of the two successive cultures were settled oasis-agriculturists and breeders, we may assume as probable that agriculture and settled life in towns on the oases originated among people of a dolichocephalic type. Since Dr Duerst identifies the second breed of sheep established during the first culture of Anau, with the turbary sheep in Europe, contemporaneously with skulls of the round-headed Galcha type, it should follow that the domestic animals of the European neolithic stations were brought thither, together with wheat and barley, by round-headed immigrants (of an Asiatic type) .

Since the original agriculturists and breeders were long-headed, it seems probable that the immigrants were broad-headed nomads who, having acquired from the oasis people domestic animals and rudimentary agriculture of the kind still practised by the shepherd nomads of Central Asia, infiltrated among the neolithic settlements of Eastern and Central Europe, and adopted the stone-implement culture of the hunting and fishing peoples among whom they came. In this connection it is not without significance that throughout the whole historical period, the combination of settled town life and agriculture has been the fundamental characteristic of the Aryan-speaking Galchas, and of the Iranians inhabiting Western Central Asia and the Persian plateau, while the peoples of pure Asiatic mongoloid type have been essentially shepherd nomads, who, as already shewn, could have become shepherds only after the settled agriculturists of the oases had established domesticated breeds of cattle.

Domestication of Animals

The origin of the taming of wild into domestic animals is one of the most difficult problems of economic history. What was its aim? The use that we make of domestic animals? Certainly not, for adaptability thereto could only gradually be imparted to the animals and could not be foreseen; it could not be anticipated that the cow and the goat would ever give more milk than their young needed, and that beyond the time of lactation; nor could it be anticipated that sheep not woolly by nature would develop a fleece. Even for us it would be too uneconomical to breed such a powerful animal and such a large consumer of fodder as the ox merely for a supply of meat; and besides beef is not readily eaten in Central Asia. Moreover the wild ox is entirely unsuitable for draught, for it is one of the shyest as well as strongest and most dangerous of animals. And it should be specially emphasised that a long step lies between taming individual animals and domesticating them, for as a rule wild animals, however well tamed, do not breed in captivity. Consequently the domestication was not produced simply by taming or for economic ends. It is the great service of Eduard Hahn to have laid down the theory that the domestication involuntary and unforeseen was the result of forcing for religious purposes certain favorite animals of certain divinities into reservations where they remained reproductive, and at the same time gradually lost their original wildness through peaceful contact with man. The beasts of sacrifice were taken from these enclosures. Thus originated the castrated ox which quietly let itself be yoked before the sacred car; and by systematic milking for sacrificial purposes the milk-secretion of the cow and the goat was gradually increased. Lastly, when man perceived what he had gained from the animals, he turned to his own use the peculiarities thus produced by enclosure and gradual domestication.

In general, cattle-rearing is unknown to the severest kind of nomadism. The ox soon dies of thirst, and it has not sufficient endurance or speed for the enormous wanderings; its flesh has little value in the steppe. The animals actually employed for rearing and food are consequently the sheep (to a less extent the goat as leader of the sheep flocks), the horse, and here and there the ass; also, in a smaller number, the two-humped camel (in Turan the one-humped dromedary as well) as a beast of burden. Where the district admits of it, and long wanderings are not necessary (e.g. in Mongolia, in the Pamir, in the Amu-delta, in South Russia, etc.), the Altaian has engaged in cattle-breeding from the remotest times.

A wealthy Mongolian possesses as many as 20,000 horses and still more sheep. Rich Kirghiz sometimes have hundreds of camels, thousands of horses, tens of thousands of sheep. The minimum for a Kirghiz family of five is 5 oxen, 28 sheep, and 15 horses. Some have fewer sheep, but the number of horses cannot sink below 15, for a stud of mares, with their foals, is indispensable for the production of kumiz.

The Turkoman is poorest in horses. However, the Turkoman horse is the noblest in the whole of Central Asia, and surpasses all other breeds in speed, endurance, intelligence, faithfulness, and a marvellous sense of locality; it serves for riding and milk-giving only, and is not a beast of burden, as are the camel, the dromedary, or the ox. The Turkoman horse is tall, with long narrow body, long thin legs and neck, and a small head; it is nothing but skin, bones, muscles, and sinews, and even with the best attention it does not fatten. The mane is represented by short bristly hairs. On their predatory expeditions the Turkomans often cover 650 miles in the waterless desert in five days, and that with their heavy booty of goods and men. Their horses attain their greatest speed when they have galloped from 7 to 14 miles, and races over such a distance as that from London to Bristol are not too much for them. Of course they owe their powers to the training of thousands of years in the endless steppes and deserts, and to the continual plundering raids, which demanded the utmost endurance and privation of which horse and rider were capable. The least attractive to look at in Turkestan is the Kirghiz horse, which is small, powerful, and strong-maned. During snow-storm or frost it often does without food for a long time. It is never sheltered under a roof, and bears 40 Fahr. in the open air, and the extremest summer heat, during which it can do without water for from three to four days. It can easily cover 80 miles a day, and never tastes barley or oats in its life.

The Altaian rides with a very short stirrup, and thus trotting would be too exhausting both for man and horse, so as a rule he goes at a walk or a gallop. Instead of the trot there is another more comfortable movement in which the horse's centre of gravity moves steadily forward in a horizontal line, and shaking and jolting is avoided. The horse advances the two left feet one after the other, and then the two right feet (keeping the time of four threshers); in this way it can cover ten miles per hour. The most prized horses are the "amblers," which always move the two feet on one side simultaneously, and are sometimes so swift that other horses can scarcely keep up with them at a gallop. Spurs are unknown to the Altaian, and in the steppe horseshoes are not needed. The nomad spends the greater part of his life in the saddle; when he is not lying inactive in the tent he is invariably on horseback. At the markets everybody is mounted. In the saddle all bargains are struck, meetings are held, kumiz is drunk, and even sleep is taken. The seller too has his wares felt, furs, carpets, sheep, goats, calves before, behind, and beneath him on his horse. The riding-horse must answer promptly to the bridle, and must not betray his master by neighing during a raid. Therefore the young stallion for mares are not ridden is taken from the herd with a lasso, and castrated.

Ethnography

The nomads of the Asiatic background all belong to the Altaian branch of the Ural-Altaian race. The Altaian primitive type displays the following characteristics : body compact, strong-boned, small to medium-sized; trunk long; hands and feet often exceptionally small; feet thin and short, and, in consequence of the peculiar method of riding (with short stirrup), bent outwards, whence the gait is very waddling; calves very little developed; head large and brachycephalic; face broad; cheek-bones prominent; mouth large and broad; jaw mesognathic; teeth strong and snow-white; chin broad; nose broad and flat; forehead low and little arched; ears large; eyes considerably wide apart, deep-sunken, and dark-brown to piercing black; eye-opening narrow, and slit obliquely, with an almost perpendicular fold of skin over the inner corner (Mongol-fold), and with elevated outer corner; skin wheat-color, light-buff (Mongols) to bronze-colour (Turks); hair coarse, stiff as a horse's mane, coal-black; beard scanty and bristly, often entirely wanting, generally only a moustache; bodily strength considerable; sensitiveness to climatic influences and wounds slight; sight and hearing incredibly keen; memory extraordinary.

The Ural-Altaian languages branch off as follows :

Uralish : Samo-yeddish, Finno-Ungrian

Altaic: Turkish, Mongolish, Manchu-Tungusish

Finno-Ugrian: Finnish, Permish, Ugrian

Finnish: Lappish Finnish and Lappish Esthonian,Tcheremiss. Mordvinish

Permish: Zyryanish, Votyakish

Ugrian: Magyarish, Vogulish, Ostyakish

Turkish: Yakutish, Bashkirish, Kirghizigh, Uigurish, Tartarish, Osmanish (Turkish in the narrower sense)

Mongolish: Buryatish, Kalmuckish, Mongolish (in the narrower sense)

(B)

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Six to ten blood-related tents (Mongol, yúrta)—on the average, families of five to six heads— form a camp (Turk, aul, Mongol, khoton, khotum, Roumanian catun) which wanders together; even the best grazing-ground would not admit of a greater number together. The leader of the camp is the eldest member of that family which possesses most animals. Several camps make a clan (Turk, tire, Mongol, aïmak). Hence there are the general interests of the CLan and also the individual interests of the camps, which latter frequently conflict. For the settlement of disputes an authority is necessary, a personality who through wealth, mental capacity, uprightness, bravery, and wide relationships is able to protect the clan. As an election of A chief is unknown to nomads, and they could not agree if it were known, the chieftainship is usually gained by a violent usurpation, and is seldon recognised generally. Thus the judgment of the chieftain is mostly a decision to which the parties submit themselves more or less voluntarily.

Several clans form a tribe (uruk), several tribes a folk (Turks il, Mongol, uluss). Conflicts within the tribes and the folks are settled by a union of the separate clan chieftains in an arbitration procedure in which each chieftain defends the claims of his clan, but very often the collective decision is obeyed by none of the parties. In times of unrest great hordes have formed themselves out of the folks, and at the head of these stood a Khagan or a Khan. The hordes, like the folks and tribes, form a separate whole only in so far as they are opposed to other hordes, folks, and tribes. The horde protects its parts from the remaining hordes, just as does the folk and the tribe. Thus all three are in a real sense insurance societies for the protection of common interests.

The organization based on genealogy is much dislocated by political occurrences, for in the steppe the peoples, like the drift-sand, are in constant motion. One people displaces or breaks through another, and so we find the same tribal name among peoples widely separated from one another. Moreover from the names of great war-heroes arose tribal names for those often quite motely conglomerations of peoples who were united for a considerable time under the conqueror's lead and then remained together, for example the Seljuks, Uzbegs, Chagatais, Osmans, and many others. This easy new formation, exchange, and loss of the tribal name has operated from the earliest times, and the numerous swarms of nomads who forced their way into Europe under the most various names are really only different offshoots of the same few nations.

