clergy, and the fact that John the Terrible directly appeals to the authority of the Bible and the example of the Roman emperors. Civilisation and letters were almost unknown to the Tatars. The writers in their chanceries were for the greater part taken from the nations they had conquered, as were also the artists who embellished the wintering places of their khans. Much luxury was to be met with amongst them, but neither elegance nor cleanliness: in this respect they kept to the very end the customs of the Mongolian steppes. Also in moral respects they showed themselves dwellers of the steppes even to the end of their career in history. Cruel and coarse though they were, they possessed, however, some good qualities. They were temperate in their lives, and their cupidity was not so great as that of other Asiatic nations; they were far less given to deceit in trade--in general, with them, violence predominated over deceit.[b] Throughout all of their conquests in Russia, they obviously acted upon a principle which was well calculated to facilitate their own complete ascendency. At first they destroyed the walled places that stood in the way of their projects, and afforded a means of defence to the people; they destroyed the population wherever they went, in order that the remnant which survived should feel the more surely the weight of their power; and, at length, as their advance became the more safe and certain, they relaxed slightly in their cruelties, enrolling under their standard the slaves they captured, thus turning their conquests into armaments. But the climate of Russia rendered it an unsuitable place for their location. As they could not remain upon the soil which they had vanquished, they established themselves on the frontiers to watch over their new possessions, leaving nominal Russian princes to fight for them against the invading tribes that continually rushed in. Those very invasions served also to strengthen the Tatar yoke, by weakening the resisting power of the natives.[d]