the pastoral state of nations. The Huns of Attila may, without
injustice, be compared to the Moguls and Tartars, before their primitive
manners were changed by religion and luxury.

After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces of China, it was
seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory and passion, but in calm
deliberate council, to exterminate all the inhabitants of that populous
country, that the vacant land might be converted to the pasture of
cattle. The firmness of a Chinese mandarin, who insinuated some
principles of rational policy into the mind of Genghis, diverted him
from the execution of this horrid design. But in the cities of Asia,
which yielded to the Moguls, the inhuman abuse of the rights of war was
exercised with a regular form of discipline, which may, with equal
reason, though not with equal authority, be imputed to the victorious
Huns. The inhabitants, who had submitted to their discretion, were
ordered to evacuate their houses, and to assemble in some plain adjacent
to the city; where a division was made of the vanquished into three
parts. The first class consisted of the soldiers of the garrison, and of
the young men capable of bearing arms; and their fate was instantly
decided; they were either enlisted among the Moguls, or they were
massacred on the spot by the troops, who, with pointed spears and bended
bows, had formed a circle round-the captive multitude. The second class,
composed of the young and beautiful women, of the artificers of every
rank and profession, and of the more wealthy or honorable citizens, from
whom a private ransom might be expected, was distributed in equal or
proportionable lots. The remainder, whose life or death was alike
useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return to the city; which,
in the mean while, had been stripped of its valuable furniture; and a
tax was imposed on those wretched inhabitants for the indulgence of
breathing their native air.