The organization of the nomads rests on a double principle. The greater unions caused by political circumstances, having no direct connection with the life and needs of the people in the desert, often cease soon after the death of their creator; on the other hand the camps, the clans, and in part the tribes also, retain an organic life, and take deep root in the life of the people. Not merely the consciousness of their blood-relationship but the knowledge of the degree of relationship is thoroughly alive, and every Kirghiz boy knows his jeti-atalar, that is, the names of his seven forefathers. What is outside this is regarded as the remoter relationship. Hence a homogeneous political organization of large masses is unfrequent and transitory, and today among the Turks it is only the Kara-Kirghiz people of Bast Turkestan—who are rich in herds—that live under a central government — that of an hereditary Aga-Manap, beneath whom the Manaps, also hereditary, of the separate tribes, with a council of the "gray-beards" (aksakals) of the separate clans, rule and govern the people rather despotically. What among the Turks is the exception, was from the earliest times known to history the rule among the Mongols, who were despotically governed by their princes. The Khan wielded unlimited authority over all. No one dared to settle in any place to which he had not been assigned. The Khan directed the princes, they the "thousand-men", the "thousand-men" the "hundred-men", and they the "ten-men". Whatever was ordered them was promptly carried out; even certain death was faced without a murmur. But towards foreigners they were just as barbarous as the Turks. The origin of despotism among the Altaians is to be traced to a subjugation by another nomad horde, which among the Turkish Kazak-Kirghiz and the Mongol Kalmucks of the Volga developed into a nobility ("white bones", the female sex "white flesh") in contrast with the common people ("black bones", "black flesh").

The transitoriness of the wider unions on the one hand, and the indestructibility of the clans and camps on the other, explain why extensive separations, especially among the Turko-Tartars, were of constant occurrence. The desert rears to independence and freedom from restraint small patriarchally-directed family alliances with "gray-beards" (aksakals) from families of aristocratic strain at their head. These families boast of their direct descent from some Sultan, Beg, or famous Batyr ("hero", recte robber, cattle-thief). But the "gray-beards" mostly exercise the mere shadow of dominion. The Turkomans say : "We are a people without a head, and we won't have one either; among us each is Padishah;" as an appendage to this, "Sahara is full of Sheikhs."

Wanderings. The Tent

The wanderings of the nomads are incorrectly designated when they are called "roaming" wanderings, for not even the hunter "roams". He has his definite hunting-grounds, and always returns to his accustomed places. Still more regular are the wanderings of the nomads, however far they extend. The longest are those of the Kirghiz who winter by the Aral Sea and have their summer pastures ten degrees of latitude further north in the steppes of Troitsk and Omsk. The distance, allowing for the zig-zag course, comes to more than 1000 miles, so that each year the nomad must cover 2OOO miles with all his herds and other goods.

During the winter the nomad in the desert is, so to speak, a prisoner in his tent, practical, neat, and comfortable as this is. It is a rotunda 15 feet high, and often over 30 feet broad. Its framework consists of a wooden lattice in six to ten separable divisions, which can be widened out, or pushed together for packing. Above this comes the roof-frame of light rafters which come together in a ring above. This is the opening for air, light, and smoke, and is only covered at night and during severe cold. Inside a matting of steppe-grass runs round the framework, and outside is a felt covering bound round with ropes of camel's hair. Tent-pegs and ropes protect the tent from being over- turned by the violent north-east orkan, during which the hearth-fire must be put out. As the felt absorbs and emits very little heat, the tent is warm in winter, and cool in summer. Inside the tent the sacks of victuals hang on the points of the wall-lattice; on the rafters above are the weapons, harness, saddles, and, among the heathen tribes, the idols. Behind the hearth, the seat of honor for guests and old men is spread with the best felt and carpets; in front of the hearth is the place for drinking-vessels and sometimes for fuel, the latter consisting of camel- and cattle-dung, since firewood is found only in a few places in the steppes and deserts. The nomad-life admits of only the most necessary and least breakable utensils : for preparing food for all in the tent there is a large cast-iron caldron, acquired in Chinese or Russian traffic, with tripod and tongs; a trunk-like kumiz-vat of four smoked horse-hides thickened with fat; kumiz-bottles, and water-bottles of leather; wooden chests, tubs and cans hollowed out of pieces of wood, or gourds; wooden dishes, drinking-bowls, and spoons; among the slave-hunting Turkomans short and long chains, manacles, fetters, and iron collars also hung in the tent to the right of the entrance.

The accommodation provided by the tent, and the economising of space is astonishing; from long past times everything has had its assigned place; there is room for forty men by day, and twenty by night, notwithstanding the many objects hanging and lying about. The master of the household, with the men, occupies the place of honor; left and right of the hearth are the sleeping-places (felt, which is rolled up in the daytime); left of the entrance the wife and the women and children, to the right the male slaves, do their work. For anyone to leave his wonted place unnecessarily, or without the order of the master, would be an unheard-of proceeding. In three-quarters of an hour a large tent can be put up and furnished, and it can be taken to pieces and packed just as quickly; even with movables and stores it is so light that two camels suffice to carry it. The Nogai-Tartars carry their basket-like felt tents, which are only 8 to 10 feet in diameter, on two-wheeled carts drawn at a trot by small-sized oxen. In the thirteenth century, under Chinghiz and his followers, the Mongols also made use of such cart-tents, drawn by one camel, as store-holders, but only in the Volga-district and not in their own country in Mongolia. They also put their great tents—as much as thirty feet in diameter—on carts drawn by twenty-four oxen twelve in a line. The nature of the ground admitted of this procedure and consequently the tent had not to be taken to pieces at each stopping-place (as must be done in the steppes and deserts), but only where a considerable halt was made. In South Russia such wagon-tents date from the oldest times, and were already in use among the Scythians.

Winter and Summer Pastures

Among a continually wandering pastoral people the interests of neighbors often collide, as we know from the Bible-story of Abraham and Lot. Thus a definite partition of the land comes about. A folk, or a section of a folk—a tribe—regards a certain stretch of land as its special property, and tolerates no trespass from any neighbour whatsoever. The tribe, again, consists of clans and the latter of camps, which, in their turn, regard parts of the whole tribal district as their own. This produces a very confused medley of districts, over which the individual camps wander. In spring and autumn the nomad can find abundant fodder almost everywhere, in consequence of the greater moisture and luxuriant grass crop. The winter and summer abodes demand definite conditions for the prosperity of the herds. The winter settlement must not have too severe a climate, the summer grazing-ground must be as exempt as possible from the terrific plague of insects. Since many more conditions must be satisfied for the winter than for the summer pastures, it is the winter quarters which determine the density of the nomad population. Thus the wealth of a people accords with the abundance of their winter quarters, and all internal encounters and campaigns of former centuries are to be regarded as a constant struggle for the best winter settlements.

In winter, whenever possible, the same places as have been used for long times past are occupied; in the deep-lying valley of a once-existing river, not over-exposed to the wind, with good water, and grazing-places where the snow settles as little as possible, and the last year's dung makes the ground warmer and, at the same time, provides fuel. Here at the end of October the tent, made warmer by another covering, is pitched, protecting the nomad from the raging winter buran and the numbing cold. The herds, however, remain in the open air without a sheltering roof, and must scrape for themselves the withered shrubs, stalks, and roots from the snow. They get terribly thin; indeed sheep, camels, and oxen perish when the snow falls deep, and the horses in scraping for fodder trample down the plants and make them uneatable, or when ice forms and shuts out sustenance entirely. But in early spring the situation improves, especially for the sheep, which, from mere skeletons, revive and get fat on the salt-steppes where a cursory inspection reveals no vegetation on the glittering crust of salt. The salt-pastures are incomparably more nourishing than the richest Alpine meadows, and without salt there would be no sheep-rearing nomads in Central Asia. To freshen the spring-pasturage the steppe is burnt off as soon as the snow has melted, as the dry last year's steppe-grass gets matted under the snow, and would retard the sprouting of the new grass; the ground manured by the ashes then gets luxuriantly green after a few days.

In the middle or at the end of April, during the lambing of the sheep, and the foaling of the mares, preparations for striking the winter tent are made. At this time the animals yield most milk, and a stock of hard cheese (kurut) is made. At the beginning of May the steppe begins to dry up, and the intolerable insects appear. Now the goods which are superfluous for the summer are secretly buried, the tent is struck, and loaded with all necessary goods and chattels on the decorated camels. It is the day of greatest rejoicing for the nomad, who leaves his inhospitable winter quarters in festal attire.

The winter quarters are regarded as the fixed property of the individual tent owners, but the summer pastures are the common property of the clan. Here each member of the clan, rich or poor, has in theory the right to settle where he likes. But the wealthy and illustrious always know how to secure the best places. To effect this each camp keeps the time of departure to the summer pastures and the direction to be taken as secret as possible; at the same time it makes an arrangement with the nearest-related camps, in conformity with which they suddenly depart in order to reach their goal as quickly as possible. If the place chosen is already occupied, the next which is still free is taken. At the beginning of spring, when the grass is still scanty, the camps can remain only a very short time—often one day or even only half a day—in one place; later on in their more distant wandering—from well to well—they can stay for weeks in the same place. At midsummer movement is more rapid, and in autumn, with an increasing abundance of water, it is again slower. In the sand-desert the nomad finds the wells covered by drift-sand, and he must dig down to them afresh, if necessary daily. The regulation of these wanderings is undertaken by the aksakals, not always according to justice.

The cattle can easily be taken off by a hostile neighbor, for the steppe is free and open. Therefore the nomads of the steppes, unlike the nomads of the mountains, do not split themselves into single families. They constantly need a small war-band to recover the stolen booty from the enemy. On the other hand, the instinct of self-preservation often drives a whole people to violate their neighbors' rights of property. When there is dearth of fodder the cattle are ruined, and the enterprise and energy of the owner cannot avert calamity. The impoverished nomad infallibly goes to the wall as a solitary individual, and only seldom is he, as a former wanderer (tshorva) capable of becoming a despised settler (tshomru). For he feels it to be the greatest misfortune and humiliation when he must take to the plough, somewhere by a watercourse on the edge of the desert; and so long as the loss of all his herds has not hopelessly crushed him, he does not resign himself to that terrible fate which Mahomet has proscribed with the words: ''wherever this implement has penetrated, it has always brought with it servitude and shame".

In spring, when severe frost suddenly sets in after the first thaw, and the thin layer of snow is covered in a single night with a crust of ice an inch thick, the cattle cannot scrape food out of the snow, and the owner cannot possibly supply a substitute. When the frost continues hundreds of thousands of beasts perish, and whole districts previously rich in herds become suddenly poor. So as soon as ice appears the people affected leave their winter quarters, and penetrate far into their neighbours' territory until they find food for their herds. If they are successful a part at least of their cattle is saved, and when the weather changes they return home. But if all their cattle perish entirely, they must starve if they are unwilling to rob their wealthy neighbor of a part of his herds. Bloody feuds occur too in autumn on the return from the summer pastures, when the horses have become fat and powerful and the longer nights favour and cover long rides. The nomad now carries out the raids of robbery and revenge resolved upon and skilfully planned in the summer, and then he goes to his winter quarters.

