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ter the rich pastures of the Calmucks, 26 whien nourish the largest sheep and oxen in the world. The soil is fruitful, and the climate mild and temperate: the happy region was ignorant of earthquake and pestilence; the emperor's throne was turned towards the East, and a golden wolf on the top of a spear seemed to guard the entrance of his tent. One of the successors of Bertezena was tempted by the luxury and superstition of China; but his design of building cities and temples was defeated by the simple wisdom of a Barbarian counsellor. "The Turks," he said, "are not equal in number to one-hundredth part of the inhabitants of China. If we balance their power, and elude their armies, it is because we wander without any fixed habitations, in the exercise of war and hunting. Are we strong? we advance and conquer: are we feeble? we retire and are concealed. Should the Turks confine themselves within the walls of cities, the loss of a battle would be the destruction of their empire. The bonzes preach only patience, humility, and the renunciation of the world. Such, O king! is not the religion of heroes." They entertained, with less reluctance, the doctrines of Zoroaster; but the greatest part of the nation acquiesced, without inquiry, in the opinions, or rather in the practice, of their ancestors. The honors of sacrifice were reserved for the supreme deity; they acknowledged, in rude hymns, their obligations to the air, the fire, the water, and the earth; and their priests derived some profit from the art of divination. Their unwritten laws. were rigorous and impartial: theft was punished by a tenfold restitution; adultery, treason, and murder, with death; and no chastisement could be inflicted too severe for the rare and inexpiable guilt of cowardice. As the subject nations marched under the standard of the Turks, their cavalry, both men and horses, were proudly computed by millions; one of their effective armies consisted of four hundred thousand soldiers, and in less than fifty years they were connected in peace and war with the Romans, the Persians, and the Chinese. In their northern limits, some vestige may be discovered of the form and situation of Kamptchatka, of a people of hunters and fishermen, whose sledges were drawn by dogs, and whose habitations were buried in the earth. The Turks were ignorant of astronomy; but the observation taken by some learned Chinese, with a gnomon

26 The country of the Turks, now of the Calmucks, is well described in the Genealogical History, pp. 521-562. The curious notes of the French translator are enlarged and digested in the second volume of the English version.

ice.

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of eight feet, fixes the royal camp in the latitude of fortynine degrees, and marks their extreme progress within three, or at least ten degrees, of the polar circle. Among their southern conquests the most splendid was that of the Nephthalites, or white Huns, a polite and warlike people, who possessed the commercial cities of Bochara and Samarcand, who had vanquished the Persian monarch, and carried their victorious arms along the banks, and perhaps to the mouth of the Indus. On the side of the west, the Turkish cavalry advanced to the Lake Mæotis. They passed that lake on the The khan who dwelt at the foot of Mount Altai issued his commands for the siege of Bosphorus,28 a city the voluntary subject of Rome, and whose princes had formerly been the friends of Athens.29 To the east, the Turks invaded China, as often as the vigor of the government was relaxed: and I am taught to read in the history of the times, that they mowed down their patient enemies like hemp or grass; and that the mandarins applauded the wisdom of an emperor who repulsed these Barbarians with golden lances. This extent of savage empire compelled the Turkish monarch to establish three subordinate princes of his own blood, who soon forgot their gratitude and allegiance. The conquerors were cnervated by luxury, which is always fatal except to an industrious people; the policy of China solicited the vanquished nations to resume their independence; and the power of the Turks was limited to a period of two hundred years. The revival of their name and dominion in the southern countries of Asia are the events of a later age; and the dynasties, which succeeded to their native realms may sleep in oblivion; since their history bears no relation to the decline and fall of the Roman empire.30

In the rapid career of conquest, the Turks attacked and subdued the nation of the Ogors or Varchonites * on the

27 Visdelou, pp. 141, 151. The fact, though it strictly belongs to a subordinate and successive tribe, may be introduced here.

28 Procopius, Persic. 1. i. c. 12, 1. ii. c. 3. Peyssonel, Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, pp. 99, 100, defines the distance between Caffa and the old Bosphorus at xvi. long Tartar leagues.

