Christians in former times--that rolling gait so comically pompous,
that a close imitation of it, even in the broadest farce, would be
looked upon as a very rough over-acting of the character. It is
occasioned in part by dress and accoutrements. The weighty bundle
of weapons carried upon the chest throws back the body so as to
give it a wonderful portliness, and moreover, the immense masses of
clothes that swathe his limbs force the wearer in walking to swing
himself heavily round from left to right, and from right to left.
In truth, this great edifice of woollen, and cotton, and silk, and
silver, and brass, and steel is not at all fitted for moving on
foot; it cannot even walk without frightfully discomposing its fair
proportions; and as to running--our Tatar ran ONCE (it was in order
to pick up a partridge that Methley had winged with a pistol-shot),
and really the attempt was one of the funniest misdirections of
human energy that wondering man ever saw. But put him in his
stirrups, and then is the Tatar himself again: there he lives at
his pleasure, reposing in the tranquillity of that true home (the
home of his ancestors) which the saddle seems to afford him, and
drawing from his pipe the calm pleasures of his "own fireside," or
else dashing sudden over the earth, as though for a moment he felt
the mouth of a Turcoman steed, and saw his own Scythian plains
lying boundless and open before him.

It was not till his subordinates had nearly completed their
preparations for their march that our Tatar, "commanding the
forces," arrived; he came sleek and fresh from the bath (for so is
the custom of the Ottomans when they start upon a journey), and was
carefully accoutred at every point. From his thigh to his throat
he was loaded with arms and other implements of a campaigning life.
There is no scarcity of water along the whole road from Belgrade to