Custom. Kumiz

But how can these barbarous robbers live together without exterminating each other? They are bridled by an old and tyrannical king, invisible to themselves, the deb (custom, wont). This prohibits robbery and murder, immorality and injustice towards associates in times of peace; but the strange neighbor is outlawed; to rob, enslave, or kill him is an heroic deed. The nomads' ideas of justice are remarkably similar to those of our ancestors. Every offence is regarded as an injury to the interests of a fellow-man, and is expiated by indenmification of the loser. Among the Kazak-Kirghiz anyone who has killed a man of the plebs (a "black bone"), whether wilfully or accidentally makes no difference, must compensate the relations with a kun (i.e. 1000 sheep or 100 horses or 50 camels). The slaughter of a "white bone" costs a sevenfold kun. Murder of their own wives, children, and slaves goes unpunished, since they themselves are the losers. If a Kirghiz steals an animal, he must restore it together with two of the same value. If a wrong-doer is unable to pay the fine, his nearest relations, and failing them the whole camp, must provide it.

The principal food consists of milk-products—not of the fresh milk itself, which is only taken by children and the sick. A special Turko-Tartar food is yogurt, prepared with leaven from curdled milk. The Mongols also eat butter—the more rancid the more palatable—dripping with dirt, and carried without wrapping in their hairy greasy coat-pockets. From mare's milk, which yields no cream, kumiz (Kirghiz), tshegan (Mongolish) is fermented, an extremely nutritious drink which is good for consumption, and from which by itself life can be sustained. However, it keeps only a few hours, after which it becomes too sour and effervescent, and so the whole supply must be drunk at once. In summer, with an abundance of mares, there is such a superfluity of kumiz that hospitality is unlimited, and half Altai is always drunk. The Turkomans and Kara-Kalpaks, who possess few horses and no studs, drink kumiz seldom. The much-drunk airan from fermented unskimmed camel, cow, and sheep milk quenches thirst for hours, just as does the kefir of the Tartars from cow's milk. The airan, after being condensed by boiling, and dried hard as stone into little balls in the sun, is made into kurt, kurut, which can be kept for months and is the only means of making bitter salt-water drinkable. According to Marco Polo it formed the provision of the Mongol armies, and if the horsemen could not quench his thirst in any other way, he opened one of his horse's veins and drank the blood. From kumiz and also from millet a strong spirit (Kirghiz boza) is distilled, which produces dead-drunkenness followed by a pleasant Nirvana-sensation.

A comparison of Rubruquis' account with that of Radloff shows that the dairying among the Altaians has remained the same from the earliest times. A late acquisition from China, and only available for the wealthier, is the "brick-tea", which is also a currency, and a substitute for money.

Food

Little meat is eaten, notwithstanding the abundance of the herds; it is only customary on festive occasions or as a consequence of a visit of special honor. In order not to lessen the stock of cattle, the people content themselves with the cattle that are sick beyond recovery, or dead and even decaying. The meat is eaten boiled, and the broth drunk afterwards. Only the Volga-Kalmucks and the Kara-Kirghiz, who are very rich in flocks, live principally on sheep and horse meat. That the Huns and Tartars ate raw meat softened by being carried under the saddle, is a mistake of the chroniclers. At the present time the mounted nomads are accustomed to put thin strips of salted raw meat on their horses' sores, before saddling them, to bring about a speedy healing. But this meat, impregnated with the sweat of the horse and reeking intolerably, is absolutely uneatable.

From the earliest times, on account of the enormous abundance of game, hunting has been eagerly practised for the sake of food and skins, or as sport, either with trap and snare, or on horseback with falcon and eagle. From Persia came the long-haired greyhound in addition. Fish-ing cannot be pursued by long-wandering nomads, and they make no use even of the best-stocked rivers. But by the lakes and the rivers which do not dry up, fishing is an important source of food among short-wandering nomads.

For grain the seeds of wild-growing cereals are gathered; here and there millet is grown without difficulty, even on poor soil. A bag of millet-meal suffices the horseman for days; a handful of it with a drink of water appeases him well enough. Thus bread is a luxury for the nomad herdsman, and the necessary grain can only be procured in barter for the products of cattle-rearing and house-industry. But the Kirghiz of Ferghana in their short but high wanderings on the Pamir and Alai high above the last agricultural settlements, which only extend to 4600 feet, carry on an extensive agriculture (summer-wheat, millet, barley) by means of slaves and laborers at a height of 8500 feet, while they themselves climb with their herds to a height of 15,800 feet, and partly winter in the valleys which are free from snow in winter. The nomads eat vegetables seldom, as only carrots and onions grow in the steppes. The half-settled agricultural half-nomads of today can be left out of consideration. According to Plano Carpini the Mongols had neither bread nor vegetables nor leguminous food, nor anything else except meat, of which they ate so little that other peoples could scarcely have lived on it. However, in summer they consumed an enormous quantity of milk, and that failing in winter, one or two bowls of thin millet boiled in water in the morning, and nothing more except a little meat in the evening.

We see that from the earliest times the Altaian nomad has lived by animal-rearing, and in a subsidiary degree by hunting, and fishing, and here and there by a very scanty agriculture. As among some hordes, especially the old Magyars, fishing and hunting are made much of, many believe that they were originally a hunting and fishing folk, and took to cattle-rearing later. This is an impossibility. The Magyars, just as were the others, were pure nomads even during winter, otherwise their herds would have perished. Hunting and fishing they pursued only as stop-gaps when milk failed. A fishing and hunting people cannot so easily become mounted nomads, and least of all organised in such a terribly warlike way as were the Magyars.

The innate voracity of the Turko-Tartars is the consequence of the climate. The Bedouin in the latitude of 20º to 32º, at a mean temperature of 86º F, can easily be more abstinent and moderate with his single meal a day (meat, dates, truffles) than the Altaian in the freezing cold, between the latitudes of 38º and 58º, with his three copious meals. The variable climate and its consequences —hunger in winter, superfluity in summer—have so hardened the Altaian that he can without difficulty hold out for days without water, and for weeks (in a known case forty-two days) in a snowstorm without any food; but he can also consume a six-months' old wether at one sitting, and is ready to repeat the dose straight off!

Originally the Altaian clothed himself in skins, leather, and felt, and not till later in vegetable-stuffs acquired by barter, tribute, or plunder. Today the outer-coat of the Kazak-Kirghiz is still made of the shining skin of a foal with the tail left on for ornament. The Tsaidan-Mongols wear next their bare skin a felt gown, with the addition of a skin in winter only, and leather breeches. All Central Asiatics wear the high spherical sheep-skin cap (also used as a pillow), the tshapan (similar to a dressing-gown and consisting of fur or felt in winter), leather boots, or felt stockings bound round with rags. Among many tribes the hair of the men is worn long or shaved off entirely (Herodotus tells of a snub-nosed, shaven-headed people in the lower Ural), and the Magyars, Cumans, and others were shorn bare, but for two pigtails.

The Wife. Education. Inheritance

The wife occupies a very dependent position. On her shoulders falls the entire work of the household, the very manifold needs of which are to be satisfied almost entirely by home industry. She must take down the tent, pack it up, load it on camels, and pitch it; she must prepare leather, felt, leather-bottles, cords, waterproof material, and colors from various plants; she must spin and weave wool and hair; she must make clothes, collect camel- and cattle-dung, knead it with dust into tough paste, and form and dry it into cakes; she must saddle and bridle horses and camels, milk the sheep, prepare kumiz, kurut, and airan, and graze the herds of sheep in the night—for the husband does this only by day, and in addition only milks the mares; his remaining occupation is almost entirely war and plundering. To share the domestic work would be for an Altaian pater-familias an unheard-of humiliation.

Originally the choice of a wife was as unrestricted among all the Altaians as among the Mongols, who, according to Plano Carpini and Marco Polo, might marry any relative and non-relative except their own mothers and daughters, and sisters by their own mothers. But today several nomad peoples are strictly exogamic. The bride was chosen by the father, when still in her childhood; her price (kalym) was twenty-seven to a hundred mares, and her dowry had roughly the same value. Polygamy was consequently only possible among tribes rich in herds, but it was a necessity, as one wife alone could not accomplish the many duties. Virgin purity and conjugal fidelity are among the Turko-Tartars, and especially among the Kirghiz, somewhat rare virtues; on the other hand, Marco Polo agrees with Radloff in praising the absolute fidelity of the Mongol women.

The upbringing of the children entails the extreme of hardening. During its first six weeks the new-born child is bathed daily, summer and winter alike, in the open air; thenceforward the nomad never washes, his whole life long. The Kalmuck in particular is absolutely shy of water. Almost to puberty the children go naked summer and winter; only on the march do they wear a light khalat and fur-cap. They are suckled at the breast to their fifth year. At three or four they already sit free with their mother on horseback, and a six-year-old girl rides like a sportsman. The education of the boys is limited to riding; at the most falconry in addition. On the other hand, the girls are put to most exhausting work from their tenderest years, and the value of a bride is decided by the work she can discharge. Among nearly all Altaian peoples the son thinks little of his mother, but towards his father he is submissive.

Hereditary right is purely agnatic. As soon as the married son is able to look after himself, he is no longer under the authority of his father, and if he likes he can demand as inheritance a part of the herds adequate to establishing a separate household. Then however he is entirely settled with, and he cannot inherit further on the death of his father when there are younger sons—his brothers—still unportioned. If impoverished the father has the right to take back from his apportioned sons every fifth animal from the herds (Kalmucks). The daughters are never entitled to inherit, and on marrying receive merely a suitable dowry from their brothers, who then receive the kalym. If only daughters survive, the inheritance goes to the father's brothers or cousins, who in that case receive the kalym as well.

Speedy as the Altaian is on horseback, on foot he is helpless and unwieldy; and so the dance is unknown to him. All games full of dash and excitement are played on horseback. His hospitality is marvellous; for weeks at a time he treats the new arrival to the best he has, even when it is the despised and hated Shtitish Persian. He possesses many sagas and songs—mostly in the minor key, and monotonous as the steppes—which are accompanied on a two-stringed guitar. Tenor and mezzo-soprano predominate, and the gait of the horse and the stride of the camel mark the rhythm.

The surplus of the female house-industry and of the herds is, as a rule, exchanged in barter for weapons and armours, metal and wooden articles, clothing material, brick-tea, and grain. Instead of our gold and silver coinage they have a sheep coinage, in which all valuations are made. Of course they were acquainted with foreign coins from the earliest times, and obtained countless millions of pounds from tribute, plunder, and ransom of prisoners, and they used coins, now and then, in external trading, but among themselves they still barter, and conclude all their business in sheep, cattle, horses, and camels. Rubruquis says of the Mongols in 1353: "We found nothing purchasable for gold and silver, only for fabrics, of which we had none. When our servant showed them a Hyperpyron (Byzantine gold coin), they rubbed it with their fingers and smelt it to see if it were copper." They have no hand-workers except a few smiths.

