The kings of the Huns and Mongols excited the enthusiasm of their armies by the use of omens. When unfavourable to their plans, the omens were either disregarded or explained away by the chiefs, who were probably incredulous, but at all events possessed the resolution to rise superior to the oracles. Thus when Attila had raised the siege of Orleans, and was pressed in his retreat by a powerful army of Goths and Romans, the auguries were against him, and his troops were dispirited. But Attila, considering that a defeat would be less disastrous to him than flight, rallied the sinking courage of the Huns by an eloquent oration, in which, with consummate ingenuity, he turned the very advantages of the enemy into encouragements to himself. Their well-chosen posts, their strict alliance and close order, he affected to attribute to fear alone. He plied his people also with arguments from the doctrine of fate, and persuaded them that they were as safe in the thick of the fight as in their own tents. In the desperate battle which ensued, Attila outdid himself in personal valour, and the Huns fought furiously; the slaughter on both sides was prodigious; but when night came Attila was fain to retire within his camp. The result of the action was nevertheless creditable to his sagacity, for he was still so formidable in defeat that his enemies compared him to a lion at bay, and they dared not renew the attack. Timour, who lived in a more enlightened age, or rather among a more enlightened people, and was himself educated in Mohammedanism, rose to a higher flight in the use and contempt of auguries. Instead of examining the entrails of animals, he consulted the planets and the Koran. When marching on Delhi his astrologers could not educe any favourable indication from the stars, but Timour refused to hamper his plans by such considerations, telling his astrologers that fortune does not depend on the stars, but on the Creator of them. The Huns and Mongols were distinguished from other men, chiefly by their waste of human life. They may be said to have depopulated Asia. The flourishing cities that once existed in the deserts of Tartary have been utterly destroyed; the history of many of them has been lost; and where large populations cultivated arts and industry, one may now see only the tent of a herdsman in the vast solitude. The savages boasted that grass never grew where the feet of their horses had trod, and that a horse might run without stumbling over the places where the great cities had stood. The conquerors built towers and pyramids of the heads of their enemies, that is, their prisoners--not soldiers only--but whole populations whom they massacred in cold blood.