Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/97

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 77 the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills, to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a remote object ; of preserving their intervals ; of suspending, or accelerating, their pace, according to the motions of the troops on their right and left ; and of watching and repeating the signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical school, the most important lesson of the military art : the prompt and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To employ against a human enemy the same patience and valour, the same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is required in real war ; and the amusements of the chase serve as a prelude to the conquest of an empire. ^^ The political society of the ancient Germans has the appear- oovemment ance of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of Scythia, distinguished by the modem appellation of Hords, assume the form of a numerous and increasing family ; which, in the course of successive generations, has been propa- gated from the same original stock. The meanest and most ignor- ant of the Tartars preserve, with conscious pride, the inestimable treasure of their genealogy ; and, whatever distinctions of rank may have been introduced by the unequal distribution of pastoral wealth, they mutually respect themselves, and each other, as the descendants of the first founder of the tribe. The custom, which still prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the captives may countenance the very probable suspicion that this extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and fictitious. But the useful prejudice, which has obtained the sanction of time and opinion, produces the effects of truth ; the haughty Barbarians yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to the head of their blood ; and their chief or mursa, as the representative of their great father, exercises the authority of a judge, in peace, and of a leader, in war. In the original state of the pastoral world, each of the mursas (if we may continue to use a modern appellation) acted as the in- dependent chief of a large and separate family ; and the limits 12 Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, 1. iii. c. 7) represents the full glory and extent of the Mogul chase. The Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor Kamhi when he hunted in Tartary (Duhalde, Description de la Chine, torn. iv. p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.). His grandson, Kienlong, who unites the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China, describes (Eloge de Moukden, p. 273-285), as a poet, the pleasures which he had often enjoyed, as a sportsman.