issued Semi-Monthly 
 Sepitmber to June 
 
 mumoBsnsE^ 
 
 Number 110 February 17, 1897 
 
 — HL>' ^■Wflllim.Jj'WH-lill 
 
 -^j "\ 
 
 X^A- 
 
 Single Numbers FIFTEEN CENTS 
 Double Numbers THIRTY CENTS 
 
 Triple Numbers FORTY-FIVE CEmTS 
 Quadruple Numbers FIFTY CENTS 
 Yearly Subscription $5.00 
 
€]^e Mi^omiu iliterature ^enejs. 
 
 With Introductions, Notes, Historical Sketches, and Bioiirapliical Sketches 
 Each regular single number, paper, 15 cents. 
 
 1. Longfellow's Evangeline.* tt 
 
 2. Longfellow's Courtsnip of Miles Standish ; Elizabeth* 
 
 3. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish Dkamatized- 
 
 4. Whittier's Snow-Bound, and Other Poems.* {t ** 
 
 5. "Whlltier's Mabel Martia, and Other Poems.** 
 
 6. Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc** 
 
 7. 8, !>. Hawthorne's Grandfatner's Chair : True Stories from New 
 
 England History. 1G20-1S03. lu taree parts, tt 
 
 10. Hawthorne's Bioscraphical Stories. Witli Questions.** 
 
 11. Longfellow's Children's Hour, and Other Selections.** 
 13. Studies in Longfellow. Thirty-two Topics for Study. 
 
 i;?, 14. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. lu two parts. t 
 
 1.5. Lowell's Under the Old Elm, and Other Poems.** 
 
 10. Bayard Taylor's Lars : a Pastoral of Norway ; and Other Poems, 
 
 17, 18. Hawthorne's Wonder-Book In two parts.}: 
 
 19, 20. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. In two parts. { 
 
 21. Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, etc. 
 
 22, 2'i. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. In two parts. t 
 
 24. Washington's Bules of Conduct, Letters and Addresses.* 
 
 20, 2(i. Longfellow's Golden Legend. In two parts. | 
 
 27. Thoreau's Succession of Forest Trees, Sounds, and Wild Apples. 
 
 Witli a Biographical Sketch by R. W. Emerson. 
 
 28. Joha Burroughs's Birds and Bees.** 
 
 29. Hawthorne 3 Little Daflydowndilly, and Other Stories.** 
 
 30. Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Pieces. |t ** 
 
 31. Holmes's My Hunt after the Captain, and Other Papers.* 
 
 32. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, and Other Papers. 
 3.S, 34, 33. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. In three parts.tt 
 3(). John Burroughs's Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers.** 
 
 37. Charles Dudley Warner's A-Hunting of the Deer, etc.* 
 
 38. Longfellow's Building of the Ship, and Other Poems. 
 
 39. Lowell's Books and Libraries, and Other Papers. 
 
 40. Hawthorne's Tales of the "White Hills, and Sketches.** 
 
 41. Whittier's Tent on the Beach, and Associated Poems. 
 
 42. Emerson's Fortune of the Kepublic, and Other Essays, including 
 
 the American Scholar. 
 
 43. Ulysses among the Phseacians FromW. C Bky.\nt's Translation 
 
 of Homer'.s Odyssey. 
 
 44. Edgeworth's Waste Not, Want Not ; and The Barring Out. 
 
 45. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome 
 
 4(3. Old Testament Stories in Scripture Language. 
 
 47, 48. Fables and Polk Stories. In two parts. t 
 
 49, .50. Hans Andersen's StorieSo In two parts. J 
 
 51, 52. Washington Irving : Essays from the Sketch Book. [51.] Rip 
 
 Van Winkle, and otlier American Essays [52.] The Voyage, and other English 
 
 Essays. In two parts. + 
 63. Scott's Lady of the Lake, Edited by W. J. Kolfb. With copious 
 
 no'^ea nnd numerou.s illnstrations (DniMe Number, 30 cents. Also, in Holfe^i 
 
 Students^ Series, clolh, to Teachers, 53 cents.) 
 
 Also, bonntl in linen : * 2.5 cpnts. ** 29 and 10 in one vol., 40 cents ; likewise 28 
 and .'%, 4 and .'>, fi and 31. 15 and 3U, 40 and 69. 11 and 63. t Also in one vol. , 40 cents, 
 Xt 1| 4i ^i^*! '^0 also in one vol., 50 c«uts ; likewise 7, 8, and 'i; 33, 34, and 35. 
 
West from Greenwich 
 
2Dl)f HibcrgiDe iLitc raturc^e rtfsf 
 
 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MILTON HAIGHT TURK 
 
 PROFESSOR OP KHETORIC AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND 
 LITERATURE IN HOBART COLLEGE 
 
 j ^iRiUcraiOfPr cftgl 
 
 v? 
 
 •\j(»^ 
 
 .e-' 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 Chicago : 3T8-38S Wabash Avenue 
 
 <Si1)t fiiUctiSiDe pre??, <!Eambnt)oe 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The author of the Revolt of the Tartars has grown 
 considerably in the public eye during recent years. Al- 
 though he has always had his circle of admirers, and his 
 works have gone through several British and American 
 editions, it is not too much to say that, until the present 
 academic study of his style began, the fame of the Confes- 
 sions of an Opium-Eater fairly eclipsed, for most of us, all 
 the rest of his numerous productions. And De Quincey got 
 more than his literary reputation from this one book ; for 
 years it supplied the popular notion of his character, thrust- 
 ing forth into unearthly brightness those hours in his life 
 whose utter impotence and misery should have been care- 
 fully hidden from the public gaze. Now, of course, the 
 dogging biographer has given us the truth. The Confes- 
 sions was but the first of a long list of magazine contribu- 
 tions, written against time for money. While De Quincey 
 made his highest claims as a writer for the Confessions and 
 its sequel, the Suspiria de Profundis, it is nevertheless 
 clear that he regarded himself, all his life, as a great phi- 
 losopher thwarted of stupendous intellectual achievements 
 by disease, opium, and the necessity of laboring for daily 
 bread. There are those, no doubt, that agree with him in 
 this belief ; but we shall do well to stand with the judicious 
 majority who find it hard to imagine De Quincey — opium, 
 disease, and poverty laid aside — perfecting a great work ; 
 who indeed believe that to the pressure of his necessities we 
 owe it that De Quincey exists as a prose classic. 
 
 The life of Thomas de Quincey, from 1785 to 1859, is 
 divided by the appearance of his first work, in 1821, into 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 two nearly equal parts. The first of these periods is of con- 
 siderable biographical interest, and contains, of course, the 
 whole growth of De Quincey's character up to a time when 
 it must have been fixed beyond possibility of change ; the 
 second period, on the other hand, quite uneventful in itself, 
 is that of great notoriety as an opium-eater, considerable 
 fame as a writer, and of such prominence as he could be 
 persuaded by his admirers to assume. To those whose ears 
 are filled witli the strange anecdotes of the great contributor 
 told by his Edinburgh friends — to those who see before 
 them the weird apparition of the shriveled, withered " druid 
 wight " at seventy, — the tiny frame, the elfish expression, 
 the high brow, and the thin lips " talking magazine articles," 
 — to such it must seem a bold undertaking to trace the 
 growth of such a product out of the child of the Manchester 
 merchant. Fortunate it is, therefore, that we have the aid 
 at this juncture of one who delighted in exercising his an- 
 alytical faculty upon such questions as this, and one who 
 had peculiar opportunities for understanding it aright. De 
 Quincey himself, in his Autobiogt'ajjhic Sketches, Reminis- 
 cences, and Confessions, has covered nearly the whole of this 
 period, and while he has, no doubt, here and there projected 
 something of his later self into these Recollections, we have 
 yet, it would seem, in these papers the clues to what is most 
 remarkable in him. 
 
 The salient point in the earliest history of De Quincey is 
 the extent to which the influences that ordinarily mould a 
 boy's character were in his case absent or unusually weak. 
 His health as a little child was bad. He hardly knew his 
 father, who died when he was quite young. His mother 
 he has presented to us as a woman of intellect and force of 
 character, but as one whose strong love for her children 
 was dwarfed by her exaggerated idea of the reverence due 
 to her as mother. Whatever she did for her children, it 
 would seem that she never got near to them, never became, 
 nor, apparently, endeavored to become, their confidante and 
 
INTRODUCTION. v 
 
 friend. Deprived of this source of intimate, sympathetic 
 aid, De Qnincey rejoices that liis earliest years were passed 
 in rustic solitude in England, and that they were moulded 
 by gentle sisters and not by rough brothers. How fortunate 
 he was in this may well be questioned. At all events, these 
 years as a little child in the De Quincey home in the Man- 
 chester suburbs seem to have been a period of unusually 
 vivid dreams, of precocious experiences of grief (after the 
 death of two sisters), and of solitude and self-communion, 
 if we may accept the narrative, such as no wise parents 
 would permit to the healthiest child. When Thomas was 
 about seven years old, however, there was precipitated into 
 his life the highly finished and self-satisfied personality of 
 that inspired mischief-maker, Master William de Quincey, 
 aged twelve. The result for Thomas was nothing less than 
 a revolution. Whereas before he might pursue at will his 
 unobtrusive way to his lessons with the Reverend Samuel 
 Hall, his guardian, he now moved forth as the army of 
 General William de Quincey to a carefully concerted attack 
 upon a little horde o£ factory boys, — advanced indeed 
 under that intrepid leader with a major-generalcy held be- 
 fore him as the prize of determined courage, and condem- 
 nation to death as the inevitable consequence of recreancy 
 to his duty. In a word, for a while he was a boy, or at 
 least he was made to act like one. 
 
 This mode of life — whether good or bad — Avas not to 
 be of long duration ; Mrs. de Quincey sold Greenhay, sent 
 William away to study, and settled herself at Bath, where 
 Thomas, at the age of eleven, entered the Grammar School. 
 Through the next twenty-five years took place the develop- 
 ment which transformed a bright, rather weak and retiring 
 schoolboy into an " intellectual creature," — a being who 
 fairly gave up mingling and acting with the woi-ld for study 
 and thought. Two processes may conveniently be distin- 
 guished, working together to this end. In the first place, 
 there was the ever increasing absorption in books. In the 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Bath school De Quincey made great strides in Greek ; wit- 
 ness the famous encomium of one of its masters : " That 
 boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I 
 could address an English one." In Winkfield and Manches- 
 ter Schools (1800-2), through the Oxford years (1803-8), 
 and during the Grasmere period (1809-21), the range and 
 depth of De Quincey's studies were constantly increased. 
 The Latin and Greek literatures were fairly searched 
 through ; the English poets and dramatists became a fa- 
 miliar field ; while subjects so rarely attempted at that time 
 as the German literature and philosojjhy were succeeded in 
 De Quincey's attention by the almost unknown science of 
 Political Economy. 
 
 Alongside this process of remarkable intellectual acquire- 
 ment ran another negative process of separation from ordi- 
 nary companionship. In the first place De Quincey was 
 quite unable, if he ever tried, to establish a confidential 
 relation with his mother. His brother William died, an- 
 other brother ran away to sea, so that De Quincey as a 
 youth was without intimate companionship in his own fam- 
 ily. When he ran away from Manchester School, his first 
 l^lan was to reach Wordsworth, whose Lyrical Ballads had 
 solaced him in fits of melancholy ; and, when his timidity 
 prevented this attempt, he planned a solitary tramp through 
 rugged Wales. Money for this was given the truant, until 
 he ceased to inform his guardians of his whereabouts. Then 
 for several months he lived, by his own choice, — in Wales 
 and afterwards in London — the life of a half-starved out- 
 cast. In Oxford, to use his own words, he " sought solitude 
 in morbid excess." Wordsworth was still his great enthu- 
 siasm ; he summoned courage to send a letter to him, and 
 received an answer ; and at last in 1807 he met the poet of 
 the Lakes. De Quincey's settlement at Grasmere in 1809 
 was his great effort to find congenial friends and a suitable 
 life away from the world. Unhappily Wordsworth's per- 
 sonality could not make the same agreeable impression as 
 
INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 his poetry. Nor was the fault all Wordsworth's, — the 
 younger man had been taking opium occasionally since 
 1804 as an antidote to pain or to melancholy, and now his 
 indulgence had reached appalling proportions ; laudanum had 
 become with him a regular — sometimes a sole — article of 
 diet. De Quincey's marriage in 1816 to a farmer's daugh- 
 ter practically terminated his intercourse with the Words- 
 worths. His patrimony, used loosely while it lasted, was 
 soon quite exhausted. An effort at editorship ( Westmore- 
 land Gazette, 1819) was distinguished by the remarkable 
 plan, solemnly proposed by De Quincey, of turning a farm- 
 er's paper into a philosophical journal. Finally in 1821 
 De Quincey went to London, and, having been asked for 
 his opium experiences, wrote for the London Magazine the 
 Confessions of an English Opinm-Eater. 
 
 So much of the life of De Quincey we may draw from 
 his autobiographic writings, where, it need hardly be said, 
 every admirer of De Quincey and every lover of good liter- 
 ature should trace the author's career for himself. The 
 rest of his life — in London, in Edinburgh, and Lasswade — 
 was given up, as has been said, to pursuing his calling as a 
 writer for magazines, and his avocation as a converser of 
 much curious information and still more eloquent language ; 
 his last years were occupied by a heroic struggle to provide 
 in time " copy " for the Edinburgh edition of his works. 
 His habits were now fixed : he throughout his life continued 
 drinking laudanum, twice after 1821 reaching enormous 
 amounts ; he turned night into day ; executed frequent mys- 
 terious disappearances ; triumphed over all rules of dress, 
 — occasionally receiving visits, clad in an overcoat and 
 a little underwear ; he snowed himself up with papers and 
 books in one lodging, then turned the key, departed, and 
 hired another ; he lavished money upon worthless beggars 
 and sometimes forgot his creditors ; in a woi'd, he remained 
 in practical matters a child to the age of seventy-four. 
 
 De Quincey's writings, with which we have now to do, 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 have been divided by the author himself into three groups. 
 First he mentions that class which " proposes primarily to 
 amuse the reader ; but which, in doing so, may or may not 
 happen occasionally to reach a higher station, at which the 
 amusement passes into an impassioned interest : " here would 
 fall the Autobiograjihic Sketches and the Reminiscences. 
 Into the second class are put " those papers which address 
 themselves purely to the understanding as an insulated 
 faculty ; or do so primarily : " these are called in general 
 Essays, and include — to follow Professor Masson's latest 
 classification — (a) Biographies, such as Shakespeare, or 
 Richard Bentley ; (b) Historical Essays, like The Ca'sars, 
 and this Revolt of the Tartars ; (c) Speculative and Theo- 
 logical Essays ; (d) Essays in Political Economy and Poli- 
 tics ; (e) Papers of Literaiy Theory and Criticism, such as 
 the famous essays on Rhetoric, Style, and Conversation, and 
 the brilliant criticism " On the Knocking at the Gate in 
 Macbeth." In the third class, " and, in virtue of their aim, 
 as a far higher class of compositions," De Quincey ranks 
 " the Confessions of an Opium-Eater, and also (but more 
 emphatically) the Suspiria de Profundis." " On these," 
 says their author, " as modes of impassioned [i. e. imagina- 
 tive] prose ranging under no precedents that I am aware 
 of in literature, it is much more difficult to speak justly, 
 whether in a hostile or a friendly character." 
 
 ^ In touching with brief comments these great divisions of 
 De Quincey 's authorship, we shall do well to begin with his 
 second class. Nine tenths of his work was intended, like 
 all magazine articles, to amuse and instruct. It was the 
 product of a mind of marvelous analytical power ; a mind 
 constitutionally apt to discover hidden analogies, and to 
 elaborate, with great rapidity and by the use of an amazing 
 store of knowledge, new and sometimes startling theories ; 
 it was the product of such a mind bent strongly from very 
 infancy upon intellectual pursuits, fed and nourished in soli- 
 tude into an intellectual engine of astonishing power. Such 
 
INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 and so great a commendation may be bestowed upon De 
 Quincey with little fear of any man's demur. And yet, for 
 all that, he is open in his intellectual woi'k to one or two 
 serious limitations, — limitations due in part to the very com- 
 pleteness of his absorption in intellectual pursuits. He had 
 so little ordinary intercoui'se with the world that his judg- 
 ments in history and literature are often strangely tinged or 
 warped. He plumes himself — a certain childish vanity is 
 one of his weaknesses — especially upon his early discovery 
 of Wordsworth ; and with right ; yet many of his later crit- 
 icisms, like his relegation of Goethe to an early obscurity, 
 are hopelessly weak. In all matters of speculation, too, he 
 is by no means free from the love of the new theory or 
 opinion for its novelty rather than for its soundness. Fur- 
 thermore, he is, with great pretense of exactness, often quite 
 careless of accuracy, and sometimes — be it said in the gen- 
 tlest way — negligent of facts that must have beeu known 
 to him. The truth is, probably, that he tended continually, 
 in dealing with fact, to pass over into the sphere of imagina- 
 tive creation in which he was quite at home ; this Revolt 
 of the Tartars exhibits this process in an advanced stage. 
 
 The Autobiographic Sketches, therefore, and writings of 
 their class, which, according to De Quincey's own statements, 
 occupy a middle position, ranging from the intellectual to 
 the imaginative at will, must necessarily be treated with 
 care as records of events. Their basis, however, seems to 
 be solid fact ; and, after all, they have their chief value as 
 records of emotions : they are De Quincey's " Sentimental 
 Journey." Here we must look, therefore, for his best pathos ; 
 and here again we shall find, in place of the elephantine 
 playfulness which he generally exhibits for wit, some food 
 for hearty laughter. But there is a third part of our author's 
 work — small in amount, but great in power — which, if it 
 does not, as he says, range under any precedent in literature, 
 still belongs to a rare type of prose. In these writings he 
 has — to adopt Professor Genung's expression — " shaped 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his conceptions in the fancy rather than in the severity of 
 logic." In this kind of composition, at once harmonious 
 and picturesque, we see the Opium-Eater in his moments of 
 exaltation. The dreaming faculty which was his from child- 
 hood, and which was stimulated by opium, supplies him with 
 the gorgeous visions about which he weaves the transparent 
 garment of brilliant language. Spite of all his claims as 
 investigator, critic, or philosopher, it is in these gorgeous 
 palaces of words that De Quincey is really at home. 
 
