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Page 28
[7] There was another _ouloss_ 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 Astrachan, on the
first outbreak of the insurrection, that their real wishes were for
maintaining the old connection with Russia. The Cossacks, therefore,
to whom the pursuit was intrusted, had instructions to act cautiously
and according to circumstances on coming up with them. The result was,
through the prudent management of Assarcho, that the clan, without
compromising their pride or independence, made such moderate
submissions as satisfied the Cossacks; and eventually both chiefs and
people received from the Czarina the rewards and honors of exemplary
fidelity.
[8] All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper on 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 of his
conduct and the chief incidents at great length.
[9] _Camels_ "_indorsed_" "and elephants indorsed with
towers."--MILTON in _Paradise Regained_.
[10] 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 C�sars, 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 refers simply to the Greek form of
Christianity professed by the Russian Emperor and Church.
[Illustration: ROUTE OF THE TARTARS IN THEIR FLIGHT.]
NOTES.
THE ORIGINAL SOURCES.
In Professor Masson's edition of De Quincey, Vol. VII, p. 8, is the
following discussion of the author's original sources:
"A word or two on De Quincey's authorities for his splendid sketch
called _The Revolt of the Tartars_:--One authority was a famous
Chinese state-paper purporting to have been composed by the Chinese
Emperor, Kien Long himself (1735--1796), of which a French
translation, with the title _Monument de la Transmigration des
Tourgouths des Bords de la Mer Caspienne dans l'Empire de la Chine_,
had been published in 1776 by the French Jesuit missionaries of Pekin,
in the first volume of their great collection of _M�moires concernant
les Chinois_. The account there given of so remarkable an event of
recent Asiatic history as the migration from Russia to China of a
whole population of Tartars had so much interested Gibbon that he
refers to it in that chapter of his great work in which he describes
the ancient Scythians. De Quincey had fastened on the same document as
supplying him with an admirable theme for literary treatment.
Explaining this some time ago, while editing his _Revolt of the
Tartars_ for a set of Selections from his Writings, I had to add that
there was much in the paper which he could not have derived from that
original, and that, therefore, unless he invented a great deal, he
must have had other authorities at hand. I failed at the time to
discover what these other authorities were,--De Quincey having had a
habit of secretiveness in such matters; but since then an incidental
reference of his own, in his _Homer and the Homerid�_,[11] has given
me the clue. The author from whom he chiefly drew such of his
materials as were not supplied by the French edition of Kien Long's
narrative, was, it appears from that reference, the German traveller,
Benjamin Bergmann, whose _Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalm�ken
in den Jahren 1802 und 1803_ came forth from a Riga press, in four
parts or volumes, in 1804-1805. The book consists of a series of
letters written by Bergmann from different places during his
residence among the Tartars, with interjected essays or dissertations
of an independent kind on subjects relating to the Tartars,--one of
these occupying 106 pages, and entitled _Versuch zur Geschichte der
Kalm�kenflucht von der Wolga_ ("Essay on the History of the Flight of
the Kalmucks from the Volga"). A French translation of the Letters,
with this particular Essay included, appeared in 1825 under the title
_Voyage de Benjamin Bergmann chez les Kalm�ks: Traduit de l'Allemand
par M. Moris, Membre de la Soci�t� Asiatique_. Both works are now very
scarce; but having seen copies of both (the only copies, I think, in
Edinburgh, and possibly the very copies which De Quincey used), I have
no doubt left that it was Bergmann's Essay of 1804 that supplied De
Quincey with the facts, names, and hints he needed for filling up that
outline-sketch of the history of the Tartar Transmigration of 1771
which was already accessible for him in the Narrative of the Chinese
Emperor, Kien Long, and in other Chinese State Papers, as these had
been published in translation, in 1776, by the French Jesuit
missionaries. At the same time, no doubt is left that he passed the
composite material freely and boldly through his own imagination, on
the principle that here was a theme of such unusual literary
capabilities that it was a pity it should be left in the pages of
ordinary historiographic summary or record, inasmuch as it would be
most effectively treated, even for the purpose of real history, if
thrown into the form of an epic or romance. Accordingly he takes
liberties with his authorities, deviating from them now and then, and
even once or twice introducing incidents not reconcilable with either
of them, if not irreconcilable also with historical and geographical
possibility. Hence one may doubt sometimes whether what one is reading
is to be regarded as history or as invention. On this point I can but
repeat words I have already used: as it is, we are bound to be
thankful. In quest of a literary theme, De Quincey was arrested
somehow by that extraordinary transmigration of a Kalmuck horde across
the face of Asia in 1771, which had also struck Gibbon; he inserted
his hands into the vague chaos of Asiatic inconceivability enshrouding
the transaction; and he tore out the connected and tolerably
conceivable story which we now read. There is no such vivid version of
any such historical episode in all Gibbon, and possibly nothing truer
essentially, after all, to the substance of the facts as they actually
happened."
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