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.

* * * * *

On a fine morning in early autumn of the year 1771,
Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his
amusements in a wild frontier district lying on the outside
of the Great Wall. For many hundred square
leagues the country was desolate of inhabitants, but rich
in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with game of
every description. In a central spot of this solitary 5
region the Emperor had built a gorgeous hunting lodge,
to which he resorted annually for recreation and relief
from the cares of government. Led onwards in pursuit of
game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 miles or
more from his lodge, followed at a little distance by a 10