 The study of De Quincey's style can best be carried on 
 by the use of Minto's extensive account of it in his Manual 
 of English Prose Literature, although any good Rhetoric 
 furnishes the necessary method. The standard Life of De 
 Quincey is that of H. A. Page (A. H. Japp) ; but Masson's 
 briefer De Quincey in the English Men of Letters is a later 
 and better biography ; Hogg's De Quincey and his Friends 
 contains much interesting matter. The tirst collected edi- 
 tion of De Quincey's writings was made in America by 
 Mr. Fields and has been the basis of all others. It is espe- 
 cially valuable by reason of its completeness and its full 
 and minute index. It is published in twelve volumes by 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The most recent edition is that 
 of Professor Masson ; and by far the most elaborate sepa- 
 rate edition of the Revolt of the Tartars is that of Dr. C. 
 S. Baldwin : to both these scholars editors of this essay are 
 likely, for some time to come, to owe a considerable debt. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 1770-1859. 
 
 1785. De Quincey born in 
 Manchester, August 15 ; 
 taken to "The Farm" 
 in the suburbs. 
 
 1792. Greenhay : days with 
 Wm. de Quincey and 
 of lessons from Rev. S. 
 Hall. 
 
 1796. Bath Grammar 
 School. 
 
 1800. Winkfield School. 
 Visit to Ireland with 
 Lord Westport ; De Quin- 
 cey sees last session of 
 Irish Parliament. Man- 
 chester Grammar School. 
 
 1802. De Quincey runs 
 away from school. Wan- 
 derings in Wales and 
 sojourn in London. 
 
 1770. Wordsworth born 
 Goldsmith, The Deserted 
 Village. 
 
 1771. Scott born. 
 
 1772. Coleridge born. 
 
 1774. Burke, Speech on 
 American Taxation. 
 
 1775. Johnson, Taxation 
 no Tyranny. Burke, 
 Speech on Conciliation 
 with America. Lamb 
 born. 
 
 1778. Frances Burney, 
 
 Evelina. 
 1779, 1781. Johnson, Liv%s 
 
 of the Poets. 
 1782. Cowper, Poems. 
 
 1785. Cowper, The Task, 
 John Gilpin, etc. 
 
 1786. Burns, Poems. Kil- 
 marnock. 
 
 1788. Byron born. 
 
 1790. Burke, Reflections 
 on the Revolution in 
 France. 
 
 1792. Shelley bom. 
 
 1795. Keats and Carlyle 
 born. 
 
 1798. Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge, Lyrical Bal- 
 lads. 
 
 1800. Macau lay born. 
 Maria Edge worth. Castle 
 Rackrent. 
 
 1770. Lord North's Min- 
 istry in England. Tea 
 Tax for America retained. 
 
 1771. Flight of the Torgod 
 from Russian to Chinese 
 Territory. 
 
 1775. Opening of the 
 American Revolution. 
 
 1776. Declaration of In- 
 dependence. 
 
 1781. Surrender of Com- 
 wallis. 
 
 1783. Acknowledgment of 
 American Independence. 
 
 1788. United States Con- 
 stitution ratified. 
 
 1789. Outbreak of the 
 French Revolution. 
 Washington President of 
 the United States, 
 
 1797. John Adams Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 1798. Napoleon in Egypt ; 
 Battle of the Nile. 
 
 1800. Union of Great Brit- 
 ain and Ireland. 
 
 1801 . Jefferson President. 
 
Xll 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 1803. Oxtoid : Worcester 
 College. Currespondeuce 
 with Wordsworth. 
 
 1804. Meeting with Lamb 
 — and with opium. 
 
 1807. Meeting with Cole- 
 ridge and afterwards with 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 1808-9. Loudon : slight law 
 studies. De Quincey sees 
 Wordsworth's Couven- 
 tion of Cintra pamphlet 
 through the press. 
 
 1809. Settlement in Gras- 
 mere. Intercourse with 
 the Wordsworths and 
 friendship with John 
 Wilson. 
 
 1804. Bergmann, Noma- 
 dische Streifereien unter 
 den Kalmiiken in den 
 Jahren 1802 and 1803. 
 Riga. (Rambles among 
 the Kalmucks in the 
 years 1802 and 1803.) 
 
 1805. Scott, Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel. 
 
 1816. Married Margaret 
 Simpson. 
 
 1819. Editor of the West- 
 moreland Gazette. 
 
 1821. London: Confes- 
 sions of an English 
 Opi^im - Eater ; Herder, 
 Richter, with Analects 
 (London Magazine). 
 
 1822-24. Letttrs to a Young 
 Man w/iose Ediication 
 has been Neglected ; 
 Hosicrticians and Free- 
 masons; etc. (London 
 Magazine). 
 
 1826-27. Lessing, with 
 Translation from Loo- 
 coon (Blackwood's Edin- 
 burgh Magazine. 
 
 1810. Scott, Lady of the 
 Lake. 
 
 1811. Jane Austen, Sense 
 and Sensibility. 
 
 1812. Byron, First two 
 Cantos oi Childe Harold. 
 
 1814. Scott, Waverley. 
 Wordsworth, The Excur- 
 sion. 
 
 1815. Wordsworth , Wliite 
 Doe of Rylstone. 
 
 1810. Shelley, Alastor. 
 
 1818. Keats, Endymion. 
 
 1819. Byron, First two 
 Cantos of Don Juan. 
 Irving, The Sketch Book. 
 
 1820. Keats, Lamia, etc. 
 Shelley, Prometheus Un- 
 bound. 
 
 1822. Lamb, Essays of 
 Elia (London Magazine). 
 
 1825. Macaulay, Essay on 
 Milton (Edinburgh Re- 
 view). 
 
 1804, Napoleon Emperor. 
 
 1805. Napoleon's projected 
 descent upon England. 
 Battle of Trafalgar. 
 
 Convention of Cin- 
 
 1809. Madison President. 
 
 1811. Prince George Re- 
 gent of England. 
 
 1812-14. War between 
 England and the U. S. 
 
 1814. Napoleon on Elba. 
 
 1815. Waterloo. 
 
 1817. Monroe President. 
 
 1820. George IV. King of 
 England. 
 
 1825. J. Q. Adams Presi- 
 dent. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 1827. Murder considered 
 as one of the Fine Arts 
 (Blackwood's). 
 
 1828-33. Edinburgh. Toi- 
 lette of a Hebrew Lady, 
 Richard Bentley, Dr. 
 Parr, The Ctesars, Char- 
 lemagne, etc. (Black- 
 wood's). 
 
 1832. Klosterheim, a me- 
 diaeval romance. Black- 
 wood. Edinburgh. 
 
 1834^0. Autobiographic 
 Sketches and lieminis- 
 ences. (Talt's Edinburgh 
 Magazine). 
 
 1837. Death of Mrs. de 
 Qiiincey. Shakespeare, 
 Ooe/he, Pope (Encyclo- 
 pifcdia Britannica. Re- 
 volt OF THE Tartars 
 (Blackwood's). 
 
 1838. Lodgings in Lothian 
 Street. 
 
 1840. Cottage at Lass wade. 
 
 1841-3. Visits to Glas- 
 gow. 
 
 1840-5. The Essenes, Style, 
 Rhetoric, Homer and the 
 Homeridae, Cicero, 
 Coleridge and Opium- 
 Eating (Blackwood's). 
 
 1844. Logic of Political 
 Economy. Blackwood. 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 184.5-G. Notes on Literary 
 Portraits: Godicin, 
 Shelley, Keats, etc. ; 
 System of the Heavens 
 (Tait's). Suspiria de 
 Profiindis, a Sequel to 
 the Confessions (Black- 
 wood's). 
 
 1847. Lodgings in Glas- 
 gow ; work on the new 
 Nortli British Daily Mail. 
 Joan of Arc, The Span- 
 ish Military Nun, Protes- 
 tantism, etc. (Tait's). 
 
 1848-59. Lodgings in Lo- 
 thian Street again. 
 
 1849. The English Mail- 
 Coach (Blackwood's). 
 
 1850. Sir Wm. Hamilton, 
 etc. (Hogg's Instructor). 
 
 1S51-.5. Ticknor and 
 Fields' American Edi- 
 tion of De Quincey's 
 Works. Boston. 
 
 1827. Alfred and Charles 
 Tennyson, Poems. Poe, 
 Tamerlane and other 
 Poems. 
 
 1830. Tennyson, Poems, 
 chiefly Lyrical. 
 
 1833-34. Carlyle, Sartor 
 Resartus. Browning, 
 
 Pauline. 
 
 183G-37. Dickens, Pick- 
 wick Papers. 
 
 1837. Carlyle, French 
 Revolution. Hawthorne, 
 Twice-Told Tales. 
 
 1S40. Poe, Tales. 
 
 1841. Carlyle, Heroes and 
 Hero-Worship. Emer- 
 son, Essays (First Series). 
 
 1843. Macaulay, Essays. 
 Ruskin, Modem Paint- 
 ers I. 
 
 1847. Thackeray, Vanity 
 Fair. Longfellow, Evan- 
 geline. 
 
 1848. Macaulay, History 
 of England, Vols. I., II. 
 
 1850. Tennyson, In Memo- 
 riam. Hawthorne, The 
 Scarlet Letter. 
 
 1829. Jackson President, 
 
 1830. William IV. King. 
 
 1832. Reform Bill passed 
 in England. 
 
 1833. Abolition of Slavery 
 in British colonies. 
 
 1837. Van Buren Presi- 
 dent. Victoria Queen. 
 
 1841. Harrison President. 
 Tyler President. 
 
 1845. Polk President. 
 1845-8. Mexican War. 
 
 1849. Taylor President. 
 California Gold Fever. 
 
 1850. Fillmore President. 
 
XIV 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 1853-9. Selections Grave 
 and Gay, from Writings 
 by T. de Quincey (De 
 Quincey editor ; J. Hogg 
 publisher). Edinburgli. 
 
 1857. Visit to Mrs. Craig 
 in Ireland. 
 
 1859. Death, December 8, 
 at 42 Lothian Street, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 1856. Macaulay, Lives of 
 Johnson and Goldsmith 
 (Encyclopaedia Britanni- 
 ca). 
 
 1859. George Eliot, Adam 
 Bade. 
 
 1853. Pierce President. 
 
 1854. Crimean War. 
 
 1857. Buchanan President. 
 
 1859. John Brown's raid 
 at Harper's Ferry. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The Revolt of the Tartars was published in Blackwood's Edin- 
 burgh Magazine for July, 1837 (volume xlii. page 89). It was 
 reprinted by Messrs. Tickuor and Fields in their edition of De 
 Quincey's works under the title Flight of a Tartar Tribe as the 
 first of the Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers. It was repub- 
 lished by De Quineey with very slight verbal changes in 1854 
 in the fourth volume of Selections Grave and Gay, whence our 
 present text comes. This can hardly be called one of the most 
 popular of De Quincey's writings, though recently Professor 
 Masson distinguished it by a place in his two volumes of De 
 Quineey Essays. Yet perhaps no other piece shows so many 
 sides of its author's genius. For there is no better-told story 
 from De Quincey's pen ; in certain scenes, too, it rises well-nigh 
 to the imaginative heights of The English Mail-Coach • and 
 again, though not itself, in reality, a work of erudition, it con- 
 tains sufficient testimony to the learning of its writer, and indeed 
 maintains throughout, albeit insecurely, the atmosphere of his- 
 torical research belonging with better right to other essays. 
 
 There caii be little doubt that this work is drawn in about 
 equal measure from two very different sources : First, most of 
 the facts come from the text and notes of Bergmann's account of 
 the Torgod migration in his Nomadische Streifereien unter den 
 Kalmiiken in den Jahren 1802 and 1803, published at Riga in 
 1804. Secondly, the rest of the facts and all the picturesque 
 effects come from the imagination of the author. The follow- 
 ing, which presents the ordinary historian's impressions of this 
 event, should be carefully noted by the student. 
 
 " The position of the Torgod at this time [when Ubasha 
 became Khan], hemmed in as they were between the Russians 
 and Turks, was rapidly becoming unbearable, and the question 
 of migrating ' bag and baggage ' was very generally mooted. 
 In the war between his two powerful neighbours in 1769 and 
 1770, Ubasha gave valuable assistance to the Russians. His 
 
2 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 troops took part in the siege of Otehakoff, and gained a decided 
 victory on the Kalans. Flushed with these successes, he was in 
 no mood to listen patiently to the taunts of the governor of 
 Astrakhan, who likened him to a 'bear fastened to a chain,' 
 and he made up his mind to break away once and for all from a 
 tutelage which was as galling as it was oppressive. He deter- 
 mined, therefore, to migrate eastward with his people, and on 
 the 5th of January, 1771, he began his march with 70,000 fami- 
 lies. In vain the Russians attempted to recall the fugitives, who, 
 in spite of infinite hardships, after a journey of eight months 
 reached the province of Hi, where they were welcomed by the 
 Chinese authorities. Food for a year's consumption was supplied 
 to each family ; and land, money, and cattle were freely distrib- 
 uted. How many lost their lives on the toilsome march it is 
 impossible to say, but it is believed that 300,000 persons survived 
 to receive the hospitality of the Chinese. . . • Such another 
 migration occurred between four and five thousand years ago, 
 when the Chinese crossed from western Asia into their pres- 
 ent empire ; such, again, was the movement which carried the 
 Osmanli Turks from north-eastern Asia into Asia-Minor, and 
 eventually across the Bosphorus. . . . The Chinese, flattered 
 by the compliment implied by the transference of allegiance, set- 
 tled them [the Torgod] on lands in the province of Hi, in the 
 neighborhood of the Altai Mountains, and to the west of the des- 
 ert of Gobi. But the price they were made to pay for this liber- 
 ality was absorption in the Chinese empire." — R. K. Douglas, 
 in Encyclopcedia Britannica. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE.* 
 
 There is no great event in modern history, or, per- 
 haps it may be said more broadly, none in all history, 
 from its earliest i-ecords, less generally known, or more 
 striking to the imagination, than the flight eastwards 
 of a principal Tartar ^ nation across the boundless 
 steppes of Asia in the latter half of the last century. 
 The terminus a quo ^ of this flight and the terminus ad 
 quern are equally magnificent ; the mightiest of Chris- 
 
 1 This title, introduced in the first (American) edition of De 
 Quincey's works, seems to have superseded in this country De 
 Quincey's lieading : Revolt of the Tartars, or, Flight of the 
 Kalmuck Khan and his People fi'om the Russian Territories to 
 the Frontiers of China. 
 
 '^ De Quincey applies the name Tartar inaccurately, though 
 popularly, it appears, to this tribe. The Tartars or Tatars are 
 really a Turkish race ; they were carried westwiird in the great 
 Mongolian raids of conquest, but are in blood still only slightly 
 Mongol. Kalmuck is the popular European name for West 
 Mongols ; it is used by the people themselves only in tlie Volga 
 district. Torgod (Torgote) is the true name of those of whom 
 De Quincey writes. This Torgod was the result of an ancient 
 secession from the Kerait branch of the Mongols, followed by 
 an eventual encampment — apparently about 1672, though De 
 Quincey's date, 1G16, has some support — in the district bor- 
 dered by the lower Don, lower Ural or Jaik, Caspian and Cau- 
 casus. The lower Volga was thus well in the midst of the Tor- 
 god camping-grounds : from the east bank of that stream the 
 migration took place ; and it proceeded around the northern end 
 of the Caspian, thence north of the Aral Sea and so to Lake 
 Balkhash near the Desert of Gobi. 
 
 3 Note De Quincey's fondness for learned phrases. 
 
4 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 tian thrones being the one, the mightiest of Pagan the 
 other. And the grandeur of these two terminal ob- 
 jects is harmoniously supported by the romantic cir- 
 cumstances of the flight.^ In the abruptness of its 
 commencement, and the fierce velocity of its execu- 
 tion, we read an expression of the wild barbaric char- 
 acter of those who conducted the movement. In the 
 unity of purpose connecting this myriad of wills, and 
 in the blind but unerring aim at a mark so remote, 
 there is something which recalls to the mind those 
 almighty instincts that propel the migrations of the 
 swallow and the leeming, or the life-withering marches 
 of the locust. Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance 
 of Russia and her vast artillery, which hung upon 
 the rear and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are 
 reminded of Miltonic ^ images — such, for instance, 
 as that of the solitary hand pursuing through desert 
 spaces and through ancient chaos a rebellious host, 
 and overtaking with volleying thunders those who 
 believed themselves already within the security of 
 darkness and of distance. 
 
 1 shall have occasion, farther on, to compare this 
 event with other great national catastrophes as to the 
 magnitude of the suffering. But it may also challenge 
 a comparison with similar events under another rela- 
 tion, viz., as to its dramatic capabilities. Few cases, 
 perhaps, in romance or history, can sustain a close 
 collation with this as to the complexity of its separate 
 interests. The great outline of the enterprise, taken 
 in connexion with the operative motives, hidden or 
 
 ^ Here and in this whole paragraph we have the impressions 
 made upon De Quincey by Bergmann's account of this event — 
 impressions to which we owe this paper. De Quincey seizes the 
 dramatic capacities of the story, and is therefore a literary 
 creator here, rather than an historian. 
 
