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i 
 
 DE QUINCEY'S 
 
 Revolt of the Tartars 
 
 OR 
 
 FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN 
 
 WITH INTRODUCION AND NOTES 
 
 EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 New York Chicago San Francisco 
 
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 «^v* 
 
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 COPYRIGHTED 
 
 By EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 1898. 
 
 
t 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 The family of De Quincey was originally noble. 
 An ancestor of the opium-eater " came over to 
 England with the Conqueror : " afterwards certain 
 De Quinceys are found Earls of Winchester, and 
 made some great or small noise in the Barons' War 
 and the Crusades. But these Earls of Winchester, 
 as De Quincey tells us, " suddenly came to grief ; " 
 in fact, the family sank considerably in the world's 
 estimation. The aristocratic prefix "De " appears 
 to have been dropped, and the author's father signed 
 his name, and was known among his acquaintances, 
 as plain Thomas Quincey.* 
 
 This Thomas Quincey married a Miss Elizabeth 
 Penson, a lady of very good family connections. 
 There were eight children by this marriage, of 
 whom Thomas, the fifth child and the second son, 
 was born on the 15 th of August, 1785, at Man- 
 chester. At the age of six, De Quincey lost his 
 elder sister, Elizabeth, to whom he was devotedly 
 attached. Shortly afterwards the family removed to 
 
 * In his boyish letters De Quincey always signs himself " Thomas 
 Quincey; " the " De " appears to have been re-assumed by his mother. 
 
11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Greenhay, a place at that time some miles distant 
 from Manchester, but long since swallowed up in 
 the great manufacturing city. Not long after, the 
 elder Thomas Quincey died. 
 
 The education of De Quincey, after the elemen- 
 tary stage of home instruction, was entrusted to a 
 private tutor. In the child's twelfth year the family 
 removed to Bath, and De Quincey entered the Bath 
 Grammar School. Other changes followed. In 
 1798 he was sent to a private school at Winkfield 
 in Wiltshire, and, at the end of 1800, to the Man- 
 chester Grammar School, where he remained till 
 July, 1802. 
 
 De Quincey easily excelled in the various 
 branches of knowledge imparted at school. He 
 obtained a singular mastery over the Greek and 
 Latin languages. He showed remarkable facility 
 in the composition of Latin verse, and he tells us 
 that he acquired the power of writing and speaking 
 Greek with fluency. But he was not content with 
 the knowledge and acquirements demanded by the 
 standard of a public school education : he struck 
 out a line for himself, and early became acquainted, 
 amongst other things, with the literature of his own 
 country, even in its byways. He was throughout 
 his life a great reader. Southey, a competent judge 
 on such matters, once declared him to be the best 
 informed man for his years he had ever met. 
 
 Manchester Grammar School, for more than one 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ill 
 
 reason, proved unendurable to De Quincey. He 
 earnestly entreated his mother and guardians .to 
 remove him. His prayers were unheard ; and so, 
 unable to bear the torment any more (his health 
 breaking down), he took the bold course of running 
 away. One evening he appeared at Chester, where 
 his family had now taken up their quarters. On the 
 advice of his uncle, Colonel Penson, at that time 
 staying with his sister, Mrs. De Quincey, the truant 
 was, as he himself desired, suffered to go on a walk- 
 ing tour in Wales, and a guinea (five dollars) a 
 week was allowed him to support existence as best 
 he might. 
 
 Accordingly, from July to November, De Quincey 
 wandered about Wales. The guinea a week proved 
 insufficient; the boy was obliged to undergo the 
 severest privations, and the result was a permanent 
 injury to his constitution. 
 
 Worse still ; in an evil hour he formed the reso- 
 lution to cut himself adrift from his family and 
 plunge into London. Then followed greater suffer- 
 ing : hunger, wanderings by night and day about the 
 London streets, intense bodily pain and sickness. 
 
 This is the period of his life (Manchester Gram- 
 mar School, the Welsh wanderings, and the vaga- 
 bondism in London) which is recounted in The 
 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, for it was 
 then that the disease, apparently hereditary, was 
 aggravated to such an extent, that the only possible 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 iefuge was found in the consumption — sometimes 
 in enormous quantities — of opium. 
 
 At last an accidental encounter with a relation 
 restored him for a while to his family, and, in 1803, 
 he was sent to Oxford University. 
 
 At Oxford he remained — apparently — till 1807, 
 when, in the midst of his final examination, and 
 with the certainty of a triumphant success before 
 him, he suddenly and unaccountably left. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one he had entered upon a 
 moderate fortune, and was under no necessity of 
 working for his living. Accordingly, for two years, 
 he seems to have moved hither and thither as his 
 fancy bade him. Sometimes he is to be found in 
 London, sometimes in the Lake Country, some- 
 times in Bath and the West of England. He had 
 made the acquaintance of various men of letters ; 
 amongst these the most conspicuous were Charles 
 Lamb, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and John 
 Wilson. 
 
 In 1809 he took' up his abode at Grasmere in 
 Westmoreland, in a cottage recently vacated by 
 Wordsworth. This cottage remained his home for 
 twenty- one years. 
 
 About four years afterwards, a pecuniary calamity, 
 the nature of which is nowhere definitely stated, fell 
 upon De Quincey. He appears to have been par- 
 tially relieved by the liberality of the Colonel 
 Penson already mentioned. Simultaneously, his 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 constitutional malady induced him to resort to 
 excessive opium-eating. It was at this time, he 
 tells us, that he became a "regular and confirmed 
 opium-eater." His worst experience, however, of 
 the "pains of opium" was to follow some years 
 later. 
 
 In these years he seems to have visited London 
 occasionally, and was once in Edinburgh, where 
 the last years of his life were to be spent. Still, De 
 Quincey is merely a scholar ; a student known to 
 some eminent persons as a man of extensive 
 information and wide reading, and as a very 
 brilliant talker : to the outside world not known 
 at all. 
 
 In 1816 De Quincey married. His wife was 
 Miss Margaret Simpson. She bore him eight chil- 
 dren, five of whom survived him. She herself died 
 in 1837. The marriage appears to have been in 
 every respect a happy one — save for the opium 
 spell ; for, soon afterwards, there followed an out- 
 burst of opium-eating. De Quincey was utterly 
 incapacitated from all work, wound round, as he 
 describes it, by some " Circean spell." He was 
 visited nightly by the most fearful dreams. He 
 dreaded the night; for night brought sleep, and 
 sleep brought the dreams. These dreams play a 
 great part in De Quincey's impassioned imaginative 
 writings. Especially has he described them in the 
 Confessions. It is to be noticed that this is the 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 period in which occurred the incident related in 
 The Vision of Sudden Death* 
 
 Meantime necessity drove De Quincey to write. 
 In 1 8 19 he obtained the editorship of the West- 
 moreland Gazette, a newly established paper. After 
 a year he resigned the appointment, and in 1820 
 was in Edinburgh, looking for work in connection 
 with the Magazines. 
 
 But it was London, not Edinburgh, in which De 
 Quincey was to make his first appearance as a liter- 
 ary power of unquestioned importance. In 1821, 
 in The London Magazine, there appeared The 
 Confessions of an English Opium- Eater. The 
 London Magazine at this time numbered among 
 its contributors several who have since taken their 
 places among the immortals. Month by month 
 were appearing the Elia Essays of Charles Lamb. 
 Keats had s^nt verses ; Hood was a sort of sub- 
 editor ; and Carlyle was publishing in separate parts 
 his first considerable work, The Life of Fjiedrich 
 Schiller. 
 
 The Confessions achieved an immediate success. 
 Had the popularity obtained by writings of the kind 
 equalled in extent the popularity of a successful 
 novel of to-day, De Quincey's fortune would have 
 been made. As it was, he could henceforth rely 
 
 * In a long paper, Dr. W. C. B. Eatwell maintains that De Quincey 
 cannot be called an opium-eater in the ordinary sense of the word. Opium- 
 eating was no indulgence with him, but a sheer necessity 
 
INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 upon steady work from the editors of magazines. 
 Accordingly from this date, almost to his death, 
 each year bears with it its quota of periodical 
 literature from De Quincey's pen. He wrote, as 
 has been said, on almost every conceivable subject. 
 
 At first The London Magazine received most of 
 his work. Then, in 1S26, he began to contribute 
 to the Edinburgh periodical, Blackwood's Magazine. 
 From that time Edinburgh, and, occasionally, Glas- 
 gow, gave his writings to the world ; and De 
 Quincey, without a particle of Scotch blood in 
 his composition, or of Scotch feeling in his heart, 
 takes his place among the Scotch literati. 
 
 In 1830 De Quincey finally severed his connection 
 with the Lakes, and took up his abode permanently 
 in, or in the vicinity of, Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1837 the Revolt of the Tartars appeared in 
 Blackwood, and in 1849 the English Mail Coach 
 was contributed to the same magazine. Besides his 
 work for Blackwood, De Quincey wrote a number of 
 nrticles for Tail's Magazine, and afterwards for 
 Hogg's Instructor, and contributed several biog- 
 raphies to the Encyclopcedia Brittanica. 
 
 Meanwhile, De Quincey's family was breaking 
 up. His wife had died in 1837 ; of his five sons 
 three were dead and the other two abroad ; two 
 of his three daughters were married ; the youngest, 
 Emily, lived generally either with her married sister 
 in Ireland or in De Quincey's cottage at Lasswade, 
 
VI 11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 near Edinburgh. De Quincey himself, in order to 
 be within convenient reach of the press, had found 
 it necessary to take rooms in Edinburgh itself ; and 
 he passed his time between the Lasswade cottage 
 and the Edinburgh rooms. Latterly, however, he 
 was compelled to live almost entirely in Edinburgh, 
 and there, he died, on the eighth of January, 1859. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Of the Kalmucks or (Elcets, brethren of like 
 race with the Mongoles, several branches are in 
 subjection to the Russian empire. Their original 
 abode, if we may use such an expression in speak- 
 ing of nomadic hordes, is the Kalmuckia, lying 
 westward toward the proper Mongolia, and in the 
 north and east of the lesser Bukharia. At the 
 latter end of the last century, two tribes of them, 
 the Torgot and Derbet, drew up in the steppe on 
 the Volga above Astrakhan. Till very modern 
 times, they remained, however, only as protected 
 neighbors, and were tolerably independent of the 
 government. But in 1757 the Vice-Khan Dondu- 
 didaschi, contrary to the established custom of all 
 the khans to receive their appointment from the 
 Dalai-Lama in Tibet, thought fit, though they are 
 of the Lama religion, to apply to Russia for the 
 nomination of his son as his successor. At Peters- 
 burg the request was granted with great satisfac- 
 tion, which perhaps would not have been the case 
 on an application to Tibet ; the father was con- 
 stituted actual Khan, and the son, only 13 years 
 old, without hesitation declared successor, with an 
 allowance of 500 roubles/^/- annum, and installed 
 with the usual solemnities. On the death of the 
 father in 1761, Russia thought she had a right to 
 meddle in the affairs of the young sovereign : 
 instead of the accustomed council of eight sais- 
 sans, it was made to consist of a larger number, 
 whom the court easily retained by paying each of 
 
II INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the members a salary of ioo roubles. The friendly 
 protection was thus (as has happened in various 
 other cases) changed into an actual sovereignty. 
 In consequence of fresh regulations, the Khan lost 
 his former unlimited authority, and became nothing 
 more than the president of his council ; nor had he 
 any longer the right to dismiss this council ; he could 
 only complain to the imperial College of Russia, 
 and he was taught to esteem it advantage enough 
 that the sovereign tribunal stood open to his 
 appeal. In all other respects these Kalmucks 
 retained their religion and their manners : they 
 roamed about the steppe, had an aversion to per- 
 manent dwellings, and lived on the produce of 
 their flocks and herds. These consisted in sheep, 
 camels, and principally in horses ; the whole nation 
 was armed and mounted ; and their favorite drink, 
 like that of all these Tartar tribes, was a spirituous 
 extract of mare's milk, called in their language 
 koumish. The pasture of these horses requires 
 this roving life, as a father of a family may possess 
 from ioo to iooo, and some of them even 4000 
 head. Many of them were in good circumstances, 
 and very respectable people : kind, generous, and 
 hospitable ; this last quality they possess in an 
 eminent degree, and show it to every one who 
 peaceably enters their tents. But they are quite 
 the reverse to such as attack them as foes, especi- 
 ally to nations whom they acknowledge not as 
 brothers. Accordingly, Russia employed them in 
 hosts in the Prussian War ; and Germany still 
 recollects with horror the Asiatic savages that were 
 let loose upon her, without regard to morals and 
 the rights of humanity. In the Turkish War they 
 likewise fought for Russia in the district of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. ■ III 
 
 Kuban. Such was the situation of them till the 
 year 1770. 
 
 " In the meantime, great heart-burnings had 
 long subsisted among the most considerable of 
 them, on account of the innovations introduced by 
 the Russians. The circumscription of their primi- 
 tive liberty, their reducing their Khan to a state of 
 dependence, the intermeddling of a foreign nation 
 in their constitution and laws, which begot dissen- 
 sions and disobedience in the horde, the injuries 
 (real or imaginary) which some princes had re- 
 ceived from Russian officers : all this awakened an 
 irresistible hankering after their former condition ; 
 and as it was not to be hoped for where they were, 
 no choice was left but they must seek it in their 
 ancient plains, where their ancestors knew of no 
 Europeans- Just at this time the Governor of 
 Astrachan appointed a lieutenant named Kischen- 
 skoi, as inspector of these peaceful Kalmucks. 
 Kischenskoi, a man of insatiable rapacity, by in- 
 sensible degrees got possession of a great part 
 of their cattle, and sold them to his own benefit. 
 His exactions soon procured him an immense 
 fortune. But his avarice, far from diminishing, 
 seemed rather to increase with the means of its 
 gratification. 
 
 " One of their princes, a venerable old man who 
 had shed his blood in the service of Russia, in 
 recompense for which the Empress had given him 
 her miniature portrait set round with brilliants, and 
 which he wore suspended to his neck, was one day 
 applied to by Kischenskoi for some presents in 
 addition to those which he had already given him. 
 The old man, irritated at his insolence, could not 
 refrain from breaking out into reproaches on his 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 injustice and the vexations he employed to the 
 ruin of the unhappy Kalmucks: Kischenskoi, 
 offended at the truth of these reproaches, had the 
 temerity to strike him on the face, and having at 
 the same time ordered one of the saissans, the 
 minister of the Khan, who interposed in his behalf, 
 to be seized by his soldiers, ordered him the 
 punishment of the battogues.* 
 
 " The Kalmucks had, if not patiently, at least 
 quietly, suffered the rapacity and peculations 
 of the Russian officer, but they could not endure 
 the insult that had been put upon this venerable 
 old man, who stood in great respect among them. 
 The priests and the elders of the horde having held 
 a consultation, resolved to abandon the territory of 
 the Russian empire, and retire to the foot of the 
 mountains of Tibet, the country of their pro- 
 genitors. The common people were easily per- 
 suaded, especially as they were told that the 
 Russian regulations were introduced for no other 
 purpose than to compel them to the three things 
 which they most abhorred : Christianity, agriculture, 
 and the raising recruits. A little priestcraft was 
 also had recourse to on this occasion. The noyons 
 or princes set up a Lama, whom they raised in a 
 moment to be the immortal archpriest or Dalai- 
 Lama, in the following manner : — It was propa- 
 gated abroad that a famous Kalmuck priest, who 
 had died three years before, had now appeared 
 again alive, and had issued a proclamation to the 
 
 * A sort of punishment used in Russia for inferior offences. The 
 sufferer is laid on his face upon the ground, stripped to his waist, and the 
 arms and legs extended Two men, one of whom sits on his neck and the 
 other on his legs, beat him alternately on the back with the battogues, 
 which are rods of the thickness of the little finger. Persons having any 
 authority over others could inflict this punishment upon them without any 
 form of trial or legal process. Nobles and peasants were equally liable to 
 it when it was ordered by superiors. 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 people that he was risen from the dead at Tibet, 
 in the residence of the great Dalai- Lama, of all 
 which a written testimony was brought from the 
 immortal high-priest, in which it was declared that, 
 being now become a being of a superior order, he 
 foreknew the fates and fortunes of the nation, and 
 required them, in the name of their gods, to 
 return, and again take possession of their ancient 
 territory. This happened towards the close of the 
 year 1770, just when they thought it the proper 
 moment for the grand rupture ; otherwise they 
 would have suffered the Lama to have slept quietly 
 in his grave for a longer or a shorter time. 
 
 " It was unpardonable neglect in the command- 
 ing officer in those parts not to put a stop to the 
 proceedings of the horde, so as to prevent the 
 emigration, as their intention was publicly known 
 in those parts. He even suffered himself to be 
 duped by the Kalmucks, to whom, on their forging 
 some pretext of apprehension from the Kirghises, 
 their neighbors, he gave two pieces of cannon, 
 with ammunition, and some engineers. Accord- 
 ingly, in the autumn, they began their march : a 
 prodigious troop, with wives, children, and ser- 
 vants, having their droves, horses, flocks, goods, huts, 
 and tents. The Captain, under the command of 
 the Khan, was forced to migrate with them at the 
 head of his Kozaks. The march was conducted 
 regularly enough, in three troops, who constantly 
 kept in sight ; the flanks of each were particularly 
 covered, and besides this they had a van and a 
 rear-guard. At the beginning they plundered the 
 fisheries and the trading houses on the borders of 
 the Volga and the Caspian, but, on the progress 
 into the Southern Siberia, they came upon the 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Kozaks of the Yaik, who stopped and pursued the 
 flying horde, cut thousands of them to pieces, and 
 forced thousands to return. In the spring, 1771, 
 they were attacked by the Kirghises, their in- 
 veterate enemies, who, after a bloody engagement, 
 took many of them prisoners. In the summer 
 they proceeded through the ancient Mongolia 
 to the Chinese borders, where an army of the 
 Mandshu* received them, and afforded them 
 protection. 
 
 " The secret of their flight was so well kept that 
 it was not known to the Russians till two days after 
 their departure. Three regiments were sent in 
 pursuit of them, to no purpose. The Kalmucks 
 were more in haste than they; and, besides, they 
 were two days before them. These regiments 
 wandered a long time in the deserts, and a consid- 
 erable part of the soldiers perished. 
 
 " When the news of the emigration was brought 
 to St. Petersburg, a corps of troops were ordered 
 by the Court to go in quest of them. But, if the 
 former pursuits were too late, it was not likely that 
 these should come up with them : the lamentable 
 particulars of this expedition may be read in 
 Captain Rytschkoff's journal, where it may be seen 
 what difficulties and hardships these indefatigable 
 pursuers of the fugitive horde encountered in their 
 devious marches on this unavailing expedition, and 
 what variety of distresses they suffered in the 
 dreary, inhospitable regions and waterless deserts 
 through which they passed. At length nothing 
 farther was to be done but to make application by 
 a written memorial to China, to demand the resti- 
 tution of the runaways. But the Supreme Tribunal 
 
 * The then Emperor of China. 
 
