et their attention by its seeming strangeness and real
unexpectedness.

If Western Asia had ever, in the remote ages before the Assyrian
monarchy was established, been subject to invasions of this
character--which is not improbable--at any rate so long a period had
elapsed since the latest of them, that in the reigns of Asshur-pani-pal
and Cyaxares they were wholly forgotten and the South reposed in happy
unconsciousness of a danger which might at any time have burst upon it,
had the Providence which governs the world so willed. The Asiatic
steppes had long teemed with a nomadic population, of a war-like temper,
and but slightly attached to its homes, which ignorance of its own
strength and of the weakness and wealth of its neighbors had alone
prevented from troubling the great empires of the South. Geographic
difficulties had at once prolonged the period of Ignorance, and acted as
obstructions, if ever the idea arose of pushing exploring parties into
the southern regions; the Caucasus, the Caspian, the sandy deserts of
Khiva and Kharesm, and the great central Asiatic mountain-chains,
forming barriers which naturally restrained the northern hordes from
progressing in this direction. But a time had now arrived when these
causes were no longer to operate; the line of demarcation which had so
long separated North and South was to be crossed; the flood-gates were
to be opened, and the stream of northern emigration was to pour itself
in a resistless torrent over the fair and fertile regions from which it
had hitherto been barred out. Perhaps population had increased beyond
all former precedent; perhaps a spirit of enterprise had arisen;
possibly some slight accident--the exploration of a hunter hard pressed
for food, the chattering tongue of a merchant, the invitation of a
traitor--may have dispelled the ignorance of earlier times, and brought
to the knowledge of the hardy North the fact that beyond the mountains
and the seas, which they had always regarded as the extreme limit of the
world, there lay a rich prey inviting the coming of the spoiler.

The condition of the northern barbarians, less than two hundred years
after this time, has been graphically portrayed by two of the most
observant of the Greeks, who themselves visited the Steppe country to
learn the character and customs of the people. Where civilization is
unknown, changes are so slow and slight, that we may reasonably regard
the descriptions of Herodotus and