 2 Why does " jMiltonic " mean " sublime " ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 5 
 
 avowed, and the religious sanctions under which it 
 was pursued, give to the case a triple character : 1st, 
 that of a conspiracy} with as close a unity in the 
 incidents, and as much of a personal interest in the 
 moving characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as 
 belongs to " Venice Preserved," ^ or to the " Fiesco " ^ 
 of Schiller; 2dly, that of a great military expedition., 
 offering the same romantic features of vast distances 
 to be traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, untried 
 routes, enemies obscurely ascertained, and hardships 
 too vaguely prefigured, which mark the Egyptian 
 expedition of Cambyses ^ — which mark the anabasis 
 of the younger Cyrus,* and the subsequent retreat of 
 the ten thousand. — which mark the Parthian expedi- 
 tions of the Romans, especially those of Crassus ^ and 
 tTulian ® — or (as more disastrous than any of them, 
 
 ' Bergmann introduced this element with the character of 
 Zebek-Dorchi (compare the prefatory note) ; and De Quiucey 
 adds many dramatic details to Bergmann's account. 
 
 - Otway's Venice Preserved, or, A Plot Discovered, printed in 
 1682, was the last important acting tragedy written for the Eng- 
 lish stage ; the Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa (1783) was one of 
 Schiller's earlier tragedies. 
 
 3 Cambyses, King of Persia from 529 to 522 b. c, conquered 
 Egypt ; but his armies, sent westward and southward for fur- 
 ther conquests, perished in the Lybian deserts. 
 
 ^ Cyrus the Younger, Persian Governor of Asia Minor, 
 marched a body of Greek mercenaries out of Asia Minor to 
 Cunaxa, near Babylon, to dethrone his brother, Artaxerxes II., 
 King of Persia (400 B. c). Cyi'us fell in battle ; and the Greeks 
 were then brought back through the greatest hardships by Xen- 
 ophon to the Black Sea. 
 
 '' Marcus Crassus, elected Roman Consul with Pompey in 55 
 B. c, undertook in 53 an expedition against the savage Parthi- 
 ans ; he v/as hopelessly defeated at Carrhae in Mesopotomia, 
 and thereafter treacherously slain. 
 
 " Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor 361-3G3, was killed 
 during an expedition against the Parthians. 
 
6 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 and, in point of space as well as in amount of forces, 
 more extensive) the Russian anabasis ^ and katabasis ^ 
 of Napoleon ; 3dly, that of a religious Exodus, author- 
 ised by an oracle venerated throughout many nations 
 of Asia, — an Exodus, therefore, in so far resembling 
 the great Scriptural Exodus of the Israelites, under 
 Moses and Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar dis- 
 tinction of carrying along with them ^ their entire fam- 
 ilies, women, children, slaves, their herds of cattle and 
 of sheep, their horses and their camels. 
 
 This triple character of the enterprise naturally in- 
 vests it with a more comprehensive interest. But the 
 dramatic interest^ which I have ascribed to it, or its 
 fitness for a stage representation, depends partly upon 
 the marked variety and the strength of the personal 
 agencies concerned, and partly upon the succession of 
 scenical situations. Even the ste'p'pes, the camels, the 
 tents, the snowy and the sandy deserts, are not beyond 
 the scale of our modern representative powers, as often 
 called into action in the theatres both of'* Paris and 
 London ; and the series of situations unfolded, — be- 
 ginning with the general conflagration on the Wolga ^ 
 — passing thence to the disastrous scenes of the flight 
 (as it literally was in its commencement) — to the 
 Tartar siege of the Russian fortress Koulagina ^ — the 
 
 ^ Consult a Greek dictionary or the Century (catabasis). In 
 1812 Napoleon entered Russia with an immense array ; he 
 reached Moscow, but found the city deserted and, almost im- 
 mediately, in flames. Deprived thus of shelter and supplies, he 
 was forced to retreat ; and his army reached home only after 
 the loss, chiefly by cold and famine, of 300,000 men. 
 
 2 No antecedent for this pronoun. 
 
 2 This paragraph unrolls the details in rapid review. 
 
 4 Should be " of both." 
 
 ^ Volga : De Quineey follows Bergmann's German spelling. 
 
 ^ No such fortress is given on modern maps. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 7 
 
 bloody engagement with the Cossacks in the mountain 
 j)asses at Ouchim — the surprisal by the Bashkirs, and 
 the advanced posts of the Russian army at Torgau — 
 the private conspiracy at this point against the Khan 
 — the long succession of running fights — the part- 
 ing massacres at the Lake of Tengis under the eyes 
 of the Chinese — and, finally, the tragical retribution 
 to Zebek-Dorchi at the hunting lodge of the Chi- 
 nese Emperor ; — all these situations communicate a 
 scenical animation to the wild romance, if treated 
 dramatically ; whilst a higher and a philosophic in- 
 terest belongs to it as a case of authentic history, 
 commemorating a great revolution for good and for 
 evil in the fortunes of a whole peoj^le — ^a people semi- 
 barbarous, but simple hearted, and of ancient descent. 
 
 On the 21st of January, 1761, the young Prince 
 Oubacha ^ assumed the sceptre of the Kalmucks upon 
 the death of his father. Some part of the power at- 
 tached to this dignit}^ he had already wielded since his 
 fourteenth year, in quality of Vice-Khan, by the ex- 
 press appointment and with the avowed support of the 
 Russian Government. He was now about eighteen 
 years of age, amiable in his personal character, and 
 not without titles to respect in his public character as 
 a sovereign prince. In times more peaceable, and 
 amongst a people more entirely civilised, or more 
 humanised by religion, it is even probable that he 
 might have discharged his high duties with consider- 
 
 1 De Quincey's Oubacha and Zebek are characters in dramatic 
 narrative, not in history. For the historical Ubasha see the pre- 
 fatory note ; Zebek can hardly be said to exist in history. — 
 Compare the dignified "assumed the sceptre" with p. 22, 
 uote 1. 
 
8 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 able distinction. But his lot was thrown upon stormy 
 times, and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes whose 
 native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms 
 of superstition, and by a nationality ^ as well as an 
 inflated conceit of their own merit absolutely unpar- 
 alleled, whilst the circumstances of their hard and 
 trying position under the jealous sti7'veillance of an 
 irresistible lord paramount,^ in the person of the Rus- 
 sian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to the natural unamia- 
 bleness of the Kalmuck disposition, and irritated its 
 gloomier qualities into action under the restless im- 
 pulses of suspicion and permanent distrust. No prince 
 could hope for a cordial allegiance from his* subjects 
 or a peaceful reign under the cii'cumstances of the 
 case ; for the dilemma ^ in which a Kalmuck ruler 
 stood at present was of this nature : tvanting the sanc- 
 tion and support of the Czar, he was inevitably too 
 weak from without to command confidence from his 
 subjects, or resistance to his competitors ; on the other 
 hand, with this kind of support, and deriving his title 
 in any degree from the favour of the Imperial Court, 
 he became almost in that extent an object of hatred at 
 home, and within the whole compass of his own terri- 
 tory. He was at once an object of hatred for the past, 
 being a living monument of national independence 
 ignominiously surrendered, and an object of jealousy 
 for the future, as one who had already advertised him- 
 self to be a fitting tool for the ultimate purposes 
 
 ^ That is, nationalism ; a devotion, unreasoning and violent, 
 to their own race and nation ; thus connected with " inflated 
 conceit " as well as " superstition." 
 
 ^ Sovereign lord, i. e., one that had under him many lesser 
 lords, who owed him service in return for their lands. 
 
 ^ Note De Quincey's performance of the congenial task of 
 analyzing and defining Oubacha's position. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 9 
 
 (whatsoever those might prove to be) of the Russian 
 Court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck sceptre under 
 the heaviest weight of prejudice from the unfortunate 
 circumstances of his position, it might have been ex- 
 pected that Oubacha would have been pre-eminently 
 an object of detestation ; for, besides his known de- 
 pendence upon the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, the 
 direct line of succession had been set aside, and the 
 principle of inheritance violently suspended, in favour 
 of his own fatlier, so recently as nineteen years before 
 the era of his own accession, consequently within the 
 lively remembrance of the existing generation. He 
 therefore, almost equally with his father, stood within 
 the full current of the national prejudices, and might 
 have anticipated the most pointed hostility. But it 
 was not so : such are the caprices in human affairs 
 that he was even, in a moderate sense, popular — 
 a benefit which wore the more cheering aspect, and 
 the promises of permanence, inasmuch as he owed it 
 exclusively to his personal qualities of kindness and 
 affability, as well as to the beneficence of his govern- 
 ment. On the other hand, to balance this unlooked- 
 for prosperity at the outset of his reign, he met with 
 a rival in popular favovir — almost a competitor — in 
 the person of Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with consider- 
 able pretensions to the throne, and perhaps, it might 
 be said, with equal pretensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a 
 direct descendant of the same royal house as himself, 
 through a different branch. On public grounds, his 
 claim stood, perhaps, on a footing equally good with 
 that of Oubacha, whilst his personal qualities, even in 
 those aspects which seemed to a philosophical observer 
 most odious and repulsive, promised the most effectual 
 aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer or a conspira- 
 
10 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 tor, and were generally fitted to win a popular suj)port 
 precisely in those points where Oubacha was most de- 
 fective. He was much superior in external appearance 
 to his rival on the throne, and so far better qualified 
 to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous people ; 
 whilst his dark intellectual qualities of Machiavelian ^ 
 dissimulation, profound hypocrisy, and perfidy which 
 knew no touch of remorse, were admirably calcidated 
 to sustain any ground which he might win from the 
 simple-hearted people with whom he had to deal, and 
 from the frank carelessness of his unconscious com- 
 petitor. 
 
 At the very outset of his treachei'ous career, Zebek- 
 Dorchi was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing 
 could be gained by open declaration of hostility to the 
 reigning prince : the choice had been a deliberate act 
 on the part of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrowna ^ was 
 not the person to recall her own favours with levity 
 or upon slight grounds. Openly, therefore, to have 
 declared his enmity towards his relative on the throne 
 could have had no effect but that of arming suspicions 
 against his own ulterior purposes in a quarter where 
 it was most essential to his interest that, for the pres- 
 ent, all suspicion should be hoodwinked.^ Accord- 
 ingly, after much meditation, the course he took for 
 opening his snares was this : — He raised a rumour 
 that his own life was in danger from the plots of sev- 
 eral Saissang (that is, Kalmuck nobles), who were 
 leagued together, under an oath, to assassinate him ; 
 and immediately after, assuming a well-counterfeited 
 
 1 What is the ground for the accepted meaning of this word ? 
 ^ Daughter of Peter the Great, and Empress of Russia from 
 1741 to 1762. 
 
 3 Compare the common use of this word referring to a. .person. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 11 
 
 alarm, he fled to Tcherkask,^ followed by sixty-five 
 tents. 2 From this place he kept up a correspondence 
 with the Imperial Court; and, by way of soliciting ^ 
 his cause more effectually, he soon repaired in person 
 to St. Petersburg. Once admitted to personal con- 
 ferences with the cabinet, he found no difficulty in 
 winning over the Russian counsels to a concurrence 
 with some of his political views, and thus covertly 
 introducing the point of that wedge which was finally 
 to accomplish his purposes. In particular, he per- 
 suaded the Russian government to make a very im- 
 portant alteration in the constitution of the Kalmuck 
 State Council, which in effect reorganised the whole 
 political condition of the state, and disturbed the bal- 
 ance of power as previously adjusted. Of this coun- 
 cil — in the Kalmuck language called Sarga — there 
 were eight members, called Sargatchi ; and hitherto 
 it had been the custom that these eight members 
 should be entirely subordinate to the Khan ; holding, 
 in fact, the ministerial character of secretaries and 
 assistants, but in no respect ranking as co-ordinate 
 authorities. That had produced some inconveniences 
 in former reigns ; and it was easy for Zebek-Dorchi 
 to point the jealousy of the Russian Court to others 
 more serious which might arise in future circum- 
 stances of war or other contingencies. It was re- 
 solved, therefore, to place the Sargatchi henceforwards 
 on a footing of perfect independence, and therefoi'e 
 (as regarded responsibility) on a footing of equality 
 with the Khan. Their independence, however, had 
 
 ^ On the lower Don. 
 
 2 That is, families. What is the figure ? 
 
 3 How does this use of " solicit " differ from that common 
 now-a-days ? 
 
12 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 respect only to their own sovereign ; for towards Rus- 
 sia they were placed in a new attitude of direct duty 
 and accountability by the creation in their favour of 
 small pensions (300 roubles a year) which, however, 
 to a Kalmuck of that day were more considerable 
 than might be supposed, and had a farther value as 
 marks of honorary distinction emanating from a great 
 empress. Thus far the purposes of Zebek-Dorchi were 
 served effectually for the moment : but, apparently, it 
 was only for the moment ; since, in the further devel- 
 opment of his plots, this very dependency upon Rus- 
 sian influence would be the most serious obstacle in 
 his way. There was, however, another point carried 
 which outweighed all inferior considerations, as it 
 gave him a power of setting aside discretionally what- 
 soever should arise to disturb his plots : he was him- 
 self appointed President and Controller of the Sar- 
 gatchi. The Russian Court had been aware of his 
 high pretensions by birth, and hoped by this promo- 
 tion to satisfy the ambition which, in some degree, 
 was acknowledged to be a reasonable passion for any 
 man occupying his situation. 
 
 Having thus completely blindfolded the cabinet of 
 Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded in his new character 
 to fulfil his political mission with the Khan of the 
 Kalmucks. So artfully did he prepare the road for 
 his favourable reception at the court of this prince 
 that he was at once and universally welcomed as a 
 benefactor. The pensions of the councillors were so 
 much additional wealth poured into the Tartar ex- 
 chequer ; as to the ties of dependency thus created, 
 experience had not yet enlightened these simple tribes 
 as to that result. And that he himself should be the 
 chief of these mercenary coimcillors was so far from 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR. TRIBE. 13 
 
 being charged upon Zebek as any offence or any 
 ground of suspicion, that his relative the Khan re- 
 turned him hearty thanks for his services, under the 
 belief that he could have accepted this appointment 
 only with a view to keep out other and more unwel- 
 come pretenders, who woidd not have had the same 
 motives of consanguinity or friendship for executing 
 its duties in a spirit of kindness to the Kalmucks. 
 The first use which he made of his new functions 
 about the Khan's person was to attack the Court of 
 Russia, by a romantic villainy not easily to be cred- 
 ited, for those very acts of interference with the 
 council which he himself had prompted. This was 
 a dangerous step : but it was indispensable to his 
 farther advance upon the gloomy path which he had 
 traced out for himself. A triple vengeance was what 
 he meditated : 1, upon the Russian cabinet, for hav- 
 ing undervalued his own pretensions to the throne ; 
 2, upon his amiable rival, for having supplanted him ; 
 and, 3, upon all those of the nobility who had mani- 
 fested their sense of his weakness by their neglect, or 
 their sense of his perfidious character by their sus- 
 picions. Here was a colossal outline of wickedness ; 
 and by one in his situation, feeble (as it might seem) 
 for the accomplishment of its humblest parts, how 
 was the total edifice to be reared in its comprehen- 
 sive grandeur? He, a worm as he was, could he 
 venture to assail the mighty behemoth ^ of Muscovy ,2 
 the potentate who counted three hundred languages 
 around the footsteps of his throne, and from whose 
 
 1 Job xl. 15. 
 
 2 This name for the older, smaller Russia comes from the city 
 Moscow, which towards 1300 came to be the centre of Russian 
 power. 
 
14 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 " lion ramp " ^ recoiled alike " baptized and infidel " ^ 
 — Christendom on the one side, strong by her intellect 
 and her organisation, and the " Barbaric East " on 
 the other, with her unnumbered numbers?^ The 
 match was a monstrous one ; but in its very mon- 
 strosity there lay this germ of encouragement, that 
 it could not be suspected. The very hopelessness of 
 the scheme grounded his hope, and he resolved to 
 execute a vengeance which should involve, as it were, 
 in the unity of a well-laid tragic fable,* all whom he 
 judged to be his enemies. That vengeance lay in de- 
 taching fi-om the Russian Empire the whole Kalmuck 
 nation, and breaking up that system of intercourse 
 which had thus far been beneficial to both. This last 
 was a consideration which moved him but little. True 
 it was, that Russia to the Kalmucks had secured lands 
 and extensive pasturage ; true it was, that the Kal- 
 mucks reciprocally to Russia had furnished a powerful 
 cavalry. But the latter loss would be part of his tri- 
 umph, and the former might be more than compen- 
 sated in other climates under other sovereigns. Here 
 was a scheme which, in its final accomplishment, would 
 avenge him bitterly on the Czarina, and in the course 
 of its accomplishment might furnish him with ample 
 occasions for removing his other enemies. It may be 
 readily supposed, indeed, that he who could deliber- 
 ately raise his eyes to the Russian autocrat as an an- 
 
 ^ From Milton's Samson Agonistes, line 139. 
 
 2 Paradise Lost, book i. line 582, has " baptized or infidel." 
 De Quincey, as usual, quotes from memory. 
 
 ^ Note the development of this eloquent description of Zebek's 
 plot, to its culmination in these striking phrases. 
 
 ■* That is, fabula, story, plot. The reference is particularly 
 to the dramatic law that all the characters in a play must be 
 involved in one action. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 15 
 
 tagonist in single clnel with himself was not likely to 
 feel much anxiety about Kalmuck enemies of whatever 
 rank. He took his resolution, therefore, sternly and 
 irrevocably to effect this astonishing translation of an 
 ancient people across the pathless deserts of Central 
 Asia, intersected continually by rapid rivers, rarely 
 furnished with bridges, and of which the fords were 
 known only to those who might think it for their in- 
 terest to conceal them, through many nations inhos- 
 pitable or hostile ; frost and snow aroimd them (from 
 the necessity of commencing their flight in the win- 
 ter), famine in their front, and the sabre, or even the 
 artillery of an offended and mighty empress, hanging 
 upon their rear for thousands of miles. But what was 
 to be their final mark — the port of shelter after so 
 fearful a course of wandering ? Two things were evi- 
 dent : it must be some power at a great distance from 
 Russia, so as to make return even in that view hope- 
 less ; and it must be a power of sufficient rank to 
 insure them protection from any hostile efforts on the 
 part of the Czarina for reclaiming them, or for chas- 
 tising their revolt. Both conditions were united ob- 
 viously in the person of Kien Long,i the reigning 
 Emperor of China, who was further recommended to 
 them by his respect for the head of their religion. To 
 China, therefore, and, as their first rendezvous, to the 
 shadow of the great Chinese Wall, it was settled by 
 Zebek that they should direct their flight. 
 