INTRODUCTION. VII 
 
 of Pekin answered the rescript of the Russian 
 Senate abruptly, in a scornful and derisory manner, 
 and concluded by saying that ' Their sovereign was 
 not a prince so unjust as to deliver up his 
 subjects to foreigners, nor so cruel a father as to 
 drive away children who returned to the bosom of 
 their family. That he had no intimation of the 
 design of the Kalmucks till the moment of their 
 arrival ; and that then, without delay, he caused to 
 be restored to them the habitations that had be- 
 longed to them from time immemorial. That, in 
 short, the Empress had no reason to complain of 
 the Kalmucks, but certainly of the officer who had 
 dared to lift his hand against a servant of the 
 Kahn's, and to order their ministers to undergo the 
 battogues.' The latter was thus subscribed : — * In 
 the 36th year, the 7th month, and the 13th day of 
 the reign of Kien Long.' On various occasions 
 Catharine frequently received from these, her 
 neighbors, answers in a style which must have 
 struck her the more sensibly as she was accustomed 
 to hear from all the other monarchs in the world 
 a very different language. On her applying for 
 a fresh treaty for the renewal of the commerce 
 with China by the caravans, which for several 
 years had been interrupted on account of 
 some differences that had arisen between the sub- 
 jects of the two potentates, the answer given to 
 her envoy was : — Let your mistress learn to keep 
 old treaties, and then it will be time enough to 
 apply for new ones.' Accordingly, we see from 
 her private communicationsf how sensitive she was 
 upon this subject; and she could scarcely endure 
 to hear any praise, even jestingly, bestowed on the 
 
 I For example, in her correspondence with Voltaire. 
 
VIII INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Emperor of China, who was otherwise known as an 
 author and poet. 
 
 " Concerning the number of persons lost to 
 Russia by this emigration, accounts do not agree. 
 Some state it at 130,000 families, which is certainly 
 exaggerated. More accurate statements say that 
 the horde in general consisted of not much above 
 70,000 tents or hearths of families. Those who 
 voluntarily returned (for doubtless many of them, 
 on the fatiguing and painful expedition over the 
 deserts, panted after the more quiet abode on the 
 Volga, and turned back) and those who were 
 brought in by the Kozaks^are reckoned together at 
 12,342 tents. Those that escaped, therefore, esti- 
 mating them at the highest, were 60,000 hearths. 
 But how great the number of the individuals that 
 died upon the road and of those who were carried 
 into captivity by the Kirghises can never be 
 known. 
 
 " A council of war was held to examine into the 
 conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Kischenskoi, and to 
 pronounce upon it. But the business was con- 
 ducted with negligence and every possible delay. 
 Kischenskoi employed a part of the fruit of his 
 rapine in procuring himself friends at Court or in 
 corrupting his judges ; and to the great scandal of 
 the majority of the Russians, this man, who had 
 occasioned the loss of such a number of subjects 
 to the country, was recompensed by the title of 
 Colonel." — Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS: 
 
 OR, 
 FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN AND • HIS 
 
 PEOPLE FROM THE RUSSIAN TERRITORIES 
 
 TO THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA. 
 
 There is no great event in modern history, 
 or, perhaps it may be said more broadly, 
 none in all history, from its earliest records, 
 less generally known, or more striking to the 
 imagination, than the flight eastwards of a 5 
 principal Tartar nation across the boundless 
 steppes of Asia, in the latter half of the last 
 century. The terminus a quo of this flight, 
 and the terminus ad quern, are equally mag- 
 nificent ; the mightiest of Christian thrones 10 
 being the one, the mightiest of Pagan the 
 other. And the grandeur of these two ter- 
 minal objects is harmoniously supported by 
 the romantic circumstances of the flight. In 
 
 7. steppes, vast flat plains, prairies. 
 
 8. terminus a quo, starting point. 
 
 9. terminus ad quern, goal. 
 
 10. thrones, i.e., the Russian. 
 
 11. mightiest of Pagan, the Chinese. 
 
6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 is the abruptness of its commencement, and the 
 fierce velocity of its execution, we read the 
 wild barbaric character of those who con- 
 ducted the movement. In the unity of pur- 
 pose connecting this myriad of wills, and in 
 
 20 the blind but unerring aim at a mark so re- 
 mote, there is something which recalls to the 
 mind those almighty instincts that propel the 
 migrations of the swallow and the lemming, or 
 the life-withering marches of the locust. Then 
 
 25 again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia and 
 her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear 
 and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are 
 reminded of Miltonic images — such, for in- 
 stance, as that of the solitary hand pursuing 
 
 30 through desert spaces and through ancient 
 chaos a rebellious host, and overtaking with 
 volleying thunders those who believed them- 
 selves already within the security of darkness 
 and of distance. 
 
 35 I shall have occasion, farther on, to compare 
 this event with other great national catastrophes 
 as to the magnitude of the suffering. But it 
 may also challenge a comparison with similar 
 events under another relation, viz., as to its 
 
 40 dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in 
 
 20. a mark so remote, as that of China. 
 
 23. lemming, a migratory animal of the rat kind. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 7 
 
 romance or history, can sustain a close colla- 
 tion with this as to the complexity of its 
 separate interests. The great outline of the 
 enterprise, taken in connection with the oper- 
 ative motives, hidden or avowed, and the 45 
 religious sanctions under which it was pur- 
 sued, give to the case a triple character: — 
 First, that of a conspiracy, with as close a unity 
 in the incidents and as much of a personal 
 interest in the moving characters, with fine 50 
 dramatic contrasts, as belongs to Venice Pre- 
 served, or to the Fiesco of Schiller : secondly, 
 that of a great military expedition, offering the 
 same romantic features of vast distances to 
 be traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, 55 
 untried routes, enemies obscurely ascertained, 
 and hardships too vaguely prefigured, which 
 mark the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses 
 — which mark the anabasis of the younger 
 Cyrus, and the subsequent retreat of the ten eo 
 
 51-52. "Venice Preserved." A tragedy by Otway (1651-1685); 
 "his last and greatest dramatic work," published in 1682; "Fiesco." 
 This tragedy, by Schiller — the great German dramatist, — was published 
 in 1783. 
 
 58. the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses. Cambyses, King of 
 Persia, was the son of Cyrus the Great, whom he succeeded, 529 b c. He 
 conquered the Egyptians, destroyed their god Apis, and plundered their 
 temples Cambyses afterwards sent an army of 50,000 men to destroy the 
 temple of Jupiter Amnion, but they were lost in the deserts of Libya 
 
 59 anabasis, " a going up," march up. Xenophon, who was the 
 chief leader of the " retreat " or katabasis, " going down," wrote a work 
 calied the "Anabasis," giving an account of the expedition of the younger 
 Cyrus against his brother Artaxerxes. 
 
8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 thousand — which mark the Parthian expedi- 
 tions of the Romans, especially those of 
 Crassus and Julian — or (as more disastrous 
 than any of them, and, in point of space as 
 
 65 well as in amount of forces, more extensive) 
 the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napo- 
 leon ; thirdly, that of a religious Exodus, 
 authorized by an oracle venerated throughout 
 many nations of Asia — an Exodus, therefore, 
 
 70 in so far resembling the great Scriptural 
 Exodus of the Israelites, under Moses and 
 Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar distinc- 
 tion of carrying along with them their entire 
 families, women, children, slaves, their herds 
 
 61-62. the Parthian expeditions, etc. Parthia, the modern Khoras- 
 san, is a country of Asia to the southeast of the Caspian Sea. The Parthians 
 were a very warlike people, and were especially celebrated as horse- 
 archers. Their tactics became so celebrated as to pass i' to a proverb. 
 Their mail-clad horsemen spread like a cloud round the hostile army, and 
 poured in a shower of darts, and then evaded any closer conflict by a rapid 
 flight, during which they still shot their arrows backward at the enemy. 
 
 63 Crassus — surnamed " Dives" on account of his notorious " greed 
 of gold" — was Consul in 55 B.C., and had Syria assigned to him as his 
 province. He led an expedition against the Parthians, and was defeated 
 by them in the plains of Mesopotamia, near Carrhae, the Haran of Scrip- 
 ture. He was shortly afterwards slain at an interview with the Parthian 
 General. 
 
 63. Julian — surnamed the " Apostate " — was Emperor of Rome from 
 a.d. 361-363; his brief reign was chiefly occupied by his military prepara- 
 tions against the Persians (the Parthi at this time forming a part of the 
 Persian empire). In 363 he crossed the Tigris, and marched into the 
 interior of the country in search of the Persian king, but was obliged to 
 retreat in consequence of the sufferings of his army from want of water 
 and provisions. In his retreat he was attacked by the Persians and slain 
 in battle 
 
 66. the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon, Napoleon's 
 well-known march into {anabasis) and retreat from {katabasis) Russia 
 (1812). 
 
 68. an oracle, the Dalai-Lama of Tibet is here referred to. 
 
 70-71. Scriptural Exodus of the Israelites, see Exodus, ch. xii. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 9 
 
 of cattle and of sheep, their horses and their 75 
 camels. 
 
 This triple character of the enterprise natu- 
 rally invests it with a more comprehensive 
 interest. But the dramatic interest which I 
 have ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage so 
 representation, depends partly upon the marked 
 variety and the strength of the personal 
 agencies concerned, and partly upon the suc- 
 cession of scenical situations. Even the 
 steppes, the camels, the tents, the snowy and 86 
 the sandy deserts, are not beyond the scale of 
 our modern representative powers, as often 
 called into action in the theatres both of 
 Paris and London ; and the series of situations 
 unfolded, beginning with the general con- 90 
 flagration on the Wolga — passing thence to 
 the disastrous scenes of the flight (as it lit- 
 erally was in its commencement) — to the 
 Tartar siege of the Russian fortress Koulagina 
 — the bloody engagement with the Cossacks ^ 
 in the mountain passes at Ouchim — the sur- 
 prisal by the Bashkirs and the advanced posts 
 of the Russian Army at Torgau — the private 
 conspiracy at this point against the Khan — 
 
 89- 12. These lines contain a summary of the " Revolt of the Tartars." 
 
 95. Cossacks A mixed race, famous for their horsemanship, inhabit- 
 ing the southeastern part of Russia; since 1654 subject to Russia, and fur- 
 nishing light cavalry for its army. 
 
IO REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 100 the long succession of running fights — the 
 parting massacres at the Lake of Tengis under 
 the eyes of the Chinese — and, finally, the 
 tragical retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at the 
 hunting lodge of the Chinese Emperor; — all 
 
 105 these situations communicate a sceuical anima- 
 tion to the wild romance, if treated dramati- 
 cally, whilst a higher and a philosophic interest 
 belongs to it as a case of authentic history, 
 commemorating a great revolution for good 
 
 no and for evil, in the fortunes of a whole people 
 — a people semi-barbarous, but simple-hearted, 
 and of ancient descent. 
 
 On the 2 1st of January, 1761, the young 
 Prince Oubacha assumed the" sceptre of the 
 
 115 Kalmucks upon the death of his father. Some 
 part of the power attached to this dignity he 
 had already wielded since his fourteenth year, 
 in quality of Vice-Khan, by the express 
 appointment and with the avowed support of 
 
 120 the Russian Government. He was now about 
 eighteen years of age, amiable in his personal 
 character, not without titles to respect in his 
 public character as a sovereign prince. In 
 times more peacable, and amongst "a people} 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. II 
 
 more entirely civilized, or more humanized by 125 
 religion, it is even probable that he might 
 have discharged his high duties with consider- 
 able distinction. But his lot was thrown upon 
 stormy times, and a most difficult crisis 
 amongst tribes, whose native ferocity was i 30 
 exasperated by debasing forms of superstition, 
 and by a national as well as an inflated conceit 
 of their own merit, absolutely unparalelled, 
 whilst the circumstances of their hard and 
 trying position under the jealous surveillance 135 
 of an irresistible lord paramount, in the person 
 of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to the 
 natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck dis- 
 position, and irritated its gloomier qualities 
 into action under the restless impulses of sus- 140 
 picion and permanent distrust. No prince 
 could hope for a cordial allegiance from his 
 subjects, or a peaceful reign, under the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, for the . dilemma in 
 which a Kalmuck ruler stood at present was of i« 
 this nature: wanting the sanction and support 
 
 jof the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from 
 without to command confidence from his sub- 
 jects, or resistance to his competitors; on the 
 
 / other hand, with this kind of support, and 150 
 deriving his title in any degree from the favor 
 of the Imperial Court, he became almost in 
 
12 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 that extent an object of hatred at home, and 
 within the whole compass of his own territory. 
 
 155 He was at once an object of hatred for the 
 past, being a living monument of national 
 independence ignominiously surrendered, and 
 an object of jealousy for the future, as one 
 who had already advertised himself to be a 
 
 160 fitting tool for the ultimate purposes (whatso- 
 ever those might prove to be) of the Russian 
 Court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck 
 sceptre under the heaviest weight of prejudice 
 from the unfortunate circumstances of his 
 
 165 position, it might have been expected that 
 Oubacha would have been pre-eminently an 
 object of detestation ; for, besides his known 
 dependence upon the Cabinet of St. Peters- 
 burg, the direct line of succession had been 
 
 no set aside, and the principle of inheritance 
 violently suspended, in favor of his own 
 father, so recently as nineteen years before the 
 era of his own accession, consequently within 
 the lively remembrance of the existing gen- 
 
 176 eration. He, therefore, almost equally with 
 his father, stood within the full current of the 
 national prejudices, and might have anticipated 
 the most pointed hostility. But it was not so : 
 such are the caprices in human affairs, that he 
 
 i8o was even, in a moderate sense, popular — 2 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. I 3 
 
 benefit which wore the more cheering aspect 
 and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as 
 he owed it exclusively to his personal qualities 
 of kindness and affability, as well as to the 
 beneficence of his government. On the other 185 
 hand, to balance this unlooked-for prosperity 
 at the outset of his reign, he met with a rival 
 in popular favor — almost a competitor — in 
 the person of Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with 
 considerable pretensions to the throne, and 190 
 perhaps, it might be said, with equal pre- 
 tensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant 
 of the same royal house as himself, through a 
 different branch. On public grounds, his 
 claim stood, perhaps, on a footing equally^ 
 good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal 
 qualities, even in those aspects which seemed 
 to a philosophical observer most odious and 
 repulsive, promised the most effectual aid to 
 the dark purposes of an intriguer or a con- 200 
 spirator, and were generally fitted to win a 
 bopular support precisely in those points 
 where Oubacha was most defective. He was 
 "much superior in external appearance to his 
 j^ival on the throne, and so far better qualified 205 
 to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous 
 people; whilst his dark intellectual qualities 
 
14 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 of Machiavellian dissimulation, profound 
 hypocrisy, and perfidy which knew no touch of 
 
 210 remorse, were admirably calculated to sustain 
 any ground which he might win from the 
 simple-hearted people with whom he had to 
 deal — and from the frank carelessness of his 
 unconscious competitor. 
 
 215 At the very outset of his treacherous 
 career, Zebek-Dorchi was sagacious enough to 
 perceive that nothing could be gained by open 
 declaration of hostility to the reigning prince:] 
 the choice had been a deliberate act on the 
 
 220 part of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrowna wasl 
 not the person to recall her own favors witn 
 levity, or upon slight grounds. Openly 
 therefore, to have declared his enmity toward: 
 his relative on the throne, could have had n< 
 
 225 effect but that of arming suspicions against hi 
 own ulterior purposes in a quarter where i| 
 was most essential to his interest that, for th 
 
 208 Machiavellian. Nicholas Machiavelli was a celebrated Italij 
 politician and writer. He was born at Florence in 1469 and died there 
 1527. For his life any biographical dictionary may be consulted. H 
 wrote several works, — airnng them one called " The Prince," which co 1 } 
 tains, as some think, the most pernicious maxims of government, found I 
 on the vilest principles. The general scope of the books is to show thj 
 rulers may resort to any treachery and artifice to uphold their arbitra j 
 power. Machiavelli's name ha- passed into a proverb for everything th 
 is base, and mean, and treacherous in diplomacy. 
 
 220 Elizabeth Petrowna (or Petrovna), Elizabeth, daughter 
 Peter the Great She was born in 1709, and usurped the throne in 174 
 she died in 1762. 
 
 226. in a quarter, at the Court of Russia. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS.- 1 5 
 
 present, all suspicion should be hoodwinked. 
 Accordingly, after much meditation, the 
 course he took for opening his snares was 230 
 this : — He raised a rumor that his own life 
 was in danger from the plots of several 
 Saissang (that is, Kalmuck nobles), who were 
 leagued together, under an oath, to assassinate 
 him ; and immediately after, assuming a well- 235 
 counterfeited alarm, he fled to Tcherkask, 
 followed by sixty-five tents. From this place 
 he kept up a correspondence with the Im- 
 perial Court, and, by way of soliciting his 
 cause more effectually, he soon repaired in 240 
 person to St. Petersburg. Once admitted to 
 personal conferences with the Cabinet, he 
 found no difficulty in winning over the Russian 
 councils to a concurrence with some of his 
 political views, and thus covertly introducing 245 
 the point of that wedge which was finally to 
 accomplish his purposes. In particular, he 
 persuaded the Russian Government to make a 
 very important alteration in the constitution of 
 ithe Kalmuck State Council, which in effect 250 
 Reorganized the whole political condition of 
 :he State, and disturbed, the balance of power 
 is previously adjusted. Of this Council — in 
 
 237 sixty-five tents. Reckoning about five people to a tent, this 
 vould mean " about three hundred people." 
 
1 6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 the Kalmuck language called Sarga — there 
 
 255 were eight members, called Sargatchi, and 
 hitherto it had been the custom that these 
 eight members should be entirely subordinate 
 to the Khan ; holding, in fact, the ministerial 
 character of secretaries and assistants, but in 
 
 260 no respect acting as co-ordinate authorities. 
 That had produced some inconveniences in 
 former reigns, and it was easy for Zebek- 
 Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Russian 
 Court to others more serious, which might 
 
 265 arise in future circumstances of war or other 
 contingencies. It was resolved, therefore, to 
 place the Sargatchi henceforwards on a footing 
 of perfect independence, and therefore (as i 
 regarded responsibility) on a footing of 
 
 270 equality with the Khan. Their independence,! 
 however, had respect only to their ownj 
 sovereign ; for towards Russia they were! 
 placed in a new attitude of direct duty and! 
 accountability, by the creation in their favoifj 
 
 275 of small pensions (300 roubles a year)); 
 which, however, to a Kalmuck of that day 
 were more considerable than might b 
 supposed, and had a farther value as marks o 
 honorary distinction emanating from a grea 
 
 275. roubles. A "rouble" (a Russian silver coin) is worth about 
 seventy-five cents. il 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 1 7 
 
 Empress. Thus far the purposes of Zebek- 280 
 Dorchi were served effectually for the 
 moment : but, apparently, it was only for the 
 moment, since, in the further development of 
 his plots, this very dependency upon Russian 
 influence would be the most serious obstacle 285 
 in his way. There was, however, another 
 point carried which outweighed all inferior 
 considerations, as it gave him a power of 
 setting aside discretionally whatsoever should 
 arise to disturb his plots : he was himself 290 
 appointed President and Controller of the 
 Sargatchi. The Russian Court had been 
 aware of his high pretensions by birth, and 
 hoped by this promotion to satisfy the 
 ambition which, in some degree, was ac- 295 
 
 ) knowledged to be a reasonable passion for any 
 man occupying his situation. 
 
