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