29 See, in a Mémoire of M. de Boze (Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. vi. pp. 549-565), the ancient kings and medals of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and the gratitude of Athens, in the Oration of Demosthenes against Leptines (in Reiske, Orator, Græc. tom. i. pp. 466, 467.

30 For the origin and revolutions of the first Turkish empire, the Chinese details are borrowed from De Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. P. ii. pp. 367-462) and Visdelou (Supplément à la Bibliothèque Orient. d'Herbelot, pp. 82-114). The Greek or Roman hints are gathered in Menander (pp. 108-164) and Theophylact Simocatta (1. vii. c. 7, 8).

*The Ogors or Varchonites, from Var, a river (obviously connected with the

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banks of the River Til, which derived the epithet of Black from its dark water or gloomy forests.81 The khan of the Ogors was slain with three hundred thousand of his subjects, and their bodies were scattered over the space of four days' journey: their surviving countrymen acknowledged the strength and mercy of the Turks; and a small portion, about twenty thousand warriors, preferred exile to servitude. They followed the well-known road of the Volga, cherished the error of the nations who confounded them with the AVARS, and spread the terror of that false though famous appellation, which had not, however, saved its lawful proprietors from the yoke of the Turks. After a long and victorious march, the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount Caucasus, in the country of the Alani and Circassians, where they first heard of the splendor and weakness of the Roman empire. They humbly requested their confederate, the prince of the Alani, to lead them to this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the permission of the governor of Lazica, was transported by the Euxine Sea to Constantinople. The whole city was poured forth to behold with curiosity and terror the aspect of a strange people: their long hair, which hung in tresses down their backs, was gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of their habit appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they were

31 The River Til, or Tula, according to the geography of De Guignes (tom. i. part ii. p. lviii. and 352), is a small, though grateful, stream of the desert, that falls into the Orhon, Selinga, &c. See Bell. Journey from Petersburg to Pekin (vol. ii. p. 124); yet his own description of the Keat, down which he sailed into the Oby, represents the name and attributes of the black river (p. 139).*

32 Theophylact, 1. vii. c. 7, 8. And yet his true Avars are invisible even to the eyes of M. de Guignes; and what can be more illustrious than the false? The right of the fugitive Ogors to that national appellation is confessed by the Turks themselves (Menander, p. 108).

33 The Alani are still found in the Genealogical History of the Tartars (p. 617), and in D'Anville's maps. They opposed the march of the generals of Zing's round the Caspian Sea, and were overthrown in a great battle (Hist, de Gengiscan, 1. iv. c. 9, p. 447).

name Avar), must not be confounded with the Uigours, the eastern Turks v.) Hammer, Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 3), who speak a language the parent of the more modern Turkish dialects. Compare Klaproth, page 121. They are the ancestors of the Usbeck Turks. These Ogors were of the same Finnish race with the Huns; and the 20,000 families which fled towards the west, after the Turkish invasion, were of the same race with those which remained to the east of the Volga, the true Avars of Theophylact.-M.

M. Klaproth (Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 274) supposes this river to be an eastern affluent of the Volga, the Kama, which, from the color of its waters, might be called black. M. Abel Remusat (Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, vol. i. p. 320) and M. St. Martin (vol. ix. p. 373) consider it the Volga, which is called Atel or Etel by all the Turkish tribes. It is called Attilas by Menander, and Ettilia by the monk Ruysbroek (1253.) See Klaproth. Tabl. Hist. p. 247. This geography is much more clear and simple than that adopted by Gibbon from De Guignes, or suggested from Bell.-M.