 \ Having thus completely blindfolded the 
 Cabinet of Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded 
 ,in his new character to fulfil his political mis- 300 
 v >ion with the Khan of the Kalmucks. So 
 ^artfully did he prepare the road for his favor- 
 able reception at the Court of this prince, that 
 l^ie was at once and universally welcomed as a 
 benefactor. The pensions of the counsellors 305 
 were so much additional wealth poured into 
 
1 8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 the Tartar exchequer; as to the ties of de- 
 pendency thus created, experience had not 
 yet enlightened these simple tribes as to that 
 
 310 result. And that he himself should be the 
 chief of these mercenary councillors, was so 
 far from being charged upon Zebek as any 
 offence or any ground of suspicion, that his 
 relative the Khan returned him hearty thanks 
 
 315 for his services, under the belief that he could 
 have accepted this appointment only with a 
 view to keep out other and more unwelcome 
 pretenders, who would not have had the same 
 motives of consanguinity or friendship for 
 
 320 executing its duties in a spirit of kindness to 
 the Kalmucks. The first use which he made 
 of his new functions about the Khan's person, 
 was to attack the Court of Russia, by a roman-i 
 tic villainy not easy to be credited, for those, 1 
 
 325 very acts of interference with the Council/ 
 which he himself had prompted. This was al 
 dangerous step, but it was indispensable to hijj 
 further advance upon the gloomy path whicl 
 
 he had traced out for himself. A triple venfla 
 
 . ff olt 
 
 330 geance was what he meditated : — First, upoi|j 
 
 the Russian Cabinet for having undervalued m 
 
 ° FOB] 
 
 his own pretensions to the throne ; second 
 upon his amiable rival for having supplantec 
 
 k 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 1 9 
 
 him ; and third, upon all those of the nobility 
 who had manifested their sense of his weak- 335 
 ness by their neglect, or their sense of his 
 perfidious character by their suspicions. Here 
 was a colossal outline of wickedness ; and by 
 one in his situation, feeble (as it might seem) 
 for the accomplishment of its humblest parts, 34 o 
 how was the total edifice to be reared in its 
 comprehensive grandeur? He, a worm as he 
 was, could he venture to assail the mighty 
 behemoth of Muscovy, the potentate who 
 counted three hundred languages around the 345 
 footsteps of his throne, and from whose '* lion- 
 ramp'' recoiled alike " baptized and' infidel "— 
 Christendom on the one side, strong by her in 
 
 Eellect and her organization, and the " Barbaric 
 Last" on the other, with her unnumbered 3 60 
 1 lumbers? The match was a monstrous one ; 
 >ut in its very monstrosity there lay this germ 
 )f encouragement, that it could not be sus- 
 >ected. The very hopelessness of the scheme 
 
 344. behemoth of Moscovy, empire of Russia. The name " behe- 
 Joth " is used in the Bible {yob xl. 15) either for the elephant or the 
 ppopotamus. It now signifies any huge beast. " Muscovy," Russia. 
 
 Ri 
 
 ■':■ 
 
 )p u |ormerly Moscow and the adjacent country alone constituted Russia. 
 
 346-347. " lion ramp," lion-like spring or bound The phrase is' taken 
 om Milton's " Samson Agonistes," line 139: — 
 
 " The bold Ascalonite 
 Fled from his lion ramp." 
 
 i 
 
 347. " baptized and infidel," Christian and Pagan, See Milton, 
 Paradise Lost," i. 583, 
 
20 REVOTT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 355 grounded his hope, and he resolved to execute 
 a vengeance which would involve, as it were, 
 in the unity of a well-laid tragic fable, all 
 whom he judged to be his enemies. That 
 vengeance lay in detaching from the Russian 
 
 360 Empire the whole Kalmuck nation, and break- 
 ing up that system of intercourse which had 
 thus far been beneficial to both. This last 
 was a consideration which moved him but 
 little. True it was, that Russia to the Kal- 
 
 365 mucks had secured lands and extensive pas- 
 turage ; true it was that the Kalmucks reci- 
 procally to Russia had furnished a powerful 
 cavalry. But the latter loss would be part of 
 his triumph, and the former might be more 
 
 3 7 o than compensated in other climates under 
 other sovereigns. Here was a scheme which, 
 in its final accomplishment, would avenge him 
 bitterly on the Czarina, and in the course of 
 its accomplishment might furnish him with 
 
 375 ample occasion for removing his other enemies- 
 It may be readily supposed, indeed, that h- 
 who could deliberately raise his eyes to th- 
 Russian autocrat as an antagonist in singl- 
 duel with himself, was not likely to feel much 
 
 380 anxiety about Kalmuck enemies of whateye" 
 rank. He took his resolution, therefore, 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 21 
 
 sternly and irrevocably, to effect this astonish- 
 ing translation of an ancient people across the 
 pathless deserts of Central Asia, intersected 
 continually by rapid rivers, rarely furnished 385 
 with bridges, and of which the fords were 
 known only to those who might think it for 
 their interest to conceal them, through many 
 nations, inhospitable or hostile ; frost and 
 snow around them (from the necessity of 390 
 commencing their flight in winter), famine in 
 their front, and the sabre, or even the artillery 
 of an offended and mighty Empress, hanging 
 upon their rear for thousands of miles. But 
 what was to be their final mark — the port of 395 
 shelter after so fearful a course of wandering? 
 Two things were evident : it must be some 
 power at a great distance from Russia, so as 
 to make return even in that view hopeless ; 
 and it must be a power of sufficient rank to 400 
 insure them protection from any hostile efforts 
 on the part of the Czarina for reclaiming them, 
 or for chastising their revolt. Both conditions 
 were united obviously in the person of Kien 
 Long, the reigning Emperor of China, who 405 
 was further recommended to them by his 
 respect for the head of their religion. To 
 China, therefore, and, as their first rendezvous, 
 
2 2 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 to the shadow of the great Chinese wall, it was 
 
 4io settled by Zebek that they should direct their 
 flight. 
 
 Next eame the question of time. When 
 should the flight commence? and, finally, the 
 more delicate question as to the choice of 
 
 415 accomplices. To extend the knowledge of the 
 conspiracy too far was to insure its betrayal to 
 the Russian Government. Yet at some stage f 
 of the preparations it was evident that a very I 
 extensive confidence must be made, because I 
 
 420 in no other way could the mass of the Kal- / 
 muck population be persuaded to furnish their / 
 families with the requisite equipments for so/ 
 long a migration. This critical step, however,! 
 it was resolved to defer up to the latest pos-f 
 
 425 sible moment, and, at all events, to make ncj' 
 general communication on the subject until! 
 the time of departure should be definitel))' 
 settled. In the meantime, Zebek admitte 
 
 409. the Great Chinese Wall. The most stupendous of all the publ* 
 undertakings of China is tha. known by the name of the Great Wall. Thj is 
 mighty rampart has been drawn along the whole northern, and part of tr; 1 ^ 
 western frontier, over a vast chain of mountains, the sinuosities of whv" 
 it follows throughout a course of about 1400 miles. On the plain it j ls 
 thirty feet high, but when carried over rocks, fifteen or twenty feet ai| e 
 found a sufficient height. The tlnckness of the whole wall at the base I s 
 twenty-five feet, diminishing to twenty and fifteen feet at the platform, if 
 is defended by towers placed at given distances, forty feet square at the basF 
 and nearly the same in height. This immense work was built about twi^ 
 hundred years before the Christian era, as a defence against the wandering 
 tribes of Tartars who have inhabited the wild country beyond it from tirm- 
 immemorial. It is constructed of earth or rubbish cased on each side by 
 brick-work. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 23 
 
 only three persons into his confidence, of 
 whom Oubacha, the reigning prince, was al- «o 
 most necessarily one; but him, from his yield- 
 ing and somewhat feeble character, he viewed 
 rather in the light of a tool than as one of his 
 active accomplices. Those whom (if any- 
 body) he admitted to an unreserved partici- 435 
 pation in his councils were two only, the great 
 Lama among the Kalmucks and his own 
 father-in-law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some 
 tribe in the neighborhood of the Caspian sea, 
 recommended to his favor not so much by any 440 
 strength of talent corresponding to the occa- 
 sion as by his blind devotion to himself and 
 his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation 
 of his daughter and his son-in-law to the 
 throne of a sovereign prince. A titular 445 
 prince Zebek already was : but this dignity, 
 without the substantial accompaniment of a 
 sceptre, seemed but an empty sound to both 
 of these ambitious rebels. The other accom- 
 plice, whose name was Loosan-Dchaltzan, and 450 
 \£hose rank was that of Lama or Kalmuck 
 jjOntiff, was a person of far more distinguished 
 pretensions ; he had something of the same 
 gloomy and terrific pride which marked the 
 character of Zebek himself, manifesting also 455 
 
24 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 the same energy, accompanied by the same 
 unfaltering cruelty, and a natural facility of 
 dissimulation even more profound. It was by 
 this man that the other question was settled, 
 
 460 as to the time for giving effect to their designs. 
 His own pontifical character had suggested to 
 him that, in order to strengthen their influence 
 with the vast mob of simple-minded men 
 whom they were to lead into a howling 
 
 465 wilderness, after persuading them to lay deso- 
 late their own ancient hearths, it was indis- 
 pensable that they should be able, in cases 
 of extremity, to plead the express sanction of 
 God for their entire enterprise. This could 
 
 470 only be done by addressing themselves to the 
 great head of their religion, the Dalai-Lama of 
 Tibet. Him they easily persuaded to coun- 
 tenance their schemes, and an oracle was 
 delivered solemnly at Tibet, to the effect that 
 
 475 no ultimate prosperity would attend this great 
 Exodus unless it were pursued through the 
 
 471 "Lama" is a Thibetan word meaning priest. Lamaism is t'£ 
 prevailing religion of Thibet and other parts of Asia. It is an offshoot : ." 
 Buddhism (the prevailing religion of China), which it very mu lf 
 resembles. The Dalai-Lama, or chief of this religion, is the successes 
 or rather a pretended incarnation of Buddha. '' s 
 
 477. the years of the tiger and the hare. The order of the years 
 was:— The year of ■, 1) the mouse, (2) the bull, (3) the tiger or leoparc, 
 (4) the hare, 5 the crocodile, (6) the snake, (7 the horse, (8 the ran, 
 (9) the monkey, (10) the cock, (n) the dog, (12 the hog. The Persiar.s 
 have the same cycle of twelve years, which they would seem to hav: 
 adopted from the Tartars. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 25 
 
 years of the tiger and the hare. Now, the 
 Kalmuck custom is to distinguish their years 
 by attaching to each a denomination taken 
 from one of twelve animals, the exact order 4so 
 of succession being absolutely fixed, so that 
 the cycle revolves of course through a period 
 of a dozen years. Consequently, if the ap- 
 proaching year of the tiger were suffered to 
 escape them, in that case the expedition must 485 
 be delayed for twelve years more, within 
 which period, even were no other unfavorable 
 changes to arise, it was pretty well foreseen 
 that the Russian Government would take the 
 most effectual means for bridling their vagrant 490 
 propensities by a ring fence of forts or military 
 posts, to say nothing of the still readier plan 
 for securing their fidelity (a plan already 
 talked of in all quarters), by exacting a large 
 body of hostages selected from the families of 495 
 the most influential nobles. On these cogent 
 considerations it was solemnly determined that 
 this terrific experiment should be made in the 
 next year of the tiger, which happened to fall 
 upon the Christian year 1 77 1 . With respect 500 
 to the month, there was, unhappily for the 
 Kalmucks, even less latitude allowed to their 
 choice than with respect to the year. It was 
 
26 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 absolutely necessary, or it was thought so, that 
 
 505 the different divisions of the nation which 
 pastured their flocks on both banks of the 
 Wolga should have the means of effecting an 
 instantaneous junction, because the danger of 
 being intercepted by flying columns of the 
 
 510 imperial armies was precisely the greatest at 
 the outset. Now, from the want of bridges or 
 sufficient river craft for transporting so vast a 
 body of men, the sole means which could be 
 depended upon (especially where so many 
 
 515 women, children, and camels were concerned), 
 was ice : and this, in a state of sufficient firm- 
 ness, could not be absolutely counted upon 
 before the month of January. Hence it hap- 
 pened that this astonishing Exodus of a whole 
 
 520 nation, before so much as a whisper of the 
 design had begun to circulate amongst those 
 whom it most interested, before it was even 
 suspected that any man's wishes pointed in 
 that direction, had been definitely appointed 
 
 525 for January of the year 1 77 1. And almost 
 up to the Christmas of 1770, the poor simple 
 Kalmuck herdsmen and their families were 
 going nightly to their peaceful beds, without 
 even dreaming that the fiat had already 
 
 530 gone forth from their rulers which consigned 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 27 
 
 those quiet abodes, together with the peace 
 and comfort which reigned within them, 
 to a withering desolation, now close at 
 hand. 
 
 Meantime war raged on a great scale 535 
 between Russia and the Sultan ; and until the 
 time arrived for throwing off their vassalage, 
 it was necessary that Oubacha should con- 
 tribute his usual contingent of martial aid. 
 Nay, it had unfortunately become prudent^ 
 that he should contribute much more than his 
 usual aid. Human experience gives ample 
 evidence that in some mysterious and unac- 
 countable way no great design is ever agitated, 
 no matter how few or how faithful may be the 545 
 participators, but that some presentiment — 
 some dim misgiving — is kindled amongst 
 those whom it is chiefly important to blind. 
 And, however it might have happened, certain 
 it is, that already, when as yet no syllable of sso 
 the conspiracy had been breathed to any man 
 whose very existence was not staked upon its 
 concealment, nevertheless, some vague and 
 uneasy jealousy had arisen in the Russian 
 
 535~536 war . . . between Russia and the Sultan. " The Sultan, 
 Mustafa III., was opposed to intervention in Poland, but his hand was 
 forced by a rising in Constantinople, and he declared war against Russia 
 in October, 1768." 
 
2 8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 655 Cabinet as to the future schemes of the 
 Kalmuck Khan : and very probable it is that, 
 but for the war then raging, and the con- 
 sequent prudence of conciliating a very- 
 important vassal, or, at least, of abstaining from 
 
 560 what would powerfully alienate him, even at 
 that moment such measures would have been 
 adopted as must for ever have intercepted the 
 Kalmuck schemes. Slight as were the jealous- 
 ies of the Imperial Court, they had not 
 
 5 6 5 escaped the Machiavellian eyes cf Zebek and 
 the Lama. And under their guidance, 
 Oubacha, bending to the circumstances of the 
 moment, and meeting the jealousy of the 
 Russian Court with a policy corresponding to 
 
 570 their own, strove by unusual zeal to efface the 
 Czarina's unfavorable impressions. He en- 
 larged the scale of his contributions, and 
 that so prodigiously that he absolutely car- 
 ried to headquarters a force of 35,000 cav- 
 
 575 airy fully equipped ; some go further, and 
 rate the amount beyond 40,000, but the 
 smaller estimate is, at all events, within the 
 truth. 
 
 With this magnificent array of cavalry, 
 
 580 heavy as well as light, the Khan went into the 
 field under great expectations : and these he 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 29 
 
 more than realized. Having the good fortune 
 to be concerned with so ill-organized and 
 disorderly a description of force as that which 
 at all times composed the bulk of a Turkish 585 
 army, he carried victory along with his 
 banners, gained many partial successes, and at 
 last, in a pitched battle overthrew the Turkish 
 force opposed to him with a loss of 5000 men 
 left upon the field. 590 
 
 These splendid achievements seemed likely 
 to operate in various ways against the im- 
 pending revolt. Oubacha had now a strong 
 motive, in the martial glory acquired, for 
 continuing his connection with the empire in 595 
 whose service he had won it, and by whom 
 only it could be fully appreciated. He was 
 now a great marshal of a great empire, one of 
 the Paladins around the imperial throne ; in 
 China he would be nobody, or (worse than soo 
 that) a mendicant alien, prostrate at the feet 
 and soliciting the precarious alms of a prince 
 with whom he had no connection. Besides, 
 it might reasonably be expected that the 
 Czarina, grateful for the really efficient aid 605 
 given by the Tartar prince, would confer upon 
 
 599. Paladins, distinguished champions or knights Originally the 
 word meant "officers of the Palatium or Byzantine palace,— a high 
 dignitary. 
 
30 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 him such eminent rewards as might be suf- 
 ficient to anchor his hopes upon Russia, and 
 to wean him from every possible seduction. 
 
 6io These were the obvious suggestions of pru- 
 dence and good sense to every man that stood 
 neutral in the case. But they were disap- 
 pointed. The Czarina knew her obligations 
 to the Khan, but she did not acknowledge 
 
 6i5 them. Wherefore? That is a mystery, per- 
 haps never to be explained. So it was, 
 however. The Khan went unhonored ; no 
 ukase ever proclaimed his merits ; and per- 
 haps, had he even been abundantly recom- 
 
 620 pensed by Russia, there were others who 
 would have defeated these tendencies to re- 
 conciliation. Erempel, Zebek and Loosang 
 the Lama, were pledged life-deep to prevent 
 any accommodation ; and their efforts were 
 
 625 unfortunately seconded by those of their 
 deadliest enemies. In the Russian Court there 
 were at that time some great nobles preoccu- 
 pied with feelings of hatred and blind malice 
 towards the Kalmucks, quite as strong as any 
 
 630 which the Kalmucks could harbor towards 
 Russia, and not perhaps, so well founded. 
 
 618. ukase, a Russian term for an edict either proceeding from the 
 - Senate or direct from the Emperor; from the Russian ukasat, to speak* 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 3 1 
 
 Just as much as the Kalmucks hated the 
 Russian yoke, their galling assumption of 
 authority, the marked air of disdain, as 
 towards a nation of ugly, stupid, and filthy &* 
 barbarians, which too generally marked the 
 Russian bearing and language, but, above all, 
 the insolent contempt, or even outrages, which 
 the Russian governors or great military com- 
 mandants tolerated in their followers towards 640 
 the barbarous religion and superstitious 
 mummeries of the Kalmuck priesthood — 
 precisely in that extent did the ferocity of the 
 Russian resentment, and their wrath at seeing 
 the trampled worm turn or attempt a feeble 645 
 retaliation, react upon the unfortunate Kal- 
 mucks. At this crisis it is probable that 
 envy and wounded pride, upon witnessing the 
 splendid victories of Oubacha and Momot- 
 bacha over the Turks and Bashkirs, con- <>5o 
 tributed strength to the Russian irritation. 
 And it must have been through the intrigues 
 of those nobles about her person, who chiefly 
 smarted under these feelings, that the Czarina 
 could ever have lent herself to the unwise and 655 
 ungrateful policy pursued at this critical period 
 toward the Kalmuck Khan. That Czarina was 
 no longer Elizabeth Petrowna : it was Cather- 
 
32 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 ine II. — a princess who did not often err so 
 660 injuriously (injuriously for herself as much as 
 for others) in the measures of her government. 
 She had soon ample reason for repenting of 
 her false policy. Meantime, how much it 
 must have co-operated with the other motives 
 665 previously acting upon Oubacha in sustaining 
 his determination to revolt, and how power- 
 fully it must have assisted the efforts of all the 
 Tartar chieftains in preparing the minds of their 
 people to feel the necessity of this difficult 
 670 enterprise, by arming their pride and their 
 suspicions against the Russian Government, 
 through the keenness of their sympathy with 
 the wrongs of their insulted prince, may be 
 readily imagined. It is a fact, and it has been 
 
 659. Catherine II. She was the daughter of the Prince of Anhalt 
 Zerbst. Her original name was Sophia Augusta, but on her marriage, 
 1745, with the Grand Duke of Russia, afterwards Peter III., she was 
 baptized according to the formulary of the Greek Church, and named 
 Catherine Alexiewna. She brought her husband two children: Paul, who 
 succeeded her, and Anne, who died an infant. On the death of the 
 Empress Elizabeth, 1761, Peter came to the throne, and soon discovered 
 his intention of disinheriting his son and divorcing Catherine. She, how- 
 ever, anticipated his designs, and formed a conspiracy against him. 
 Accordingly, she gained over the nobility and the army, and on June 27, 
 1762, Peter, after signing a renunciation of his crown, was sent prisoner 
 to the palace of Robscha. Between the prisons and graves of princes 
 the distance is short. On the 17th of July, Alexius Orloff, the Empress's 
 favorite, with some others, strangled Peter, who, the Empress gave out, 
 had died of colic. She did not take any measures against the assassins, 
 and in the following September was crowned at Moscow. The regula- 
 tions adopted at the beginning of her reign were in the manner and spirit 
 of Peter the Great. She affected to rule by clemency, and labored to win 
 the hearts of her subjects by acts of liberality. She also avoided foreign 
 war till she had settled the tranquility of the empire. The passions ol 
 this woman were as gross as her mental powers to govern her empire 
 were great. She was born in 1729 and died in 1796. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 33 
 
 confessed by candid Russians themselves, 675 
 when treating of this great dismemberment, 
 that the conduct of the Russian Cabinet 
 throughout the period of suspense and during 
 the crisis of hesitation in the Kalmuck Council, 
 was exactly such as was most desirable for 680 
 the purposes of the conspirators ; it was such, 
 in fact, as to set the seal to all their machina- 
 tions, by supplying distinct evidences and 
 official vouchers for what could otherwise have 
 been, at the most, matters of doubtful sus- 686 
 picion and indirect presumption. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the face of all these argu- 
 ments, and even allowing their weight so far as 
 not at all to deny the injustice or the impolicy 
 of the imperial ministers, it is contended by 6 oo 
 many persons who have reviewed the affair 
 with a command of all the documents bearing 
 on the case, more especially the letters or 
 minutes of council subsequently discovered in 
 the handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, and the 695 
 important evidence of the Russian captive, 
 Weseloff, who was carried off by the Kal- 
 mucks in their flight, that beyond all doubt 
 Oubacha was powerless for any purpose of 
 impeding or even of delaying the revolt. He 70 o 
 
