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Page 16
The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful
a prophet. Perhaps even _he_ was surprised at the suddenness 5
with which the verification followed his reports.
Precisely on the 5th of January, the day so solemnly
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 10
squadrons and in the tumultuous movement of some great
morning of battle. Tens of thousands continued moving
off the ground at every half hour's interval. Women
and children, to the amount of two hundred thousand and
upward, were placed upon wagons or upon camels, and 15
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 and second day's
march. From sixty to eighty thousand of those who 20
were the best mounted stayed behind the rest of the
tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more
violent than prudence justified or the amiable character
of the Khan could be supposed to approve. But in this,
as in other instances, he was completely overruled by the 25
malignant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest
of the desolating fury of the Tartars discharged itself
upon their own habitations. But this, as cutting off all
infirm looking backward from the hardships of their
march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all 30
the chieftains that even Oubacha himself was the first to
authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch
previously prepared with materials the most durable as
well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers
of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general
wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils
and that part of the woodwork which could be applied
to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This
chapter in their memorable day's work being finished, 5
and the whole of their villages 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 have left behind to the 10
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 up to pillage and destruction,
and such treatment applied to the defenceless inhabitants 15
as might naturally be expected from a fierce people
already infuriated by the spectacle 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 20
the very crisis of departure. 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 impossibility of
effecting a junction sufficiently rapid with the tribes on 25
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 thousand-fold
the calamities inevitable to a rapid flight over
boundless tracts of country with women, children, and 30
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. 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 Kalmucks
might not have been suddenly interrupted by adverse
intelligence. Others have supposed that the ice might
not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and 5
might even be generally insecure for the treading of
heavy and heavily laden animals such as camels. But
the prevailing notion is that some accidental movements
on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the
neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really 10
having no reference to them or their plans, had been construed
into certain signs that all was discovered, and that
the prudence of the Western chieftains, who, from situation,
had never been exposed to those intrigues by which
Zebek-Dorchi had practised upon the pride of the Eastern 15
tribes, now 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 prevented from forming the
intended junction with their brethren of the opposite
bank; and the result was that at least one hundred 20
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 general massacre and conflagration would assuredly
have surprised them, to the utter extermination of their 25
property, their houses, and themselves, had it not been
for this disappointment. But the Eastern chieftains did
not dare to put to hazard the safety of their brethren
under the first impulse of the Czarina's vengeance for so
dreadful a tragedy; for, as they were well aware of too many 30
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 outset.
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