The Altaian, and especially the Turko-Tartar barbarian, considered only the advantage of the moment; the unlimited plundering was hostile to any transit-trade. But when and so long as a strong hand controlled the universal plundering spirit, a caravan trade between north and south, and especially between east and west was possible, and, with high duties, formed a considerable source of income for the Central-Asiatic despots.

(C)

Religion. Samanism

The religious conceptions of a group of primitive people inhabiting such an enormous district were of course never uniform. Today the greatest part of the Altaians is Buddhist, or Islamitic, and only a few Siberian Turkish tribes remain true to the old-Altaian Shamanism.

The characteristic feature of Shamanism is the belief in the close union of the living with their long dead ancestors; thus it is an uninterrupted ancestor worship. This faculty however is possessed only by a few families, those of the Shamans , who pass on their power from father to son, or sometimes daughter—with the visible symbol of the Shaman drum by means of which he can call up the spirits through the power of his ancestors, and compel them to active assistance, and can separate his own soul from his body and send it into the kingdoms of light and of darkness. He prepares the sacrifice, conjures up the spirits, leads prayers of petition and thanksgiving, and in short is doctor, soothsayer, and weather prophet. In consequence he is held in high regard, but is less loved than feared, as his ceremonies are uncanny, and he himself dangerous if evil inclined. The chosen of his ancestors attains to his Shaman power not by instruction but by sudden inspiration; he falls into a frenzy, utters inarticulate cries, rolls his eyes, turns himself round in a circle as if possessed, until, covered with perspiration, he wallows on the ground in epileptic convulsions; his body becomes insensible to impressions; according to accounts he swallows automatically, and without subsequent injury, red-hot iron, knives, and needles, and brings them up again dry. These passions get stronger and stronger, till the individual seizes the Shaman drum and begins "shamaneering." Not before this does his nature compose itself, the power of his ancestors has passed into him, and he must thenceforth "shamaneer." He is moreover dressed in a fantastic garb hung with rattling iron trinkets. The Shaman drum is a wooden hoop with a skin, painted with gay figures, stretched over both sides, and all kinds of clattering bells and little sticks of iron upon it. In ''shamaneering" the drum is vigorously struck with one drum-stick, and the ancestors thus invoked interrogated about the cause of the evil which is to be banished, and the sacrifice which is to be made to the divinity in order to avert it. The beast of sacrifice is then slaughtered and eaten, the skin together with all the bones is set aside as the sacrificial offering. Then follows the conjuration-in-chief, with the most frantic hocus-pocus, by means of which the Shaman strives to penetrate with his soul into the highest possible region of heaven in order to undertake an interrogation of the god of heaven himself.

From the great confusion of local creeds some such Shaman system as the following can be constructed; though the people themselves have only very vague conceptions of it.

Cosmogony

The universe consists of a number of layers separated one from another by a certain something. The seventeen upper layers form the kingdom of light, seven or nine the underworld of darkness. In between lies the surface of man's earth, constantly influenced by both powers. The good divinities and spirits of heaven protect men, but the bad endeavour to destroy them. Originally there was only water and neither earth nor heaven nor sun nor moon. Then Tengere Kaira Khan ("the kind heaven") created first a being like himself, Kishi, man. Both soared in bliss over the water, but Kishi wished to exalt himself above the creator, and losing through his transgression the power to fly, fell headlong into the bottomless water. In his mercy Kaira Khan caused a star to rise out of the flood, upon which the drowning Kishi could sit; but as he could no longer fly Kaira Khan caused him to dive deep down and bring up earth, which he strewed upon the surface of the water. But Kishi kept a piece of it in his mouth in order to create a special country out of it for himself. This swelled in his mouth and would have suffocated him had he not spat it out so that morasses formed on Kaira Khan's hitherto smooth earth. In consequence Kaira Khan named Kishi Erlik, banished him from the kingdom of light, and caused a nine-branched tree to grow out of the earth, and under each branch created a man as first father of each of the nine peoples of the present time.

In vain Erlik besought Kaira Khan to entrust to him the nine fair and good men; but he found out how to pervert them to evil. Angered thereat Kaira Khan left foolish man to himself, and condenmed Erlik to the third layer of darkness. But for himself he created the seventeen layers of heaven and set up his dwelling in the highest. As the protector and teacher of the now deserted race of man he left behind Mai-Tärä (the Sublime). Erlik too with the permission of the Kaira Khan built himself a heaven and peopled it with his own subjects, the bad spirits, men corrupted by him. And behold, they lived more comfortably that the sons of the earth created by Kaira Khan. And so Kaira Khan caused Erlik's heaven to be shattered into small pieces, which falling on the earth formed huge mountains and gorges.

But Erlik was doomed until the end of the world to everlasting darkness. And now from the seven-teenth layer of heaven Kaira Khan controls the destiny of the universe. By emanation from him the three highest divinities came into being : Bai Ulgon (the Great) in the sixteenth, Kysagan Tengere (the Mighty) in the ninth, and Mergen Tengere (the All-wise) in the seventh layer of heaven, where "Mother Sun" dwells also. In the sixth is enthroned "Father Moon," in the fifth Kudai Yayutshi (the highest Creator). Ulgon's two sons Yayik and Mai-Tara, the protecting patrons of mankind, dwell in the third on the milk-white sea Sut-ak-kol, the source of all life; near it is the mountain Suro, the dwelling of the seven Kudau with their subjects the Yayutshi, the guardian angels of mankind. Here is also the paradise of the blessed and righteous ancestors of living men, who mediate between the divinities of heaven and their own descendants, and can help them in their need. The earth is personified in a community of spirits (Yer-su) beneficent to man, the seventeen high Khans (princes) of the seventeen spring districts, whose abodes lie on the seventeen snow peaks of the highest mountains, by the sources of the seventeen streams which water the land.

In the seven layers of the dark underworld prevails the dismal light of the underworld sun peculiar to them. This is the dwelling of all the evil spirits who waylay men at every turn: misshapen goblins, witches, Kormos, and others ruled by Erlik-Khan the dreadful prince on the black throne. Still deeper lies the horrible hell, Kasyrgan, where the sinners and criminals of mankind suffer just punishment.

All evil comes from Erlik, cattle-disease, poverty, illness, and death. Thus there is no more important duty for man than to hold him steadfastly in honor, to call him "father Erlik," and to appease him with rich sacrifices. If a man is to be born, Ulgon, at the request of the former's ancestors, orders his son Yayik to give a Yayutshi charge of the birth, with the life-force from the milk-white sea. This Yayutshi then watches over the newly-born during the whole of his life on earth. But at the same time Erlik sends forth a Kormos to prevent the birth or at least to hamper it, and to injure and misguide the newly-born his whole life long. And if Erlik is successful in annihilating the life-forces of a man, Kormos drags the soul before Erlik's judgment-seat. If the man was more good than bad, Erlik has no power over him, Kormos stands aside, and the Yayutshi brings the soul up to paradise. But the soul of the wicked is abandoned by its Yayutshi, dragged by its Kormos to hell in the deepest layer of the underworld, and flung into a gigantic caldron of scalding tar. The worst sinners remain for ever beneath the surface of the tar, the rest rise gradually above the bubbling tar until at last the crown of the head with the pigtail comes to view. So even the sinner's good works are not in vain. The blessed in heaven reflect on the kindnesses once done by him, and they and his ancestors send his former Yayutshi to hell, who grasps him by the pigtail, pulls him out of the tar, and bears the soul up to heaven. For this reason the Kalmucks let their pigtails grow, as did many of the nomad peoples of history.

However, there is no absolute justice. The gods of light, like the spirits of darkness, allow themselves to be won over by sacrificial viands, and, if rich offerings are forthcoming, they willingly wink at transgression; they are envious of man's wealth and demand gifts from all, and so it is advisable to stand well with both powers, and that can only be done through the medium of the Shamans. So long as Erlik is banished in the darkness, a uniform ordering of the universe exists till the last day when everything created comes to an end, and the world ceases to be.

With Shamanism fire-worship was closely associated. Fire purifies everything, wards off evil, and makes every enchantment ineffective. Hence the sick man, and the strange arrival, and everything which he brings with him must pass between two fires. Probably fire-worship was originally common to all the Altaians, and the Magyars also of the ninth century were described by the Arabian geographer as fire-worshippers.

In consequence of the healthy climate, the milk diet, and the Spartan hardening, the Altaian enjoys excellent health, hence the saying "Healthy as a Kirghiz". There are not a few old men of eighty, and some of a hundred years. Infectious diseases are almost unknown, chiefly because the constant smoke in the tent acts as a disinfectant, though combined with the ghastly filthiness it promotes the very frequent eye-complaints, itch, and eruptions of the skin. In consequence of the constant wandering on camel-back, and through the Shaman hocus-pocus, illness and death at home are vexatious, and sudden death on the field of battle is preferred. In order not to be forgotten, the Turko-Tartar—in contrast to the Mongol—likes to be buried in a conspicuous place, and, as such places do not exist on the steppes, after a year there is heaped over the buried corpse an artificial mound which, according to the wealth of the dead man, rises to a hill-like tumulus. At the same time an ostentatious funeral festival lasting seven days is held, with races, prize combats, and other games on horseback. Hundreds of horses, camels, and sheep are then consumed.

(D)

Weapons. Predatory Life

The nomad loves his horses and weapons as himself. The principal weapon is the lance, and in European warfare the Uhlans and Cossacks survive from the armies of the steppes. The nomad-peoples who invaded Europe were all wonderfully sure bowmen The value of the bow lies inthe treacherous noiselessness of the arrow, which is the best weapon for hunting and ambush, and is therefore still in use today together with the rifle. In addition there have always been long-handled iron hatchets and pick-shaped battle-axes for striking and hurling, and the bent sabre.

The warrior's body was often protected by a shirt of armor made of small polished steel plates, or by a harness of ox-leather plates, the head by a helmet; all mostly Persian or Caucasian work.