 Next came the question of time — token should the 
 flight commence ? and, finally, the more delicate Ques- 
 tion as to the choice of accomplices. To extend the 
 
 ' Kien Long, Emperor of China from 1735 to 1796, has borne 
 with all writers a high reputation as a ruler and a man of letters 
 as well. 
 
16 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 knowledge of the conspiracy too far was to insure its 
 betrayal to the Russian Government. Yet, at some 
 stage of the preparations, it was evident that a very 
 extensive confidence must be made, because in no 
 other way could the mass of the Kalmuck population 
 be persuaded to furnish their families with the requi- 
 site equipments for so long a migration. This critical 
 step, however, it was resolved to defer up to the latest 
 possible moment, and, at all events, to make no gen- 
 eral communication on the subject until the time of 
 departure should be definitely settled. In the mean 
 time, Zebek admitted only three persons to his confi- 
 dence ; of whom Oubacha, the reigning prince, was 
 almost necessarily one ; but him, from his yielding and 
 somewhat feeble character, he viewed rather in the 
 light of a tool than as one of his active accomplices. 
 Those whom (if anybody) he admitted to an unre- 
 served participation in his counsels were two only : 
 the great Lama ^ among the Kalmucks, and his own 
 father-in-law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some tribe 
 in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, recom- 
 mended to his favour not so much by any strength of 
 talent corresponding to the occasion as by his blind 
 devotion to himself and his passionate anxiety to pro- 
 mote the elevation of his daughter and his son-in-law 
 to the throne of a sovereign prince. A titular prince 
 Zebek already was : but this dignity, without the sub- 
 stantial accompaniment of a sceptre, seemed but an 
 empty sound to both of these ambitious rebels. The 
 
 ^ Lama is Tibetan for " spiritual lord." The religion, a form 
 of Buddhism, is called Lamaism or Laraanism (which see in 
 Encyclopcsdia Britannica) ; until our own times it seems to have 
 preserved its hold wonderfully, agailist Christianity and Moham- 
 medanism alike, on the feelings of the Mongol peoples. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 17 
 
 other accomplice, whose name was Loosan-Dchaltzan, 
 and whose rank was that of Lama, or Kahnuck j)on- 
 tiff, was a person of far more distinguished preten- 
 sions ; he had something of the same gloomy and 
 terrific pride which marked the character of Zebek 
 himself, manifesting also the same energy, accom- 
 panied by the same unfaltering cruelty, and a natural 
 facility of dissimulation even more profound. It was 
 by this man that the other question was settled, as to 
 the time for giving effect to their designs. His own 
 pontifical character had suggested to him that, in 
 order to strengthen their influence with the vast mob 
 of simple-minded men whom they were to lead into 
 a howling wilderness, after persuading them to lay 
 desolate their own ancient hearths, it was indispens- 
 able that they should be able, in cases of extremity, 
 to plead the express sanction of God for their entire 
 enterprise. This could only be done by addressing 
 themselves to the great head ^ of their religion, the 
 Dalai-Lama of Tibet. Him they easily persuaded to 
 countenance their schemes : and an oracle was deliv- 
 ered solemnly at Tibet, to the effect that no ultimate 
 prosperity would attend this great Exodus unless it 
 were pursued through the years of the tiger and the 
 liare. Now, the Kalmuck custom is to distinguish 
 their years by attaching to each a denomination taken 
 from one of twelve animals, the exact order of suc- 
 cession being absolutely fixed, so that the cycle re- 
 volves of course through a period of a dozen years. 
 
 1 There are really two heads, or popes, of Lamaism ; but the 
 Dalai-Lama (oceau-priest) has the greater power. His home is 
 near Lassa in Tibet ; and it is worth noticing as perhaps the real 
 cause of this migration that it was to bring the Torgod near to 
 this venerated being. 
 
18 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 Consequently, if> the approaching year of the tigei' 
 were suffered to escape them, in that case the expedi- 
 tion must be delayed for twelve years more ; within 
 which period, even were no other unfavourable changes 
 to arise, it was pretty well foreseen that the Russian 
 Government would take the most effectual means for 
 bridling their vagrant propensities by a ring-fence of 
 forts or military posts ; to say nothing of the still 
 readier i^lan for securing their fidelity (a plan already 
 talked of in all quarters) by exacting a large body of 
 hostages selected from the families of the most in- 
 fluential nobles. On these cogent considerations, it 
 was solemnly determined that this terrific experiment 
 should be made in the next year of the tiger, which 
 happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771.1 
 With respect to the month, there was, unhappily for 
 the Kalmucks, even less latitude allowed to their 
 choice than with respect to the year. It was abso- 
 lutely necessary, or it was thought so, that the differ- 
 ent divisions of the nation which pastured their flocks 
 on both banks of the Wolga should have the means 
 of effecting an instantaneous junction ; because the 
 danger of being intercepted by flying columns of the 
 imperial armies was precisely the greatest at the out- 
 set. Now, from the want of bridges, or sufficient 
 river craft for transporting so vast a body of men, 
 the sole means which could be depended upon (espe- 
 cially where so many women, children, and camels 
 were concerned) was ice : and this, in a state of suffi- 
 cient firmness, could not be absolutely counted upon 
 before the month- of January. Hence it happened 
 that this astonishing Exodus of a whole nation, before 
 
 ^ What was going on in the western world at this time ? 
 Consult the Chronological Table. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 19 
 
 so much as a whisper of the design had begun to cir- 
 culate amongst those whom it most interested, before 
 it was even susi^ected that any man's wishes pointed 
 in that direction, had been definitely appointed for 
 January of the year 1771. And almost up to the 
 Christmas of 1770 the poor simple Kalmuck herds- 
 men and their families were going nightly to their 
 peaceful beds, without even dreaming that the fiat 
 had already gone forth from their rulers which con- 
 signed those quiet abodes, together witli the peace 
 and comfort which reigned within them, to a wither- 
 ing desolation, now close at hand. 
 
 Meantime war ^ raged on a great scale between Russia 
 and the Sultan ; and, until the time arrived for throw- 
 ing off their vassalage, it was necessary that Oubacha 
 should contribute his usual contingent of martial aid. 
 Nay, it had unfortunately become prudent that he 
 should contribute much more than his usual aid. 
 Human experience gives ample evidence that in some 
 mysterious and unaccountable way no great design is 
 ever agitated, no matter how few or how faithful may 
 be the participators, but that^ some presentiment — 
 some dim misgiving — is kindled amongst those whom 
 it is chiefly important to blind. And, however it might 
 have happened, certain it is that already, when as 
 yet no syllable of the conspiracy had been breathed to 
 any man whose very existence was not staked upon 
 its concealment, nevertheless, some vague and uneasy 
 jealousy had arisen in the Russian Cabinet as to the 
 future schemes of the Kalmuck Khan : and very prob- 
 able it is that, but for the war then raging, and the 
 consequent prudence of conciliating a very important 
 vassal, or, at least, of abstaining from what would 
 
 ^ Tliis war lasted from 1768 to 1774. 
 - " But that" should be "but." 
 
20 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 powerfully alienate him, even at that moment such 
 measures would have been adopted as must forever 
 have intercepted the Kalmuck schemes. Slight as 
 were the jealousies of the Imperial Court, they had 
 not escaped the Machiavelian eyes of Zebek and the 
 Lama. And under their guidance Oubacha, bending 
 to the circumstances of the moment, and meeting the 
 jealousy of the Russian Court with a policy corre- 
 sponding to their own, strove by unusual zeal to efface 
 the Czarina's unfavourable impressions. He enlarged 
 the scale of his contributions, and that so prodigiously 
 that he absolutely carried to head-quarters a force of 
 35,000 cavalry fully equipped : some go further, and 
 rate the amount beyond 40,000 ; but the smaller esti- 
 mate is, at all events, loithin the truth. 
 
 With this magnificent array of cavalry, heavy as 
 well as light, the Khan went into the field under great 
 expectations ; and these he more than realised. Hav- 
 ing the good fortune to be concerned with so ill-organ- 
 ised and disorderly a description of force as that which 
 at all times composed the bulk of a Turkish army, he 
 carried victory along with his banners ; gained many 
 partial successes ; and at last, in a pitched battle, over- 
 threw the Turkish force opposed to him with a loss of 
 5,000 ^ men left upon the field. 
 
 These splendid achievements seemed likely to oper- 
 ate in various ways against the impending revolt. 
 Oubacha had now a strong motive, in the martial 
 glory acquired, for continuing his connexion with the 
 empire in whose service he had won it, and by whom 
 only it could be fully appreciated. He was now a 
 great marshal of a great empire, one of the Paladins^ 
 
 ^ This is, no doubt, an exaggeration ; but see prefatory note. 
 2 What is the original meaning of this word ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 21 
 
 around the imperial throne ; in China he would be 
 nobody, or (worse than that) a mendicant alien, pros- 
 trate at the feet, and soliciting the precarious alms, of 
 a prince with whom he had no connexion. Besides, 
 it might reasonably be expected that the Czarina, 
 grateful for the really efficient aid given by the Tartar 
 prince, would confer upon him such eminent rewards 
 as might be sufficient to anchor his hopes ftpon Russia, 
 and to wean him from every possible seduction. These 
 were the obvious suggestions of prudence and good 
 sense to every man who stood neutral in the case. 
 But they were disappointed. The Czarina knew her 
 obligations to the Khan, but she did not acknowledge 
 them.^ Wherefore ? That is a mystery, perhaps never 
 to be explained. So it was, however. The Khan 
 went unhonoured ; no ukase ever proclaimed his mer- 
 its ; and perhaps, had he even been abundantly recom- 
 pensed by Russia, there were others who would have 
 defeated these tendencies to reconciliation. Erempel, 
 Zebek, and Loosang the Lama, were pledged life-deep 
 to prevent any accommodation ; and their efforts were 
 unfortunately seconded by those of their deadliest 
 enemies. In the Russian Court there were at that 
 time some great nobles preoccupied with feelings of 
 hatred and blind malice towards the Kalmucks, quite 
 as strong as any which the Kalmucks could harbour 
 towards Russia, and not, perhaps, so well founded. 
 Just as mvich as the Kalmucks hated the Russian yoke, 
 their galling assumption of authority, the marked air 
 of disdain, as towards a nation of ugly, stupid, and 
 
 ^ Note how these short sentences delay the advancing narra- 
 tive ; as the long sentences explain, so these short ones empha- 
 size what is not to be explained. 
 
22 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 filthy ^ barbarians, which too generally marked the 
 Russian bearing and language, but, above all, the in- 
 solent contempt, or even outrages, which the Russian 
 governors or great military commandants tolerated 
 in their followers towards the barbarous religion and 
 superstitious mummeries of the Kalmuck priesthood — 
 precisely in that extent did the ferocity of the Russian 
 resentment, 'and their wrath at seeing the ti-ampled 
 worm turn or attempt a feeble retaliation, react upon 
 the unfortunate Kalmucks. At this crisis, it is proba- 
 ble that envy and wounded pride, upon witnessing the 
 splendid victories of Oubacha and Momotbaeha over 
 the Turks and Bashkirs,^ contributed strength to the 
 Russian irritation. And it must have been through the 
 intrigues of those nobles about her person who chiefly 
 smarted under these feelings that the Czarina covdd 
 ever have lent herself to the unwise and ungrateful 
 policy pursued at this critical period towards the Kal- 
 muck Khan. That Czarina was no longer Elizabeth 
 Petrowna; it was Catharine 11.^ — a princess who did 
 not often err so injuriously (injuriously for herself 
 as much as for others) in the measures of her govern- 
 ment. She had soon ample reason for rej)enting of 
 her false policy. Meantime, how much it must have 
 
 ^ An accurate characterization of the Torgod, no doubt ; but 
 one with which De Quincey is seldom, if ever, consistent. 
 
 ^ A Mongol-Finnish race, not unlike the Torgod in many re- 
 spects, inhabiting the plains adjoining the South Uralian Moun- 
 tains. They are Mohammedans, are still in great measure 
 nomadic, and are generally very poor and ignorant. 
 
 2 Elizabeth had been succeeded in 1762 by her nephew, Peter 
 III., who had reigned but a few months when he was dethroned 
 by a conspiracy of Russian nobles, headed by his German wife, 
 Catherine. She became Empress in his stead, and reigned from 
 1762 to 1796 as Catherine II. — Masson. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 23 
 
 co-operated with the other motives previously acting 
 upon Oubaeha in sustaining his determination to revolt, 
 and how powerfully it must have assisted the efforts 
 of all the Tartar chieftains in preparing the minds of 
 their people to feel the necessity of this difficult enter- 
 prise, by arming their pride and their suspicions against 
 the Russian government, through the keenness of their 
 sympathy with the wrongs of their insulted prince, 
 may be readily imagined. It is a fact, and it has been 
 confessed by candid Russians themselves, when treat- 
 inof of this areat dismemberment, that the conduct of 
 the Russian Cabinet throughout the period of suspense 
 and during the crisis of hesitation in the Kalmuck 
 Council was exactly such as was most desirable for the 
 purposes of the conspirators ; it was such, in fact, as 
 to set the seal to all their machinations, by supplying 
 distinct evidences and official vouchers for what could 
 otherwise have been, at the most, matters of doubtfid 
 suspicion and indirect presumption. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the face of all these arguments, 
 and even allowing their weight so far as not at all 
 to deny the injustice or the impolicy of the imperial 
 ministers, it Is contended by many persons who have 
 reviewed the affair with a command of all the docu- 
 ments bearing on the case, more especially the letters 
 or minutes of council subsequently discovered in the 
 handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, and the important evi- 
 dence of the Russian captive Weseloff, who was car- 
 ried off by the Kalmucks in their flight, that beyond 
 all doubt Oubaeha was powerless for any purpose of 
 impeding or even of delaying the revolt. He him- 
 self, indeed, was under religious obligations of the 
 most terrific solemnity never to flinch from the enter- 
 prise, or even to slacken in his zeal : for Zebek-Dorchi, 
 
24 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 distrusting the firmness of his resolution under any 
 unusual pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the 
 very earliest stage of the conspiracy, availed himself 
 of the Khan's well-known superstition to engage him, 
 by means of previous concert with the priests and 
 their head the Lama, in some dark and mysterious 
 rites of consecration, terminating in oaths under such 
 terrific sanctions as no Kalmuck would have courage 
 to violate. As far, therefore, as regarded the per- 
 sonal share of the Khan in what was to come, Zebek 
 was entirely at his ease ; he knew him to be so deeply 
 pledged by religious terrors to the prosecution of the 
 conspiracy that no honours within the Czarina's gift 
 could have possibly shaken his adhesion : and then, 
 as to threats from the same quarter, he knew him to 
 be sealed against those fears by others of a gloomier 
 character, and better adapted to his peculiar tempera- 
 ment. For Oubacha was a brave man as respected all 
 bodily enemies or the dangers of human warfare, but 
 was as sensitive and as timid as the most superstitious 
 of old women in facing the frowns of a priest, or 
 under the vague anticipations of ghostly retributions. 
 But, had it been otherwise, and had there been any 
 reason to apprehend an unsteady demeanour on the 
 part of this prince at the approach of the critical mo- 
 ment, such were the changes already effected in the 
 state of their domestic politics amongst the Tartars, 
 by the undermining arts of Zebek-Dorchi and his ally 
 the Lama, that very little importance would have 
 attached to that doubt. All power was now effectu- 
 ally lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. He was 
 the true and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck sceptre ; 
 all measures of importance were submitted to his dis- 
 cretion ; and nothing was finally resolved but under 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 25 
 
 his dictation. This result ^ he had brought about, in a 
 year or two, by means sufficiently simple : first of all, 
 by availing- himself of the prejudice in his favour, so 
 largely diffused amongst the lowest of the Kalmucks, 
 that his own title to the throne, in quality of great- 
 grandson in a direct line from Ajouka, the most illus- 
 trious of all the Kalmuck Khans, stood upon a better 
 basis than that of Oubacha, who derived from a col- 
 lateral branch ; secondly, with respect to that sole ad- 
 vantage which Oubacha possessed above himself in 
 the ratification of his title, by improving this difference 
 between their situations to the disadvantage of his 
 competitor, as one who had not scrupled to accept that 
 triumph from an alien power at the price of his inde- 
 pendence which he himself (as he would have it 
 understood) disdained to court ; thirdly, by his own 
 talents and address, coupled' with the ferocious energy 
 of his moral character ; fourthly — and perhaps in 
 an equal degree — by the criminal facility and good 
 nature of Oubacha ; finally (which is remarkable 
 enough, as illustrating the character of the man), by 
 that very new modelling of the Sarga or Privy Coun- 
 cil which he had used as a principal topic of abuse 
 and malicious insinuation against the Russian Govern- 
 ment, whilst, in reality, he first had suggested the alter- 
 ation to the Empress, and he chiefly ap^jropriated the 
 political advantages which it was fitted to yield. For, 
 as he was himself appointed the chief of the Sar- 
 gatchi, and as the pensions to the inferior Sargatchi 
 passed through his hands, whilst in effect they owed 
 their appointments to his nomination, it may be easily 
 supposed that, whatever power existed in the state 
 
 1 Note the unusual length of these two sentences, which really 
 make one ; and the uses to which they are put. 
 
26 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 capable of controlling- the Khan being held by the 
 Sarga under its new organisation, and this body being 
 completely under his influence, the final result was to 
 throw all the functions of the state, whether nominally 
 in the prince or in the council, substantially into the 
 hands of this one man ; whilst, at the same time, from 
 the strict league which he maintained with the Lama, 
 all the thunders of the spiritual power were always 
 ready to come in aid of the magistrate, or to sujjply 
 his incapacity in cases which he could not reach. 
 