 676. this great dismemberment, — that is, the separation of the 
 Tartars from the Russian Empire 
 
34 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 himself, indeed, was under religious obligations 
 of the most terrific solemnity never to flinch 
 from the enterprise, or even to slacken in his 
 zeal : for Zebek-Dorchi, distrusting the firm- 
 
 705 ness of his resolution under any unusual 
 pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the very 
 earliest stage of the conspiracy, availed him- 
 self of the Khan's well-known superstition to 
 engage him, by means of previous concert 
 
 710 with the priests and their head the Lama, in 
 some dark and mysterious rites of consecra- 
 tion, terminating in oaths under such terrific 
 sanctions as no Kalmuck would have the 
 courage to violate. As far, therefore, as re- 
 
 715 garded the personal share of the Khan in 
 what was to come, Zebek was entirely at his 
 ease ; he knew him to be so deeply pledged 
 by religious terrors to the prosecution of the 
 conspiracy, that no honors within the Czarina's 
 
 720 gift could have possibly shaken his adhesion : 
 and then, as to threats from the same quarter, 
 he knew him to be sealed against those fears 
 by others of a gloomier character, and better 
 adapted to his peculiar temperament. For 
 
 725 Oubacha was a brave man as respected all 
 bodily enemies or the dangers of human war- 
 fare, but was as sensitive and as timid as the 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 35 
 
 most superstitious of old women in facing the 
 frowns of a priest, or under the vague anticipa- 
 tions of ghostly retributions. But, had it been 730 
 otherwise, and had there been any reason to 
 apprehend an unsteady demeanor on the part 
 of this prince at the approach of the critical 
 moment, such were the changes already ef- 
 fected in the state of their domestic politics 735 
 amongst the Tartars, by the undermining arts 
 of Zebek-Dorchi and his ally the Lama, 
 that very little importance would have at- 
 tached to that doubt. All power was now 
 effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek- 740 
 Dorchi. He was the true and absolute wielder 
 of the Kalmuck sceptre ; all measures of 
 importance were submitted to his discretion, 
 and nothing was finally resolved but under his 
 dictation. This result he had brought about 745 
 in a year or two, by means sufficiently simple ; 
 first of all, by availing himself of the prejudice 
 in his favor, so largely diffused amongst the 
 lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to 
 the throne, in quality of great-grandson, in a 750 
 direct line from Ajouka, the most illustrious of 
 all the Kalmuck Khans, stood upon a better 
 basis than that of Oubacha, who derived from 
 a collateral branch ; secondly, with respect to 
 
36 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 755 that sole advantage which Oubacha possessed 
 above himself in the ratification of his title, 
 by improving this difference between their 
 situations to the disadvantage of his com- 
 petitor, as one who had not scrupled to accept 
 
 760 that triumph from an alien power at the price 
 of his independence, which he himself (as he 
 would have it understood) disdained to court; 
 thirdly, by his own talents and address, 
 coupled with the ferocious energy of his moral 
 
 765 character ; fourthly — and perhaps in equal 
 degree — by the criminal facility and good- 
 nature of Oubacha; finally (which is remark- 
 able enough, as illustrating the character of 
 the man), by that very new modelling of the 
 
 770 Sarga or Privy Council which he had used as 
 a principal topic of abuse and malicious insin- 
 uation against the Russian Government, whilst, 
 in reality, he first had suggested the alteration 
 to the Empress, and he chiefly appropriated 
 
 775 the political advantages which it was fitted to 
 yield. For, as he was himself appointed the 
 chief of the Sargatchi, and as the pensions to 
 the inferior Sargatchi passed through his 
 hands, whilst in effect they owed their ap- 
 
 7 8 o pointments to his nomination, it may be easily 
 supposed that, whatever power existed in tm 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 37 
 
 State capable of controlling the Khan, being 
 held by the Sarga under its new organization, 
 and this body being completely under his 
 influence, the final result was to throw all the 785 
 functions of the State, whether nominally in 
 the prince or in the council, substantially into 
 the hand of this one man ; whilst, at the same 
 time, from the strict league which he main- 
 tained with the Lama, all the thunders of the 790 
 spiritual power were always ready to come in 
 aid of the magistrate, or to supply his in- 
 capacity in cases which he could not reach. 
 
 But the time was now rapidly approaching 
 for the mighty experiment. The day was 795 
 drawing near on which the signal was to be 
 given for raising the standard of revolt, and 
 by a combined movement on both sides of the 
 Wolga for spreading the smoke of one vast 
 conflagration that should wrap in a common soo 
 blaze their own huts and the stately cities of their 
 enemies, over the breadth and length of those 
 great provinces in which their flocks were dis- 
 persed. The year of the tiger was now within 
 one little month of its commencement; the 805 
 fifth morning of that year was fixed for the 
 fatal day when the fortunes and happiness of a 
 whole nation were to be put upon the hazard 
 
$8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 of a dicer's throw, and as yet that nation was 
 
 810 in profound ignorance of the whole plan. The 
 Khan, such was the kindness of his nature, 
 could not bring himself to make the revelation 
 so urgently required. It was clear, however, 
 that this could not be delayed, and Zebek- 
 
 815 Dorchi took the task willingly upon himself. 
 But where or how should this notification 
 be made, so as to exclude Russian hearers ! 
 After some deliberation, the following plan 
 was adopted: — Couriers, it was contrived, 
 
 820 should arrive in furious haste, one upon the 
 heels of another, reporting a sudden inroad of 
 the Kirghises and Bashkirs upon the Kalmuck 
 lands, at a point distant about 120 miles. 
 Thither all the Kalmuck families, according to 
 
 825 immemorial custom, were required to send a 
 separate representative ; and there accordingly, 
 within three days, all appeared. The distance, 
 the solitary ground appointed for the ren- 
 dezvous, the rapidity of the march, all tended 
 
 830 to make it almost certain that no Russian 
 could be present. Zebek-Dorchi then came 
 forward. He did not waste many words upi^n 
 rhetoric. He unfurled an immense sheet of 
 parchment, visible from the uttermost distan-e 
 
 835 at which any of this vast crowd could stanl ', 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 39 
 
 the total number amounted to 80,000 ; all saw, 
 and many heard. They were told of the 
 oppressions of Russia; of her pride and 
 haughty disdain evidenced towards them by 840 
 a thousand acts ; of her contempt for their 
 religion ; of her determination to reduce them 
 to absolute slavery ; of the preliminary meas- 
 ures she had already taken by erecting forts 
 upon many of the great rivers in their neigh- 845 
 borhood ; of the ulterior intentions she thus 
 announced to circumscribe their pastoral lands, 
 until they would all be obliged to renounce 
 their flocks, and to collect in towns like 
 Sarepta, there to pursue mechanical and servile 850 
 trades of shoemaker, tailor, and. weaver, such 
 as the free-born Tartar had always disdained. 
 " Then again," said the subtle prince, " she 
 increases her military levies upon our popu- 
 lation every year ; we pour out our blood as 856 
 young men in her defence, or more often in 
 support of her insolent aggressions ; and as 
 old men, we reap nothing from our sufferings 
 nor benefit by our survivorship where so many 
 are sacrificed." At this point of his harangue, seo 
 Zebek produced several papers (forged, as it 
 is generally believed, by himself and the 
 
 850. Sarepta, a Moravian colony in the government of Saratov, on 
 the Sarpa, near the great bend of the Volga. 
 
40 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 Lama), containing projects of the Russian 
 Court for a general transfer of the eldest sons, 
 
 865 taken en masse from the greatest Kalmuck 
 families to the imperial Court. " Now let this 
 be once accomplished," he argued, " and there 
 is an end of all useful resistance from that day 
 forwards. Petitions we might make, or even 
 
 870 remonstrances : as men of words we might 
 play a bold part; but for deeds, for that sort 
 of language by which our ancestors were used 
 to speak — holding us by such a chain, Russia 
 would make a jest of our wishes, knowing full 
 
 875 W ell that we should not dare to make any 
 effectual movement." 
 
 Having thus sufficiently roused the angry 
 passions of his vast audience, and having 
 alarmed their fears by this pretended scheme 
 
 880 against their first-born (an artifice which was 
 indispensable to his purpose, because it met 
 beforehand every form of amendment to his 
 proposal coming from the more moderate 
 nobles, who would not otherwise have failed to 
 
 885 insist upon trying the effect of bold addresses 
 to the Empress, before resorting to any des- 
 perate extremity,) Zebek-Dorchi opened his 
 scheme of revolt, and, if so, of instant revolt, 
 since any preparations reported at St. Peters- 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 4 1 
 
 burg would be a signal for the armies of 890 
 Russia to cross into such positions from all 
 parts of Asia as would effectually intercept 
 their march. It is remarkable, however, that, 
 with all his audacity and his reliance upon the 
 momentary excitement of the Kalmucks, the 395 
 subtle prince did not venture, at this stage of 
 his seduction, to make so startling a proposal 
 as that of a flight to China. All that he held 
 out for the present was a rapid march to the 
 Temba or some other great river, which they 900 
 were to cross, and to take up a strong position 
 on the farther bank, from which, as from a 
 post of conscious security, they could hold a 
 bolder language to the Czarina, and one which 
 would have a better chance of winning a 905 
 favorable audience. 
 
 These things, in the irritated condition of 
 the simple Tartars, passed by acclamation, 
 and all returned homewards to push forward 
 with the most furious speed the preparations 910 
 for their awful undertaking. Rapid and ener- 
 getic these of necessity were, and in that 
 degree they became noticeable and manifest 
 to the Russians who happened to be inter- 
 
 900-901. the Temba, or " Emba." A river of Turkistan, in the 
 Kirghiz territory; flows S.W., and after a course of 300 miles falls into 
 the Caspian Sea. 
 
42 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 915 mingled with the different hordes either on 
 
 commercial errands, or as agents officially 
 
 from the Russian Government, some in a 
 
 financial, others in a diplomatic character. 
 
 Amongst these last (indeed at the head of 
 
 920 them) was a Russian of some distinction, by 
 name Kichinskoi, a man memorable for his 
 vanity, and memorable also as one of the 
 many victims to the Tartar revolution. This 
 Kichinskoi had been sent by the Empress as 
 
 925 her envoy to overlook the conduct of the 
 Kalmucks ; he was styled the Grand Pristaw, 
 or Great Commissioner, and was universally 
 known amongst the Tartar tribes by this title. 
 His mixed character of ambassador and of 
 
 930 political surveillant, combined with the de- 
 pendent state of the Kalmucks, gave him a 
 real weight in the Tartar councils, and might 
 have given him a far greater, had not his 
 outrageous self-conceit, and his arrogant con- 
 
 935 fidence in his own authority, as due chiefly to 
 his personal qualities for command, led him 
 into such harsh displays of power, and 
 menaces so odious to the Tartar pride, as very 
 soon made him an object of their profoundest 
 
 940 malice. He had publicly insulted the Khan ; 
 and, upon making a communication to him to 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 43 
 
 the effect that some reports began to circulate, 
 and even to reach the Empress, of a design in 
 agitation to fly from the imperial dominions, 
 he had. ventured to say, " But this you dare 945 
 not attempt; I laugh at such rumors; yes, 
 Khan, I laugh at them to the Empress ; for 
 you are a chained bear, and that you know." 
 The Khan turned away on his heel with 
 marked disdain, and the Pristaw, foaming at 950 
 the mouth, continued to utter, amongst those 
 of the Khan's attendants who stayed behind to 
 catch his real sentiments in a moment of 
 unguarded passion, all that the blindest frenzy 
 of rage could suggest to the most pre- 955 
 sumptuous of fools. It was now ascertained 
 that suspicions had arisen, but at the same 
 time it was ascertained that the Pristaw spoke 
 no more than the truth in representing himself 
 to have discredited these suspicions. The 960 
 fact was, that the mere infatuation of vanity 
 made him believe that nothing could go on 
 undetected by his all-piercing sagacity, and 
 that no rebellion could prosper when rebuked 
 by his commanding presence. The Tartars, 965 
 therefore, pursued their preparations, confiding 
 in the obstinate blindness of the grand Pristaw 
 as in their perfect safeguard ; and such it 
 
44 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 proved — to his own ruin as well as that of 
 
 970 myriads beside. 
 
 Christmas arrived ; and, a little before that 
 time, courier upon courier came dropping in,, 
 one upon the very heels of another, to St. 
 Petersburg, assuring the Czarina that beyond 
 
 975 all doubt the Kalmucks were in the very crisis 
 of departure. These despatches came from 
 the Governor of Astrachan, and copies were 
 instantly forwarded to Kichinskoi. Now, it 
 happened that between this governor — a 
 
 980 Russian named Beketoff — and the Pristaw 
 had been an ancient feud. The very name of 
 Beketoff inflamed his resentment, and no 
 sooner did he see that hated name attached to 
 the despatch than he felt himself confirmed in 
 
 985 his former views with tenfold bigotry, and wrote 
 instantly, in terms of the most pointed ridicule 
 against the new alarmist, pledging his own 
 head upon the visionariness of his alarms. 
 Beketoff, however, was not to be put down by 
 
 990 a few hard words or by ridicule : he persisted 
 in his statements ; the Russian ministry were 
 confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants, 
 and some were beginning even to treat the 
 Governor of Astrachan as a bore, and as the 
 
 995 dupe of his own nervous terrors, when the 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 45 
 
 memorable day arrived, the fatal 5 th of 
 January, which for ever terminated the dis- 
 pute, and put a seal upon the earthly hopes 
 and fortunes of unnumbered myriads. The 
 Governor of Astrachan was the first to hear 1000 
 the news. Stung by the mixed furies of 
 jealousy, of triumphant vengeance, and of 
 anxious ambition, he sprang into his sledge, 
 and, at the rate of 300 miles a day, pursued 
 his route to St. Petersburg — rushed into the 1005 
 imperial presence — announced the total real- 
 ization of his worst predictions — and upon 
 the confirmation of this intelligence by sub- 
 sequent despatches from many different posts 
 on the Wolga, he received an imperial com- 1010 
 mission to seize the person of his deluded 
 enemy, and to keep him in strict captivity. 
 These orders were eagerly fulfilled, and the 
 unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards ex- 
 pired of grief and mortification in the gloomy 1015 
 solitude of a dungeon — victim to his own 
 immeasurable, vanity and the blinding self- 
 delusions of a presumption that refused all 
 warning. 
 
 The Governor of Astrachan had been but 1020 
 too faithful a prophet. Perhaps even he was 
 surprised at the suddenness with which the 
 
46 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 verification followed his reports. Precisely on 
 the 5th of January, the day so solemnly 
 
 1025 appointed under religious sanctions by the 
 Lama, the Kalmucks on the east bank of 
 the Wolga were seen at the earliest dawn 
 of day assembling by troops and squadrons, 
 as in the tumultuous movement of some great 
 
 logo morning of battle. Tens of thousands con- 
 tinued moving off the ground at every half- 
 hour's interval. Women and children, to the 
 amount of two hundred thousand and up- 
 wards, were placed upon wagons, or upon 
 
 1035 camels, and drew off by masses of twenty 
 thousand at once — placed under suitable 
 
 , escorts, and continually swelled in numbers by 
 other outlying bodies of the horde, who kept 
 falling in at various distances upon the first 
 
 1040 and second day's march. From sixty to 
 eighty thousand of those who were the best 
 mounted staid behind the rest of the tribes, 
 with purposes of devastation and plunder more 
 violent than prudence justified, or the amrable 
 
 1045 character of the Khan could be supposed to 
 approve. But in this, as in other instances, 
 he was completely overruled by the malignant 
 counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest 
 of the desolating fury of the Tartars discharged 
 
 1042. staid. Now usually spelt " stayed," to differentiate it from 
 " staid," sober, steady. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 47 
 
 itself upon their own habitations. But this, asioso 
 cutting off all infirm looking, backward from 
 the hardships of their march, had been 
 thought so necessary a measure by all the 
 chieftains, -that even Oubacha himself was the 
 first to authorize the act by his own example. 1055 
 He seized a torch previously prepared with 
 materials the most durable as well as com- 
 bustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers 
 of his own palace. Nothing was saved from 
 the general wreck except the portable part of 1060 
 the domestic utensils and that part of the 
 wood-work which could be applied to the 
 manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This 
 chapter in their memorable day's work being 
 finished, and the whole of their villages 1065 
 throughout a district of ten thousand square 
 miles in one simultaneous blaze, the Tartars 
 waited for further orders. 
 
 These, it was intended, should have taken a 
 character of valedictory vengeance, and thus 1070 
 have left behind to the Czarina a dreadful 
 commentary upon the main motives of their 
 flight. It was the purpose of Zebek-Dorchi 
 that all the Russian towns, churches, and 
 buildings of every description, should be given 1075 
 up to pillage and destruction, and such treat- 
 
48 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 ment applied to the defenceless inhabitants as 
 might naturally, be expected from a fierce 
 people already infuriated by the spectacle 
 
 lose of their own outrages, and by the bloody 
 retaliations which they must necessarily have 
 provoked. This part of the tragedy, however, 
 was happily intercepted by a providential 
 disappointment at the very crisis of departure. 
 
 loss It has been mentioned already that the motive 
 for selecting the depth of winter as the season 
 of flight (which otherwise was obviously the 
 very worst possible), had been the impossi- 
 bility of effecting a junction sufficiently rapid 
 
 1090 with the tribes on the west of the Wolga, in 
 the absence of bridges, unless by a natural 
 bridge of ice. For this one advantage the 
 Kalmuck leaders had consented to aggravate 
 by a thousandfold the calamities inevitable to 
 
 1095 a rapid flight over boundless tracts of country, 
 with women, children, and herds of cattle — 
 for this one single advantage ; and yet, after 
 all, it was lost. The reason never has been 
 explained satisfactorily, but the fact was such. 
 
