Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/44

 2 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1<53 chap, vineyards; but for the most part this neglected — _ — Crirn T&rtary was a wfiderness of steppe or of i85o-5i. mea ' mountain-range much clothed towards the west wkh:ta]L stiff grasses, and the stems of a fragrant hero like southernwood. The bulk of the people were of Tartar descent, but no longer what they had been in the days when nations trembled at the coming of the Golden Horde; and although they yet held to the Moslem faith, their religion had lost its warlike fire. Blessed with a dispen- sation from military service, and far away from the accustomed battle-fields of Europe and Asia, they lived in quiet, knowing little of war except what tradition could faintly carry down from old times in low monotonous chants. In their hus- bandry they were more governed by the habits of their ancestors than by the nature of the land which had once fed the people of Athens, for they neglected tillage and clung to pastoral life. Watching flocks and herds, they used to remain on the knolls very still for long hours together ; and when they moved, they strode over the hills in their slow-flowing robes with something of the forlorn majesty of peasants descended from warriors. They wished for no change, and they excused their content in their simple way by sav- ing that for three generations their race had lived happy under the Czars.* on the 23d of September 1854, and the date gives value to the acknowledgment, for these villagers had been witnessing the confusion and seeming ruin of the Czar's arm)-.
 * The villagers of Eskel (on the Katcha) declared this to me