'The world was all before them where to choose.' Restless from present distress, flushed with the hope of fairer prospects, and animated with the spirit of hardy enterprise, these daring adventurers were likely to become formidable adversaries to all who opposed them.

The peaceful inhabitants of the countries on which they rushed could not long withstand the energy of men acting under such powerful motives of exertion.

And when they fell in with any tribes like their own, the contest was a struggle for existence, and they fought with a desperate courage, inspired by the rejection that death was the punishment of defeat and life the prize of victory.
In these savage contests many tribes must have been utterly exterminated.

Some, probably, perished by hardship and famine.

Others, whose leading star had given them a happier direction, became great and powerful tribes, and, in their turns, sent off fresh adventurers in search of still more fertile seats.