 1100 Some have said that the signals were not 
 properly concerted for marking the moment 
 of absolute departure — that is, for signifying 
 whether the settled intention of the Eastern 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 49 
 
 Kalmucks might not have been suddenly 
 interrupted by adverse intelligence. Others 1105 
 have supposed that the ice might not be 
 equally strong on both sides of the river, and 
 might even be generally insecure for the 
 treading of heavy and heavily-laden animals, 
 such as camels. But the prevailing notion is, 1110 
 that some accidental movements on the 3rd 
 and 4th of January of Russian troops in the 
 neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, 
 though really having no reference to them or 
 their plans, had been construed into certain 1115 
 signs that all was discovered, and that the 
 prudence of the Western chieftains, who, from 
 situation, had never been exposed to those in- 
 trigues by which Zebek-Dorchi had practiced 
 upon the pride of the Eastern tribes, now 1120 
 stepped in to save their people from ruin. Be 
 the cause what it might, it is certain that the 
 Western Kalmucks were in some way pre- 
 vented from forming the intended junction 
 with their brethren of the opposite bank ; and 1125 
 the result was, that at least one hundred 
 thousand of these Tartars were left behind in 
 Russia. This accident it was which saved 
 their Russian neighbors universally from the 
 desolation which else awaited them. One mo 
 
50 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 general massacre and conflagration would 
 assuredly have surprised them, to the utter 
 extermination of their property, their houses, 
 and themselves had it not been for this dis- 
 
 1135 appointment. But the Eastern chieftains did 
 not dare to put to hazard the safety of their 
 brethren under the first impulse of the Czar- 
 ina's vengeance for so dreadful a tragedy; 
 for, as they were well aware of too many 
 
 ii4o circumstances by which she might discover 
 the concurrence of the Western people in the 
 general scheme of revolt, they justly feared 
 that she would thence infer their concurrence 
 also in the bloody events which marked its 
 
 U45 outset. 
 
 Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what 
 reasons they also had for gratitude on account 
 of an interposition so unexpected, and which 
 at the moment they so generally deplored. 
 
 1150 Could they but have witnessed the thou- 
 sandth part of the sufferings which overtook 
 their Eastern brethren in the first month of 
 their sad flight, they would have blessed 
 Heaven for their own narrow escape ; and yet 
 
 1155 these sufferings of the first month were but a 
 prelude or foretaste comparatively slight of 
 those which afterwards succeeded. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 5 I 
 
 For now began to unroll the most awful 
 series of calamities, and the most extensive 
 which is anywhere recorded to have visited 1160 
 the sons and daughters of men. It is possible 
 that the sudden inroads of destroying nations, 
 such as the Huns or the Avars or the Mongol 
 Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive, 
 but there the misery and the desolation n65 
 would be sudden, like the flight of vollying 
 lightning. Those who were spared at first 
 would generally be spared to the end ; those 
 who perished at all would perish at once. 
 It is possible that the French retreat from 1170 
 Moscow may have made some nearer approach 
 to this calamity in duration, though still a 
 feeble and miniature approach, for the French 
 sufferings did not commence in good earnest 
 until about one month from the time of 1175 
 leaving Moscow ; and though it is true that 
 afterwards the vials of wrath were emptied 
 upon the devoted army for six or seven weeks 
 in succession, yet what is that to this Kal- 
 muck tragedy, which lasted for more than as nso 
 
 1163-1164. Huns, a famous barbaric people, who are generally said to 
 have had an Asiatic origin and to have been of the Mongol race. They 
 figured for the first time in European history at the end of the fourth 
 century. Avars, a fierce predatory people inhabiting the Eastern 
 Caucasus, nominally subject to Russia. Mongol Tartars, wandering 
 hordes of that nomadic race which, under the name of Monguls or 
 Moguls, has been so celebrated for its invasions of Northern India and 
 China. 
 
52 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 many months? But the main feature of 
 horror by which the Tartar march was dis- 
 tinguished from the French, lies in the accom- 
 paniment of women* and children. There 
 
 ii85 W ere both, it is true, with the French army, 
 but not so many as to bear any marked pro- 
 portion to the total numbers concerned. The 
 French, in short, were merely an army — a host 
 of professional destroyers, whose regular trade 
 
 1190 was bloodshed, and whose regular element 
 was danger and suffering. But the Tartars 
 were a nation carrying along with them more 
 than two hundred and fifty thousand women 
 and children, utterly unequal, for the most 
 
 1195 part, to any contest with the calamities before 
 them. The Children of Israel were in the 
 same circumstances as to the accompaniment 
 of their families, but they were released from 
 the pursuit of their enemies in a very early 
 
 1200 stage of their flight; and their subsequent 
 residence in the Desert was not a march, but 
 a continued halt, and under a continued inter- 
 position of Heaven for their comfortable sup- 
 port. Earthquakes, again, however compre- 
 
 i205hensive in their ravages,' are shocks of a 
 
 * Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women accom- 
 panied the a?iabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent Retreat of 
 the Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were many" women 
 in the Greek army; and in a late stage of that trying expedition it is 
 evident that women were amongst the survivors. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 53 
 
 moment's duration. A much nearer approach 
 made to the wide range and the long duration 
 of the Kalmuck tragedy may have been in a 
 pestilence such as that which visited Athens 
 in the Peloponnesian War, or London in the 1210 
 reign of Charles II. There also the martyrs 
 were counted by myriads, arid the period of 
 the desolation was counted by months. But, 
 after all, the total amount of destruction was 
 on a smaller scale, and there was this feature 1215 
 of alleviation to the conscious pressure of the 
 calamity — that the misery was withdrawn 
 from public notice into private chambers and 
 hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by Ves- 
 pasian and his son, taken in its entire circum-1220 
 stances, comes nearest of all — for breadth 
 and depth of suffering, for duration, for the 
 exasperation of the suffering from without by 
 internal feuds, and, finally, for that last most 
 
 1209. a pestilence . . . which visited Athens. The reference is to the 
 devastating plague at Athens, which spread into Egypt and Ethiopia, 430 b c. 
 
 1210. Peloponnesian War. This war continued for 27 years between 
 Athens and the people of Peloponnesus. It began by an attempt of the 
 Boeotians to surprise Platae, B.C. 431, and ended in 404, when Athens was 
 captured by the Lacedaemonians: London (Plague in). The great 
 Plague of London began December, 1664, and carried off nearly 100,000 
 persons. The best description of it is that by Defoe. 
 
 12 9 Jerusalem. During the reign of the Emperor Nero, the Jews re- 
 belled against the tyranny of the Proconsuls, and Vespasian was sent with 
 three legions to quell the revolt. He prosecuted the war with vigor until he 
 was proclaimed Emperor, 1st July, a.d. 69. Titus (" his son ") remained in 
 Palestine to carry on the siege of Jerusalem. He finally captured and 
 burnt the city on 8th of September, A.D. 70. See Josephus, " His'ory of 
 the Wars of the Jews." 
 
54 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 1225 appalling expression of the furnace-heat of the 
 anguish in its power to extinguish the natural 
 affections even of maternal love. But, after 
 all, each case had circumstances of romantic 
 misery peculiar to itself — circumstances with- 
 
 1230 out precedent and (wherever human nature is 
 ennobled by Christianity) it may be confidently 
 hoped, never to be repeated. 
 
 The first point to be reached, before any 
 hope of repose could be encouraged, was the 
 
 1235 river Jaik. This was not above 300 miles from 
 the main point of departure on the Wolga, and 
 if the march thither was to be a forced one and 
 a severe one, it was alleged, on the other hand, 
 that the suffering would be the more brief and 
 
 1240 transient : one summary exertion, not to be 
 repeated, and all was achieved. Forced the 
 march was, and severe beyond example ; 
 there the forewarning proved correct, but the 
 promised rest proved a mere phantom of the 
 
 1245 wilderness — a visionary rainbow which fled 
 before their hope-sick eyes across these inter- 
 minable solitudes, for seven months of hard- 
 ship and calamity, without a pause. These 
 sufferings, by their very nature and the cir- 
 
 1250 cumstances under which they arose, were 
 
 1235. the river Jaik, the river Ural or Yaik. After a course of about 
 1800 miles it enters the Caspian Sea 180 miles from Astracan. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 55 
 
 (like the scenery of the steppes) somewhat 
 monotonous in their coloring and external 
 features ; what variety, however, there was, will 
 be most naturally exhibited by tracing his- 
 torically the successive stages of the general 1 * 256 
 misery, exactly as it unfolded itself under the 
 double agency of weakness still increasing 
 from within and hostile pressure from without. 
 Viewed in this manner, under the real order of 
 development, it is remarkable that these suffer- 1260 
 ings of the Tartars, though under the moulding 
 hands of accident, arrange themselves almost 
 with a scenical propriety. They seem com- 
 bined as with the skill of an artist ; the intensity 
 of the misery advancing regularly with the 1266 
 advances of the march, and the stages of the 
 calamity corresponding to the stages of the 
 route, so that, upon raising the curtain which 
 veils the great catastrophe, we behold one 
 vast climax of anguish, towering upwards by 1270 
 regular gradations, as if constructed artificially 
 for picturesque effect — a result which might 
 not have been surprising had it been reason- 
 able to anticipate the same rate of speed, and 
 even an accelerated rate, as prevailing through 1275 
 the later stages of the expedition. But it 
 seemed, on the contrary, most reasonable to 
 
56 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 calculate upon a continual decrement in the 
 rate of motion according to the increasing dis- 
 
 i28otance from the headquarters of the pursuing 
 enemy. This calculation, however, was de- 
 feated by the extraordinary circumstance that 
 the Russian armies did not begin to close in 
 very fiercely upon the Kalmucks until after 
 
 1285 they had accomplished a distance of full 2000 
 miles; 1000 miles farther on the assaults be- 
 came even more tumultuous and murderous; 
 and already the great shadows of the Chinese 
 Wall were dimly descried when the frenzy and 
 
 1290 acharnement of the pursuers, and the bloody 
 desperation of the miserable fugitives, had 
 reached its uttermost extremity. Let us briefly 
 rehearse the main stages of the misery and 
 trace the ascending steps of the tragedy, 
 
 1295 according to the great divisions of the route 
 marked out by the central rivers of Asia. 
 
 The first stage, we have already said, was 
 from the Wolga to the Jaik ; the distance about 
 300 miles ; the time allowed seven days. For 
 
 1300 the first week, therefore, the rate of marching 
 averaged about 43 English miles a day. The 
 weather was cold, but bracing, and, at a more 
 moderate pace, this part of the journey might 
 
 1290. acharnement, French for " fierce cruelty, fellness." 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 57 
 
 have been accomplished without much distress 
 by a people as hardy as the Kalmucks : as it 1305 
 was, the cattle suffered greatly from over- 
 driving ; milk began ■ to fail even for the chil- 
 dren ; the sheep perished by wholesale ; and 
 the children themselves were saved only by 
 the innumerable camels. 1310 
 
 The Cossacks, who dwelt upon the banks of 
 the Jaik, were the first among the subjects of 
 Russia to come into collision with the Kal- 
 mucks. Great was their surprise at the 
 suddenness of the irruption, and great also l315 
 their consternation ; for, according to their 
 settled custom, by far the greater part of their 
 number was absent during the winter months 
 at the fisheries upon the Caspian. Some who 
 were liable to surprise at the most exposed 1320 
 points, fled in crowds to the fortress of Koula- 
 gina, which was immediately invested, and 
 summoned by Oubacha. He had, however, 
 in his train, only a few light pieces of artillery, 
 and the Russian commandant at Koulagina, 1325 
 being aware of the hurried circumstances in 
 which'the Khan was placed, and that he stood 
 upon the very edge, as it were, of a renewed 
 flight, felt encouraged by these considerations 
 to a more obstinate resistance than might else 
 
 fe 1330 
 
58 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 :335 have been advisable with an enemy so little 
 disposed to observe the usages v of civilized 
 warfare. The period of his anxiety was not 
 long ; on the fifth day of the siege, he descried 
 from the walls a succession of Tartar couriers, 
 
 1340 mounted upon fleet Bactrian camels, crossing 
 the vast plains around the fortress at a furious 
 pace, and riding into the Kalmuck encamp- 
 ment at various points. Great agitation ap- 
 peared immediately to follow : orders were 
 
 1345 soon after despatched in all directions, and it 
 became speedily known that upon a distant 
 flank of the Kalmuck movement a bloody and 
 exterminating battle had been fought the day 
 before, in which one entire tribe of the Khan's 
 
 1350 dependants, numbering not less than 9000 
 fighting men, had perished to the last man. 
 This was the ouloss> or clan, called Feka- 
 Zechorr, between whom and the Cossacks 
 there was a feud of ancient standing. In 
 
 1355 selecting, therefore, the points of attack, on 
 occasion of the present hasty inroad, the 
 Cossack chiefs were naturally eager so to 
 direct their efforts as to combine with the 
 service of the Empress some gratification to 
 
 1360 their own party hatreds ; more especially as 
 the present was likely to be their final oppor- 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 59 
 
 tunity for revenge if the Kalmuck evasion 
 should prosper. Having, therefore, concen- 
 trated as large a body of Cossack cavalry as 
 circumstances allowed, they attacked the 136 5 
 hostile ouloss with a precipitation which denied 
 to it all means for communicating with 
 Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding 
 an ample range of pasturage, to meet the 
 necessities of their vast flocks and herds, had 1370 
 separated this ouloss from the Khan's head- 
 quarters by an interval of eighty miles : and 
 thus it was, and not from oversight, that 
 it came to be thrown entirely upon its own 
 resources. These had proved insufficient ; i3?5 
 retreat, from the exhausted state of their 
 horses and camels, no less than from the 
 prodigious encumbrances of their live stock, 
 was absolutely out of the question ; quarter 
 was disdained on the one side, and would noti3so 
 have been granted on the other : and thus it 
 had happened that the setting sun of that one 
 day (the thirteenth from the first opening 
 of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon the 
 final agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched upon 1385 
 a bloody field, who on that day's dawning had 
 held and styled themselves an independent 
 nation. 
 
60 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 Universal consternation was diffused through 
 
 1390 the wide borders of the Khan's encampment 
 by this disastrous intelligence, not so much 
 on account of the numbers slain, or the total 
 extinction of a powerful ally, as because the 
 position of the Cossack force was likely to put 
 
 1395 to hazard the future advances of the Kal- 
 mucks, or at least, to retard and hold them in 
 check until the heavier columns of the Russian 
 army should arrive upon their flanks. The 
 siege of Koulagina was instantly raised, and 
 
 1400 that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the 
 women and their children, once again re- 
 sounded through the tents — the signal for 
 flight, and this time for a flight more rapid than 
 ever. About 150 miles ahead of their present 
 
 imposition, there arose a tract of hilly country, 
 forming a sort of margin to the vast sea-like 
 expanse of champaign savannahs, steppes, and 
 occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched 
 away on each side of this margin both east- 
 
 1410 wards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 
 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, 
 through which passed the nearest and the 
 most practicable route to the river Torgau (the 
 
 1413. Torgau, otherwise spelt " Turghai" or "Torgai." Geographers 
 spell the name in all sorts of ways. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 6 I 
 
 farther bank of which river offered the next 
 great station of security for a general halt) 1415 
 It was the more essential to gain this pass 
 before the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only 
 would the delay in forcing the pass give time 
 to the Russian pursuing columns for combin- 
 ing their attacks, and for bringing up their U2 o 
 artillery, but also because (even if all enemies 
 in pursuit were thrown out of the question) it 
 was held by those best acquainted with the 
 difficult and obscure geography of these path- 
 less steppes that the loss of this one narrow 1425 
 strait amongst the hills would have the effect of 
 throwing them (as their only alternative in a 
 case where so wide a sweep of pasturage was 
 required) upon a circuit of at least 500 miles 
 extra; besides that, after all, this circuitous 1430 
 route would carry them to the Torgau at a 
 point ill fitted for the passage of their heavy 
 baggage. The defile in the hills, therefore, 
 it was resolved to gain, and yet, unless they 
 moved upon it with the velocity of light 1435 
 cavalry, there was little chance but it would be 
 found preoccupied by the Cossacks. They 
 also, it is true, had suffered greatly in the 
 bloody action with the defeated onloss ; but 
 the excitement of victory, and the intense im 
 
62 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 sympathy with their unexampled triumph, 
 had again swelled their ranks, and would 
 probably act with the force of a vortex to 
 draw in their simple countrymen from the 
 
 1445 Caspian. The question, therefore, of pre- 
 occupation was reduced to a race. The Cos- 
 sacks were marching upon an oblique line not 
 above 50 miles longer than that which led to 
 the same point from the Kalmuck headquarters 
 
 1450 before Koulagina ; and therefore, without the 
 most furious haste on the part of the Kal- 
 mucks, there was not a chance for them, 
 burdened and " trashed " as they were, to 
 anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the Cos- 
 
 1455 sacks in seizing this important pass. 
 
 Dreadful were the feelings of the poor 
 women on hearing this exposition of the case, 
 for they easily understood that too capital an 
 
 x 453 " trashed," checked and thus exhausted See Scott's " Black 
 Dwarf," ch. ix., " Sair trashed wi' his night wark; " see also Shakes- 
 peare's " Tempest," i. 2. 81: — 
 
 " Who to trash for overtopping." 
 
 and in "Othello," ii. 1. 312: — 
 
 " This poor trash of Venice, who I trash 
 For his quick hunting " 
 
 "Trashed;" — This is an expressive word used by Beaumont and 
 Fletcher in their " Bonduca," etc., to describe the case of a person 
 retarded and embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, 
 whether thing or person, too valuable to be left behind. 
 
 1458. too capital an interest, a matter of such supreme importance 
 that minor interests must yield to it. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 6$ 
 
 interest (the summa rerum) was now at stake, 
 to allow of any regard to minor interests, or 14 #> 
 what would be considered such in their pres- 
 ent circumstances. The dreadful week already 
 passed — their inauguration in misery — was 
 yet fresh in their remembrance. The scars of 
 suffering were impressed not only upon their 1465 
 memories, but upon their very persons and the 
 persons of their children. And they knew 
 that where no speed had much chance of 
 meeting the cravings of the chieftains, no test 
 would be accepted, short of absolute exhaus-1470 
 tion, that as much had been accomplished 
 as could have been accomplished. Weseloff, 
 the Russian captive, has recorded the silent 
 wretchedness with which the women and elder 
 boys assisted in drawing the tent-ropes. On 1*75 
 the 5th of January, all had been animation 
 and the joyousness of indefinite expectation ; 
 now, on the contrary, a brief but bitter experi- 
 ence had taught them to take an amended 
 calculation of what it was that lay before wso 
 them. 
 
 One whole day and far into the succeeding 
 night had the renewed flight continued ; the 
 sufferings had been greater than before, for 
 
 1459. summa rerum, the main thing. 
 
64 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 1485 the cold had been more intense, and many 
 perished out of the living creatures through 
 every class, except only the camels — whose 
 powers of endurance seemed equally adapted 
 to cold and to heat. The second morning, 
 
 1490 however, brought an alleviation to the distress. 
 Snow had begun to fall, and though not deep 
 at present, it was easily forseen that it soon 
 would be so, and that, as a halt would in that 
 case become unavoidable, no plan could be 
 
 1495 better than that of staying where they were, 
 especially as the same cause would check the 
 advance of the Cossacks. Here, then, was 
 the last interval of comfort which gleamed 
 upon the unhappy nation during their whole 
 
 1500 migration. For ten days the snow continued 
 to fall with little intermission. At the end of 
 that time keen, bright, frosty weather suc- 
 ceeded ; the drifting had ceased ; in three 
 days the smooth expanse became firm enough 
 
 1505 to support the treading of the camels, and the 
 flight was recommenced. But during the halt 
 much domestic comfort had been enjoyed, 
 and for the last time universal plenty. The 
 cows and oxen had perished in such vast 
 
 i5io numbers on the previous marches, that an 
 order was now issued to turn what remained 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 65 
 
 to account by slaughtering the whole, and 
 salting whatever part should be found to 
 exceed the immediate consumption. This 
 measure led to a scene of general banqueting, isis 
 and even of festivity, amongst all who were 
 not incapacitated for joyous emotions by dis- 
 tress of mind, by grief for the unhappy experi- 
 ence of the last few days, and by anxiety- for 
 the too gloomy future. Seventy thousand 1520 
 persons of all ages had already perished, 
 exclusively of the many thousand allies who 
 had been cut down by the Cossack sabre. 
 And the losses in reversion were likely to be 
 many more, for rumors began now to arrive 1525 
 from all quarters, by the mounted couriers 
 whom the Khan had dispatched to the rear 
 and to each flank as well as in advance, that 
 large masses of the imperial troops were con- 
 verging from all parts of Central Asia to the 1530 
 fords of the river Torgau, as the most conven- 
 ient point for intercepting the flying tribes, 
 and it was by this time well known that a 
 powerful division was close in their rear, and 
 was retarded only by the numerous artillery 1535 
 which had been judged necessary to support 
 their operations. New motives were thus 
 
 1524. in reversion A legal phrase. Here it means simply " that 
 were to come to them." 
 
