PEOPLES PAST AND PRESENT 327
COMING OF THE HUNS
About 1500 B.C. the Hunnic horde cut itself off from the original
Mongolian stock and set up short-lived states in the dominions of the
Chinese and Tunguses; three Hunnic empires were in existence about
180 B.C. The western Huns founded the Indo-Scythian Empire, which
was destroyed by the Persians in 574 B.C., the central Huns split into
the White and Black Huns and both sections moved into Europe, where
their power crumbled on the death of Attila (A.D. 453). The empire of
the eastern Huns was destroyed by the Tunguses and Chinese in
A.D. 100.
It is possible that ages ago the Turkish tribes or West Mongols,
who were related to the Mongolian hordes in the Altai Mountains, were
supreme in India as the Dravidians, in Mesopotamia as the Sumerians,
in Asia Minor as the Hittites, and in Egypt as the Hyksos. A section
of them appeared much later (A.D. 400) as the Avars, who some 400
years later were subdued by Charlemagne in what is now Hungary.
About A.D. 600 the Turkish tribes were split asunder by the Chinese; a
few hordes were engaged as bodyguards by the Caliphs and in 976
founded an Indo-Turkish Empire, which was overcome by Tamerlane
in 1398; the Turkish horde of the Petchenegs drove the Magyars out
of Bessarabia into Hungary about the year 900. The Turkish Seljuks
conquered Asia Minor, and the Osman horde pushed forward as far as
Morocco and Vienna.
ORIGIN OF THE COSSACKS
Among the off-shoots of the Turkish tribes are the Tartars, who by
1468 had advanced as far as the Indus, and mingling with the Russians
in southern Russia became the Cossacks. The Turks who stayed behind
in Central Asia were driven out by the Mongols in 1209 and no^ live
as the Yakuts in north-east Siberia. The Kirghis are another. Central
Asiatic Turkish tribe. The Turks proper, who were settled1 in Asia
Minor, conquered the Balkans in the I5th century and maintained their
position there until they were slowly forced southwards agairfin and
after the wars of 1683-1699.
The hordes of the Buriats, Khalkhas, and Kalmucks, falsely called
the true Mongols, who had lived apart from each other on the edge
of the Gobi Desert for untold centuries, formed a confederation in
1175 for the purpose of founding an empire. They overran China,
Persia, Siberia, Russia, and India, and maintained their supremacy in
Egypt as the Mamelukes until 1800. In Europe there are remnants
of them living in the Crimea.
About 4000 B.C. a Hamitic migration is thought to have taken place,
moving from South Arabia, Nubia, and Libya into Spain and southern
Europe arJ! bringing into Europe the Iberians (Basques, Sardinians*
Ligurians). At the same time a Semitic horde, known as the Afefcads
or Akkadians, wandered into Mesopotamia, where it adopted the cutaire
of the Sumerians.