The hard restless life of the mounted nomad is easily disturbed by pressure from his like, by the death of his cattle from hunger and disease, and by the prospect of plunder, which makes him a professional robber. Of this the Turkoman was long a type. The leading features in the life of a Turkoman are the alaman (predatory expedition) or the tchapao (the surprise). The invitation to any enterprise likely to be attended withprofit finds him ever ready to arm himself and to spring to his saddle. The design itself is always kept a profound secret even from the nearest relative; and as soon as the serdar (chief elect) has had bestowed upon him by some mollah or other the fatiha (benediction), every man betakes himself, at the commencement of the evening, by different ways, to a certain place indicated before as the rendezvous. The attack is always made either at midnight, when an inhabited settlement, or at sunrise, when a caravan or any hostile troop is its object. This attack of the Turkomans, like that of the Huns and Tartars, is rather to be styled a surprise. They separate themselves into several divisions, and make two, hardly ever three, assaults upon their unsuspecting prey; for, according to a Turkoman proverb, "Try twice, turn back the third time." The party assailed must possess great resolution and firmness to be able to withstand a surprise of this nature; the Persians seldom do so. Very often a Turkoman will not hesitate to attack five or even more Persians, and will succeed in his enterprise. Often the Persians, struck with a panic, throw away their arms, demand the cords, and bind each other mutually; the Turkomans have no occasion to dismount except for the purpose of fastening the last of them. He who resists is cut down; the coward who surrenders has his hands bound, and the horseman either takes him up on his saddle (in which case his feet are bound under the horse's belly), or drives him before him : whenever from any cause this is not possible, the wretched man is attached to the tail of the animal and has for hours and hours even for days and days to follow the robber to his desert home. Each captive is then ill-treated until his captor learns from him how high a ransom can be extracted from his kinsmen. But ransoming was a long way from meaning salvation itself, for on the journey home the ransomed were not seldom captured again and once more enslaved. Poor captives were sold at the usual price in the slave-markets at Bokhara, Khiva, etc.; for example, a woman of fifty for ten ducats. Those that could not be disposed of and were retained as herdsmen, had the sinews of their heels cut, to hinder them from flight. Until their overthrow by Skobelev in 1881 more than 15,000 Tekke-Turkomans contrived such raids day and night; about a million people in Persia alone were carried off in the last century, and made on the average certainly not less than 10 per head.

In the ninth century the Magyars and their nomadic predecessors in South Russia, according to Ibn Rusta's Arabian source, behaved exactly as the Turkomans in Persia; they provided for the slave-markets on the Pontus so many Slav captives that the name slave finally became the designation in the West of the worst servitude.

With man-stealing was associated cattle-stealing (baranta), which finally made any attempt at cattle-rearing impossible for the systematically plundered victim, and drove him to vegetarianism without milk nourishment. And what a vegetarianism, when agriculture had to suffer from the ever-recurring raids, and from bad harvests! And where the predatory herdsman settled for the winter in the midst of an agricultural population and in his own interests allowed them a bare existence as his serfs, there came about a remarkable connection of two strata of people different in race and, for a time, in speech also.

A typical land in this respect is Ferghana, the former Khanate of Khokand, on the southern border of the Great Kirghiz horde. The indigenous inhabitants of this country, the entirely vegetarian Tadjiks and Sarts, from immemorial times passed from the hands of one nomad people to another in the most frightful servitude. In the sweat of their brows they dug canals for irrigation, cultivated fields, and put into practice a hundred arts, only to pay the lion's share to their oppressors who, in the full consciousness of their boundless power, indulged the most bestial appetites. But the majority of the dominant horde could not turn from their innate and uncontrollable impulse to wander; in the spring they were drawn irresistibly to the free air of the high-lying steppes, and only a part of them returned to winter among the enslaved peasantry.

Emigration

This hopeless state of affairs continued to the Russian conquest in 1876, for the directly adjoining deserts always poured forth wild hordes afresh, who nipped in the bud any humaner intercourse of herdsmen and peasants. For rapine and slavery were inevitable wherever the nomads of the vast steppes and deserts made their abode in the immediate neighborhood of more civilized lands. What their own niggardly soil denied them, they took by force from the fruitful lands of their neighbors. And because the plundered husbandman could not pursue the fleet mounted nomad into the trackless desert, he remained unprotected.

The fertile districts on the edge of the Sahara and the Arabian desert were also in this frightful position, and Iran felt this calamity all the harder, because the adjoining deserts of Turan are the most extensive and terrible, and their inhabitants the wildest of all the nomads of the world. No better fared the peoples inhabiting East Europe, on the western boundaries of the steppe-zone.

As early as the fourth century B. Ephorus stated that the customs, according to the individual peoples, of the Scythians and the Sarmatians (both names covered the most medley conglomerations of nomads and peasants) were very dissimilar. Some even ate human beings (as the Massagetae ate their sick or aged parents), others abstained from all animals. A thousand years later Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus tells of a double people, that of the Sklavenes (Slavs) and Phisonites on the lower Danube, of whom the Sklavenes abstained from meat eating. And Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the year 952 stated that the Russians (North Germanic Varangians, who coming from Scandinavia held sway over the Slavs of Russia) bought horses, cattle, and sheep from their terrible nomadic neighbors the Patzinaks, because they had none of these animals themselves (i.e. in the Slav lands which they dominated). In certain districts of East Europe therefore vegetarianism was permanent among the peasant folk, who for more than two thousand years had been visited by the Altaians with rapine and murder; this can be proved from original sources to have been the case from the fourth century BC to the tenth century AD. that is, for 1400 years! It is exactly the same state of things as in Ferghana in modern times.

Conquests

As long as a nomad horde finds sufficient room in the steppe it does not think of emigration, and always returns home from its raids richly laden with the plunder. But if the steppe-zone is thrown into a ferment by struggles for the winter pastures or by other causes, the relatively weakest horde gets pushed out of the steppe, and must conquer a new home outside the zone. For it is only weak against the remaining nomad hordes, but against any other State upon which it falls it is irresistible. All the nomads of history who broke into Europe, the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Bulgarians, Avars, Magyars, Cumans, were the weakest in the steppes and had to take to flight, whence they became assailants of the world, before whom the strongest States tottered. With an energetic Khan at their head, who organised them on military lines, such a horde transformed itself into an incomparable army, compelled by the instinct of self-preservation to hold fast together in the midst of the hostile population which they subjugated; for however superfluous a central government may be in the steppe, it is of vital importance to a conquering nomad horde outside it. Consequently, while that part of the people which remained in the steppe was split up into loose clan associations, the other part, which emigrated, possessed itself of immense territories, exterminated the greater part of entire nations and enslaved the rest, scattered them as far as they pleased, and founded a despotically governed State with a ridiculously small band of horsemen.

The high figures in the chronicles are fictions exaggerated by terror and imagination, seeing that large troops of horsemen, who recklessly destroyed everything around them, would not have found in a narrow space even the necessary pasture for their many horses. Each Mongol under Chinghiz Khan, for example, was obliged to take with him 18 horses and mares, so as always to have a fresh steed and sufficient mare's milk and horse's blood for food and drink. Two corps under the command of Sabutai and Chebe sufficed this great conqueror for the overthrow of West Asia. In four years they devastated and in great part depopulated Khorasan, North Persia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia, Armenia, Caucasia, the Crimea, and the Volga territories, took hundreds of towns, and utterly defeated in bloody engagements the large armies of the Georgians, Lesghians, Circassians, and Cumans, and the united forces of the Russian princes. But they spared themselves as much as possible, by driving those of the subjugated people who were capable of bearing arms into the fight before them (as the Huns and Avars did previously), and cutting them down at once when they hesitated.

But what the Altaian armies lacked in numbers was made up for by their skill in surprises, their fury, their cunning, mobility, and elusiveness, and the panic which preceded them and froze the blood of all peoples. On their marvellously fleet horses they could traverse immense distances, and their scouts provided them with accurate local information as to the remotest lands and their weakness. Add to this the enormous advantage that among them even the most insignificant news spread like wildfire from aul to aul by means of voluntary couriers surpassing any intelligence department, however well organised. The tactics of the Mongols are described by Marco Polo in agreement with Piano Carpini and all the other writers as follows: "They never let themselves come to close quarters, but keep perpetually riding round and shooting into the enemy. And as they do not count it any shame to run away in battle, they will sometimes pretend to do so, and in running away they turn in the saddle and shoot hard and strong at the foe, and in this way make great havoc. Their horses are trained so perfectly that they will double hither and thither, just like a dog, in a way that is quite astonishing. Thus they fight to as good purpose in running away as if they stood and faced the enemy, because of the vast volleys of arrows that they shoot in this way, turning round upon their pursuers, who are fancying that they have won the battle. But when the Tartars see that they have killed and wounded a good many horses and men, they wheel round bodily and return to the charge in perfect order and with loud cries; and in a very short time the enemy are routed. In truth they are stout and valiant soldiers and inured to war. And you perceive that it is just when the enemy sees them run, and imagines that he has gained the battle, that he has in reality lost it; for the Tartars wheel round in a moment when they judge the right time has come. And after this fashion they have won many a fight." The chronicler, Peter of Zittau, in the year 1315, described the tactics of the Magyars in exactly the same way.

When a vigorous conqueror like Attila or Chinghiz arose among the mounted nomads and combined several hordes for a cyclonic advance, they swept all before them on the march, like a veritable avalanche of peoples. The news of the onward rolling flood scared the bravest people, and compelled them to fly from their homes; thus their neighbours, too, were set in tumultuous motion, and so it went on until some more powerful State took defensive measures and stemmed the tide of peoples. Now the fugitives had to face the assailant. A battle of nations was fought, the flower of famous peoples strewed the field, and powerful nations were wiped out. The deserted or devastated territories were occupied by peoples hitherto often quite unknown, or settled by nations forcibly brought there by the conqueror; States, generally without duration and kept together only by the one powerful hand, were founded. The giant State, having no cohesion from within, fell to pieces at the death of the conqueror or shortly after; but the sediment of peoples, together with a stratum of their nomad oppressors which remained from the flood, could not be pushed back again, and immense areas of a continent received once again an entirely new ethnography the work of one single furious conqueror.

Altaian Empires

Oftener and longer than in Europe successive Altaian empires held together in Asia, where the original population had long become worn out by eternal servitude and the central zone of the steppes supplied a near and secure base for plundering hordes. That some of these Asiatic empires attained to a high degree of prosperity is not due to the conquerors, who indeed quickly demongolised themselves by marriage with aliens, but was the consequence of the geographical position, the productivity of the soil, and the resigned tractableness and adaptability of the subjugated who, in spite of all the splendor of their masters, were forced to languish in helpless servitude. Out of Central Asia from time immemorial one nomad horde after another broke into the steppes of South Russia and of Hungary, and after exterminating or pushing out their predecessors and occupying their territories, used this new base to harry and enslave the surrounding peoples far and wide, forcibly transforming their whole being, as in Ferghana.

