The Mongol tribes are exceedingly conservative in their habits; their fashions never change. A description of their manners in the time of Genghis, or even of Attila, is equally applicable now. Everything goes to show that in the form of their tents, in their dress, their social customs, and their mode of life, the Mongols of to-day have changed but little since they first became known to history. The early history of the Huns is involved in obscurity. They appear to have existed as a pastoral people, inhabiting the east of the desert of Gobi from about 1200 B.C., during which time they were frequently at war with the Chinese. The first authentic accounts of them date from about the year 200 B.C., when they greatly extended their empire, and became very formidable neighbours to China. It was in the third century before the Christian era that the Chinese built the famous wall as a protection from the inroads of the warlike Huns, who, notwithstanding, laid China under tribute. Vouti, of the Han dynasty (died 87 B.C.), gained a bloody victory over the Huns, and was the first to break their power in China. He followed up his military success by the application of the craft for which his race was, even at that early date, distinguished. By diligently promoting dissension among the tribes he succeeded in severing many of them from their allegiance to the Tanjou, the title then adopted by the kings of the Huns. The Tanjou himself became afterwards a vassal to the Chinese emperors, and was fain to lick the dust for a dependent kingship. About 100 years after the birth of Christ, the Huns were broken up and scattered. The Huns of the South, who had previously seceded from the main body, and had established their dynasty in alliance with China, held together till the year 216 A.D. The Northern Huns, being distressed by a great famine, were attacked by the tribes whom they had so long oppressed, and were compelled to seek safety in flight. From that era we must date the migrations of the Hunnish tribes. They were again subdivided. One branch wandered to the coast of the Caspian Sea, where they settled, and became modified in their character under the influence of a more genial climate; their nomad habits were gradually abandoned; and they became civilised. These were called the White Huns. Another branch migrated in a north-westerly direction, and in their march had to contend with a more rigorous climate. Exasperated by their struggles with the elements and with many enemies, they retained all their savageness in their new settlement on the Volga. These restless warriors had barely secured their own existence in the west, when they began to attack their neighbours. After conquering the Alani, a nation only a little less barbarous than themselves, and adding to their own forces those of the vanquished tribes, the Huns became the terror of the Goths, and these also fell a prey to the invaders before the end of the fourth century of the Christian era.