The camp was far from deserted, in spite of the large force detached, for there could not have been altogether fewer than 300,000 Mongols on the Sajó, and in addition, there were nearly half as many more of the miserable beings who had been first conquered and then forced to join the great host. Round about the hill where stood the Khan were multitudes of felt or leather tents, and thousands of temporary mud-huts, for the trees afforded but little shelter as yet, it being now about the middle of April. Tents and huts were full of armed men, also of women, who wore the scantiest of clothing, and of children, who wore no clothing at all. Besides these, there were many women captives, who lay about in groups under the trees, with ears and noses cut off, the picture of exhaustion and misery, and so brutalised by slavery and suffering that they looked more like a herd of mutilated animals than human beings. Any good-looking women captured by the Mongols were given up to their own women, who fell upon them like furies, tortured without mercy, and then murdered all but those wanted as slaves. The camp extended far into the depths of the wood, where the chiefs kept order such as it was, with their whips. As Batu reached the top of the hill, his harsh voice was to be heard giving some peremptory order, at which those about him bent their heads low in respectful submission, and a dozen women, his wives, appeared upon the scene, muffled up in white woollen garments, and mounted upon beautiful horses, which were smothered in fringes, straps, etc., of leather. They were followed by an armed guard, and preceded, oriental fashion, by a band of singers chanting a melancholy dirge. They had come to take their leave of the Khan, who was sending them to his home, and on reaching the foot of the hill they were helped to dismount. Whereupon they threw back their snow-white veils, which were of wool like their other wraps, and Batu Khan looked at them in dead silence. There was no trace either of pain, or pleasure, or of any other emotion, unless it were vanity and ambition, upon his wild features. The women burst into a furious fit of weeping; but it was evidently the result of great effort, not of any irrepressible distress. Men are much like overgrown children, and have always liked to deceive themselves and be deceived; and this weeping and lamentation were the proper thing, the conventional way of saying "farewell!" And yet, if they but looked on themselves, the sight was surely enough to move anyone to tears; for these women were all strikingly beautiful, and their beauty was enhanced by an expression--and this not forced--of profound sorrow and dejection. Who they were, and whence they came--whether they were Russian girls from the Volga and Don, Caucasians from the Caspian, fair Slavonians, or white-faced Wallachians, who could say? But all were beautiful, all had an air of distinction about them, and all looked overwhelmed with woe unutterable.