 But the time was now rapidly approaching for the 
 mighty experiment. The day was drawing near on 
 which the signal was to be given for raising the stand- 
 ard of revolt, and by a combined movement on both 
 sides of the Wolga for ^ spreading the smoke of one 
 vast conflagration, that should wrap in a common 
 blaze their own huts and the stately cities of their 
 enemies, over the breadth and length of those great 
 provinces in which their flocks were dispersed. The 
 year of the tiger was now within one little month of its 
 commencement ; the fifth morning of that year was 
 fixed for the fatal day when the fortunes and happiness 
 of a whole nation were to be put upon the hazard of 
 a dicer's throw ; and as yet that nation was in profound 
 ignorance of the whole plan. The Khan, sucli was 
 the kindness of his nature, could not bring himself 
 to make the revelation so urgently required. It was 
 clear, however, that this could not be dela^'ed ; and 
 Zebek-Dorchi took the task willingly upon himself. 
 But where or how should this notification be made, 
 so as to exclude Russian hearers? After some de- 
 liberation, the following plan was adopted : — Cou- 
 riers, it was contrived, should arrive in furious haste, 
 
 ^ Are not the words " by . . . Wolga " strangely placed ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 27 
 
 one upon the heels of another, reporting a sudden 
 inroad of the Kirghises ^ and Bashkirs upon the Kal- 
 muck lands, at a point distant about 120 miles. Thither 
 all the Kalmuck families, ac(!ording to immemorial 
 custom, were required to send a separate representa- 
 tive ; and there accordingly, within three days, all 
 appeared. The distance, the solitary ground appointed 
 for the rendezvous, the rapidity of the march, all 
 tended to make it almost certain that no Eussian could 
 he present. Zebek-Dorchi then came forward. He 
 did not waste many words upon rhetoric. He unfurled 
 an immense sheet of parchment, visible from the utter- 
 most distance at which any of this vast crowd could 
 stand ; the total number amounted to 80,000 ; all saw, 
 and many heard. They were told of the ojjpressions 
 of Russia ; of her pride and haughty disdain evidenced 
 towards them by a thousand acts ; of her contempt 
 for their religion ; of her determination to reduce them 
 to absolute slavery ; of the pi-eliminary measures she 
 had already taken by erecting forts upon many of the 
 great rivers in their neighbourhood ; of the ulterior 
 intentions she thus announced to circumscribe their 
 pastoral lands, until they would all be obliged to 
 renounce their flocks, and to collect in towns like 
 Sarepta,^ there to pursue mechanical and servile trades 
 of shoemaker, tailor, and weaver, such as the f reeborn 
 
 ^ A Mongol race who occupied the stejipes eastward from the 
 Ural to Lake Balkhash, and were therefore neighbors of the 
 Bashkirs and the Torgod. Their religion is a compound of 
 Mohammedanism and idolatry ; they are still in habits largely 
 nomadic, and in character cruel and vindictive. To this race 
 the Cossacks (Kirghiz-Kazaks) are thought to belong. 
 
 ^ A town of industrious German rftechanics on the northern 
 edge of the Torgod camping-grounds. 
 
28 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 Tartar had always disdained. " Then again," said the 
 subtle prince,^ " she increases her military levies upon 
 our population every year ; we pour out our blood as 
 young- men in her defence, or more often in support 
 of her insolent aggressions ; and as old men we reap 
 nothing from our sufferings, nor benefit by our sur- 
 vivorship where so many are sacrificed." At this 
 point of his harangue, Zebek produced several j)apers 
 (forged, as it is generally believed, by himself and the 
 Lama), containing projects of the Russian court for 
 a general transfer of the eldest sons, taken en masse 
 from the greatest Kalmuck families, to the imperial 
 court. " Now let this be once accomplished," he 
 argued, " and there is an end of all useful resistance 
 from that day forwards. Petitions we might make, 
 or even remonstrances ; as men of words we might 
 play a bold part ; but for deeds, for that sort of lan- 
 guage by which our ancestors were used to speak — 
 holding us by such a chain, Russia would make a jest 
 of our wishes, knowing full well that we should not 
 dare to make any effectual movement." 
 
 Having thus sufficiently roused the angry passions 
 of his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears 
 by this pretended scheme against their firstborn (an 
 artifice which was indispensable to his purpose, be- 
 cause it met beforehand every form of amendment to 
 his proposal coming from the more moderate nobles, 
 who would not otherwise have failed to insist upon 
 trying the effect of bold addresses to the Empress 
 before resorting to any desperate extremity), Zebek- 
 Dorchi opened his scheme of revolt, and, if so, of 
 
 ^ Observe Zebek's appeal to the Kalmuck nationalism. Cite 
 classical instances of speeches put by authors into the mouths of 
 their generals. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 29 
 
 instant revolt ; since any preparations reported at St. 
 Petersburg would be a signal for the armies of Russia 
 to cross into such positions from all parts of Asia as 
 would effectually intercept their march. It is remark- 
 able, howev^er, that, with all his audacity and his 
 reliance upon the momentary excitement of the Kal- 
 mucks, the subtle prince did not venture, at this stage 
 of his seduction, to make so startling a proposal as 
 that of a flight to China. All that he held out for the 
 present was a rapid march to the Temba^ or some 
 other great river, which they were to cross, and to 
 take up a strong position on the farther bank, from 
 which, as from a post of conscious security, they could 
 hold a bolder language to the Czarina, and one which 
 would have a better chance of winning a favourable 
 audience. 
 
 These things, in the irritated condition of the sim- 
 ple Tartars, passed by acclamation ; and all returned 
 homewards to push forward with the most furious 
 speed the preparations for their awful undertaking. 
 Rapid and energetic these of necessity were ; and in 
 that degree they became noticeable and manifest to 
 the Russians who happened to be intermingled with 
 the different hordes, either on commercial errands, or 
 as agents officially from the Russian Government, 
 some in a financial, others in a diplomatic character.^ 
 
 Amongst these last (indeed at the head of them) 
 was a Russian of some distinction, by name Kichin- 
 skoi, a man memorable for his vanity, and memorable 
 also as one of the many victims to the Tartar revolu- 
 
 ' The Emba (Temba is an error) runs through the Kirghiz 
 territory to the Gulf of Emba at the northeast extremity of the 
 Caspian Sea. 
 
 2 A good example of the brief transitional paragraph. 
 
30 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 tion. This Kicliinskoi had been sent by the Empress 
 as her envoy to overlook the conduct of the Kahnucks ; 
 he was styled the Grand Pristaw, or Great Commis- 
 sioner, and was universally known amongst the Tartar 
 tribes by this title. His mixed character of ambas- 
 sador and of political surveillant} combined with the 
 depetident state of the Kalmucks, gave him a real 
 weight in the Tartar councils, and might have given 
 him a far greater, had not his outrageous self-conceit 
 and his arrogant confidence in his own authority, as 
 due chiefly to his personal qualities for command, led 
 him into such harsh displays of power, and menaces 
 so odious to the Tartar pride, as very soon made him an 
 object of their profoundest malice.^ He had publicly 
 insulted the Khan ; and, upon making a communica- 
 tion to him to the effect that some reports began to 
 circulate, and even to reach the Empress, of a design 
 in agitation to fly from the imperial dominions, he had 
 ventured to say, " But this you dare not attempt ; I 
 laugh at such rumours ; yes, Khan, I laugh at them to 
 the Empress ; for you are a chained bear, and that you 
 know." The Khan turned away on his heel with marked 
 disdain ; and the Pristaw, foaming at the mouth, con- 
 tinued to utter, amongst those of the Khan's attendants 
 who staid behind to catch his real sentiments in a mo- 
 ment of unguarded passion, all that the blindest frenzy 
 of rage could suggest to the most presumptuous of 
 
 ^ Overseer ; cf. surveillance, p. 8. De Quiucey treats both 
 words as foreign words ; should we do so now ? 
 
 2 It is worth notice that De Quincey's characters are all 
 rather conventional types : we have had the brave but unsuspect- 
 ing prince, and the wily, unscrupulous and revengeful rival ; now 
 appears the haughty official, blinded by his own conceit. \^e 
 shall get no really original characters from De Quiucey, though 
 we may get entirely imaginary ones. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 31 
 
 fools. It was now ascertained that suspicions had 
 arisen ; but at the same time it was ascertained that 
 the Pristaw spoke no more than the truth in represent- 
 ing himself to have discredited these suspicions. The 
 fact was that the mere infatuation of vanity made him 
 believe that nothing could go on undetected by his all- 
 piercing sagacity, and that no rebellion could prosper 
 when rebuked by his commanding presence. The 
 Tartars, therefore, pursued their preparations, confiding 
 in the obstinate blindness of the Grand Pristaw as in 
 their perfect safeguard ; and such it proved — to his 
 own ruin as well as that of myriads besides. 
 
 Christmas arrived ; and a little before that time 
 courier upon courier came dropping in, one upon the 
 very heels of another, to St. Petersburg, assuring the 
 Czarina that beyond all doubt the Kalmucks were in 
 the very crisis of departure. These despatches came 
 from the Governor of Astrachan, and copies were in- 
 stantly forwarded to Kichinskoi. Now, it happened 
 that between this governor — a Russian named Beke- 
 toff — and the Pristaw had been an ancient feud.^ The 
 very name of Beketoff inflamed his resentment ; and 
 no sooner did he see that hated name attached to the 
 despatch than he felt himself confirmed in his former 
 views with tenfold bigotry, and wrote instantly, in 
 terms of the most pointed ridicule, against the new 
 alarmist, pledging his own head upon the visionariness 
 of his alarms. Beketoff, however, was not to be put 
 down by a few hard words, or by ridicule : he per- 
 sisted^ in his statements ; the Russian ministry were 
 confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants ; and 
 some were beginning even to treat the Governor of 
 Astrachan as a bore, and as the dupe of his own 
 1 This fend is of De Quincey's making. 
 
32 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 nervous terrors, when the memorable day arrived, the 
 fatal 5th of January, which for ever terminated the 
 dispute, and put a seal upon the earthly hopes and 
 fortunes of unnumbered myriads. The Governor of 
 Astrachan was the first to hear the news. Stung by 
 the mixed furies of jealousy, of triumphant vengeance, 
 and of anxious ambition, he sprang into his sledge, 
 and, at the rate of 300 miles a day, pursued his route 
 to St. Petersburg — rushed into the Imperial presence 
 — announced the total realisation of his worst pre- 
 dictions ; and, upon the confirmation of this intelligence 
 by subsequent despatches from many different posts 
 on the Wolga, he received an imperial commission to 
 seize the person of his deluded enemy, and to keep 
 him in strict caj^tivity. These orders were eagerly 
 fulfilled ; and the unfortunate Kichinskoi soon after- 
 wards expired of grief and mortification in the gloomy 
 solitude of a dungeon — a victim to his own immeasur- 
 able vanity, and the blinding self-delusions of a pre- 
 sumption that refused all warning. 
 
 The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faith- 
 ful a prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at the 
 suddenness 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 squadrons, and in the tumultuous move- 
 ment of some great morning of battle.^ Tens of 
 thousands continued moving off the groiaid at every 
 half-hour's interval. Women and children, to the 
 amount of two hundred thousand and upwards, were 
 
 ^ Observe the harmony of sound and sense. Why is " great ' 
 prefixed to " morning" instead of to "battle " ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 33 
 
 placed upon waggons, or upon camels, and 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 
 were the best mounted staid behind the rest of the 
 tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more 
 violent than prudence justified, or the amiable char- 
 acter of the Khan could be supposed to approve. But 
 in this, as in other instances, he was completely over- 
 ruled by the malignant counsels of Zebek - Dorchi. 
 The first tempest of the desolating fury of the Tar- 
 tars 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 the chieftains that even 
 Oubacha himself was the first to authorise the act 
 by his own example. He seized a torch previously 
 prepared with materials the most durable as well as 
 combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers ^ of 
 his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general 
 wreck except the portable part of the domestic uten- 
 sils, and that part of the wood-work which could be 
 applied to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. 
 This chapter in their memorable day's work being 
 finished, and the whole of their villages^ through- 
 out a district of ten thousand square miles in one 
 simultaneous blaze, the Tartars waited for further 
 orders. 
 
 These, it was intended, should have taken a char- 
 acter of valedictory vengeance, and thus have left 
 
 1 De Quincey forgets, in his creative fervor, tliat the Torgocl 
 lived only in tents. 
 
34 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 behind to the Czarina a dreadful commentary upon 
 the main motives of their flight. It was the purpose 
 of Zebek-Dorchi that all the Russian towns, churches, 
 and buildings of every description, should be given up 
 to pillage and destruction, and such treatment applied 
 to the defenceless inhabitants as might naturally be 
 expected from a fierce people already infuriated by 
 the spectacle of their own outrages, and by the bloody 
 retaliations which they must necessarily have pro- 
 voked. This part of the tragedy, however, was hap- 
 pily intercepted by a providential disappointment at 
 the very crisis of departure. It has been mentioned 
 already that the motive for selecting the depth of 
 winter as the season of flight (which otherwise was 
 obviously the very worst possible) had been the impos- 
 sibility of effecting a junction sufficiently rapid with 
 the tribes on the west of the Wolga, in the absence 
 of bridges, unless by a natural bridge of ice. For this 
 one advantage, the Kalmuck leaders had consented to 
 aggravate by a thousandfold the calamities inevitable 
 to a rapid flight over boundless tracts of country, with 
 women, children, and herds of cattle — for this one 
 single advantage ; and yet, after all, it was lost. The 
 reason never has been explained satisfactorily, but the 
 fact was such. Some have said that the signals were 
 not properly concerted for marking the moment of ab- 
 solute departure — that is, for signifying whether the 
 settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks might not 
 have been suddenly interrupted by adverse intelligence. 
 Others have supposed that the ice might not be equally 
 strong on both sides of the river, and might even be 
 generally insecure for the treading of heavy and heav- 
 ily-laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing 
 notion is that some accidental movements on the 3d 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 35 
 
 and 4th of January of Russian troops in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Western Kahnucks, though really 
 having no reference to them or their plans, had been 
 construed into certain signs that all was discovered ; 
 and that the prudence of the Western chieftains, who, 
 from situation, had never been exposed to those in- 
 trigues by which Zebek-Dorchi had practised upon the 
 pride of the Eastern tribes, now stepped in to save 
 their people from ruin. Be the cause what it might, 
 it is certain tliat the Western Kalmucks were in some 
 way prevented from forming the intended junction 
 with their brethren of the opposite bank ; and the 
 result was that at least one hundred thousand of these 
 Tartars were left behind in Russia. This accident it 
 was which saved their Russian neighbours universally 
 from the desolation which else awaited them. One 
 general massacre and conflagration would assuredly 
 have surprised them, to the utter extermination of 
 their property, their houses, and themselves, had it not 
 been for this disappointment. But the Eastern chief- 
 tains did not dare to put to hazard the safety of their 
 brethren under the first impulse of the Czarina's ven- 
 geance for so dreadful a tragedy ; for, as they were 
 well aware of too many circumstances by which she 
 might discover the concurrence of the Western people 
 in the general scheme of revolt, they justly feared 
 that she would thence infer their concurrence also in 
 the bloody events which marked its outset. 
 
 Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what rea- 
 sons they also had for gratitude on account of an 
 interposition so unexpected, and which at the mo- 
 ment they so generally deplored. Could they but 
 have witnessed the thousandth part of the sufferings 
 which overtook their Eastern brethren in the first 
 
36 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 month of their sad flight, they would have blessed 
 Heaven for their own narrow escape ; and yet these 
 sufferings of the first month were but a prelude or 
 foretaste comparatively slight of those which after- 
 wards succeeded. 
 
 For now began to unroll the most awfid series of 
 calamities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere 
 recorded to have visited the sons and daughters of 
 men. It is possible that the sudden inroads of de- 
 stroying nations, such as the Huns,^ or tlie Avars, 
 or the Mongol Tartars, may have inflicted misery as 
 extensive ; but there the misery and the desolation 
 would be sudden, like the flight of volleying light- 
 ning. Those who were spared at first would gener- 
 ally be spared to the end ; those who perished at all 
 would perish at once. It is possible that the French 
 retreat^ from Moscow may have made some nearer 
 approach to this calamity in duration, though still a 
 feeble and miniature approach ; for the French suf- 
 ferings did not commence in good earnest until about 
 one month from the time of leaving Moscow; and 
 thouofh it is true that afterwards the vials of wrath 
 were emptied upon the devoted army for six or seven 
 weeks in succession, yet what is that to this Kalmuck 
 
 1 The Turanian Huns broke into Europe from beyond the 
 Caspian about 375 ; they were fierce and brutal nomads, and 
 they forced westward the Germanic people they encountered. 
 The Avars, also a Turanian race, and of like character, de- 
 scended two centuries later upon the Slavonic peoples and forced 
 them, some towards the Baltic, and others towards the Adriatic. 
 The great Mongol inroads of the thirteenth century and later, 
 though equally devastating and quite as successful, had little 
 permanent effect upon Europe ; the Mongols kept Russia tribu- 
 tary for a while and deposited there fragments of their hordes. 
 
