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