The
sunshine and the flying fleecy clouds, emulous in motion with the troop
below: what life was in it all; what freedom and what breadth!
And as the sun sank apace and the guides and Headmen rode apart on some
o'er-looking height and reined their cattle in, the closing up of the
flying squadron for the evening camp, the great circular camp of these
our Scythians proof against sudden raid crowning the landscape far and
wide, seen, yet seeing every foe, whose subtle coming through the
short-lived night was watched by eyes as keen as were their own.
When reached, their bellowing, countless quarry: the plain alive and
trembling with their tumult, what tournament of mail-clad knights but
was as a stilted play to this rude shock of man and beast--carrying in a
cloud of dust that hid alike the chaser and the chased, till done their
work the frightened herds swept onward and away, leaving the sward
flecked with the huge forms that made the hunters' wealth! And now! on:
fall prosaic from the wild charge, the danger of the fierce
_melee_!--drifting from the camp the carts appear piled red in a trice
with bosses, tongues, back fat and juicy haunch, a feast unknown to
hapless kings.
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