 ^ See page 6, note 1. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 37 
 
 tragedy, which lasted for more than as many mouths ? 
 But the main feature of horror by which the Tartar 
 march was distinguished from the Fi-ench lies in the 
 accompaniment of women ^ and children. There were 
 both, it is true, with the French army, but not so 
 many as to bear any marked proportion to the total 
 numbers concerned. The French, in short, were 
 merely an army — a host of professional destroyers, 
 whose regular trade was bloodshed and whose regular 
 element was danger and suffering. But the Tartars 
 were a nation carrying along with them more than 
 two hundred and fifty thousand women and children, 
 utterly unequal, for the most part, to any contest with 
 the calamities before them.^ The Children of Israel 
 were in the same circumstances as to the accompani- 
 ment of their families ; but they were released from 
 the pursuit of their enemies in a very early stage of 
 their flight ; and their subsequent residence in the 
 Desert was not a march, but a continued halt, and un- 
 der a continued interposition of Heaven for their com- 
 fortable support. Earthquakes, again, however com- 
 prehensive in their ravages, are shocks of a moment's 
 duration. A much nearer approach made to the wide 
 range and the long duration of the Kalmuck tragedy 
 may have been in a pestilence such as that which 
 
 ^ Singular it is, and not generally known, tliat Grecian women 
 accompanied the anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the sub- 
 sequent Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that 
 there were " many " women in the Greek army — iroWal ?i(Tav 
 eratpai iv rtf ffTparevfiari ; and in a late stage of that trying ex- 
 pedition it is evident that women were amongst the survivors. 
 — De Quincey's Note. 
 
 ^ In this comparison of the Torgod flight with the French re- 
 treat, De Quincey neglects the important point that the Torgod 
 was a nomadic tribe, the French a highly civilized people. 
 
38 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 visited Athens ^ in the Peloponnesian War, or Lon- 
 don^ in the reign of Charles II. There also the 
 martyrs were counted by myriads, and the period of 
 the desolation was counted by months. But, after 
 all, the total amount of destruction was on a smaller 
 scale ; and there was this feature of alleviation to the 
 conscious pressure of the calamity — that the mis- 
 ery was withdrawn from public notice into private 
 chambers and hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem ^ by 
 Vespasian and his son, taken in its entire circum- 
 stances, comes nearest of all — for breadth and depth 
 of suffering, for duration, for the exasperation of the 
 suffering from without by internal feuds, and, finally, 
 for that last most appalling expression of the furnace- 
 heat of the anguish in its power to extinguish the nat- 
 ural affections even of maternal love. But, after all, 
 each case had circumstances of romantic misery pecul- 
 iar to itself — circumstances without precedent, and 
 (wherever human nature is ennobled by Christianity), 
 it may be confidently hoped, never to be repeated. 
 
 The first point to be reached, before any hope of 
 repose could be encouraged, was the river Jaik.* This 
 
 1 430 B. c. " The dead lay as they had died, one upon 
 another ; while others, hardly alive, wallowed in the streets, 
 and crawled about every fountain, craving for water." — Thucy- 
 dides, book ii. chap. 52. 
 
 - The Great Plague of 1665 of which Defoe wrote his famous 
 "History." 
 
 3 A. D. 70. The contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus, 
 claims that 1,100,000 people perished. 
 
 * Now called the Ural. This paragraph, in which De Qiiineey 
 reviews the march from the point of view of dramatic develop- 
 ment, before recounting it, bears the same relation to what fol- 
 lows that the first three paragraphs bear to the whole. De 
 Quincey is careful lest, in noting the details, we lose the whole 
 picture. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 39 
 
 was not above 300 miles from the main point of de- 
 parture on the Wolga ; and, if the march thither was 
 to be a forced one, and a severe one, it was alleged, 
 on the other hand, that the suffering would be the 
 more brief and transient ; one summary exertion, not 
 to be repeated, and all was achieved. Forced the 
 march was, and severe beyond example : there the 
 forewarning proved correct ; but the promised rest 
 proved a mere phantom of the wilderness — a vision- 
 ary rainbow, which fled before their hope-sick eyes, 
 across these interminable solitudes, for seven months 
 of hardship and calamity, without a pause. These 
 sufferings, by their very nature, and the circumstances 
 under which they arose, were (like the scenery of the 
 steppes) somewhat monotonous in their colouring and 
 external features ; what variety, however, there was 
 will be most naturally exhibited by tracing histori- 
 cally the successive stages of the general misery, ex- 
 actly as it unfolded itself under the double agency of 
 weakness still increasing from within and hostile pres- 
 sure from without. Viewed in this manner, under the 
 real order of development, it is remarkable that these 
 sufferings of the Tartars, though under the moulding 
 hands of accident, arrange themselves almost with a 
 scenical propriety. They seem combined as with the 
 skill of an artist ; the intensity of the misery advan- 
 cing regularly with the advances of the mai'ch, and 
 the stages of the calamity corresponding to the stages 
 of the route ; so that, upon raising the curtain which 
 veils the great catastrophe, we behold one vast climax 
 of anguish, towering upwards by regular gradations, 
 as if constructed artificially for picturesque effect — 
 a result which might not have been surprising had it 
 been reasonable to anticipate the same rate of speed, 
 
40 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 and even an accelerated rate, as prevailing tlirough 
 the later stages of the expedition. But it seemed, 
 on the contrary, most reasonable to calculate upon a 
 continual decrement in the rate of motion according 
 to the increasing distance from the head-quarters of 
 the pursuing enemy. This calculation, however, was 
 defeated by the extraordinary circumstance that the 
 Russian armies did not begin to close in very fiercely 
 upon the Kalmucks until after they had accomplished 
 a distance of full 2000 miles : 1000 miles farther on 
 the assaults became even more tumultuous and mur- 
 derous : and already the great shadows of the Chi- 
 nese Wall were dimly descried when the frenzy and 
 acharnement ^ of the pursuers, and the bloody despera- 
 tion of the miserable fugitives, had reached its utter- 
 most extremity. Let us briefly rehearse the main 
 stages of the misery, and trace the ascending steps of 
 the tragedy, according to the great divisions of the 
 route marked out by the central rivers of Asia. 
 
 The first stage, we have already said, was from the 
 Wolga to the Jaik ; the distance about 300 miles ; 
 the time allowed seven days. For the first week, 
 therefore, the rate of marching averaged about 43 
 English miles a day. The weather was cold, but 
 bracing ; and, at a more moderate pace, this part of 
 the journey might have been accomplished without 
 much distress by a people as hardy as the Kalmucks : 
 as it was, the cattle suffered greatly fi^om over-driving ; 
 milk began to fail even for the children ; the sheep 
 perished by wholesale ; and the children themselves 
 were saved only by the innumerable camels. 
 
 The Cossacks^ who dwelt upon the banks of the 
 
 ^ Is there good reason for using this word ? 
 
 2 Cf. page 27, note 1. They are best known througli their 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 41 
 
 Jaik were the first among the subjects of Russia to 
 come mto collision with the Kalmucks. Great was 
 their surprise at the suddenness of the irruption, and 
 great also their consternation ; for, according to their 
 settled custom, by far the greater part of their number 
 was absent during the winter months at the fisheries 
 upon the Caspian. Some who were liable to surprise 
 at the most exposed points fled in crowds to the for- 
 tress of Koulagina, which was immediately invested 
 and summoned by Oubacha. He had, however, in 
 his train only a few light pieces of artillery ; and the 
 Russian commandant at Koulagina, being aware of 
 the hurried circumstances in which the Khan was 
 placed, and that he stood upon the very edge, as it 
 were, of a renewed flight, felt encouraged by these 
 considerations to a more obstinate resistance than 
 might else have been advisable, with an enemy so 
 little disposed to observe the usages of civilised war- 
 fare. The period of his anxiety was not long : on the 
 fifth day of the siege he descried from the walls a suc- 
 cession of Tartar couriers, mounted upon fleet Bactrian 
 camels, crossing the vast plains around the fortress at 
 a furious pace, and riding into the Kalmuck encamj)- 
 ment at various points. Great agitation appeared 
 immediately to follow : orders were soon after de- 
 spatched in all directions ; and it became speedily 
 known that upon a distant flank of the Kalmuck 
 movement a bloody and exterminating battle had 
 been fought the day before, in which one entire tribe 
 of the Khan's dependants, numbering not less than 
 9000 fighting men, had perished to the last man. 
 
 service as Russian cavalry. These five paragraphs, including 
 the destruction of the clan, spring almost entirely from De 
 Quincey's imagination. 
 
42 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 This was the ouloss, or clan, called Feka-Zechorr, 
 between whom and the Cossacks there was a feud of 
 ancient standing. In selecting, therefore, the points 
 of attack, on occasion of the present hasty inroad, the 
 Cossack chiefs were naturally eager so to direct their 
 efforts as to combine with the service of the Empress 
 some gratification to their own party hatreds : more 
 especially as the present was likely to be their final 
 opportunity for revenge, if the Kalmuck evasion should 
 prosper. Having, therefore, concentrated as large a 
 body of Cossack cavalry as circumstances allowed, 
 they attacked the hostile ovloss with a precipitation 
 which denied to it all means for communicating with 
 Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding an ample 
 range of pasturage, to meet the necessities of their 
 vast flocks and herds, had separated this otdoss from 
 the Khan's head-quarters by an interval of 80 miles ; 
 and thus it was, and not from oversight, that it came 
 to be thrown entirely upon its own resources. These 
 had proved insufficient : retreat, from the exhausted 
 state of their horses and camels, no less than from the 
 prodigious encumbrances of their live stock, was ab- 
 solutely out of the question : quarter was disdained on 
 the one side, and would not have been granted on the 
 other : and thus it had happened that the setting sun 
 of that one day (the thirteenth from the first opening 
 of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon the final 
 agonies of an ancient oidoss, sti-etched upon a bloody 
 field, who on that day's dawning had held and styled 
 themselves an independent nation. 
 
 Universal consternation was diffused through the 
 wide borders of the Khan's encampment by this dis- 
 astrous intelligence ; not so much on account of the 
 numbers slain, or the total extinction of a powerful 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 43 
 
 ally, as because the position of the Cossack force was 
 likely to put to hazard the future advances of the 
 Kalmucks, or at least to retard and hold them in 
 check until the heavier columns of the Russian army 
 should arrive upon their flanks. The siege of Koula- 
 gina was instantly raised ; and that signal, so fatal to 
 the happiness of the women and their children, once 
 again resounded through the tents — the signal for 
 flight, and this time for a flight more rapid than ever. 
 About 150 miles ahead of their present position there 
 arose a tract of hilly country, forming a sort of mar- 
 gin to the vast sea-like expanse of champaign savan- 
 nahs, steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which 
 stretched away on each side of this margin both east- 
 wards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the centre of 
 this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which 
 passed the nearest and the most practicable route to 
 the River Torgai ^ (the farther bank of which river 
 offered the next great station of security for a general 
 halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass 
 before the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only would the 
 delay in forcing the pass give time to the Russian 
 pursuing columns for combining their attacks, and for 
 bringing up their artillery, but also because (even if 
 all enemies in pursuit were thrown out of the question) 
 it was held by those best acquainted with the difficult 
 and obscure geography of these pathless steppes — that 
 the loss of this one narrow strait amongst the hills 
 would have the effect of throwing them (as their only 
 alternative in a case where so wide a sweep of pastur- 
 age was required) upon a circuit of at least 500 miles 
 
 ^ The River Turgai can best be located by the town Tiirgai, 
 which is again in the district of the same name ; the town is 
 iicrth of the Aral Sea and near the 50th parallel. 
 
44 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 extra ; besides that, after all, this circuitous route 
 would carry them to the Torgai at a point ill fitted 
 for the passage of their heavy baggage. The defile 
 in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain ; and 
 yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of 
 light cavalry, there was little chance but it would be 
 found preoccupied by the Cossacks. They also, it is 
 true, had suffered greatly in the bloody action with 
 the defeated ouloss ; but the excitement of victory, 
 and the intense sympathy with their unexampled tri- 
 umph, had again swelled their ranks, and would prob- 
 ably act with the force of a vortex to draw in their 
 simple countrymen from the Caspian. The question, 
 therefore, of preoccupation was reduced to a race. 
 The Cossacks were marching upon an oblique line not 
 above 50 miles longer than that which led to the same 
 point from the Kalmuck head-quarters before Koula- 
 gina ; and therefore, without the most furious haste 
 on the part of the Kalmucks, there was not a chance 
 for them, burdened and " trashed " ^ as they were, to 
 anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the Cossacks in 
 seizing this important pass. 
 
 Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on 
 hearing this exposition of the case. For they easily 
 understood that too capital an interest (the summa 
 rerum ^) was now at stake, to allow of any regard 
 to minor interests, or what could be considered such 
 in their present circumstances. The dreadful week 
 
 1 " Trashed : " — This is an expressive word used by Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher in their Bonduca, etc., to describe the case 
 of a person retarded and embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by 
 some encumbrance, whether thing or person, too valuable to be 
 left behind. — De Quincey's Note. Originally a " trash " was 
 a clog or weight about the neck, used to restrain a hunting-dog. 
 
 2 Is anything gained by this phrase ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 45 
 
 already passed — their inauguration in misery — was 
 yet fresh in their remembrance. The scars of suffer- 
 ing were impi-essed not only upon their memories, but 
 upon their very persons and the persons of their chil- 
 dren. And they knew that, where no speed had much 
 chance of meeting the cravings of the chieftains, no 
 test would be accepted, short of absolute exhaustion, 
 that as much had been accomplished as could have been 
 accomplished. Weseloff, the Russian captive, has re- 
 corded the silent wretchedness with which the women 
 and elder boys assisted in drawing the tent-ropes. On 
 the 5th of Januaiy all had been animation and the 
 joyousness of indefinite expectation ; now, on the con- 
 trary, a brief but bitter experience had taught them to 
 take an amended calculation of what it was that lay 
 before them. 
 
 One whole day and far into the succeeding night 
 had the renewed flight continued ; the sufferings had 
 been greater tlian before ; for the cold had been more 
 intense ; and many perished out of the living creatures 
 through every class, except only the camels, whose 
 powers of endurance seemed equally adapted to cold 
 and to heat. The second morning, however, brought 
 an alleviation to the distress. Snow had begun to fall ; 
 and, though not deep at present, it was easily foreseen 
 that it soon would be so ; and that, as a halt would in 
 that case become unavoidable, no plan could be better 
 than that of staying where they were ; especially as 
 the same cause would check the advance of the Cos- 
 sacks. Here then was the last interval of comfort 
 which gleamed upon the luihappy nation during their 
 whole migration. For ten days the snow continued 
 to fall with little intermission. At the end of that time 
 keen, bright, frosty weather succeeded ; the drifting 
 
46 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 had ceased ; in three days the smooth expanse became 
 firm enough to support the treading of the camels ; 
 and the flight was recommenced. But during the halt 
 much domestic comfort had been enjoyed, and for the 
 last time universal plenty. The cows and oxen had 
 perished in such vast numbers on the previous marclies 
 that an order was now issued to turn what remained to 
 account by slaughtering the whole, and salting what- 
 ever part should be found to exceed the immediate 
 consumption. This measure led to a scene of general 
 banqueting and even of festivity amongst all who were 
 not incapacitated for joyous emotions by distress of 
 mind, by grief for the unhappy experience of the few 
 last days, and by anxiety for the too gloomy future. 
 Seventy thousand persons of all ages had already per- 
 ished, exclusively of the many thousand allies who 
 had been cut down by the Cossack sabre. And the 
 losses in reversion were likely to be many more. For 
 rumours began now to arrive from all quarters, by the 
 mounted couriers whom the Khan had despatched to 
 the rear and to each flank as well as in advance, that 
 large masses of the imperial troops were converging 
 from all parts of Central Asia to the fords of the River 
 Torgai, as the most convenient point for intercepting 
 the flying tribes ; and it was by this time well known 
 that a powerful division was close in their rear, and 
 was retarded only by the numerous artillery which 
 had been judged necessary to support their operations. 
 New motives were thus daily arising for quickening 
 the motions of the wretched Kalmucks, and for ex- 
 hausting those who were already but too much 
 exhausted. 
 
 It was not until the 2d day of February that the 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 47 
 
 Khan's advanced guard came in sight of Ouchini,^ the 
 defile among the liills of Mougaldchares/ in whicli they 
 anticipated so bloody an oj)position from the Cossacks. 
 A pretty large body of these light cavalry had, in 
 fact, preoccupied the pass by some hours ; but the 
 Khan having two great advantages — namely, a strong- 
 body of infantry, who had been conveyed by sections 
 of five on about 200 camels, and some pieces of light 
 artillery wl^ich he had not yet been forced to abandon 
 — soon began to make a serious impression upon this 
 unsupported detachment ; and they would probably at 
 any rate have retired ; but at the very moment when 
 they were making some dispositions in that view Zebek- 
 Dorchi appeared upon their rear with a body of trained 
 riflemen, who had distinguished themselves in the war 
 with Turkey. These men had contrived to crawl unob- 
 served over the cliffs which skirted the ravine, availing 
 themselves of the dry beds of the summer torrents, and 
 other inequalities of the ground, to conceal their move- 
 ment. Disorder and trepidation ensued instantly in 
 the Cossack files ; the Khan, who had been waiting 
 with the elite of his heavy cavalry, charged furiously 
 upon them ; total overthrow followed to the Cossacks, 
 and a slaus^hter such as in some measure aven":ed the 
 recent bloody extermination of their allies, the ancient 
 ouloss of Feka-Zechorr. The slight horses of the 
 Cossacks were unable to support the weight of heavy 
 Polish dragoons and a body of trained cameleers (that 
 is, cuirassiers mounted on camels) ; hardy they were, 
 but not strong, nor a match for their antagonists in 
 weight; and their extraordinary efforts through the 
 last few days to gain their present position had greatly 
 
 ^ Ouchim is not given on modern maps. The Mugodschar 
 mountains extend from the Ural chain towards the Aral Sea. 
 
48 DE QUINCE r. 
 
 diminished their powers for effecting an escape. Very- 
 few, in fact, did escape ; and the bloody day at 
 Ouchim became as memorable amongst the Cossacks 
 as that which, about twenty days before, had signal- 
 ised the complete annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr. 
 