66 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 daily arising for quickening the motions of the 
 wretched Kalmucks, and for exhausting those 
 
 1540 who were all ready but too much exhausted. 
 
 It was not until the 2d of February that the 
 
 Khan's advanced guard came in sight of 
 
 Ouchim, the defile among the hills of Mou- 
 
 galdchares, in which they anticipated so 
 
 1645 bloody an opposition from the Cossacks. A 
 pretty large body of these light cavalry had, 
 in fact, preoccupied' the pass for some hours, 
 but the Khan having two great advantages — 
 namely, a strong body of infantry, who had 
 
 1550 been conveyed by sections of five on about 
 200 camels, and some pieces of light artillery 
 which he had not yet been forced to aban- 
 don — soon began to make a serious impres- 
 sion upon this unsupported detachment, and 
 
 1555 they would probably at any rate have retired, 
 but at the very moment when they were mak- 
 ing some dispositions in that view Zebek- 
 Dorchi appeared upon the rear with a body of 
 trained riflemen, who had distinguished them- 
 
 1560 selves in the war with Turkey. These men 
 had contrived to crawl unobserved over the 
 cliffs which skirted the ravine, availing them- 
 selves of the dry beds of the summer torrents, 
 
 1543. Ouchim, Ichim, south of Tobolsk, on the river Irtish. 
 
REVOLT OK THE TARTARS. 67 
 
 and other inequalities of the ground to conceal 
 their movement. Disorder and trepidation 15<i5 
 ensued instantly in the Cossack files ; the 
 Khan, who had been waiting with the elite of 
 his heavy cavalry, charged furiously upon 
 them ; total overthrow followed to the Cos- 
 sacks, and a slaughter*such as in some meas- i^o 
 ure avenged the recent bloody extermination 
 of their allies, the ancient ouloss of Feka- 
 Zechorr. The slight horses of the Cossacks 
 were unable to support the weight of heavy 
 Polish dragoons and a body of trained catn-vmh 
 eleers (that is, cuirassiers mounted on camels) ; 
 hardy they were, but not strong, nor a match 
 for their antagonists in weight, and their 
 extraordinary efforts through the last few days 
 to gain their present position had greatly isso 
 diminished their powers for effecting an 
 escape. Very few, in fact, did escape, and 
 the bloody day at Ouchim became as mem- 
 orable amongst the Cossacks as that which, 
 about twenty days before, had signalized theirs 
 
 1567. elite, French for " pick, choicest." 
 
 1575. Polish. It is hard to see what De Quincey means here. He 
 probably uses " Polish dragoons " to mean " heavy cavalry," as opposed 
 to the " light Cossack cavalry." 
 
 camaleers. In the Egyptian campaign for the relief of Gordon 
 the troops mounted on camels were styled " camelry." 
 
68 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 complete annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr.* 
 The road was now open to the river Irgitch, 
 and as yet even far beyond it to the Torgau ; 
 but how long this state of things would con- 
 i59otinue, was every day more doubtful. Certain 
 • intelligence was now received that a large 
 Russian army, well appointed in every arm, 
 was advancing upon the Torgau, under the 
 command of General Traubenberg. This 
 1595 officer was to be joined on his route by ten 
 thousand Bashkirs and pretty nearly the same 
 amount of Kirghises — both hereditary ene- 
 mies of the Kalmucks, both exasperated to 
 
 * There was another onloss equally strong with that of Feka Zechorr, 
 viz., that of Erketunn, under the government of Assarcho and Machi, 
 whom some obligations of treaty or other hidden motives drew into the 
 general conspiracy of revolt. But fortunately the two chieftains found 
 means to assure the Governor of Astrach n, on the first outbreak of the 
 insurrection, that their real wishes were for maintaining the old connec- 
 tions with Russia. The Cossacks, therefore, to whom the pursuit was 
 entrusted, had instructions to act cautiously and according to circum- 
 stances on coming up with them The result wa«, through the prudent 
 management of Assarcho, that the clan, without compromising their pride 
 or independence, made such moderate submissions as satisfied the Cos- 
 sacks, and eventually both chiefs and people received from the Czarina 
 the rewards and honors of exemplary fidelity. 
 
 1596. Bashkirs, a Tartar tribe of Russia, where they occupy a portion 
 of the Government of Orenburg, Perm, and Viatka. These people are in 
 Asia generally called Ischtiaks They live principally in tents and on the 
 produce of the chase, troubling themselves but little with agriculture, ex- 
 cept in the winter, which they pass in their villages. Rich gold and platina 
 mines exist in their territory. They are Mahommedans, and pay no taxes, 
 but are all held under military service to guard the frontier Their number 
 is about 200,000 of whom 70,000 are enrolled on the same footing as the 
 Don Cossacks. 
 
 1597. Kirghises, a numerous and widely-extended people of Indepen- 
 dent Tartary, occupying a great part of the southern frontier of Asiatic 
 Russia. The area over which they extend is estimated at 1,530,000 square 
 miles, chiefly composed of barren plains, and abounding in salt lakes, some 
 of which are 100 miles in length. The Kirghises are a Mongol race, di- 
 vided into hordes, and numbering about 250,000. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 69 
 
 a point of madness by the bloody trophies 
 which Oubacha and Momotbacha had, in latei6oo 
 years, won from such of their compatriots as 
 served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke 
 these wild nations bore with submissive 
 patience, but not the hands by which it had 
 been imposed, and accordingly, catching with 1605 
 eagerness at the present occasion offered to 
 their vengeance, they sent an assurance to the 
 Czarina of their perfect obedience to her com- 
 mands, and at the same time a message sig- 
 nificantly declaring in what spirit they meant ieio 
 to execute them, viz., "that they would not 
 trouble her Majesty with prisoners." 
 
 Here, then rose, as before the Cossacks, a 
 race for the Kalmucks with the regular armies 
 of Russia, and concurrently with nations asi6i5 
 fierce and semi-humanized as themselves, 
 besides that they had been stung into threefold 
 activity by the furies of mortified pride and 
 military abasement under the eyes of the 
 Turkish Sultan. The forces, and more espe-1620 
 cially the artillery, of Russia were far too 
 overwhelming to bear the thought of a regular 
 opposition in pitched battles, even with a less 
 dilapidated state of their resources than they 
 could reasonably expect at the period of their 1626 
 
70 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 arrival on the Torgau. In their speed lay 
 their only hope — in strength of foot, as 
 before, and not in strength of arm. Onward, 
 
 1630 therefore, the Kalmucks pressed, marking the 
 lines of their wide-extending march over the 
 sad solitudes of the steppes by a never-ending 
 chain of corpses. The old and the young, 
 the sick man on his couch, the mother 
 
 1630 with her baby — all were dropping fast. 
 Sights such as these, with the many rueful 
 aggravations incident to the helpless condition 
 of infancy — of disease and of female weakness 
 abandoned to the wolves amidst a howling 
 
 1635 wilderness, continued to track their course 
 through a space of full two thousand miles, 
 for so much, at the least, it was likely to 
 prove, including the circuits to which they 
 were often compelled by rivers or hostile 
 
 i64o tribes, from the point of starting on the 
 Wolga, until they could reach their destined 
 halting ground on the east bank of the Tor- 
 gau. For the first seven weeks of this march 
 their sufferings had been embittered by the 
 
 1645 excessive severity of the cold, and every 
 night — so long as wood was to be had for 
 fires either from the lading of the camels, or 
 from the desperate sacrifice of their baggage- 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 71 
 
 wagons, or (as occasionally happened) from 
 the forests which skirted the banks of theiwo 
 many rivers which crossed their path — no 
 spectacle was more frequent than that of a 
 circle, composed of men, women, and children 
 gathered by hundreds round a central fire, all 
 dead and stiff at the return of morning light, w-55 
 Myriads were left behind from pure exhaus- 
 tion, of whom none had a chance, under the 
 combined evils which beset them, of surviving 
 through the next twenty-four hours. Frost, 
 however, and snow at length ceased to perse- 1660 
 cute ; the vast extent of the march at length 
 brought them into more genial latitudes, and 
 the unusual duration of the march was gradu- 
 ally bringing them into more geniai seasons of 
 the year. Two thousand miles had at lastiees 
 been traversed ; February, March, April were 
 gone; the balmy month of May had opened; 
 vernal sights and sounds came from every 
 side to comfort the heart-weary travelers, and 
 at last, in the latter end of May, crossing thei 6 7o 
 Torgau, they took up a position where they 
 hoped to find liberty to repose themselves for 
 many weeks in comfort as well as in security, 
 and to draw such supplies from the fertile 
 neighborhood as might restore their shattered 1675 
 
72 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 forces to a condition for executing, with less 
 of wreck and ruin, the large remainder of the 
 journey. 
 
 Yes : it was true that two thousand miles of 
 
 1680 wandering had been completed, but in a period 
 of nearly five months, .and with the terrific 
 sacrifice of at least two hundred and fifty 
 thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and 
 flocks past all reckoning. These had all 
 
 1685 perished : ox, cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, 
 or goat, not one survived — only the camels. 
 These arid and adust creatures, looking like 
 the mummies of some antediluvian animals, 
 without the affections and sensibilities of flesh 
 
 1690 and blood — these only still erected their 
 speaking eyes to the eastern heavens, and had 
 to all appearance come out from this long 
 tempest of trial unscathed and hardly dimin- 
 ished. The Khan, knowing how much he was 
 
 1695 individually answerable for the misery which 
 had been sustained, must have wept tears 
 even more bitter than those of Xerxes, when 
 
 1697. Xerxes. In b c 480, Xerxes determined to invade Greece and 
 bridged the Hellespont. Over this bridge " the whole Persian army 
 defiled in safety, while Xerxes, seated on a marble throne on the Asiatic 
 shore, watched the interminable line of march as it pressed forward into 
 Europe. At the sight of such countless myriads of men, even the reckless 
 despot was touched by a feeling of common humanity; he burst into tears 
 when he reflected that of the whole host not one man would be alive a 
 hundred years hence." 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. ■ 73 
 
 he threw his eyes over the myriads whom he 
 had assembled : for the tears of Xerxes were 
 unmingled with remorse. Whatever amends i?oo 
 were in his power, the Khan resolved to make 
 by sacrifices to the general good of all per- 
 sonal regards ; and, accordingly, even at this 
 point of their advance, he once more deliber- 
 ately brought under review the whole question 1705 
 of the revolt. The question was formally 
 debated before the Council, whether, even at 
 this point, they should untread their steps, 
 and, throwing themselves upon the Czarina's 
 mercy, return to their old allegiance? In that mo 
 case, Oubacha professed himself willing to 
 become the scapegoat for the general trans- 
 gression. This, he argued, was no fantastic 
 scheme, but even easy of accomplishment, for 
 the unlimited and sacred power of the Kahn, m 5 
 so well known to the Empress, made it absol- 
 utely iniquitous to attribute any separate 
 responsibility to the people — upon the Khan 
 rested the guilt, upon the Kahn would descend 
 the imperial vengeance. This proposal was 1720 
 applauded for its generosity, but was ener- 
 getically opposed by Zebek-Dorchi. Were 
 they to lose the whole journey of two thous- 
 and miles? Was their misery to perish without 
 
74 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 1725 fruit? True it was that they had yet reached 
 only the half-way house ; but, in that respect, 
 the motives were evenly balanced for .retreat 
 or for advance. Either way they would have 
 pretty nearly the same distance to traverse, 
 
 1730 but with this difference — that, forwards, their 
 route lay through lands comparatively fertile ; 
 backwards, through a blasted wilderness, rich 
 only in memorials of their sorrow, and hideous 
 to Kalmuck eyes by the trophies of their 
 
 1753 calamity. Besides, though the Empress 
 might accept an excuse for the past, would 
 she the less forbear to suspect for the future? 
 The Czarina's pardon they might obtain, but 
 could they ever hope to recover her confidence? 
 
 mo Doubtless there would now be a standing pre- 
 sumption against them, an immortal ground of 
 jealousy ; and a jealous government would be 
 but another name for a harsh one. Finally, 
 whatever motives there ever had been for the 
 
 1745 revolt surely remained unimpaired by any- 
 thing that had occurred. In reality, the revolt 
 was, after all, no revolt, but (strictly speaking) 
 a return to their old allegiance, since, not 
 above one hundred and fifty years ago (viz., 
 
 1750 in the year 1616), their ancestors had revolted 
 from the Emperor of China. They had now 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 75 
 
 tried both governments, and for them China 
 was the land of promise and Russia the house 
 of bondage. 
 
 Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say m5 
 or do, the yearning of the people was strongly 
 in behalf of the Khan's proposal ; the pardon 
 of their prince, they persuaded themselves, 
 would be readily conceded by the Empress, 
 and there is little doubt that they would at this i 7 6o 
 time have thrown themselves gladly upon the 
 imperial mercy, when suddenly all was defeated 
 by the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg. 
 This general had reached the fortress of Orsk, 
 after a very painful march, on the 12th ofues 
 April ; thence he set forwards towards Oriem- 
 bourg, which he reached upon the 1st of June, 
 having been joined on his route at various 
 times during the month of May by the Kir- 
 ghises and a corps of ten thousand Bashkirs. i 770 
 From Oriembourg he sent forward his official 
 offers to the Khan, which were harsh and 
 peremptory, holding out no specific stipula- 
 tion as to pardon or impunity, and exacting 
 unconditional submission as the preliminary 1775 
 price of any cessation from military operations. 
 
 1766. Oriembourg, Orenburg, the capital «f a province of the same 
 name The most westerly government in Asiatic Russia. 
 
76 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 The personal character of Traubenberg, which 
 was anything but energetic, and the condition 
 
 1780 of his army, disorganized* in a great measure 
 by the length and severity of the march, made 
 it probable that, with a little time for negoti- 
 ation, a more conciliatory tone would have 
 been assumed. But, unhappily for all parties, 
 
 1785 sinister events occurred in the meantime, such 
 as effectually put an end to every hope of the 
 kind. 
 
 The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg 
 had reported to this officer that a distance of 
 
 1790 on iy ten days' march lay between his own 
 head-quarters and those of the Khan. Upon 
 this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, by their 
 Prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated 
 the Russian general to advance without delay. 
 
 1795 Once having placed his cannon in position, so 
 as to command the Kalmuck camp, the fate of 
 the rebel Khan and his people would be in his 
 own hands, and they would themselves form 
 his advanced guard. Traubenberg, however, 
 
 i8oo [why has not been certainly explained), re- 
 fused to march, grounding his refusal upon the 
 condition of his army, and their absolute need 
 of refreshment. Long and fierce was the 
 altercation: but at length, seeing no chance 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 77 
 
 of prevailing, and dreading above all other isos 
 events the escape of their detested enemy, 
 the ferocious Bashkirs went off in a body by 
 forced marches. In six days they reached the 
 Torgau, crossed by swimming their horses, and 
 fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed isio 
 for many a league in search of food or prov- 
 ender for their camels. The first day's action 
 was one vast succession of independent skir- 
 mishes, diffused over a field of thirty to forty 
 miles in extent ; one party often breaking up isi5 
 into three or four, and again (according to the 
 accidents of ground) three or four blending 
 into one ; flight and pursuit, rescue and total 
 overthrow, going on simultaneously, under all 
 varieties of form, in all quarters of the plain. 1820 
 The Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, 
 by the scattered state of the Kalmucks, to 
 split up into innumerable sections, and thus, 
 for some hours, it had been impossible for the 
 most practised eye to collect the general ten- 1825 
 dency of the day's fortune. Both the Khan 
 and Zebek-Dorchi were at one moment made 
 prisoners, and more than once in imminent 
 danger of being cut down; but at length 
 Zebek succeeded in rallying a strong column 1830 
 of infantry, which, with the support of the 
 
78 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 camel-corps on each flank, compelled the 
 Bashkirs to retreat. Clouds, however, of these 
 wild cavalry continued to arrive through the 
 
 1835 next two days and nights, followed or accom- 
 panied by the Khirgises. These being viewed 
 as the advanced parties of Traubenberg's army, 
 the Kalmuck chieftains saw no hope of safety 
 but in flight, and in this way it happened that 
 
 1840 a retreat, which had so recently been brought 
 to a pause, was resumed at the very moment 
 when the unhappy fugitives were anticipating 
 a deep repose without further molestation the 
 whole summer through. 
 
 1845 It seemed as though every variety of wretch- 
 edness were predestined to the Kalmucks, and 
 as if their sufferings were incomplete, unless 
 they were rounded and matured by all that the 
 most dreadful agencies of summer's heat could 
 
 1850 superadd to those of frost and winter. To this 
 sequel of their story I shall immediately revert, 
 after first noticing a little romantic episode 
 which occurred at this point between Oubacha 
 and his unprincipled cousin Zebek-Dorchi. 
 
