The sun by this had risen, and clear'd the fog From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed Into the open plain; so Haman bade-- Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled The host, and still was in his lusty prime. From their black tents, long files of horse, they stream'd; As when some grey November morn the files, In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes Stream over Casbin and the southern slopes Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries, Or some frore Caspian reed-bed, southward bound For the warm Persian sea-board--so they stream'd. The Tartars of the Oxus, the King's guard, First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long spears; Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares. Next, the more temperate Toorkmuns of the south, The Tukas, and the lances of Salore, And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands; Light men and on light steeds, who only drink The acrid milk of camels, and their wells. And then a swarm of wandering horse, who came From far, and a more doubtful service own'd; The Tartars of Ferghana, from the banks Of the Jaxartes, men with scanty beards And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes Who roam o'er Kipchak and the northern waste, Kalmucks and unkempt Kuzzaks, tribes who stray Nearest the Pole, and wandering Kirghizzes, Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere; These all filed out from camp into the plain. Matthew Arnold gives to the Tartar camp tents of lattice-work, thick-piled carpets; to the Tartar leaders woollen coats, sandals, and the sheep-skin cap which is still the national head-dress of the Bulgarians. More important, in proof of his idea of their civilisation, he credits them with a high sense of chivalry and a faithful regard for facts. _Sohrab and Rustum_ is, of course, a flight of poetic fancy; but its "local colour" is founded on good evidence. Probably the Huns, despite the terrors of their name, the echoes of which still come down the corridors of time; despite the awful titles which their leaders won (such as Attila, "the Scourge of God"), were not on a very much lower plane of civilisation than the Goths with whom they fought, or with the other barbarians who tore at the prostrate body of the Roman Empire. One may see people of very much the same type to-day on the outer edges of Islam in some desert quarters; one may see and, if one has such taste for the wild and the free in life as has Cunninghame Graham, one may admire: