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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 89 their flocks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river ; and their summer excursions reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the black Calmucks,^'^ who remained about a century under the protection of Russia ; and who have since returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march and the return of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns.^^ It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which elapsed, Thoir con. Quest of th.0 after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, Aiani and before they shewed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the same force which had driven them from their native seats, still con- tinued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe. The power of the Sienpi, their iinplacable enemies, which extended above three thousand miles from East to West,^* must have gradually oppressed thein by the weight and terror of a formidable neighbourhood ; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably tend to increase the strength, or to contract the territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear, without inform- ing the understanding, of the reader ; but I cannot suppress the very natural suspicion, that the Huns of the North derived a considerable reinforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the dominion of China ; that the bravest warriors marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen ; and that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by 52 Bell (vol. i. p. 29-34), and the editors of the Genealogical History (p. 539), have described the Calmucks of the Volga in the beginning of the present century. 53 This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for the inscription of a column, has been translated by the missionaries of Pekin (M^moire sur la Chine, torn. i. p. 401-418). The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the Son of Heaven and the Father of his People. 54 The Kang-Mou (torn. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their conquest 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. M6» nioires de I'Acad. torn. ii. p. 125-502. Mesures Itin^raires, p. 154-167.