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Page 23
for about �15 apiece, which eventually enabled them to
pursue their journey in Russia. This journey, as regarded
Weseloff in particular, was closed by a tragical catastrophe. 5
He was at that time young and the only child
of a doting mother. Her affliction under the violent abduction
of her son had been excessive, and probably had
undermined her constitution. Still she had supported it.
Weseloff, giving way to the natural impulses of his filial 10
affection, had imprudently posted through Russia to his
mother's house without warning of his approach. He
rushed precipitately into her 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 15
the spot.
* * * * *
We now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck
flight. These it would be useless to pursue circumstantially
through the whole two thousand miles of suffering
which remained; for the character of that suffering was 20
even more monotonous than on the former half of the
flight, but also more severe. Its main elements were
excessive heat, with the accompaniments of famine and
thirst, but aggravated at every step by the murderous
attacks of their cruel enemies, the Bashkirs and the 25
Kirghises.
These people, "more fell than anguish, hunger, or
the sea," stuck to the unhappy Kalmucks like a swarm of
enraged hornets. And very often, while _they_ were
attacking them in the rear, their advanced parties and
30 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 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
perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land 5
rich in the comforts of life; but in such a land they were
sure to find a crowded population, of which every arm
was raised in unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages
of local knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of
all the defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. 10
Sometimes, again, wearied out with this mode of suffering,
they took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in
order to 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 15
plague of starvation, whether with or without this plague
of hostility in front, whatever might be the "fierce varieties"
of their misery in this respect, no rest ever came
to their unhappy rear; _post equitem sedet atra cura_: it
was a torment like the undying worm of conscience. 20
And, upon the whole, it presented a spectacle altogether
unprecedented in 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 imbittered the interest was that the 25
malice was reciprocal. Thus far the parties met upon
equal terms; but that equality only sharpened the sense
of their dire inequality as to other circumstances. The
Bashkirs were ready to fight "from morn till dewy eve."
The Kalmucks, on the contrary, were always obliged to 30
run. Was it _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, though they fled unwillingly, too often they fled in
vain--being unwillingly recalled. There lay the torment.
Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them; every
day the same unprofitable battle was renewed; as a
matter of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their 5
advanced guard to fight them; every day the battle raged
for hours, and uniformly with the same result. For, no
sooner did the Bashkirs find themselves too heavily
pressed, and that the Kalmuck march had been retarded
by some hours, than they retired into the boundless 10
deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. But if the Kalmucks
resolved to press forwards, regardless of their enemies--in
that case their attacks became so fierce and
overwhelming that the general safety seemed likely to be
brought into question; nor could any effectual remedy 15
be applied to the case, even for each separate day, except
by a most embarrassing halt and by countermarches
that, to men in their circumstances, were almost worse
than death. It will not be surprising that the irritation
of such a systematic persecution, superadded to a previous, 20
and hereditary hatred, and accompanied by the
stinging consciousness of utter impotence as regarded all
effectual vengeance, should gradually have inflamed the
Kalmuck animosity into the wildest expression of downright
madness and frenzy. Indeed, long before the 25
frontiers of China were approached, the hostility of both
sides had assumed the appearance much more of a
warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst creatures
acknowledging the restraints of reason or the claims of a
common nature. The spectacle became too atrocious; it 30
was that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of fiends.
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