But the bestial fury of the nomads not only laid bare the country, recklessly depopulated enormous tracts, dragged off entire peoples and forcibly transplanted and enslaved them, but where their sway was of any duration they brought their subjects down to the level of brutes, and extirpated every trace of nobler feeling from their souls. Central Asia of today, as Vambery states from personal observation, is a sink of all vices. And Franz von Schwarz draws the following cheerless picture of the Turkestan Sarts, among whom he lived for fifteen years : With respect to character they are sunk as low as man possibly can be. But this is not at all to be wondered at, as for thousands of years they were oppressed and enslaved by all possible peoples, against whom they could only maintain themselves by servility, cunning, and deceit. The Sart is cowardly, fawning, cringing, reticent, suspicious, deceitful, revengeful, cruel, and boastful. At the same time he shows in his appearance and manner a dignity and bearing that would compel the uninitiated to regard him as the ideal of a man of honor. In the former native States, as in Bokhara and Khiva today, the entire system of government and administration was based exclusively on lying, deceit, and bribery, and it was quite impossible for a poor man to get justice.

The opposite of the Sart is his oppressor the Kirghiz, who is shy, morose, and violent, but also honorable, upright, good-hearted, and brave. The terrible slave-hunting Turkoman is distinguished from all other Central Asiatics by his bold and piercing glance and proud bearing. In wild bravery no other race on earth can match itself with him, and as a horseman he is unsurpassed. He has an unruly disposition and recognises no authority, but his word can be asbolutely relied upon.

What a tragic fate for an enslaved people. Although its lowest degradation is already behind it, how long yet will it be the object of universal and not unnatural contempt, while its former oppressor, void of all humane feeling, a professional murderer and cattle-thief, remains as a hero and ideal super-man?

So long as the dominant nomad horde remains true to its wandering life, it lives in the midst of the subjugated only in winter, and proceeds in spring to the summer pastures. But it is wise enough to leave behind overseers and guards, to prevent revolts. The individual nomad has no need to keep many slaves; besides, he would have no occupation and no food for them, and so an entire horde enslaves entire peoples, who must provide food for themselves. In so far as he does not winter directly among them, the nomad only comes to plunder them regularly, leaving them nothing but what is absolutely indispensable.

The peasantry had to supply the nomads and their herds who wintered among them with all that was demanded. For this purpose they stored up grain and fodder during the summer, for in Central and East Europe the snow falls too deep for the herds to be left to scrape out fodder alone. During the winter the wives and daughters of the enslaved became a prey to the lusts of the yellow-skins, by whom they were incessantly violated, and thus every conjugal and family tie and as a further consequence the entire social organization was seriously loosened. The ancient Indo- European patriarchal principle, which has exclusively prevailed among the Altaians also from the earliest times, languished among the enslaved just because of the violation and loosening of the conjugal bond, which often continued for hundreds of years.

The matriarchal principle came into prominence, for the Altaian adulterer repudiated bastards, and still more did the husband where there was one, so the children followed the mother. Where therefore matriarchal phenomena occur among Indo-Europeans, usually among the lower strata of population, they are not survivals of pre-patriarchal times, but probably arose later from the corruption of married life by systematic adultery. Thus the subjugated Indo-Europeans became here more, there less mongolised by the mixture of races, and in places the two superimposed races became fused into a uniform mixed people.

Indo-European usage and law died out, and the savage wilfulness of the Altaians had exclusive sway. Revolutions among the people driven to despair followed, but they were quelled in blood, and the oppression exercised still more heavily. Even if here and there the yoke was successfully shaken off, the emancipated, long paralysed and robbed of all capability of self-organization, were unable to remain independent. Commonly they fell into anarchy and then voluntarily gave themselves up to another milder-seeming servitude, or became once more the prey of an if possible rougher conqueror.

Mixture of Races. The Scythians

In consequence of the everlasting man-hunting and especially the carrying off of women in foreign civilised districts there ensued a strong mixing of blood, and the Altaian race-characteristics grew fainter, especially to the south and west. The Greeks by the time of Alexander the Great were no longer struck by the Mongol type already much obliterated of the nomads pasturing in the district between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. This led to the supposition that these nomads had belonged to the Indo-European race and had originally been settled peasants, and that they had been compelled to limit themselves to animal rearing and to become nomads only after the conversion of their fields to deserts through the evaporation of the water-basins. This supposition is false, as we have seen before.

The steppes and deserts of Central Asia are an impassable barrier for the South Asiatics, the Aryans, but not for the North Asiatic, the Altaian; for him they are an open country providing him with the indispensable winter pastures. On the other hand, for the South Asiatic Aryan these deserts are an object of terror, and besides he is not impelled towards them, as he has winter pastures near at hand. It is this difference in the distance of summer and winter pastures that makes the North Asiatic Altaian an ever-wandering herdsman, and the grazing part of the Indo-European race cattle-rearers settled in limited districts. Thus, while the native Iranian must halt before the trackless region of steppes and deserts and cannot follow the well-mounted robber nomad thither, Iran itself is the object of greatest longing to the nomadic Altaian. Here he can plunder and enslave to his heart's delight, and if he succeeds in maintaining himself for a considerable time among the Aryans, he learns the language of the subjugated people, and by mingling with them loses his Mongol characteristics more and more. If the Iranian is now fortunate enough to shake off the yoke, the dispossessed iranised Altaian intruder inflicts himself upon other lands. So it was with the Scythians.

Leaving their families behind in the South Russian steppes, the Scythians invaded Media c. BC 630 and advanced into Mesopotamia and Syria as far as Egypt. In Media they took Median wives and learned the Median language. After being driven out by Cyaxares, on their return some twenty-eight years later, they met with a new generation, the offspring of the wives and daughters whom they had left behind, and slaves of an alien race. A thorough mixture of race within a single generation is hardly conceivable. A hundred and fifty years later Hippocrates found them still so foreign, so Mongolian, that he could say that they were "very different from the rest of mankind, and only like themselves, as are also the Egyptians". He remarked their yellowish-red complexion, corpulence, smooth skins, and their consequent eunuch-like appearance all typically Mongol characteristics. Hippocrates was the most celebrated physician and natural philosopher of the ancient world. His evidence is unshakable, and cannot be invalidated by the Aryan speech of the Scythians. Their Mongol type was innate in them, whereas their Iranian speech was acquired and is no refutation of Hippocrates' testimony. On the later Greek vases from South Russian excavations they already appear strongly demongolised and the Altaian is only suggested by their hair, which is as stiff as a horse's mane the characteristic that survives longest among all Ural-Altaian hybrid peoples.

The Scythians and Magyars

If a nomad army is obliged to take foreign non-nomadic wives, there occurs at once a dualism, corresponding to the two sexes, in the language and way of living of each individual household. The new wives cannot live in the saddle, they do not know how to take down the tent, load it on the beasts of burden, and set it up again, and yet they must share the restless life of the herdsman. Consequently, where the ground admits of it, as in South Russia, the tent is put on wheels and drawn by animals. Thus the Scythian women were hamaxobiotic (wagoninhabiting), the men however remained true to their horse-riding life and taught their boys too, as soon as they could keep themselves in the saddle. But the dualism in language could not maintain itself; the children held to the language of the mother, the more easily because even the fathers understood Medish, and so the Altaian Scythian people, with their language finally iranised, became Iranian. But their mode of life remained unchanged : the consumption of horse-flesh, soured horse's milk (kumiz) and cheese of the same, the hemp vapour bath for men (the women bathed differently), singeing of the fleshy parts of the body as a cure for rheumatism, poisoning of the arrow-tips, wholesale human offerings, and slaughter of favorite wives at the burials of princes, the placing on horseback of the stuffed bodies of murdered warriors round the grave, etc., all such customs as are found so well defined among the Mongols of the Middle Ages.

The modern Tartars of the Crimea, whose classical beauty sometimes rivals that of the Greeks and Romans, underwent, in the same land, the same change to the Aryan type.

The same is the case with the Magyars whose mounted nomadic mode of life and fury, and consequently their origin, was Turkish, but their language was a mixture of Ugrian and Turkish on an Ugrian basis. Evidently a Magyar army, Turkish in blood, formerly advanced far to the north where it subdued an Ugrian people and took Ugrian wives; the children then blended the Ugrian speech of their mothers with the Turkish speech of their fathers. But they must also once have dominated Indo-European peoples and mixed themselves very strongly with them, for Gardezi's original source from the middle of the ninth century describes them as "handsome, stately men." At that time they were leading the nomad existence in the Pontic Steppe the old Scythia whence they engaged in terrible slave-hunting among the neighboring Slavs; and as they were notorious women-hunters, they must have assimilated much Slav, Alan, and Circassian blood, and thus became "handsome, stately men." However the change did not end there. At the end of the ninth century their army, on its return from a predatory expedition, found their kindred at home totally exterminated by their deadly enemies, the Patzinaks, a related stock. Consequently the whole body had again to take foreign wives, and they occupied the steppes of Hungary. Before this catastrophe the Magyars are said to have mustered 20,000 horsemen, an oriental exaggeration, for this would assume a nomad people of 200,000 souls. Consequently only a few thousand horsemen could have fled to Hungary. There they mixed themselves further with the medley race-conglomeration settled there, which had formed itself centuries before, and assimilated stragglers from the related Patzinak stock. By this absorption the Altaian type asserted itself so predominantly that the Frankish writers were never tired of depicting their ugliness and loathsomeness in the most horrifying colors. Their fury was so irresistible that in sixty-three years they were able with impunity to make thirty-two great predatory expeditions as far as the North Sea, and to France, Spain, Italy, and Byzantium. Thus the modern Magyars are one of the most varied race-mixtures on the face of the earth, and one of the two chief Magyar types of today traced to the Arpad era by tomb-findings is dolichocephalic with a narrow visage. There we have before us Altaian origin, Ugrian speech, and Indo-European type combined.

Such metamorphoses are typical for all nomads who, leaving their families at home, attack foreign peoples and at the same time make war on one another. In the furious tumult in which the Central Asiatic mounted hordes constantly swarmed, and fought one another for the spoils, it is to be presumed that nearly all such people, like the Scythians and Magyars, at least once sustained the loss of their wives and children. The mounted nomads could, therefore, remain a pure race only where they constantly opposed their own kin, whereas to the south and west they were merged so imperceptibly in the Semitic and Indo-European stock, that no race-boundary is perceivable.