 The road was now open to the river Irgitch,^ and as 
 yet even far beyond it to the Torgau ; but how long 
 this state of things would continue was every day 
 more doubtful. Certain intelligence was now received 
 that a lai'ge Russian army, Avell appointed in every 
 arm, was advancing upon the Torgau, under the com- 
 mand of General Ti-aubenberg. This officer was to 
 be joined on his route by ten thousand Bashkirs and 
 pretty nearly the same amount of Kirghises — both 
 hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks, both exasperated 
 to a point of madness by the bloody trophies which 
 Oubacha and Momotbacha had, in late years, won from 
 such of their compatriots as served under the Sultan. 
 The Czarina's yoke these wild nations bore with sub- 
 missive patience, but not the hands by which it had 
 been imposed ; and, accordingly, catching with eager- 
 ness at the present occasion offered to their vengeance, 
 they sent an assurance to the Czarina of their perfect 
 obedience to her commands, and at the same time a 
 message significantly declaring in what spirit they 
 meant to execute them, viz., "that they would ^ not 
 trouble her majesty with prisoners." 
 
 Here then arose, as before with the Cossacks, a race 
 for the Kalmucks with the regular armies of Russia, 
 and concurrently with nations as fierce and semi- 
 humanised as themselves, besides that they had been 
 
 1 The Irgiz, on which the town Irgiz stands, flows into Lake 
 Chalkar, north of the Aral Sea. 
 
 2 Ought not " should " to stand here ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 49 
 
 stung into threefold activity by the furies of morti- 
 fied pride and military abasement, under the eyes of 
 the Turkish Sultan. The foi-ces, and more especially 
 the artillery, of Russia were far too overwhelming to 
 permit the thought of a regular opposition in pitched 
 battles, even with a less dilapidated state of their re- 
 sources than they could reasonably expect at the period 
 of their arrival on the Torgau. In their speed lay 
 their only hope — in strength of foot, as before, and 
 not in strength of arm. Onward, therefore, the Kal- 
 mucks pressed, marking the lines of their wide-extend- 
 ing march over the sad solitudes of the steppes by a 
 never-ending chain of corpses. The old and the young, 
 the sick man on his couch, the mother with her baby 
 — all were dropping fast. Such sights as these, with 
 the many rueful aggravations incident to the help- 
 less condition of infancy — of disease and of female 
 weakness abandoned to the wolves amidst a howling 
 wilderness, continued to track their course through a 
 space of full two thousand miles ; for so much, at the 
 least, it was likely to prove, including the circuits to 
 which they were often compelled by rivers or hostile 
 tribes, from the point of starting on the Wolga, until 
 they could reach their destined halting ground on the 
 east bank of the Torgau. For the first seven weeks 
 of this march their sufferings had been embittered by 
 the excessive severity of the cold; and every night — 
 so long as wood was to be had for fires, either from 
 the lading of the camels, or from the desperate sacri- 
 fice of their baggage-waggons, or (as occasionally hap- 
 pened) from the forests which skirted the banks of the 
 many rivers which crossed their path — no specta- 
 cle was more frequent than that of a circle, composed 
 of men, women, and children, gathered by hundreds 
 
50 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 round a central fire, all dead and stiff at the return of 
 morning light.^ Myriads were left behind from pure 
 exhaustion, of whom none had a chance, under the 
 combined evils which beset them, of surviving through 
 the next twenty-four hours. Frost, however, and snow 
 at length ceased to persecute ; the vast extent of the 
 march at length brought them into more genial lati- 
 tudes ; and the unusu^al duration of the march was 
 gradually bringing them into more genial seasons 
 of the year. Two thousand miles had at last been 
 traversed ; February, March, April, were gone ; the 
 balmy month of May had opened ; vernal sights and 
 sounds came from every side to comfort the heart- 
 weary travellers ; and at last, in the latter end of May, 
 crossing the Torgau, they took up a position where 
 they hoped to find libert}'^ to repose themselves for 
 many weeks in comfort as well as ixi security, and 
 to draw such supplies from the fertile neighbourhood 
 as might restore their shattered forces to a condition 
 for executing, with less of wreck and ruin, the large 
 remainder of the journey. 
 
 Yes : it was true that two thousand miles of wan- 
 dering had been completed, but in a period of nearly 
 five months, and with the terrific sacrifice of at least 
 two hundred and fifty thousand souls, to say nothing 
 of herds and flocks past all reckoning. These had 
 all perished : ox, cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, 
 not one survived — only the camels. These arid and 
 adust creatures, looking like the mummies of some 
 antediluvian animals, without the affections or sensi- 
 
 ^ The historical accounts of the French retreat from Russia 
 gave De Quincey this not improbable detail : " Every morning 
 found the watch-fires surrounded with circles of the dead," we 
 read. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 51 
 
 bilities of flesh and blood — these only still erected 
 their speaking eyes to the eastern heavens, and had to 
 all appearance come out from this long tempest of 
 trial unscathed and hardly diminished. The Khan, 
 knowing how much he was individually answerable for 
 the misery which had been sustained, must have wept 
 tears even more bitter than those of Xerxes,^ when he 
 threw his eyes over the myriads whom he had assem- 
 bled : for the tears of Xerxes were unmingled with 
 compunction. Whatever amends were in his power 
 the Khan resolved to make, by sacrifices to the general 
 good of .all personal regards ; and, accordingly, even 
 at this point of their advance, he once more deliber- 
 ately brought under review the whole question of the 
 revolt. The question was formally debated before the 
 Council, whether, even at this point, they should un- 
 tread their steps, and, throwing themselves upon the 
 Czarina's mercy, return to their old allegiance. In 
 that case, Oubacha professed himself willing to become 
 the scapegoat for the general transgression. This, he 
 argued, was no fantastic scheme, but even easy of 
 accomplishment ; for the unlimited and sacred power 
 of the Khan, so well known to the Empress, made 
 it absolutely iniquitous to attribute any separate re- 
 sponsibility to the people — upon the Khan rested the 
 guilt, upon the Khan would descend the imperial ven- 
 geance. This proposal was applauded for its gener- 
 osity, but was energetically opposed by Zebek-Dorchi. 
 Were they to lose the whole journey of two thousand 
 
 1 At the review of his hosts at Ahydos, b. c. 481, just hefore 
 crossing the Hellespont for his great descent upon Greece, 
 Xerxes, seeing " the water hidden by his ships and the prom- 
 ontories and plains filled by his men, rejoiced ; and after that 
 he wept." — Herodotus, book vii. chap. 45. 
 
52 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 miles? Was their misery to perish without fruit? 
 True it was that they had yet reached only the half- 
 way house ; but, in that respect, the motives were 
 evenly balanced for retreat or for advance. Either 
 way they would have pretty nearly the same distance 
 to traverse, but with this difference — that, forwards, 
 their route lay through lands comparatively fertile ; 
 backwards, through a blasted wilderness, rich only in 
 memorials of their sorrow, and hideous to Kalmuck 
 eyes by the trophies of their calamity. Besides, though 
 the Empress might accept an excuse for the past, would 
 she the less forbear to suspect for the future? The 
 Czarina's jiardon they might obtain, but could they 
 ever hope to recover her confidence ? Doubtless 
 there would now be a standing presumption against 
 them, an immortal ground of jealousy ; and a jealous 
 government would be but another name for a harsh 
 one. Finally, whatever motives there ever had been 
 for the revolt surely remained unimpaired by any- 
 thing that had occurred. In reality, the revolt was, 
 after all, no revolt, but (strictly speaking) a return to 
 their old allegiance ; since, not above one hundred 
 and fifty years ago (viz., in the year 1616 ^), their 
 ancestors had revolted from the Emperor of China. 
 They had now tried both governments ; and for them 
 China was the land of promise, and Kussia the house 
 of bondage. 
 
 Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say or do, 
 the yearning of the people was strongly in behalf of 
 the Khan's proposal ; the pardon of their prince, they 
 persuaded themselves, would be readily conceded by 
 the Empress : and there is little doubt that they would 
 at this time have thrown themselves gladly upon the 
 ^ Compare p. 3, note 2. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 53 
 
 imperial mercy ; when suddenly all was defeated by 
 the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg. This 
 general had reached the fortress of Orsk,^ after a very 
 painful march, on the 12th of April ; thence he set 
 forwards towards Oriembourg ; ^ which he reached 
 upon the 1st of June, having been joined on his route 
 at various times during the month of May by the Kir- 
 ghises and a corps of ten thousand Bashkirs. From 
 Oriemboui'g he sent forward his official offers to the 
 Khan, which were harsh and peremptory, holding- 
 out no specific stipulations as to pardon or impunity, 
 and exacting vmconditional submission as the prelimi- 
 nary price of any cessation from military operations. 
 The personal character of Traubenberg, which was 
 anything but energetic, and the condition of his army, 
 disorganised in a great measure by the length and 
 severity of the march, made it probable that, with a 
 little time for negotiation, a more conciliatory tone 
 would have been assumed. But, unhappily for all 
 parties, sinister events occurred in the meantime, 
 such as effectually put an end to every hope of the 
 kind. 
 
 The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg had 
 reported to this officer that a distance of only ten 
 days' march lay between his own head-quarters and 
 those of the Khan. Upon this fact transpiring,^ the 
 Kirghises, by their prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, 
 entreated the Russian general to advance without 
 delay. Once having placed ^ his cannon in position, 
 so as to command the Kalmuck camp, the fate of the 
 
 ^ On the Or, near the Ural, River. 
 
 2 Fort Orenburg on the Turgai must be meant ; not the large 
 town, which is west of Orsk. 
 
 * What of this phrase grammatically ? 
 
54 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 rebel Khan and his people would be in his own 
 hands : and they would themselves foi-m his advanced 
 guard. Traubenberg, however (^why has not been 
 certainly explained), refused to march, grounding his 
 refusal upon the condition of his army, and their 
 absolute need of refreshment. Long and fierce was 
 the altercation ; but at length, seeing no chance of 
 prevailing, and dreading above all other events the 
 escape of their detested enemy, the ferocious Bash- 
 kirs went off in a body by forced marches. In six 
 days they reached the Torgau, crossed by swimming 
 their horses, and fell upon the Kalmucks, who were 
 dispersed for many a league in search of food or 
 provender for their camels. The first day's action 
 was one vast succession of independent skirmishes, 
 diffused over a field of thirty to forty miles in extent ; 
 one party often breaking up into three or four, and 
 again (according to the accidents of ground) three 
 or four blending into one ; flight and pursuit, rescue 
 and total overthrow, going on simultaneously, under 
 all varieties of form, in all quarters of the plain. 
 The Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, by the 
 scattered state of the Kalmucks, to split up into in- 
 numerable sections ; and thus, for some hours, it 
 had been impossible for the most practised eye to 
 collect the general tendency of the day's fortune. 
 Both the Khan and Zebek-Dorchi were at one mo- 
 ment made prisoners, and more than once in im- 
 minent danger of being cut down ; but at length 
 Zebek succeeded in rallying a strong column of in- 
 fantry, which, with the support of the camel corps 
 on each flank, compelled the Bashkirs to retreat. 
 Clouds, however, of these wild cavalry continued to 
 arrive through the next two days and nights, followed 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 55 
 
 or accompanied by the Kirghises. These being 
 viewed as the advanced parties of Traubenberg's 
 army, the Kahnuck chieftains saw no hope of safety 
 but in flight ; and in this way it happened that a re- 
 treat, which had so recently been brought to a pause, 
 was resumed at the very moment when the unhappy 
 fugitives were anticipating a deep repose without fur- 
 ther molestation the whole summer through. 
 
 It seemed as though every variety of wretchedness 
 were predestined to the Kalmucks, and as if their 
 sufferings were incomplete unless they were rounded 
 and matured by all that the most dreadful agencies 
 of summer's heat could superadd to those of frost 
 and winter. To this sequel of their story I shall im- 
 mediately revert, after first noticing a little romantic 
 episode ^ which occurred at this point between Ouba- 
 cha and his unprincipled cousin Zebek-Dorchi. 
 
 There was at the time of the Kalmuck flight from 
 the Wolga a Russian gentleman of some rank at the 
 court of the Khan, whom, for political reasons, it was 
 thought necessary to carry along with them as a cap- 
 tive. For some weeks his confinement had been very 
 strict, and in one or two instances cruel. But, as the 
 increasing distance was continually diminishing the 
 chances of escape, and perhaps, also, as the misery 
 of the guards gradually withdrew their attention from 
 all minor interests to their own personal sufferings, 
 the vigilance of the custody grew more and more re- 
 laxed ; until at length, upon a petition to the Khan, 
 Mr. Weseloff was formally restored to liberty ; and it 
 
 ^ The saving of Oubaeha's life is De Quincey's addition, but 
 the story of Weseloff's journey is Bergmann's ; indeed, it is 
 upon WeselofE's oral evidence that Bergmann's narrative largely 
 rests. 
 
56 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 was understood that he might use his liberty in what- 
 ever way he chose, even for returning to Russia, if 
 that shoukl be his wish. Accordingly, he was making 
 active preparations for his journey to St. Petersburg, 
 when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that, not improba- 
 bly, in some of the battles which were then anticipated 
 with Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose 
 some prisoner of rank, in which case the Russian 
 Weseloft' would be a pledge in their hands for nego- 
 tiating an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own 
 severe affliction, the Russian was detained until the 
 further pleasure of the Khan. The Khan's name, 
 indeed, was used through the whole affair ; but, as It 
 seemed, with so little concurrence on his part, that, 
 when Weseloff In a private audience humbly remon- 
 strated upon the injustice done him, and the cruelty 
 of thus sporting with his feelings by setting him at 
 liberty, and, as It were, tempting him into dreams of 
 home and restored happiness only for the purpose of 
 blighting them, the good-natured prince disclaimed all 
 participation in the affair, and went so far In proving 
 his sincerity as even to give him permission to effect 
 his escape ; and, as a ready means of commencing It 
 without raising suspicion, the Khan mentioned to Mr. 
 Weseloff that he had just then received a message 
 from the Hetman of the Bashkirs, soliciting a pri- 
 vate interview on the banks of the Torgau at a spot 
 pointed out : that interview was arranged for the com- 
 ing night ; and Mr. Weseloff might go in the Khan's 
 siiite, which on either side was not to exceed three 
 persons. Weseloff was a prudent man, acquainted 
 with the world, and he read treachery in the very out- 
 line of this scheme, as stated by the Khan — treachery 
 against the Khan's person. He mused a little, and 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 57 
 
 tiien communicated so much of his suspicions to the 
 Khan as might put him on his guard ; but, upon 
 further consideration, he begged leave to decline the 
 honour of accouipanying the Khan. The fact was that 
 three Kalmucks, who had strong motives for returning* 
 to their countrymen on the west bank of the Wolga, 
 guessing the intentions of Weseloff, had offered to 
 join him in his escape. These men the Khan would 
 probably find himself obliged to countenance in their 
 project ; so that it became a point of honour with Wes- 
 eloff to conceal their intentions, and therefore to ac- 
 complish the evasion from the camp (of which the 
 first steps only would be hazaixlous) without risking- 
 the notice of the Khan. 
 
 The district in which they were now encamped 
 abounded through many hundred miles with wild 
 horses of a docile and beautiful breed. Each of the 
 four fugitives had caught from seven to ten of these 
 spirited creatures in the course of the last few days : 
 this raised no suspicion, for the rest of the Kalmucks 
 had been making the same sort of provision against 
 the coming toils of their remaining rovite to China. 
 These horses were secured by halters, and hidden 
 about dusk in the thickets which lined the margin of 
 the river. To these thickets, about ten at night, the 
 four fugitives repaired ; they took a circuitous path, 
 which drew them as little as possible within danger of 
 challenge from any of the outposts or of the patrols 
 which had been established on the quarters where the 
 Bashkirs lay ; and in three-quarters of an hour they 
 reached the rendezvous. The moon had now risen, 
 the horses were unfastened, and they were in the act 
 of mounting, when suddenly the deep silence of the 
 woods was disturbed by a violent uproar and the clash- 
 
58 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 ing of arms. Weseloff fancied that he heard the voice 
 of the Khan shouting for assistance. He remembered 
 the communication made by that prince in the morn- 
 ing ; and, requesting his companions to support him, 
 he rode off in the direction of the sound. A very short 
 distance brought him to an open glade within the wood, 
 where he beheld four men contending with a party of 
 at least nine or ten. Two of the four were dismounted 
 at the very instant of Weseloff's arrival ; one of these 
 he recognised almost certainly as the Khan, who was 
 fighting hand to hand, but at great disadvantage, with 
 two of the adverse horsemen. Seeing that no time 
 was to be lost, Weseloff fired and brought down one 
 of the two. His companions discharged their carbines 
 at the same moment, and then all rushed simultane- 
 ously into the little open area. The thundering sound 
 of about thirty horses all rushing at once into nar- 
 row space gave the impression that a whole troop 
 of cavalry was coming down upon the assailants, who 
 accordingly wheeled about and fled with one impulse. 
 Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, who, 
 as he expected, proved to be the Khan. The man 
 whom Weseloff had shot was lying dead ; and both 
 were shocked, though Weseloff at least was not sur- 
 prised, on stooping down and scrutinising his features, 
 to recognise a well-known confidential servant of Ze- 
 bek-Dorchi. Nothing was said by either party ; the 
 Khan rode off escorted by Weseloff' and his com- 
 panions, and for some time a dead silence prevailed. 
 The situation of Weseloff was delicate and critical ; 
 to leave the Khan at this point was probably to cancel 
 their recent services ; for he might be again crossed 
 on his path, and again attacked by the very party 
 from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, on the 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 59 
 
 other hand, to return to the camp was to endanger 
 the chances of accomplishing the escape. The Khan, 
 also, was apparently revolving all this in his mind, for 
 at length he broke silence, and said, " I comprehend 
 your situation ; and under other circumstances I might 
 feel it my duty to detain your companions. But it 
 would ill become me to do so after the important ser- 
 vice you have just rendered me. Let us turn a little 
 to the left. There, where you see the watch-fire, is an 
 outpost. Attend me so far. I am then safe. You 
 may turn and pursue your enterprise ; for the circum- 
 stances under which you will appear, as my escort, 
 are sufficient to shield you from all suspicion for the 
 present. I regret having no better means at my dis- 
 posal for testifying my gratitude. But tell me before 
 we part — Was it accident only which led you to my 
 rescue ? Or had you acquired any knowledge of the 
 plot by which I was decoyed into this snare ? " Wes- 
 eloff answered very candidly that mere accident had 
 brought him to the spot at which he heard the uproar, 
 but that, having heard it, and connecting it with the 
 Khan's communication of the morning, he had then 
 designedly gone after the sound in a way which he 
 certainly should not have done at so critical a moment, 
 unless in the expectation of finding the Khan assaulted 
 by assassins. A few minutes after they reached the 
 outpost at which it became safe to leave the Tar- 
 tar chieftain ; and immediately the four fugitives com- 
 menced a flight which is perhaps without a parallel in 
 the annals of travelling. Each of them led six or seven 
 horses besides the one he rode ; and, by shifting from 
 one to the other (like the ancient Desultors ^ of the 
 Roman circus), so as never to burden the same horse 
 ^ Consult a classical dictionary. 
 