 1855 There was at the time of the Kalmuck flight 
 from the Wolga a Russian gentleman of some 
 rank at the court of the Khan, whom, for 
 political reasons, it was thought necessary to 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 79 
 
 carry along with them as a captive. For some 
 weeks his confinement had been very strict, i«$o 
 and in one or two instances cruel. But, as the 
 increasing distance was constantly diminishing 
 the chances of escape, and perhaps, also, as 
 the misery of the guards gradually withdrew 
 their attention from all minor interests to their 1865 
 own personal sufferings, the vigilance of the 
 custody grew more and more relaxed ; until 
 at length, upon a petition to the Khan, Mr. 
 Weseloff was formally restored to liberty, and 
 it was understood that he might use his liberty \m 
 in whatever way he chose, even for returning 
 to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accord- 
 ingly, he was making active preparations for 
 his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred 
 to Zebec-Dorchi that, not improbably, in someiszs 
 of the battles which were then anticipated with 
 Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose 
 some prisoner of rank, in which case the Rus- 
 sian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands 
 for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, 1880 
 to his own severe affliction, the Russian was 
 detained until the further pleasure of the Khan. 
 The Khan's name, indeed, was used through 
 the whole affair; but, as it seemed, with so 
 little concurrence on his part, that, whenms 
 
80 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 Weseloff in a private audience humbly re- 
 monstrated upon the injustice done him, and 
 the cruelty of thus sporting with his feelings 
 by setting him at liberty, and, as it were, 
 
 1890 tempting him into dreams of home and re- 
 stored happiness only for the purpose of 
 blighting them, the good-natured prince dis- 
 claimed all participation in the affair, and 
 went so far in proving his sincerity as even 
 
 1895 to give him permission to affect his escape; 
 and, as a ready means of commencing it with- 
 out raising suspicion, the Khan mentioned to 
 Mr. Weseloff that he had just then received 
 a message from the Hetman of the Bashkirs, 
 
 1900 soliciting a private interview on the banks of 
 the Torgau at a spot pointed out : that inter- 
 view was arranged for the coming night, and 
 Mr. Weseloff might go in the Khan's suite, 
 which on either side was not to exceed three 
 
 1905 persons. Weseloff was a prudent man, ac- 
 quainted with the world, and he read treachery 
 in the very outline of this scheme, as stated by 
 the Khan — treachery against the Khan's per- 
 son. He mused a little, and then communi- 
 
 1910 cated so much of his suspicions to the Khan 
 as might put him on his guard, but, upon 
 
 iSgq. Hetman, commander. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 8 1 
 
 further consideration, he begged leave to de- 
 cline the honor of accompanying the Khan. 
 The fact was, that three Kalmucks, who had 
 strong motives for returning to their country- 1915 
 men on the west bank of the Wolga, guessing 
 the intentions of Weseloff, had offered to join 
 him in his escape. These men the Khan would 
 probably find himself obliged to countenance 
 in their project, so that it became a point of 1920 
 honor with Weseloff to conceal their intentions, 
 and therefore to accomplish the evasion from 
 the camp (of which the first steps only would 
 be hazardous), without risking the notice of 
 the Khan. 1925 
 
 The district in which they were now en- 
 camped abounded through many hundred 
 miles with wild horses of a docile and 
 beautiful breed. Each of the four fugitives 
 had caught from seven to ten of these spirited 1930 
 creatures in the course of the last few days : 
 this raised no suspicion, for the rest of the 
 Kalmucks had been making the same sort of 
 provision against the coming toils of their 
 remaining route to China. These horses were 1935 
 secured by halters, and hidden about dusk in 
 the thickets which lined the margin of the river. 
 To these thickets, about ten at night, the four 
 
82 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 fugitives repaired; they took a circuitous path, 
 
 1940 which drew them as little as possible within 
 danger of challenge from any of the outposts or 
 of the patrols which had been established on 
 the quarters where the Bashkirs lay, and in 
 three-quarters of an hour they reached the ren- 
 
 i94sdezvous. The moon had now risen, the horses 
 were unfastened, and they were in the act of 
 mounting, when suddenly the deep silence of 
 the woods was disturbed by a violent uproar, 
 and the clashing of arms. Weseloff fancied that 
 
 1950 he heard the voice of the Khan shouting for 
 assistance. He remembered the communica- 
 tion made by that prince in the morning, and 
 requesting his companions to support him, he 
 rode off in the direction of the sound. A very 
 
 1955 short distance brought him to an open glade 
 within the wood, where he beheld four men 
 contending with a party of at least nine or ten. 
 Two of the four were dismounted at the very 
 instant of Weseloff's arrival ; one of these he 
 
 i960 recognized almost certainly as the Khan, who 
 was fighting hand to hand, but at great dis- 
 advantage, with two of the adverse horsemen. 
 Seeing that no time was to be lost, Weseloff 
 fired and brought down one of the two. His 
 
 1965 companions discharged their carbines at the 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 83 
 
 same moment, and then all rushed simul- 
 taneously into the little open area. The 
 thundering sound of about thirty horses all 
 rushing at once into a narrow space, gave the 
 impression that a whole troop of cavalry was 1970 
 coming down upon the assailants, who accord- 
 ingly wheeled about and fled with one impulse. 
 Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, 
 who, as he expected, proved to be the Khan. 
 The man whom Weseloff had shot was lying i 975 
 dead ; and both were shocked, though Weseloff 
 at least was not surprised, on stooping down 
 and scrutinizing his features, to recognize a 
 well-known confidential servant of Zebek-Dor- 
 chi. Nothing was said by either party; theioso 
 Khan rode off escorted by Weseloff and his 
 companions, and for some time a dead silence 
 prevailed. The situation of Weseloff was del- 
 icate and critical ; to leave the Khan at this 
 point was probably to cancel their recent ser-i 98 5 
 vices, for he might be again crossed on his 
 path, and again attacked by the very party 
 from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, 
 on the other hand, to return to the camp was 
 to endanger the chances of accomplishing the 1990 
 escape. The Khan also was apparently revolv- 
 ing all this in his mind, for at length he broke 
 
84 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 silence, and said, " I comprehend your situa- 
 tion, and under other circumstances I might 
 
 1995 feel it my duty to detain your companions. 
 But it would ill become me to do so after the 
 important service you have just rendered me. 
 Let us turn a little to the left. There, where 
 you see the watch fire, is an outpost. Attend 
 
 2000 me so far. I am then safe. You may turn 
 and pursue your enterprise, for the circum- 
 stances under which you will appear, as my 
 escort, are sufficient to shield you from all 
 suspicion for the present. I regret having no 
 
 2005 better means at my disposal for testifying my 
 gratitude. But tell me before we part — Was 
 it accident only which led you to my rescue? 
 Or had you acquired any knowledge of the 
 plot by which I was decoyed into this snare?" 
 
 2010 Weseloff answered very candidly that mere 
 accident had brought him to the spot at which 
 he heard the uproar, but that having heard it, 
 and connecting it with the Khan's communica- 
 tion of the morning, he had then designedly 
 
 2015 gone after the sound in a way which he cer- 
 tainly should not have done at so critical a 
 moment, unless in the expectation of finding 
 the Khan assaulted by assassins. A few min- 
 utes after they reached the outpost at which 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 85 
 
 it became safe to leave the Tartar chieftain, 2020 
 and immediately the four fugitives commenced 
 a flight which is perhaps without a parallel in 
 the annals of traveling. Each of them led six 
 or seven horses besides the one he rode, and 
 by shifting from one to the other (like the 2025 
 ancient Desultors of the Roman circus), so as 
 never to burden the same horse for more than 
 half an hour at a time, they continued to 
 advance at the rate of 200 miles in the 24 
 hours for three days consecutively. After 2030 
 that time, conceiving themselves beyond pur- 
 suit, they proceeded less rapidly, though still 
 with a velocity which staggered the belief of 
 Weseloff's friends in after years. He was, 
 however, a man of high principle, and always 2035 
 adhered firmly to the details of his printed 
 report. One of the circumstances there stated 
 is, that they continued to pursue the route by 
 which the Kalmucks had fled, never for an 
 instant rinding any difficulty in tracing it by 2 o4o 
 the skeletons and other memorials of their 
 calamities. In particular, he mentions vast 
 heaps of money as part of the valuable prop- 
 
 2026. Desultors, the most important and most ancient portion of the 
 shows of the Roman circus consisted of chariot and horse races. Besides 
 single horse races there were occasionally races in which one man rode two 
 horses, vaultifigfrom one to the other — hence the name " Desultores." 
 
86 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 erty which it had been found necessary to 
 
 2045 sacrifice. These heaps were found lying still 
 untouched in the deserts. From these Wese- 
 loff and his companions took as much as 
 they could conveniently carry ; and this it 
 was, with the price of their beautiful horses, 
 
 2050 which they afterwards sold at one of the 
 Russian military settlements for about ,£15 
 apiece, which eventually enabled them to pur- 
 sue their journey in Russia. This journey, as 
 regarded Weseloff in particular, was closed by 
 
 2055 a tragical catastrophe. He was at that time 
 young, and the only child of a doating mother. 
 Her affliction under the violent abduction of 
 her son had been excessive, and probably had 
 undermined her constitution. Still she had 
 
 2 o(io supported it. Weseloff, giving way to the 
 natural impulses of his filial affection, had 
 imprudently posted through Russia to his 
 mother's house without warning of his ap- 
 proach. He rushed percipitately into her 
 
 2065 presence ; and she, who had stood the shocks 
 of sorrow, was found unequal to the shock of 
 joy too sudden and too acute. She died upon 
 the spot. 
 
 I now revert to the final scenes of the Kal- 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 87 
 
 muck flight. These it would be useless to 2070 
 pursue circumstantially through the whole two 
 thousand miles of suffering which remained, 
 for the character of that suffering was even 
 more monotonous than on the former half of 
 the flight, and also more severe. Its main 2075 
 elements were excessive heat, with the accom- 
 paniments of famine and thirst, but aggravated 
 at every step by the murderous attacks of 
 their cruel enemies, the Bashkirs and the 
 Kirghises. 2080 
 
 These people, " more fell than anguish, 
 hunger, or the sea," stuck to the unhappy 
 Kalmucks like a swarm of enraged hornets. 
 And very often, whilst they were attacking 
 them in the rear, their advanced parties and2085 
 flanks were attacked with almost equal fury 
 by the people of the country which they were 
 traversing; and with good reason, since the 
 law of self-preservation had now obliged the 
 fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions, and to 2090 
 forage wherever they passed. In this respect 
 their condition was a constant oscillation of 
 wretchedness, for, sometimes, pressed by 
 grinding famine, they took a circuit of per- 
 
 2081. more fell, etc. The line is from Othello, v. 2. 316: — 
 
 " O Spartan dog, 
 More fell than anquish, hunger, or the sea! " 
 
88 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 2&95 haps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a 
 land rich in the comforts of life ; but in such 
 a land they were sure to find a crowded popu- 
 lation, of which every arm was raised in unre- 
 lenting hostility, with all the advantages of 
 
 2100 local knowledge, and with constant preoccu- 
 pation of all defensible positions, mountain 
 passes or bridges. Sometimes, again, wearied 
 out with this mode of suffering, they took a 
 circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to 
 
 2105 strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. 
 But in such a land they were sure to meet 
 absolute starvation. Then, again, whether with 
 or without this plague of hostility in front, 
 whatever might be the " fierce varieties " of 
 
 2110 their misery in this respect, no rest ever came 
 to their unhappy rear : post equitem sed atra 
 cura; it was a torment like the undying worm 
 of conscience. And, upon the whole, it pre- 
 sented a spectacle altogether unprecedented in 
 
 2n5 the history of mankind. Private and personal 
 malignity is not unfrequently immortal, but 
 rare indeed is it to find the same pertinacity 
 of malice in a nation. And what embittered 
 
 2iii. post equitem, etc. A quotati 
 " Behind the horseman sits black Care " 
 
 2ii2. undying worm. A Biblical expression. "Set St, Mark's Gospel, 
 ix. 44, 46, 48. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 89 
 
 the interest was, that the malice was reciprocal. 
 Thus far the parties met upon equal terms ; 212 ° 
 but that equality only sharpened the sense of 
 their dire inequality as to other circumstances. 
 The Bashkirs were ready to fight " from morn 
 to dewy eve." The Kalmucks, on the con- 
 trary, were always obliged to run; was it 2125 
 from their enemies as creatures whom they 
 feared? No; but towards their friends — 
 towards that final haven of China — as what 
 was hourly implored by the prayers of their 
 wives and the tears of their children But, 2130 
 though they fled unwillingly, too often they 
 fled in vain — being unwillingly recalled. 
 There lay the torment. Every day the Bash- 
 kirs fell upon them ; every day the same 
 unprofitable battle was renewed; as a matter 2135 
 of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their 
 advanced guard to fight them ; every day the 
 battle raged for hours, and uniformly with 
 the same result. For no sooner did the Bash- 
 kirs find themselves too heavily pressed, and 2140 
 that the Kalmuck march had been retarded by 
 some hours, than they retired into the bound- 
 
 2123. " from morn to dewy eve." Wrongly quoted from Milton's 
 Paradise Lost, bk. i. 742, where it is described how Mulciber was thrown 
 by angry Jove : — 
 
 " Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn 
 To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve." 
 
90 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 less deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. 
 But, if the Kalmucks resolved to press for- 
 
 2145 ward, regardless of their enemies, in that case 
 their attacks became so fierce and overwhelm- 
 ing that the general safety seemed likely to be 
 brought into question ; nor could any effectual 
 remedy be applied to the case, even for each 
 
 2150 separate day, except by a most embarrassing 
 halt, and by counter marches, that, to men in 
 their circumstances, were almost worse than 
 death. It will not be surprising that the irri- 
 tation of such a systematic persecution, super- 
 
 2165 added to a previous and hereditary hatred, 
 and accompanied by the stinging conscious- 
 ness of utter impotence as regarded all effectual 
 vengeance, should gradually have inflamed the 
 Kalmuck animosity into the wildest expres- 
 
 2160 sion of downright madness and frenzy. 
 Indeed, long before the frontiers of China 
 were approached, the hostility of both sides 
 had assumed the appearance much more of 
 a warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst 
 
 2165 creatures acknowledging the restraints of 
 reason or the claims of a common nature. 
 The spectacle became too atrocious ; it was 
 that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of 
 fiends. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 9 1 
 
 On a fine morning in early autumn of the 2170 
 year 1 77 1 , Kien Long, the Emperor of China, 
 was pursuing his amusements in a wild frontier 
 district lying on the outside of the Great Wall. 
 For many hundred square leagues the country 
 was desolate of inhabitants, but rich in woods 2175 
 of ancient growth, and overrun with game of 
 every description. In a central spot of this 
 solitary region, the Emperor had built a gor- 
 geous hunting lodge, to which he resorted 
 annually for recreation and relief from the2iso 
 cares of government. Led onwards in pursuit 
 of game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 
 miles or more from this lodge, followed at a 
 little distance by a sufficient military escort, 
 and every night pitching his tent in a different 21*5 
 situation, until at length he had arrived on the 
 very margin of the vast central deserts of 
 Asia.* Here he was standing by accident at 
 an opening of his pavilion, enjoying the morn- 
 
 2171. Kien Long or Kien Loong. He succeeded his father, Yung 
 Tching, as Emperor of Lhina, in 1735. He wrote some poetical pieces, 
 and, when Lord Macartney went to China as Ambassador, gave him some 
 of his verses to present to the King of England. He favored the mission- 
 aries, and was in all respects a very amiable monarch. Born in 1709, he 
 died in 1799, and was thus a contemporary of Gray, Collins, Goldsmith, 
 and Cowper. 
 
 * All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper upon the 
 subject of this Kalmuck migration, drawn up in the Chinese language by 
 the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper have been translated by the 
 Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor states the whole motives oi his conduct 
 and the chief incidents at great length. 
 
92 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 2190 ing sunshine, when suddenly to the westwards 
 there arose a vast cloudy vapor, which by 
 degrees expanded, mounted, and seemed to be 
 slowly diffusing itself over the whole face of 
 the heavens. By and by this vast sheet of 
 
 2195 mist began to thicken towards the horizon, 
 and to roll forward in billowy volumes. The 
 Emperor's suite assembled from all quarters. 
 The silver trumpets were sounded in the rear, 
 and from all the glades and forest avenues 
 
 2200 began to trot forward towards the pavilion the 
 yagers — half cavalry, half huntsman — who 
 composed the imperial escort. Conjecture 
 was on the stretch to divine the cause of this 
 phenomenon, and the interest continually 
 
 2205 increased, in porportion as simple curiosity 
 gradually deepened into the anxiety of uncer- 
 tain danger. At first it had been imagined 
 that some vast troops of deer, or other wild 
 animals of the chase, had been disturbed in 
 
 2210 their forest haunts by the Emperor's move- 
 ments, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for 
 prey, and might be fetching a compass by 
 way of re-entering the forest grounds at some 
 remoter points secure from molestation But 
 
 2215 this conjecture was dissipated by the slow 
 
 2201. yagers. German j age r , a hunter. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 93 
 
 increase of the cloud, and the steadiness of its 
 motion. In the course of two hours the vast 
 phenomenon had advanced to a point which 
 was judged to be within five miles of the spec- 
 tators, though all calculations of distance were 2220 
 difficult, and often fallacious, when applied 
 to the endless expanses of the Tartar deserts. 
 Through the next hour, during which the 
 gentle morning breeze had a little freshened, 
 the dust)' vapor had developed itself far and 2225 
 wide into the appearance of huge aerial 
 draperies, hanging in mighty volumes from 
 the sky to the earth ; and at particular points, 
 where the eddies of the breeze acted upon the 
 pendulous skirts of these aerial curtains, rents 2230 
 were perceived, sometimes taking the form of 
 regular arches, portals, and windows, through 
 which began dimly to gleam the heads of 
 camels " indorsed" with human beings — and 
 at intervals the moving of men and horses in 2235 
 tumultuous array — and then through other 
 openings or vistas at far distant points the 
 flashing of polished arms. But sometimes, as 
 the wind slackened or died away, all those 
 openings, of whatever form, in the cloudy pall 2240 
 
 2234. "indorsed." Obsolete and very rare. See Milton's Paradise 
 Regained, bk. Ill - 329, describing the retreat ot Anthony fr^m Tarthia. 
 
94 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 would slowly close, and for a time the whole 
 pageant was shut up from view ; although the 
 growing din, the clamors, shrieks, and groans 
 ascending from infuriated myriads, reported in 
 
 2-245 a language not to be misunderstood, what was 
 going on behind the cloudy screen. 
 
 It was in fact the Kalmuck host, now in the 
 last extremities of their exhaustion, and very 
 fast approaching to that final stage of priva- 
 
 22r»o tion and killing misery, beyond which few or 
 none could have lived, but also, happily for 
 themselves, fast approaching (in a literal 
 sense) that final stage of their long pilgrim- 
 age at which they would meet hospitality on a 
 
 2255 scale of royal magnificence, and full protection 
 from their enemies. These enemies, however, 
 as yet, were still hanging on their rear as 
 fiercely as ever, though this day was destined 
 to be the last of their hideous persecution. 
 
 2260 The Khan had, in fact, sent forward couriers 
 with all the requisite statements and petitions 
 addressed to the Emperor of China. These 
 had been duly received, and preparations 
 made in consequence to welcome the Kal- 
 
 2265 mucks with the most paternal benevolence. 
 But, as these couriers had been despatched 
 from the Torgau at the moment of arrival 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 95 
 
 thither, and before the advance of Traubenberg 
 had made it necessary for the Khan to order a 
 hasty renewal of the flight, the Emperor had 2270 
 not looked for their arrival on his frontiers 
 until full three months after the present time. 
 The Kahn had, indeed, expressly notified his 
 intention to pass the summer heats on the 
 banks of the Torgau, and to recommence his 2275 
 retreat about the middle of September. The 
 subsequent change of plan being unknown to 
 Kieh Long, left him for some time in doubt as 
 to the true interpretation to be put upon this 
 mighty apparition in the desert; but at length 22S0 
 the savage clamors of hostile fury, and the 
 clangor of weapons, unveiled to the Emperor 
 the true nature of those unexpected calamities 
 which had so prematurely precipitated the 
 Kalmuck measures. 2285 
 
 Apprehending the real state of affairs, the 
 Emperor instantly perceived that the first act 
 of his fatherly care for those erring children, 
 (as he esteemed them), now returning to their 
 ancient obedience, must be — to deliver them 2290 
 from their pursuers. And this was less diffi- 
 cult than might have been supposed. Not 
 many miles in the rear was a body of well- 
 appointed cavalry, with a strong detachment 
 
g6 revolt of the tartars. 
 
 2295 of artillery, who always attended the Emperor's 
 motions. These were hastily summoned. 
 Meantime it occurred to the train of couriers 
 that some danger might arise to the Emperor's 
 person from the proximity of a lawless enemy ; 
 
 2300 and accordingly he was induced to retire a 
 little to the rear. It soon appeared, however, 
 to those who watched the vapory shroud in 
 the desert, that its motion was not such as 
 would argue the direction of the march to be 
 
 2305 exactly upon the pavilion, but rather in a 
 diagonal line, making an angle of full 45 de- 
 grees with that line in which the imperial 
 cortege had been standing, and therefore with 
 a distance continually increasing. Those who 
 
 2310 knew the country judged that the Kalmucks 
 were making for a large fresh-water lake about 
 seven or eight miles distant; they were right: 
 and to that point the imperial cavalry was 
 ordered up, and it was precisely to that spot, 
 
 2315 and about three hours after, and at noonday 
 on the 8th of September, that the great 
 Exodus of the Kalmuck Tartars was brought 
 to a final close, and with a scene of such mem- 
 orable and hellish fury as formed an appropri- 
 
 2320 ate winding up to an expedition in all its parts 
 
 2308 cortege (French), train of attendants. 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 97 
 
 and details so awfully disastrous. The Em- 
 peror was not personally present, or at least 
 he saw whatever he did see from too great a 
 distance to discriminate its individual features; 
 but he records in his written memorial the 2325 
 report made to him of this scene by some of 
 his own officers. 
 
