hips
of their adverse fortune. [53] The Huns, with their flocks and herds,
their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were transported
to the west of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country
of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive
tract of the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the
Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name and
manners were diffused over the wide extent of their conquests; and the
painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their
vassals. Towards the North, they penetrated into the frozen regions of
Siberia, among the savages who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger,
to the taste of human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as
far as the confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and
German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, [53a]
to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a
yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were less
deformed in their persons, less brutish in their manners, than the Huns;
but they did not yield to those formidable Barbarians in their martial
and independent spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the
use of domestic slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war
and rapine as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter,
fixed in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship; the
scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their horses;
and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the pusillanimous warriors, who
patiently expected the infirmities of age, and the tortures of lingering
disease. [54] On the banks of the Tanais, the military power of the Huns
and the Alani encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal
success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of the Alani
was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation were dispersed
by the ordinary alternative of flight or submission. [55] A colony of
exiles found a secure refuge in the mountains of Caucasus, between the
Euxine and the Caspian, where they still preserve their name and their
independence. Another colony advanced, with more intrepid courage,
towards the shores of the Baltic; associated themselves with the
Northern tribes of Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces
of Gaul and Spain. But the greatest part of the nat