The immense empire, however, which had been founded by King Attila, was destined to be but of short duration after the death of its founder. His sons Aladar and Csaba, in their contention for the inheritance, resorted to arms. The war ended with the utter destruction of the nation. All of the followers of Aladar perished; Csaba, however, succeeded in escaping from the destroying arms of the neighboring nations who had fallen on the quarrelling brothers, with but about fifteen thousand men to the territories of the Greek empire. A few thousands, who had deserted Csaba, fled to Transylvania, and settled there in the eastern mountain-regions. The descendants of the latter became subsequently merged with the immigrating Hungarians, and formed with them a homogeneous family under the name of Szeklers, which continues to exist to this day. Csaba, whose mother was an imperial daughter of Greece, met with a friendly reception at the hands of the Greek emperor, Marcianus, and remained in that country for a few years. He returned afterwards with the remainder of his people to the home of his ancestors, on the banks of the Don, where, up to the time of his death, he never tired of inciting the Magyars to emigrate to Pannonia and to revenge themselves on their enemies by reconquering the empire of Attila. [Illustration: HUNGARIAN SHEPHERD] In turning to the second source of the history of the origin of the Hungarians, we are treading upon the firmer ground of scientific inquiry; we can penetrate the hazy light of remote antiquity, and venture the assertion that it is far away in the distant East—namely, in the Altai mountains, that we may look for the cradle of the Magyar race. Here was, as the reader may be aware, the coterminous frontier of the three principal branches of the Uralo-Altaic race—namely, the Mongolians in the east, the Finn-Ugrians in the north, and the Turks in the south. With a population of strictly nomadic habits and of eminently roaming propensities, it needs scarcely to be said that the three branches lived in continual feud and warfare near each other. A great convulsion in the life of these nomads happened, as we presume, in the second or third century after Christ. The Turks, on seeing the more flourishing state of things with their Finn-Ugrian neighbors in the north, fell upon them suddenly, drove them from their homes in the valleys of the Altai mountains, where traces of their industry are still extant, and scattered the various tribes and families, partly to the north—namely, to Siberia; partly to the west—namely, to Southern Russia. From that extraordinary throng and revolutionary migration emerged the Voguls and Ostyaks, who live at this day on both sides of the great Obi river; the Zyrians, who now live in the governments of Archangel and Vologda; farther the Votyaks and Tcheremisses, a motley crowd of men who are of Finn-Ugrian extraction, but strongly intermixed with Turco-Tartar blood.