ion of the Alani
embraced the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the
Huns, who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies, proceeded,
with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade the limits of the
Gothic empire.

[Footnote 52: The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their
conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to the present standard, 200
lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one degree of latitude; and
one English mile consequently exceeds three miles of China. But there
are strong reasons to believe that the ancient li scarcely equalled
one half of the modern. See the elaborate researches of M. D'Anville,
a geographer who is not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe.
(Memoires de l'Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.)]

[Footnote 53: See Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125--144. The
subsequent history (p. 145--277) of three or four Hunnic dynasties
evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a long
residence in China.]

[Footnote 53a: Compare M. Klaproth's curious speculations on the Alani.
He supposes them to have been the people, known by the Chinese, at the
time of their first expeditions to the West, under the name of Yath-sai
or A-lanna, the Alanan of Persian tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi;
the same, according to Ammianus, with the Massagetae, and with the
Albani. The remains of the nation still exist in the Ossetae of Mount
Caucasus. Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 174.--M. Compare
Shafarik Slawische alterthumer, i. p. 350.--M. 1845.]

[Footnote 54: Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est voluptabile,
ita illos pericula juvent et bella. Judicatur ibi beatus qui in proelio
profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et fortuitis mortibus mundo
digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos, conviciis atrocibus insectantur.
[Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must think highly of the conquerors of such men.]

[Footnote 55: On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi. 2,)
Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns,
tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the Tartars, (tom. ii.
p. 617.)]

The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to the
Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and reputation, the fruit
of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable approach of
a host of unknown enemies, [56] on whom his barbarous subjects might,
without injustice, bestow the e