fallslikesnow

"My opinion is, that it will be necessary to leave a large part, if not the whole, of the troops now on the left of the Tagus in the Alentejo, at least till our works shall be in some greater degree of forwardness; and the measures I should wish you to pursue are generally to confine the enemy's operations as much as you can, taking advantage for that purpose of the course of the different rivers which fall into the Tagus. The first of these is that which falls into the Tagus at Benavente ; the second that which falls into the Tagus at Camora Correa; the third that which falls into the Tagus above Aldea Galega ; then the line from Moita to Palmela; and lastly, that from Almada to Traffaria." The dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington: during his ..., Volume 7   By Arthur Wellesley Wellington (Duke of), John Gurwood

A description of the Khazars (in this context possibly meaning the Huns?) from "The History of the Caucasian Albanians" by Movses Dasxuranci(a.k.a. Moses Kałankatuaçi; tr. C.J.F. Dowsett,Oxford, 1961), written around 1000AD. (stolen mercilessly from the excellent idiocentrism and found via languagehat ). "thumb-cutters" and the Turkish Khazars. The Khazars: "bestial, gold-loving tribes of hairy men.... an ugly, insolent, broadfaced, eyelashless mob in the shape of women with flowing hair....demented in their satanically deluded tree-worshipping errors in accordance with their northern dull-witted stupidity, addicted to their fictitious and deceptive religion....There we observed them on their couches like rows of heavily laden camels. Each had a bowl full of the flesh of unclean animals, and dishes containing salt water into which they dipped their food, and brimming silver cups and beakers chased with gold which had been taken from the plunder from T...