Now the stronghold was a marvel in the manner of its contrivance, and in its size and strength; for it was bulwarked with seven rings, each twenty feet high and twenty feet wide, and the rings were made of stockades of oak and beech and pine trunks, filled in with stones and earth, and covered atop with turf and thick bushes.  The distance across the outer ring was thirty miles, and between each ring and the one within it there were villages and farms in cry of each other, and each ring was pierced by narrow gateways well guarded.  In the midst of the innermost ring were the tent of the Chagan or Great Chief, and the House of the Golden Hoard.  Piled high were the chambers of that house with the enormous treasure of a century of raiding--silken tissues and royal apparel and gorgeous arms, great vases and heavy plate of gold and silver, spoil of jewels and precious stones, leather sacks of coined money, the bribes and tribute of Greece and Rome, and I know not what else of rare and costly.  Long afterwards, when the Avars were broken and the Hring thrown down, that hoard filled fifteen great waggons drawn each by four oxen.