The barbarians who, when the darkness of ruin hung over the Roman Empire, invaded and convulsed Europe, issued from the steppes and table-lands of Mongolia. As Humboldt says {212}:—“If intellectual culture has directed its course from the east to the west, like the vivifying light of the sun, barbarism at a later period followed the same route, when it threatened to plunge Europe again in darkness. A tawny race of shepherds—of Thon-Khiu, that is to say, Turkish origin—the Hiounguou, inhabited under sheep-skin tents the elevated table-land of Gobi. Long formidable to the Chinese power, a portion of the Hiounguou were driven south in Central Asia. The impulse thus given uninterruptedly propagated itself to the primitive country of the Fins, lying on the banks of the Ural, and thence a torrent of Huns, Avars, Chasars, and divers mixtures of Asiatic races, poured towards the west and south. The armies of the Huns first appeared on the banks of the Volga, then in Pannonia, finally on the borders of the Marne and the Po, ravaging the beautiful plains where, from the time of Antenor, the genius of man had accumulated monuments upon monuments. Thus blew from the Mongolian deserts a pestilential wind which blighted even in the Cisalpine plains the delicate flower of art, the object of cares so tender and so constant.” IV. With three Cossacks, seven Kalmucks, eight rifles, and a store of powder and lead, Mr. Atkinson passed into the Gobi. His Kalmucks had their hair cut close, except a tuft growing on the top of the head, which was plaited into a long tail, and hung far down their back. The chief was named Tchuck-a-bir, a stalwart, powerful fellow, with a fine manly countenance, large black eyes, and massive forehead. He wore a horse-skin cloak, fastened round his waist with a blood-red scarf. In warm weather he drew his arms from the sleeves, which were then tucked into his girdle, and the cloak draped around him in graceful folds, adding to the dignity of his tall and robust form. Across the Kourt-Choum mountains the travellers took their way, directing their course towards the Tanguor chain, many of the peaks of which soar above the line of eternal snow. Ascending one of these summits, they enjoyed a noble prospect: immediately beneath them lay the Oubsa-Noor; to the south-west were visible the Oulan-Koum Desert and the Aral-Noor; to the south lay Tchagan Tala, and the ridges descending down to the Gobi; to the south-east the white crests of the Khangai Mountains. This was such a view of Central Asia as never before had European enjoyed.