rear was a body of well-appointed cavalry, with a strong
detachment of artillery, who always attended the Emperor's 5
motions. These were hastily summoned. Meantime
it occurred to the train of courtiers that some danger
might arise to the Emperor's person from the proximity
of a lawless enemy, and accordingly he was induced to
retire a little to the rear. It soon appeared, however, to 10
those who watched the vapory shroud in the desert, that
its motion was not such as would argue the direction of
the march to be exactly upon the pavilion, but rather in
a diagonal line, making an angle of full 45 degrees with
that line in which the imperial _cortége_ had been standing, 15
and therefore with a distance continually increasing.
Those who knew the country judged that the Kalmucks
were making for a large fresh-water lake about seven or
eight miles distant. They were right; and to that point
the imperial cavalry was ordered up; and it was precisely 20
in that spot, and about three hours after, and at noonday
on the 8th of September, that the great Exodus of the
Kalmuck Tartars was brought to a final close, and with a
scene of such memorable and hellish fury as formed an
appropriate winding up to an expedition in all its parts 25
and details so awfully disastrous. The Emperor was not
personally present, or at least he saw whatever he _did_ see
from too great a distance to discriminate its individual
features; but he records in his written memorial the
report made to him of this scene by some of his own 30
officers.

The Lake of Tengis, near the frightful Desert of Kobi,