On the banks of the Danube, thousands of men astride on small horses, clad in rat-skin coats, monstrous Tartars with enormous heads, flat noses, chins gullied with scars and gashes, and jaundiced faces bare of hair, rushed at full speed to envelop the territories of the Lower Empire like a whirlwind.

It is only when these red-skinned Tartars meet Americans or such high-spirited Indians as the Opates that they have to recoil before gunpowder.

"I married agin," ses Peter's uncle, in a whisper, 'cos people was telling 'im to keep quiet, "a tartara perfect tartar.