 The lake of Tengis, near the dreadful desert 
 of Kobi, lay in a hollow amongst hills of a 
 moderate height, ranging generally from two 2330 
 to three thousand feet high. About eleven 
 o'clock in the forenoon, the Chinese cavalry 
 reached the summit of a road which led 
 through a cradle-like dip in the mountains 
 right down upon the margin of the lake. 2335 
 From the pass, elevated about two thousand 
 feet above the level of the water, they con- 
 tinued to descend by a very winding and 
 difficult road, for an hour and a half; and 
 during the whole of this descent they were 2340 
 compelled to be inactive spectators of the 
 fiendish spectacle below. The Kalmucks, re- 
 duced by this time from about six hundred 
 thousand souls to two hundred and sixty thou- 
 
 2328. Tengis, now usually called Lake Balkash: Kobi, Gobi, or Cobi. 
 A range of country in Central Asia, comprising a large part of Chinese 
 Turkestan and Mongolia. It is 1300 miles long, with a varying breadth 
 of from 400 to 800 miles. It is mostly a sandy desert, bounded by rocks 
 and dotted here and there with oases. 
 
98 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 2345 sand, and after enduring for so long a time the 
 miseries I have previously described — out- 
 rageous heat, famine, and the destroying 
 scimitar of the Khirgises and the Bashkirs, 
 — had for the last ten days been traversing 
 
 2350 a hideous desert, where no vestiges were seen 
 of vegetation and no drop of water could be 
 found. Camels and men were already so 
 overladen that it was a mere impossibility 
 that they should carry a tolerable sufficiency 
 
 2355 for the passage of this frightful wilderness. 
 On the eighth day, the wretched daily allow- 
 ance, which had been continually diminishing, 
 failed entirely ; and thus, for two days of 
 insupportable fatigue, the horrors of thirst 
 
 23cohad been carried to the fiercest extremity. 
 Upon this last morning, at the sight of the 
 hills and the forest scenery, which announced 
 to those who acted as guides the neighborhood 
 of the lake of Tengis, all the people rushed 
 
 2365 along with maddening eagerness to the antici- 
 pated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, 
 the people more and more exhausted, and 
 gradually, in the general rush forwards to the 
 lake, all discipline and command were lost — 
 
 2370 all attempts to preserve a rearguard were 
 neglected — the wild Bashkirs rode in amongst 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 99 
 
 the encumbered people and slaughtered them 
 by wholesale, and almost without resistance. 
 Screams and tumultuous shouts proclaimed 
 the progress of the massacre, but none heeded 2.375 
 — none halted ; all alike, pauper or noble, 
 continued to rush on with maniacal haste to 
 the waters — all with faces blackened by the 
 heat preying upon the liver, and with tongue 
 drooping from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir 2380 
 was affected by the same misery, and mani- 
 fested the same symptoms of his misery as the 
 wretched Kalmuck ; the murderer was often- 
 times in the same frantic misery as his mur- 
 dered victim — many, indeed (an ordinary 23 ^ 
 effect of thirst), in both nations had become 
 lunatic, and in this state, whilst mere multitude 
 and condensation of bodies alone opposed any 
 check to the destroying scimitar and the tram- 
 pling hoof, the lake was reached; and into 2390 
 that the whole vast body of enemies together 
 rushed, and together continued to rush, for- 
 getful of all things at that moment but of one 
 almighty instinct. This absorption of the 
 thoughts in one maddening appetite lasted 2395 
 for a single half-hour; but in the next arose 
 the final scene of parting vengeance. Far and 
 wide the waters of the solitary lake were 
 
IOO -REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 instantly dyed red with blood and gore ; here 
 
 2400 rode a party of savage Bashkirs, hewing off 
 heads as fast as the swathes fall before the 
 mower's scythe ; there stood unarmed Kal- 
 mucks in a death-grapple with their detested 
 foes, both up to the middle in water, and 
 
 2405 oftentimes both sinking together below the 
 surface, from weakness or from struggles, and 
 perishing in each other's arms. Did the Bash- 
 kirs at any point collect into a cluster for the 
 sake of giving impetus to the assault, thither 
 
 2410 were the camels driven in fiercely by those 
 who rode them, generally women or boys ; and 
 even these quiet creatures were forced into a 
 share in this carnival of murder, "by trampling 
 down as many as they could strike prostrate 
 
 2415 with the lash of their forelegs. Every moment 
 the water grew more polluted, and yet every 
 moment fresh myriads came up to the lake 
 and rushed in, not able to resist their frantic 
 thirst, and swallowing large draughts of water 
 
 2420 visibly contaminated with the blood of their 
 slaughtered compatriots. Wheresoever the 
 lake was shallow enough to allow of men 
 raising their heads above the water, there, for 
 scores of acres, were to be seen all forms of 
 
 2425 ghastly fear, of agonizing struggle, of spasm, 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. IOI 
 
 of death and the fear of death — revenge, and 
 the lunacy of revenge — until the neutral spec- 
 tators, of whom there were not a few nov/ 
 descending the eastern side of the lake, at 
 length averted their eyes in horror. The 2430 
 horror, which seemed incapable of further 
 addition, was, however, increased by an unex- 
 pected incident: the Bashkirs, beginning to 
 perceive here and there the approach of the 
 Chinese cavalry, felt it prudent — wheresoever 2435 
 they were sufficiently at leisure from the pas- 
 sions of the murderous scene — to gather into 
 bodies. This was noticed by the governor of 
 a small Chinese fort, built upon an eminence 
 above the lake, and immediately he threw in a 2440 
 broadside, which spread havoc amongst the 
 Bashkir tribe. As often as the Bashkirs col- 
 lected into "globes" and "turms" as their only 
 means of meeting the long lines of descending 
 Chinese cavalry — so often did the Chinese 2445 
 governor of the fort pour in his exterminating 
 broadside ; until at length the lake, at its lower 
 end, became one vast seething caldron of 
 human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese 
 
 2 443- " globes " and " turms." By " globes " (Lat globi) are meant 
 knots, bands, or bodies of men. Both Livy and Tacitus use the word in 
 this sense. " Turms," troops, throngs. The Lat. turmee were squaurons 
 of 30 men each Ten such " turms " formed the regular complement of 
 300 men attached to each Roman legion. 
 
102 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 2450 cavalry had reached the foot of the hills: the 
 Bashkirs, attentive to their movements, had 
 formed ; skirmishes had been fought, and, 
 with a quick sense that the contest was hence- 
 forwards rapidly becoming hopeless, the Bash- 
 
 2455 kirs and Kirghises began to retire. The pursuit 
 was not as vigorous as the Kalmuck hatred 
 would have desired. But, at the same time, 
 the very gloomiest hatred could not but find 
 in their own dreadful experience of the Asiatic 
 
 2^60 deserts, and in the certainty that these wretched 
 Bashkirs had to repeat that same experience a 
 second time for thousands of miles, as the price 
 exacted by a retributory Providence for their 
 vindictive cruelty — not the very gloomiest of 
 
 2465 the Kalmucks, or the least reflecting, but found 
 in all this a retaliatory chastisement more 
 complete and absolute than any which their 
 swords and lances could have obtained, or 
 human vengeance have devised. 
 
 2470 Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wander- 
 ings in the desert, for any subsequent marches 
 which awaited them were neither long nor 
 painful. Every possible alleviation and re- 
 freshment for their exhausted bodies had 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 103 
 
 been already provided by Kien Long with 2475 
 the most princely munificence ; and lands of 
 great fertility were immediately assigned to 
 them in ample extent along the river Ily, not 
 very far from the point at which they had first 
 emerged from the wilderness of Kobi. But24so 
 the beneficent attention of the Chinese Em- 
 peror may be best stated in his own words, as 
 translated into French by one of the Jesuit 
 missionaries: — "La nation des Torgotes 
 (savoir les Kalmuques) arriva a Ily, toute2485 
 delabree, n'ayant ni de quoi vivre, ni de quoi 
 se v£tir. Je l'avais prevu ; et j'avais ordonne 
 de faire en tout genre les provisions necessaires 
 pour pouvoir les secourir promptement: c'est 
 ce qui a ete execute. On a fait la division des 2490 
 terres ; et on a assigne a. chaque famille une 
 portion suffisante pour pouvois servir a son 
 entretien, soit en la cultivant, soit en y nour- 
 
 2478. Ily, otherwise spelt " Ele." The chief town on this river is 
 Gouldja, containing upwards of 50,000 inhabitants. The '" Ily" or " Ele " 
 flows into Lake Tengis or Balkash. 
 
 2484-25004. Translation: — 
 
 " The nation of Torgotes to wit, the Kalmucks) arrived at Ily in a state 
 of utter destitution, having neither food nor clothing. I had foreseen this, 
 and had given command to make every kind of provision necessary to 
 succor them promptly; this was done. The lands were divided, and to 
 each family was given a portion sufficient to serve for its maintenance 
 either by cultivation or by grazing cattle. To each private person mater- 
 ials were given to clothe him, corn to feed him for the space of one year, 
 household utensils and other necessarie-,, besides several ounces of silver 
 to provide himself with what might have been forgotten. Particular places 
 fertile in pasturage were given them, also oxen, sheep, etc., so that they 
 might in process of time work by themselves for their own livelihood and 
 welfare." 
 
104 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 issant des bestiaux. On a cionne a chaque 
 
 2495 particulier des etoffes pour l'habiller, des 
 grains pour se nourrir pendant l'espace d'une 
 annee, des ustensiles pour le menage, et 
 d'autres choses necessaires : et outre cela 
 plusieurs onces d'argent, pour se pourvoir 
 
 2500 de ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a designe 
 des lieux particuliers, fertiles en p&turages ; 
 et on leur a donne des boeufs, moutons, etc., 
 pour qu'ils pussent dans la suite travailler par 
 eux-m£mes a leur cntretien et a leur bien-etre." 
 
 25C6 These are the words of the Emperor himself, 
 speaking in his own person of his own parental 
 cares ; but another Chinese, treating the same 
 subject, records the munificence of this prince 
 in terms which proclaim still more forcibly the 
 
 2510 disinterested generosity which prompted, and 
 the delicate considerateness which conducted 
 this extensive bounty. He has been speaking 
 of the Kalmucks, and he goes on thus : — 
 " Lorsqu 'ils arriverent sur nos frontiere (au 
 
 25i5 nombre de plusieurs centaines de mille, quoique 
 la fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et toutes les 
 autres incommodites inseparables d'une tres 
 longue et tres penible route en eussent fait 
 perir presque autant,) ils etaient reduits a la 
 
 252oderniere misere ; ils manquaient de tout. II" 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 105 
 
 [viz., l'Empereur, Kien Long] "leur. fit pre- 
 parer des logemens conformes a leur mantere 
 de vivre ; il leur fit distribuer des alimens et 
 des habits; il leur fit donner des boeufs, des 
 moutons, et des ustensiles, pour les mettre en 2525 
 etat de former des troupeaux et de cultiver la 
 terre, et tout cela a ses propres frais, qui se 
 sont montes a des sommes immenses, sans 
 compter l'argent qu'il a donne a chaque chef- 
 de-famille, pour pourvoir a la subsistance de 2 53o 
 sa femme et de ses enfans." 
 
 Thus, after their memorable year of misery, 
 the Kalmucks were replaced in territorial pos- 
 sessions, and in comfort equal perhaps, or 
 even superior, to that which they had enjoyed 2535 
 in Russia, and with superior political advan- 
 tages. But, if equal or superior, their condi- 
 tion was no longer the same ; if not in degree, 
 their social prosperity had altered in quality, 
 for, instead of being a purely pastoral and 2540 
 
 2514-2531. Translation: — 
 
 " When they arrived upon our frontiers to the number of many hundred 
 thousands, although extreme fatigue, hunger, thirst, and all the hardships 
 inseparable from a very long and very painful journey had caused almost 
 as many to perish, they were reduced to the utmost misery,) they were in 
 need of everything. He (viz., the Emperor Kien Long) had caused to be 
 prepared for them dwelling-places suited to their mode of living; he had 
 food and clothing distributed among them; he gave them oxen, sheep, and 
 utensils, to put them in the way of forming flocks and herds and cultivat- 
 ing the land, and all that at his own expense, which amounted to immense 
 sums, without reckoning the money thnt he gave to each head of a family 
 to provide sustenance for his wife and children." 
 
106 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 vagrant people, they were now in circum- 
 stances which obliged them to become essen- 
 tially dependent upon agriculture ; and thus 
 far raised in social rank, that, by the natural 
 
 2545 course of their habits and the necessities of 
 life, they were effectually reclaimed from 
 roving and from the savage customs connected 
 with a half nomadic life. They gained also in 
 political privileges, chiefly through the im- 
 
 255omunity from military service which their new 
 relations enabled them to obtain. These were 
 circumstances of advantage and gain. But 
 one great disadvantage there was, amply to 
 overbalance all other possible gain : the 
 
 2555 chances were lost or were removed to an 
 incalculable distance for their conversion to 
 Christianity, without which, in these times, 
 there is no absolute advance possible on the 
 path of true civilization. 
 
 2560 O ne word remains to be said upon the 
 personal interests concerned in this great 
 drama. The catastrophe in this respect was 
 remarkable and complete. Oubacha, with all 
 his goodness and incapacity of suspecting, 
 
 2565 had, since the mysterious affair on the banks 
 of the Torgau, felt his mind alienated from his 
 cousin ; he revolted from the man that would 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. I07 
 
 have murdered him, and he had displayed his 
 caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in 
 the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, and a dis-2570 
 pleasure which all his dissimulation could not 
 hide. This had produced a feud, which, by 
 keeping them aloof, had probably saved the 
 life of Oubacha ; for the friendship of Zebek- 
 Dorchi was more fatal than his open enmity. 2575 
 After the settlement on the Ily this feud con- 
 tinued to advance, until it came under the 
 notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit 
 which all the Tartar chieftains made to his 
 Majesty at his hunting lodge in 1772. The258o 
 Emperor informed himself accurately of all 
 the particulars connected with the transac- 
 tion — of all the rights and claims put for- 
 ward — and of the way in which they would 
 severally affect the interests of the Kalmuck 2585 
 people. The consequence was that he adopted 
 the cause of Oubacha, and repressed the pre- 
 tensions of Zebek-Dorchi, who, on his part, 
 so deeply resented this discountenance to his 
 ambitious projects, that, in conjunction with 2590 
 other chiefs, he had the presumption even to 
 weave nets of treason against the Emperor 
 himself. Plots were laid, were detected, were 
 baffled ; counter-plots were constructed upon 
 
108 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 2595 the same basis, and with the benefit of the 
 opportunities thus offered. 
 
 Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the 
 imperial lodge, together with all his accom- 
 plices, and under the skilful management of 
 
 2600 the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's estab- 
 lishment, the murderous artifices of these 
 Tartar chieftains were made to recoil upon 
 themselves ; and the whole of them perished 
 by assassination at a great imperial banquet. 
 
 2605 For the Chinese morality is exactly of that 
 
 kind which approves in everything the lex 
 
 talionis : — 
 
 " Lex nee justior ulla est (as they think) 
 Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 
 
 2610 So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and 
 originator of the great Tartar Exodus. 
 Oubacha, meantime, and his people, were 
 gradually recovering from the effects of their 
 misery, and repairing their losses. Peace and 
 
 261 g prosperity, under the gentle rule of a fatherly 
 . lord paramount, redawned upon the tribes : 
 
 2606. lex talionis fLat.\ law of retaliation. Used to denote a mode of 
 punishing crime by doing to the criminal the same hurt which he has done 
 to his neighbor. 
 
 2008 " Lex nee justior, etc." Translation — " Nor is any law more 
 just than that by which the contriver of a murder perishes by his own 
 artifice." Cf. Hamlet, ii. 4. 207. 
 
 " 'Tis the sport to have the engineer 
 Hoist with his own petar " 
 See also the Bible — .Proverbs xxviii. 10). 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. IOQ 
 
 their household lares, after so harsh a transla- 
 tion to distant climes, found again a happy 
 reinstatement in what had, in fact, been their 
 primitive abodes: they found themselves 2620 
 settled in quiet sylvan scenes, rich in all the 
 luxuries of life, and endowed with the per'ect 
 loveliness of Arcadian beauty. But from the 
 hills of this favored land, and even from 
 the level grounds as they approached its 2625 
 western border, they still look out upon that 
 fearful wilderness which once beheld a nation 
 in agony — the utter extirpation of nearly half 
 a 'million from amongst its numbers, and, for 
 the remainder, a storm of misery so fierce, 26.30 
 that in the end (as happened also at Athens 
 during the Peloponnesian War, from a different 
 form of misery) very many lost their memory: 
 all records of their past life were wiped out as 
 with a sponge — utterly erased and cancelled, 2635 
 and many others lost their reason : some in a 
 gentle form of pensive melancholy, some in 
 a more restless form of feverish delirium and 
 nervous agitation, and others in the fixed 
 
 2617 lares. See Dictionary of Antiquities. Here used simply to 
 mean " household gods," household possessions. 
 
 2623. Arcadian, the centre of the Peloponnesus Greece). It is moun- 
 tainous and finely wooded, The poets have repeatedly celebrated its 
 beauties in verse. 
 
IIO REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 2640 forms of tempestuous mania, raving frenzy, or 
 moping idiocy. Two great commemorative 
 monuments arose in after years to mark the 
 depth and permanence of the awe — the 
 sacred and reverential grief with which all 
 
 2645 persons looked back upon the dread calam- 
 ities attached to the year of the tiger — of all 
 who had either personally shared in those 
 calamities, and had themselves drunk from 
 ' that cup of sorrow, or who had effectually 
 
 2550 been made witnesses to their results, and 
 associated with their relief — two great monu- 
 ments ; one embodied in the religious solem- 
 nity, enjoined by the Dalai-Lama, called in 
 the Tartar language a Romanang — that is, 
 
 2655 a national commemoration, with music the 
 most rich and solemn, of all the souls who 
 departed to the rest of Paradise from the 
 affliction of the desert : this took place about 
 six years after the arrival in China. Secondly, 
 
 2660 another more durable and more commensurate 
 to the scale of the calamity and to the gran- 
 deur of this national Exodus, in the mighty 
 columns of granite and brass, erected by the 
 Emperor Kien Long, near the banks of the 
 
 2665 Hy; these columns stand upon the very 
 margin of the steppes, and they bear a short 
 
REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. Ill 
 
 Put emphatic inscription* to the following 
 l.ffect: — 
 
 " By the will of God, 
 
 Here, upon the brink of these deserts 
 
 Which from this point begin and stretch away ; 
 
 Pathless, treeless, waterless, 
 
 For thousands of miles — and along the margins 
 
 of many mighty nations, 
 Rested from their labors and from great afflictions 
 
 Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall ■ 
 
 And by the favor of Kien Long, God's Lieutenant 
 
 upon earth, 
 
 The Ancient Children of the Wilderness — the Torgote Tartars 
 
 — Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 
 
 Wandering sheep who had strayed away . 
 
 from the Celestial Empire in the year 1616, 
 
 But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 
 
 Into the fold of their forgiving shepherd. 
 
 Hallowed be the spot forever, 
 
 and ! 
 
 Hallowed be the day — September 8, 1771 ! 
 Amen." 
 
 * This inscription has been slightly altered in one or two phrases, and 
 particularly in adapting to the Christian era the Emperor's expressions for 
 the year of the original Exodus from China and the retrogressive Exodus 
 from Russia. With respect to the designation adopted for the Russian 
 Emperor, either it is built upon some confusion between him and the 
 Byzantine Caesars, as though the former, being of the same religion with 
 the latter 'and occupying in part the same longitudes, though in different 
 latitudes), might be considered as his modern successor; or else it lefers 
 simply to the Greek form of Christianity professed by the Russian Emper- 
 or and Church. 
 
FIVE CENT CLASSICS. 
 
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