admitted to the audience of Justinian, Candish, the first of the ambassadors, addressed the Roman emperor in these terms: "You see before you, O mighty prince, the represen tatives of the strongest and most populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible Avars. We are willing to devote ourselves to your service: we are able to vanquish and destroy all the enemies who now disturb your repose. But we expect, as the price of our alliance, as the reward of our valor, precious gifts, annual subsidies, and fruitful possessions.' At the time of this embassy, Justinian had reigned above thirty, he had lived above seventy-five years: his mind, as well as his body, was feeble and languid; and the conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of the permanent interest of his people, aspired only to end his days in the bosom even of inglorious peace. In a studied oration, he imparted to the senate his resolution to dissemble the insult, and to purchase the friendship of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of their sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately prepared to captivate the Barbarians; silken garments, soft and splendid beds, and chains and col lars incrusted with gold. The ambassadors, content with such liberal reception, departed from Constantinople, and Valentin, one of the emperor's guards, was sent with a simi lar character to their camp at the foot of Mount Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must be alike advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and promises, to gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives, who fled before the Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into the heart of Poland and Germany, violating the law of nations, and abusing the rights of victory. Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on the Danube and the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Sclavonian names were obliterated from the earth, and the remainder of their tribes are found, as tributaries and vassals, under the standard of the Avars. The chagan, the pecular title of their king, still affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor; and Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia, to balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue or treachery of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitions designs of their countrymen; and they loudly complained of the timid, though jealous policy, of detaining

their ambassadors, and denying the arms which they had been allowed to purchase in the capital of the empire.

Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors may be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the conquerors of the Avars.35 The immense distance which eluded their arms could not extinguish their resentment the Turkish ambassadors pursued the footsteps. of the vanquished to the Jaik, the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the Euxine, and Constantinople, and at length appeared before the successor of Constantine, to request that he would not espouse the cause of rebels and fugitives. Even commerce had some share in this remarkable ncgotiation; and the Sogdoites, who were now the tributaries of the Turks, embraced the fair occasion of opening, by the north of the Caspian, a new road for the importation of Chinese silk into the Roman empire. The Persian, who preferred the navigation of Ceylon, had stopped the caravans of Bochara and Samarcand their silk was contemptuously Lurnt: some Turkish ambassadors died in Persia, with a suspicion of poison; and the great khan permitted his faithful vassal Maniach, the prince of the Scgdoites, to propose, at the Byzantine court, a treaty of alliance against their common enemies. Their splendid apparel and rich presents, the fruit of Oriental luxury, distinguished Maniach and his colleagues from the rude savages of the North: their letters, in the Scythian character and language, announced a people who had attained the rudiments of science: 36 they enumerated the conquests, they offered the friendship and military aid of the Turks and their sincerity was attested by direful im

34 The embassies and first conquests of the Avars may be read in Merander (Excerpt. Legat. pp. 99, 100, 101, 154, 155), Theophanes (p. 16), the Historia Miscella ( xvi. p. 109), and Gregory of Tours (1. iv. c. 23, 29, in the Historians of France, tom ii. pp. 214, 217).

Theophanes (Chron. p. 204), and the Hist. Miscella (1. xvi. p. 110), as understood by De Guignes (tom. i. part ii. p. 254), appear to speak of a Turkish embassy to Justinian himself: but that of Mariach, in the fourth year of his successor Justin, is positively the first that reached Constantinople (Menander, p. 108).

36 The Russians have found characters, rude hieroglyphics, on the Irtish and Yenisei, on medals, tombs, idols, rocks, obelisks, &c. (Strahlenberg, Hist. of Siberia, pp. 324, 346, 406, 429). Dr. Hyde (de Religione Veterum Persarum, p. 521, &c.) has given two alphabets of Thibet and of the Eygours. I have long harbored a suspicion, that all the Scythian, and some, perhaps much, of the In dian science, was derived from the Greeks of Bactriana.*

* Modern discoveries give no confirmation to this suspicion. The character of Indian science, as well as of their literature and mythology, indicates an original source. Grecian art may have occasionally found its way into India. One or two of the sculptures in Col. Tod's account of the Jain temples, if correct, show a finer outline, and purer sense of beauty, than appears native to India, where the monstrous always predominated over simple nature.-M.

Vol. III.-36

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