The Roumanians

The most diversified was the destiny of those mounted nomads who became romanised in the Balkan peninsula (Roumanians or Vlakhs), but, surprising as it may be outside the steppe region, remain true to this day to their life as horse and sheep nomads wherever this is still at all possible. During the summer they grazed on most of the mountains of the Balkan peninsula, and took up their winter quarters on the sea-coasts among a peasant population speaking a different language. Thence they gradually spread, unnoticed by the chroniclers, along all the mountain ranges, over all the Carpathians of Transylvania, North Hungary, and South Galicia to Moravia; towards the north-west from Montenegro onwards over Herzegovina, Bosnia, Istria, as far as South Styria; towards the south over Albania far into Greece. In the entire Balkan peninsula there is scarcely a span of earth which they have not grazed. And like the peasantry among which they wintered (and winter) long enough, they became (and become) after a transitory bilingualism, Greeks, Albanians, Servians, Bulgarians, Ruthenians, Poles, Slovaks, Chekhs, Slovenes, Croatians, seeing that they appeared there not as a compact body, but as a mobile nomad stratum among a strange-tongued and more numerous peasant element, and not till later did they gradually take to agriculture and themselves become settled. In Istria they are still bilingual. On the other hand they maintain themselves in Roumania, East Hungary, Bukovina, Bessarabia for the following reasons : the central portion of this region, the Transylvanian mountain belt, sustained with its rich summer pastures such a number of grazing-camps, that the nomads in the favorable winter quarters of the Roumanian plain were finally able to absorb the Slav peasantry, already almost wiped out by the everlasting passage through them of other wild nomad peoples. In Macedonia, too, a remainder of them still exists. Were they not denationalised, the Roumanians today would be by far the most numerous but also the most scattered people of South Europe, not less than twenty million souls.

The Roumanians were not descendants of Roman colonists of Dacia left behind in East Hungary and Transylvania. Their nomadic life is a confutation of this, for the Emperor Trajan (after AD 107) transplanted settled colonists from the entire Roman Empire. And after the removal and withdrawal of the Roman colonists (c. AD 271) Dacia, for untold centuries, was the arena of the wildest international struggles known to history, and these could not have been outlived by any nomad people remaining there. To be sure, some express the opinion that the Roumanian nomad herdsmen fled into the Transylvanian mountains at each new invasion (by the Huns, Bulgarians, Avars, Magyars, Patzinaks, Cumans successively) and subsequently always returned. But the nomad can support himself in the mountains only during the summer, and he must descend to pass the winter. On the other hand, each of these new invading nomad hordes needed these mountains for summer grazing for their own herds. Thus the Roumanians could not have escaped, and their alleged game of hide-and-seek would have been in vain. But south of the Danube also the origin of the Roumanians must not be sought in Roman times, but much later, because nomads are never quickly denationalised. For in the summer they are quite alone on the otherwise uninhabited mountains, having intercourse with one another in their own language, and only in their winter quarters among the foreign-speaking peasantry are they compelled in their dealings with them to resort to the foreign tongue. Thus they remain for centuries bilingual before they are quite denationalised, and this can be proved from original sources precisely in the case of the Roumanians (Vlakhs) in the old kingdom of Servia. Accordingly the romanising of the Roumanians presupposes a Romance peasant population already existing there for a long time and of different race, through the influence of which they first became bilingual and then very gradually, after some centuries, forgot their own language. In what district could this have taken place? For nomads outside the salt-steppe the seacoast offers precisely on account of the salt, and the mild winter the most suitable winter quarters, and, as a matter of fact, from the earliest times certain shores of the Adriatic, the Ionian, Aegean, and Marmora, were crowded with Vlakhian catuns, and are partly so at the present time. Among all these sea-districts, however, only Dalmatia had remained so long Romanic as to be able entirely to romanise a nomad people. From this district the expansion of the Roumanians had its beginning, so that the name Daco-Roumanians is nothing but a fiction.

The Spanish and Italian nomad shepherds too can have had no other origin. Alans took part in Radagaisus' invasion of Italy in 405, and, having advanced to Gaul, founded in 411 a kingdom in Lusitania which was destroyed by the Visigoths. The remainder advanced into Africa with the Vandals in 429. Traces of the Alans remained for a long time in Gaul. Sarmatian and Bulgarian hordes accompanied Alboin to Italy in 568, and twelve places in northern Italy are still called Bolgaro, Bolgheri, etc. A horde of Altaian Bulgars fled to Italy later, and received from the Lombard Grimoald (662-672) extensive and hitherto barren settlements in the mountains of Abruzzi and their neighborhood. In the time of Paulus Diaconus (797) they also spoke Latin, but their mother tongue was still intact, for only on their winter pastures in Apulia and Campania, in contact with Latin peasants in whose fields they encamped, were they compelled to speak Latin. The old Roman sheep-rearing pursued by slaves has no connection with nomadism.

Therefore neither the non-Mongol appearance, nor the Semitic, Indo-European, or Finno-Ugrian language of any historical mounted nomad people can be held as a serious argument for their Semitic, Indo-European, or Finno-Ugrian origin. Everything speaks for one single place of origin for the mounted nomads, and that is in the Turanian-Mongol steppes and deserts. These alone, by their enormous extent, their unparalleled severity of climate, their uselessness in summer, their salt vegetation nourishing countless herds, and above all by their indivisible economic connection with the distant grass-abounding north these alone give rise to a people with the ineradicable habits of mounted nomads. The Indo-European vocabulary reveals no trace of a former mounted nomadism; there is no ground for speaking of Indo-European, Semitic, Finno-Ugrian nomads, but only of nomads who have remained Altaic or of indo-europeanised, semiticised, ugrianised nomads. The Scythians became Iranian, the Magyars Ugrian, the Avars and Bulgarians Slavic, and so on.

The identical origin of all the mounted nomads of historic and modern times is also demonstrated by the identity of their entire mode of life, even in its details and most trivial particulars, their customs, and their habits. One nomad people is the counterfeit of the other, and after more than two thousand years no change, no differentiation, no progress is to be observed among them. Accordingly we can always supplement our not always precise information about individual historical hordes, and the consequences of their appearance, by comparisons with the better known hordes. We are best informed about the Mongols of the thirteenth century, and that by Rogerius Canon of Varad, Thomas Archdeacon of Spalato, Plano Carpini, Rubruquis, Marco Polo and others, whose accounts are therefore indispensable for a correct estimation of all earlier nomadic invaders of Europe.

The place of the Nomads in History

This is the role of nomadism in the history of the world : countries too distant from its basis it could only ravage transitorily, with robbery, murder, fire, and slavery, but the stamp which it left upon the peoples which it directly dominated or adjoined remains uneffaceable. The Orient, the cradle and chief nursery of civilization, it delivered over to barbarism; it completely paralysed the greater part of Europe, and it transformed and radically corrupted the race, spirit, and character of countless millions for incalculable ages to come. That which is called the inferiority of the East European is its work, and had Germany or France possessed steppes like Hungary, where the nomads could also have maintained themselves and thence completed their work of destruction, in all probability the light of West European civilization would long ago have been extinguished, the entire Old World would have been barbarized, and at the head of civilization today would be stagnant China.

(E)

ATTILA

The Huns, who were divided into numerous distinct tribes ruled by separate princes, had since the beginning of the fifth century begun to draw together into a closer political union. King Rua (Rugilas) had already united a large part of the nation under his scepter; he ruled especially over the tribes that inhabited the plains of Hungary. Numerous alien barbaric peoples (Slavs, Germans, Sarmatians, etc.) were under his sway. The Eastern Empire paid him a yearly tribute. He was on friendly terms with Aetius, the general of the Western Empire, who on this account gave up to him a part of Pannonia, the province of Savia. Rua's successors were his nephews, Bleda and Attila, the sons of Mundzuk (c. 433).

They first of all reigned jointly, each ruling over a definite number of tribes but maintaining the unity of their empire, while in questions of foreign politics both rulers co-operated. Bleda's personality traditionally fades into obscurity beside Attila's. Attila was hideous to look upon, little, broad-shouldered, with big head, flat nose, and scanty beard. He was covetous, vain, and, like all despots, careful in the preservation of the outward appearance of dignity; he was superstitious, unable to read or write, but of penetrating intellect; he was cunning, audacious, and skilled in all the arts of diplomacy. He is most fitly compared to the formidable Mongol king, Chinghiz Khan; like him he was a mere conqueror who aimed at destruction and plunder; his supremacy had therefore only the effect of a devastating tornado, not that of a purifying thunderstorm which wakes Nature to new life. Certainly he did not rival the Mongol in cruelty and violence; a wise calculation prevented him from totally laying waste the territory given over to him; he respected the law of nations and could be just and magnanimous towards his enemies. Though surrounded by great pomp he remained simple and moderate in his manner of life; he would sit at meals with a stern and earnest countenance, without taking any part in the revelry going on around him.

435-451] Attila's Policy

The policy of concentrating authority within the nation and extending it externally which was introduced by Rua was consciously developed by Bleda and Attila, especially by the latter after he had in 444 or 445 attained to exclusive dominion by setting aside his brother and co-ruler. About the year 435 the Sorasgi, possibly a people of Turkish origin domiciled in South Russia, as well as other ‘Scythian’ races, were subdued. The Akatziri, living in the district to the north of the Black Sea, who hitherto had been in alliance with the Huns, were obliged to acknowledge Attila's rule, and he placed his eldest son Ellak at their head as sub-king (c. 447). The king of the Huns even thought of extending the eastern frontier of his empire to Media and Persia. Among the barbarians tributary to him were, besides, the Alani (on the Don), numerous Slav tribes, some of which lived east of the Vistula while others, driven out by the Huns, had settled in the Danubian lands, as had in particular, the Teutons of the Danube basin: Gepidae, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Rugii, Sciri, Turcilingi, Suevi (Quadi).

Certainly other names of German tribes are mentioned as under Attila's dominion: Marcomanni, Bastarnae, Burgundians, Bructeri, Franks (Ripuarii), and perhaps Alemanni on the Neckar, but it is doubtful to whom they were subject. The Burgundians (on the east Rhine) who had previously in the year 430 successfully repelled a Hunnic host, the Bructeri (between the Lippe and the Ruhr), the Franks and Germans on the Neckar must have voluntarily joined the Huns during the great march to Gaul (451), so that we are scarcely justified in advancing the western frontier of the Huns as far as the Rhine. The Germans occupy a conspicuous place in the circle around Attila; it is related of Ardaric, the king of the Gepidae, that he enjoyed especial consideration from Attila on account of his fidelity, and that his advice was not without influence on the decisions of the king of the Huns.

Among his trusted counselors is mentioned, besides, the famous warrior prince of the Sciri, Edeco (Edica), Odovacar’s father, who in the year 449 was sent to Constantinople as ambassador. The Ostrogoth king Walamir also is said—though by a biassed and not unimpeachable authority (Jordanes)—to have enjoyed Attila’s favor. Thus the German peoples mostly maintained their autonomy and were generally only obliged to serve in the army, while other inferior subject races, in particular the Slavs, forfeited their independence and were compelled to feed their rulers with the produce of their farms and cattle. Yet Attila looked upon all subjugated peoples as his slaves and asserted an absolute right of disposing of their life and property. All attempts to withdraw from his sovereignty he punished with terrible cruelty; the demand for the delivery of fugitives therefore played an important part in his negotiations with the Romans.

