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 316 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xli defeat before the eyes of their countrymen, to describe the kingdoms which they had lost, and to claim a share of the humble inheritance which, in a happier hour, they had almost unanimously renounced. 45 In the country between the Elbe and the Oder, several populous villages of Lusatia are inhabited by the Vandals : they still preserve their language, their customs, and the purity of their blood ; support with some impatience, the Saxon or Prussian yoke ; and serve with secret and voluntary allegiance the descendant of their ancient kings, who in his garb and present fortune is confounded with the meanest of his vassals. 46 The name and situation of this unhappy people might indicate their descent from one common stock with the conquerors of Africa. But the use of a Scla- vonian dialect more clearly represents them as the last remnant of the new colonies, who succeeded to the genuine Vandals, already scattered or destroyed in the age of Frocopius. 47 Manners If Belisarius had been tempted to hesitate in his allegiance, It the l he might have urged, even against the emperor himself, the a.d°535 indispensable duty of saving Africa from an enemy more bar- barous than the Vandals. The origin of the Moors is involved in darkness ; they were ignorant of the use of letters. 48 Their limits cannot be precisely denned : a boundless continent was opened to the Libyan shepherds; the change of seasons and pastures regulated their motions; and their rude huts and slender furniture were transported with the same ease as their arms, their families, and their cattle, which consisted of sheep, 45 A single voice had protested, and Genseric dismissed, without a formal answer, the Vandals of Germany ; but those of Africa derided his prudence and affected to despise the poverty of their forests (Procopius, Vandal. 1. i. c. 22). 46 From the mouth of the great elector (in 1687), Tollius describes the secret royalty and rebellious spirit of the Vandals of Brandenburgh, who could muster five or six thousand soldiers who had procured some cannon, &c. (Itinerar. Hun- gar, p. 42, apud Dubos, Hist, de la Monarchic Franchise, torn. i. p. 182, 183). The veracity, not of the elector, but of Tollius himself, may justly be suspected. [The (Teutonic) Vandals have, of course, nothing to do with the (Slavonic) Wends. The confusion arose from a custom of medieval writers to use Vandali to designate the Wends. Cp. the use of Sicttli for the Szeklers of Transylvania.] 47 Procopius (1. i. c. 22) was in total darkneBS — oi>8e ixvi)^ ru ovSt wo/ia Is ifit <njj'Ce Ta '- Under the reign of Dagobert (a.d. 630), the Sclavonian tribeB of the Sorbi and Venedi already bordered on Thuringia (Mascou, Hist, of the Germans, xv. 3, 4, 5). 48 Sallust represents the Moors as a remnant of the army of Heracles (de Bell. Jugurth. c. 21), and Procopius (Vandal. 1. ii. c. 10) as the posterity of the Cananaeans who fled from the robber Joshua (tJ(ttt)s). He quotes two columns, with a Phoe- nician inscription. I believe in the columns — I doubt the inscription — and I reject the pedigree.