We are, as is natural, most accurately informed of his relations with the two halves of the Roman Empire. Like Rua Attila maintained a friendship with Aetius, at whose disposal he repeatedly placed Hunnish mercenaries. This relationship was partly brought about by personal conditions, partly by the endeavor of Attila to divide the Roman power. With such auxiliaries the general of the Western Empire destroyed at Worms (435-436) the Burgundian kingdom of legendary fame—an event which later tradition and saga have turned into an expedition of Attila's against the Burgundians. Numbers of Huns served in the Roman Army which, in the same way, in 436-439 fought against the Visigoths. On his side Aetius sent to the king a learned Roman scribe, Constantius, as private secretary and gave him his own son, Carpilio, as hostage, for which in return he was honored with gifts. The office, also, of a magister militum which Attila held he seems to have obtained through the Western Empire. The tribute which was paid to him from thence was disguised under the name of a salary as Roman General­in-chief. But at the end of the year 440 serious troubles already disturbed these relations, because Attila repeatedly annoyed the Western Empire and terrified it with threats under the pretext that fugitives from his dominion had found refuge there.

Attila and the Eastern Empire [433-441

The same degrading treatment must have befallen the Eastern Roman Empire which was under the sovereignty of the incapable Emperor Theodosius II. A complete overthrow and destruction of the Eastern Empire was not Attila's intention. His policy on the contrary aimed at keeping it, by continual extortions of money and actual depredations, in a state of permanent weakness and incapacity to resist. And as he insisted that all deserters should be given up to him he deprived the Romans of the means of strengthening their army by recruiting among the barbaric peoples of the Danube lands. These leading ideas came clearly to light at once in the first treaty which the two kings of the Huns concluded with the Emperor soon after their accession (c. 433). It was agreed that the Romans should no longer receive fugitives from the Huns and that these, as well as the Roman prisoners of war who had escaped from the country of the Huns, should be given up unless a ransom was paid for each of the latter. Besides, the Emperor must not assist any barbarian people that was fighting against the Huns; between both the kingdoms there was to be free commercial intercourse; the tribute of the Romans was doubled and raised to 700 lbs. of gold. It was clear that the Huns would not be contented with success so easily gained; if they nevertheless kept the peace for eight years, it was only because they were occupied with the subjection of the various Scythian peoples to the north of the Danube. In the year 441 they were on the war-path and slaughtered the Romans who had come on account of a market to the bank of the Danube. A direct reason for the opening of hostilities was given to them by the East Roman expedition against the Vandals which bad occasioned a withdrawal of frontier troops. This coincidence of events has given rise to the groundless supposition that Gaiseric and Attila had at that time formed an alliance. To the Emperor's expostulation the kings replied that the Romans had not paid the tribute regularly, had sheltered deserters, and also that the bishop of Alargus (Pussarovitz) had robbed the Hunnish royal graves of their treasures, and they threatened him with a continuation of the war unless the fugitives and the bishop were handed over to them. As the imperial envoys refused everything the Huns captured the Danube forts Ratiaria, Viminacium, Singidunum (Belgrade) and Margus (the last through the treachery of the bishop, who was afraid of being delivered up) and pressed, devastating as they went, into the interior of the Balkan lands as far as the neighbourhood of Constantinople, where they conquered cities like Naissus (Nisch), Philippopolis and Arcadiopolis. Other Hunnish bands joined with the Persians made an inroad at the same time over the Caucasus into the frontier lands of the Eastern Empire. The Roman army which had in the meantime been called from Sicily by Theodosius was decisively beaten in the Thracian Chersonesus. The kings of the Huns dictated peace; and its conditions were still more disgraceful than before:—the yearly tribute was raised to 2100 lbs. of gold besides the stipulation of the payment of an indemnity of 6000 lbs. of gold, and the surrender of fugitives was insisted upon (443).

443-448] Ravages of the Huns 

Already in the year 447 the Huns invaded once more, and again brought the most terrible calamities upon the Balkan lands. Arnegisclus, the general who opposed the enemy, was beaten and killed after valiant resistance on the river Utus (Wid) in Lower Moesia, after which the Hunnish cavalry pressed up the valley of the river Margus (Morava) and through Thessaly as far as Thermopylae. Some 70 cities and fortresses arc said to have fallen victims to them at that time. When in the year 448 peace was again concluded, Attila demanded that besides the usual money payments a broad tract of a five days' journey on the right bank of the Danube from Singidunurn to Novae (Sistova) should be left waste; the boundary was placed at Naissus. But even now Attila would not leave the Emperor at peace. Embassy after embassy went to Constantinople and, on the standing pretext that not all deserters had yet been delivered up, continually asserted fresh humiliating claims, the king being however chiefly desirous of giving his messengers an opportunity of enriching themselves with the customary gifts. The Eastern Empire was near a financial collapse; as it could not exert itself to armed resistance the thought came to the Imperial Government, that is to say to the court eunuch Chrysaphius in particular, of getting rid of the king of the Huns by murder. For this deed the co-operation of the Scirian prince Edeco was sought: he declared himself ready to assist but immediately betrayed the plan to Attila. The king revenged himself only by scorning the despicable enemy; the Roman envoys who had come with Edeco to him, amongst whom was the historian Priscus, he allowed to withdraw, respecting the law of nations; he promised besides to maintain the peace and give up the waste frontier territory on the Danube, and he did not once press the demand, made in his first anger, that Chrysaphius should be put to death. But he sent word to the Emperor that as Attila was a king's son so was Theodosius an emperor's son, but that as the latter had rendered himself tributary to the former he thus became his slave and that it was a shameful action that he, as such, should aim at the life of his master (449?). Attila might rightly consider himself the lord of the whole Roman Empire. His authority had been considerably enhanced among his own people by the discovery, about that time, of a sword buried in the ground which was regarded as the weapon of the god of war.

It was not until Theodosius died (28 July 450) that these wretched conditions altered. His successor, the efficient Emperor Marcian, refused, as soon as he succeeded to the throne, to continue the payment of the tribute to the king of the Huns, and the Western Empire followed his example. The outbreak of war was also due to the conduct of Gratia Justa Honoria, the sister of the Western Emperor Valentinian. She secretly offered herself as wife to the king of the Huns, but the fulfillment of the offer was refused because Attila demanded that half of the Western Empire should be given up to her as her inheritance from her father. Attila hereupon determined to take possession of the Western Empire and of Gaul first of all, for here he might reckon with certainty on the support of the (Ripuarian) Franks who, being split up into two sections on account of dynastic hostilities, called for his intervention, and he could in all probability count on at least the benevolent neutrality of the Visigoths. The story that Gaiseric, out of fear of Theodoric's vengeance, stirred up Attila to make war against the Visigoths, is certainly a fable, for the African kingdom had nothing to fear from an attack on this side; nevertheless the Vandal king may have had a hand in the matter in order to weaken the West Roman Empire still further. Supposing, however, an agreement between the Goths and the Romans to be possible, Attila wrote to Theodoric as well as to the Western Emperor that he was not going to take the field against them but against their enemies. The history of the Hunnic expedition which ended in Attila's defeat on the Campus Mauriacus near Troyes (451) has already been told. Without being followed by the victors the Hunnic army returned to Hungary. Attila did not venture to repeat the expedition into Gaul; on the contrary, in the following year after having made good his losses he turned towards Italy where he had not to fear Germanic heroism.

Without encountering any resistance the Hunnic army crossed the Julian Alps in the spring of 452. After a long siege Aquileia was taken, by storm and destroyed; after which the most important fortresses of Upper Italy, with the exception of Ravenna, easily fell into the hands of the enemy. A great many of the inhabitants of the terribly devastated country sought refuge on the unassailable islands of the lagoons along the Adriatic coast. Yet the real foundation of Venice which tradition has connected with the Hunnic invasion can only be traced back to the invasion of the Lombards (568). After this Attila bethought himself of marching against Rome, but famine and disease, which broke out in his army, and the arrival in Italy of succor from the Eastern Empire, as well as superstitious fear, since the Visigoth king Alaric had died shortly after his capture of the Eternal City, kept him from carrying out his plan. When therefore an embassy of the Romans led by Pope Leo I appeared in his camp on the Mincio to induce him to withdraw, he willingly showed himself ready to conclude peace and retire. A contemporary, the chronicler Prosper Tiro, who at that time was living in the papal service at Rome, has ascribed the retreat of the "scourge of God" to the influence of Leo's powerful personality, and later ecclesiastical tradition has naturally further enhanced the holy man's ostensible service and adorned it with all manner of supernatural circumstances. But a dispassionate historical inspection will not allow us to ascribe the saving of Italy solely to the influence of the Pope. Having returned home Attila demanded of Martian the tribute paid by Theodosius, and on the refusal of the Emperor prepared for war against Eastern Rome. But his sudden death prevented the realization of his scheme: he died of hemorrhage when he was celebrating his wedding (453) with a maiden named Ildico, the Kriemhild of the Nibelungenlied (the name is a diminutive of Hilde). The inheritance was divided among his sons, those mentioned by name being Ellak, Dengisich, and Ernac the youngest, Attila's favorite. But with this was foreshadowed the downfall of the Hunnic power, which was too much dependent on the personal quality of its leader to be able to endure.

Of the domestic life and polity of the Huns we have also accurate knowledge through the genuine fragment of Priscus. The king's head­quarters were on the Hungarian steppe between the Theiss and Koros and covered a large area which was enclosed by a circular wooden fence. In the middle stood the royal residence also fenced round, a wooden erection consisting of one single hall, Attila's private and public dwelling, of ingenious architecture and furnished within with great magnificence. Among the king's circle the logades were prominent, a nobility founded on birth and service; these enjoyed the highest consideration with the ruler and the right to choose from the booty the best spoils and the richest prisoners, and they formed a kind of council of state. Out of their midst the body-guard, the military leaders, and the envoys were taken. The highest position amongst them was occupied by Onegesius, Attila's right hand and first minister, who lived in a palace at the entrance to the court residence. Besides Huns there were also Germans and Romans among the logades, who on account of their intelligence and culture enjoyed especial consideration. At the king's Court therefore the Latin and Gothic tongues were in predominant use together with the Hunnic. Attila ruled over his people in a wholly patriarchal manner; the administration of justice was executed through him personally in the simplest way, always just without respect of persons.