60 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 for more than half an hour at a time, they continued 
 to advance at the rate of 200 miles in the 24 hours for 
 three days consecutively. After that time, conceiving 
 themselves beyond pursuit, they proceeded less rapidly ; 
 though still with a velocity which staggered the belief 
 of Weseloff's friends in after years. He was, however, 
 a man of high principle, and always adhered firmly to 
 the details of his printed report. One of the circum- 
 stances there stated is that they continued to pursue 
 the route by which the Kalmucks had fled, never for 
 an instant finding any difficulty in tracing it by the 
 skeletons and other memorials of their calamities. In 
 particular, he mentions vast heaps of money as part of 
 the valuable property which it had been found neces- 
 sary to sacrifice. These heaps were found lying still 
 untouched in the deserts. From these Weseloff and 
 his companions took as much as they could conven- 
 iently carry ; and this it was, with the price of their 
 beautiful horses, which they afterwards sold at one of 
 the Russian military settlements for about £15 apiece, 
 which eventually enabled them to pursue their journey 
 in Russia. This journey, as regarded Weseloff in par- 
 ticular, was closed by a tragical catastrophe. He was 
 at that time young, and the only child of a doating^ 
 mother. Her affliction under the violent abduction of 
 her son had been excessive, and probably had under- 
 mined her constitution. Still she had supported it. 
 Weseloif, giving way to the natural impulses of his 
 filial aifection, had imprudently posted through Russia 
 to his mother's house without warning of his approach. 
 He rushed precipitately into her presence ; and she, 
 who had stood the shocks of sorrow, was found unequal 
 to the shock of joy too sudden and too acute. She 
 died upon the spot. 
 
 1 What is the spelling now ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 61 
 
 I now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck 
 flight. These it would be useless to pursue circum- 
 stantially through the whole two thousand miles of 
 suffering which remained ; for the character of that 
 suffering was even more monotonous than on the for- 
 mer half of the flight, and also more severe. Its main 
 elements were excessive heat, with the accompaniments 
 of famine and thirst, but aggravated at every step by 
 the murderous attacks of their cruel enemies, the Bash- 
 kirs and the 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, whilst they were 
 attacking them in the rear, their advanced parties and 
 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 wretched- 
 ness ; for sometimes, pressed by grinding famine, they 
 took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order 
 to strike into a land rich in the comforts of life ; but 
 in such a land they were sure to find a crowded popu- 
 lation, 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. 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 plague of 
 ^ From Othello, last speech. 
 
62 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 starvation, whether with or without this plague of 
 hostility in front, whatever might be the " fierce va- 
 rieties " of their misery in this respect, no rest ever 
 came to their unhappy rear ; post equitem sedet citra 
 Gura ; ^ it was a torment like the undying worm ^ of con- 
 science. And, upon the whole, it presented a specta- 
 cle altogether unprecedented in the history of mankind. 
 Private and personal malignity is not unfrequently 
 immortal ; but rare indeed is it to find the same perti- 
 nacity of malice in a nation. And what embittered the 
 interest was that the malice was reciprocal. Thus far 
 the parties met upon equal terms ; but that equality 
 only sharpened the sense of their dire inequality as 
 to other circumstances. The Bashkirs were ready to 
 fight " from morn to dewy eve." ^ The Kalmucks, on 
 the contrary, were always obliged to run. Was \ifroin 
 their enemies as creatures whom they feared ? No ; 
 but towards their friends — towards that final haven of 
 China — as what was hourly implored by the prayers 
 of their wives, and the tears of their children. But, 
 though they fled unwillingly, too often they fled in vain 
 — being unwillingly recalled. There lay the torment. 
 Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them ; every day the 
 same unprofitable battle was renewed ; as a matter of 
 course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their advanced 
 guard to fight them ; every day the battle raged for 
 hours, and uniformly with the same result. For no 
 sooner did the Bashkirs find themselves too heavily 
 pressed, and that the Kalmuck march had been re- 
 tarded by some hours, than they retired into the bound- 
 
 ^ Horace, Odes, book iii. line 40. 
 
 ■^ Isaiah Ixvi. 24. A favorite plirase with De Quincey. 
 8 Paradise Lost, book i. lines 742-3, has : " From morn to 
 noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve." 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 63 
 
 less deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. But, if 
 the Kalmucks resolved to press forward, regardless of 
 their enemies, in that case their attacks became so 
 fierce and overwhelming that the general safety seemed 
 likely to be brought into question ; nor could any effec- 
 tual remedy be applied to the case, even for each sepa- 
 rate day, except by a most embarrassing halt, and by 
 countermarches that, to men in their circumstances, 
 were almost worse than death. It will not be surpris- 
 ing that the irritation of such a systematic persecution, 
 superadded to a previous 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 frontiers of China 
 were approached, the hostility of both sides had as- 
 sumed the appeai'ance much more of a warfare 
 amongst wild beasts than amongst creatures acknow- 
 ledging the restraints of reason or the claims of a com- 
 mon nature. The spectacle became too atrocious ; it 
 was that of a host of Imiatics 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 region the Emperor had built a gorgeous 
 hunting lodge, to which he resorted annually for re- 
 
64 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 creation and relief from the cares of government. 
 Led onwards in pursuit of game, lie had rambled to a 
 distance of 200 miles or more from this lodge, followed 
 at a little distance by a sufficient military escort, and 
 every night pitching his tent in a different situation, 
 until at length he had arrived on the very margin of 
 the vast central deserts of Asia.^ Here he was stand- 
 ing by accident at an opening of his pavilion, enjoying 
 the morning sunshine, when suddenly to the westwards 
 there arose a vast, cloudy vapour, which by degrees 
 expanded, mounted, and seemed to be slowly diffusing 
 itself over the whole face of the heavens. By and by 
 this vast sheet of mist began to thicken towards the 
 horizon, and to roll forward in billowy volumes. The 
 Emperor's suite assembled from all quarters. The silver 
 trumpets were sounded in the rear, and from all the 
 glades and forest avenues began to trot forward towards 
 the pavilion the yagers ^ — half cavalry, half huntsmen 
 
 1 All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper 
 upon 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. — De Quincey's Note. All De Quincey knew 
 of this paper was evidently what he found in Bergmann's foot- 
 notes. But the imaginative conception of this scene, and its 
 eloquent treatment by De Quincey, make it perhaps the best 
 object for rhetorical study in the whole paper ; it may be com- 
 pared with the famous passages in the " Confessions " and 
 "Mail-Coach." 
 
 - De Quincey no doubt seizes upon this word (which means in 
 German first " huntsmen," afterwards army " riflemen ") as serv- 
 ing his turn ; since the Emperor needed both a military escort, 
 and a following of huntsmen. The existence of such a branch 
 of the Chinese army is, after all, not more improbable than the 
 presence of the Emperor and his attendants on this occasion. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 65 
 
 — who composed the imperial escort. Conjecture was 
 on the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon, 
 and the interest continually increased, in proportion as 
 simple curiosity gradually deepened into the anxiety 
 of uncertain danger. At first it had been imagined 
 that some vast troojjs of deer, or other wild animals of 
 the chase, had been disturbed in their forest haunts by 
 the Emperor's movements, or possibly by wild beasts 
 prowling for prey, and might be fetching a compass 
 by way of re-entering the forest grounds at some 
 remoter points secure from molestation. But this 
 conjecture was dissipated by the slow increase of the 
 cloud, and the steadiness of its motion. In the course 
 of two hours the vast phenomenon had advanced to a 
 point which was judged to be within five miles of the 
 spectators, though all calculations of distance were 
 difficult, and often fallacious, when applied to the end- 
 less expanses of the Tartar deserts. Through the next 
 hour, during which the gentle* morning breeze had a 
 little freshened, the dusty vapour had developed itself 
 far and wide into the appearance of huge aerial dra- 
 peries, hanging in mighty volumes from the sky to the 
 eartli ; and at particular points, where the eddies of 
 the breeze acted upon the pendulous skirts of these 
 aerial curtains, rents were perceived, sometimes tak- 
 ing the form of regular arches, portals, and windows, 
 through which began dimly to gleam the heads of 
 camels "indorsed"^ with human beings — and at in- 
 tervals the moving of men and horses in tumultuous 
 array — and then through other openings or vistas at 
 far distant jjoints the flashing of polished arms. But 
 
 1 And elephants indorsed icith towers. — Milton in Paradise 
 Regained [iii. 329]. — De Quincey's Note. Can De Quincey's 
 use of this word and of " trashed " (p. 44) be defended ? 
 
66 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 sometimes, as the wind slackened or died away, all 
 those openings, of whatever form, in the cloudy pall 
 would slowly close, and for a time the whole pageant 
 was shut up from view ; although the growing din, 
 the clamours, shrieks and groans, ascending from in- 
 furiated myriads, reported, in a language not to be 
 misunderstood, what was going on behind the cloudy 
 screen. 
 
 It was in fact the Kalmuck host, now in the last 
 extremities of their exhaustion, and very fast approach- 
 ing to that final stage of privation and killing misery 
 beyond which few or none could have lived, but also, 
 happily for themselves, fast approaching (in a literal 
 sense) that final stage of their long pilgrimage at which 
 they would meet hospitality on a scale of royal magnifi- 
 cence, and full protection from their enemies. These 
 enemies, however, as yet, were still hanging on their 
 rear as fiercely as ever, though this day was destined 
 to be the last of their hideous persecution. The Khan 
 had, in fact, sent forward couriers with all the requisite 
 statements and petitions ^ addressed to the Emperor of 
 China. These had been duly received, and prepara- 
 tions made in consequence to welcome the Kalmucks 
 with the most paternal benevolence. But, as these 
 couriers had been despatched from the Torgau at the 
 moment of arrival thither, and before the advance of 
 Traubenberg had made it necessary for the Khan to 
 order a hasty renewal of the flight, the Emperor had 
 not looked for their arrival on his frontiers until full 
 three months after the present time. The Khan had 
 indeed expressly notified his intention to pass the sum- 
 mer heats on the banks of the Torgau, and to recom- 
 mence his retreat about the beginning of September. 
 
 1 Cf. p. 22, note 1, and p. 7, note 1. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 67 
 
 The subsequent change of plan, being unknown toKien 
 Long, left him for some time in doubt as to the true 
 interpretation to be put upon this mighty apparition 
 in the desert ; but at length the savage clamours of 
 hostile fniy, and the clangour ^ of weapons, unveiled 
 to the Emperor the true nature of those unexpected 
 calamities which had so prematurely precipitated the 
 Kalmuck measures. 
 
 Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Emperor 
 instantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly 
 care for these erring children (as he esteemed them), 
 now returning to their ancient obedience, must be — 
 to deliver them from their pursuers. And this was 
 less difficult than might have been supposed. Not 
 many miles in the rear was a body of well-appointed 
 cavalry, with a strong detachment of artillery, who 
 always attended the Emperor's motions. These were 
 hastily summoned. Meantime it occurred to the train 
 of courtiers that some danger might arise to the Em- 
 peror's person fi-om the proximity of a lawless enemy ; 
 and accordingly he was induced to retire a little to the 
 rear. It soon appeared, however, to those who watched 
 the vapoury 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 diago- 
 nal line, making an angle of full 45 degrees with that 
 line in which the imperial cortege had been standing, 
 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 
 
 1 Dryden, Song for St. Cecilia's Day, has : " The trumpet's 
 loud clangour excites us to arms." Is De Quincey's or Drydeu's 
 use of the word connect ? See Latin dictionary. 
 
68 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 point the imperial cavalry was ordered up ; and it was 
 precisely 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 expe- 
 dition in all its parts 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 officers. 
 
 The Lake of Tengis,^ near the dreadful desert of 
 Kobi, lay in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate 
 height, ranging generally from two to three thousand 
 feet high. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the 
 Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a road which led 
 through a cradle-like dip in the mountains right down 
 upon the margin of the lake. From this pass, ele- 
 vated about two thousand feet above the level of the 
 water, they continued to descend, by a very winding 
 and difficult road, for an hour and a half ; and during 
 the whole of this descent they were compelled to be in- 
 active spectators of the fiendish spectacle below. The 
 Kalmucks, reduced by this time from about six hun- 
 dred thousand souls to two hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand,^ and after enduring for so long a time the mis- 
 eries I have previously described — outrageous heat, 
 famine, and the destroying scimitar of the Kirghises 
 and the Bashkirs — had for the last ten days been trav- 
 
 1 Lake Balkhash must be meant ; Dengiz or Tengiz will be 
 found on the maps as one of the names of many lakes ; it is 
 said to mean " lake." 
 
 2 Cf. prefatory note. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 69 
 
 ersing a hideous desert, where no vestiges were seen of 
 vegetation, and no drop of water could be found. Cam- 
 els and men were already so overladen that it was a 
 mere impossibility that they should carry a tolerable 
 sufficiency for the passage of this frightful wilderness. 
 On the eighth day, the wretched daily allowance, which 
 had been continually diminishing, failed entirely ; and 
 thus, for two days of insupportable fatigue, the horrors 
 of thirst had been carried to the fiercest extremity. 
 Upon this last morning, at the sight of the hills and the 
 forest scenery, which announced to those who acted as 
 guides the neighbourhood of the Lake of Tengis, all the 
 people rushed along with maddening eagerness to the 
 anticipated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, 
 the people more and more exhausted, and gradually, 
 in the general rush forwards to the lake, all discipline 
 and command were lost — all attempts to preserve a 
 rearguard were neglected — the wild Bashkirs rode in 
 amongst the encumbered people, and slaughtered them 
 by wholesale, and almost without resistance. Screams 
 and tumultuous shouts proclaimed the progress of the 
 massacre ; but none heeded — none halted ; all alike, 
 pauper or noble, continued to rush on with maniacal 
 haste to the waters — all with faces blackened by the 
 heat preying upon the liver, and with tongue droop- 
 ing from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir was affected 
 by the same misery, and manifested the same symp- 
 toms of his misery, as the wretched Kalmuck ; the 
 murderer was oftentimes in the same frantic misery as 
 his murdered victim — many indeed (an ordinary effect 
 of thirst) in both nations had become lunatic, and in 
 this state, whilst mere multitude and condensation of 
 bodies alone opposed any check to the destroying 
 scimitar and the trampling hoof, the lake was reached ; 
 
70 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 and into tliat the whole vast body of enemies rushed, 
 and together continued to rush, forgetful of all things 
 at that moment but of one almighty instinct. This 
 absorption of the thoughts in one maddening appe- 
 tite lasted for a single half-hour ; but in the next 
 arose the final scene of parting vengeance. Far and 
 wide the waters of the solitary lake were instantly dyed 
 red with blood and gore : here rode a party of savage 
 Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast as the swathes fall 
 before the mower's scythe ; there stood unarmed Kal- 
 mucks in a death-grapple with their detested foes, both 
 up to the middle in water, and oftentimes both sinking 
 together below the surface, from weakness or from 
 struggles, and perishing in each other's arms. Did 
 the Bashkirs at any point collect into a cluster for the 
 sake of giving impetus to the assault ? Thither were 
 the camels driven in fiercely by those who rode them, 
 generally women or boys ; and even these quiet crea- 
 tures were forced into a share in this carnival of mur- 
 der, by trampling ^ down as many as they could strike 
 prostrate with the lash of tbeir fore-legs. Every mo- 
 ment the water grew more polluted ; and yet every 
 moment fresh myriads came up to the lake and rushed 
 in, not able to resist their frantic thirst, and swallow- 
 ing lai-ge draughts of water visibly contaminated with 
 the blood of their slaughtered compatriots. Where- 
 soever the lake was shallow enough to allow of men 
 raising 1 their heads above the water, there, for scores 
 of acres, were to be seen all forms of ghastly fear, of 
 agonising struggle, of spasm, of death, and the fear 
 of death — revenge, and the lunacy of revenge — until 
 the neutral spectators, of whom there were not a few, 
 
 1 Is there not a question of grammatical correctness here ? 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 71 
 
 now descending tlie eastern side of the lake, at length 
 averted their eyes in horror. This horror, which 
 seemed incapable of further addition, was, however, 
 increased by an unexpected incident. The Bashkirs, 
 beginning to perceive here and there the approach of 
 the Chinese cavalry, felt it prudent — wheresoever 
 they were sufficiently at leisure from the passions of 
 the murderous scene — to gather into bodies. This 
 was noticed by the governor of a small Chinese fort, 
 built upon an eminence above the lake ; and imme- 
 diately he threw in a broadside, which spread havoc 
 amongst the Bashkir tribe. As often as the Bashkirs 
 collected into "■ globes " and " tur7ns,^' ^ as their only 
 means of meeting the long line of descending Chi- 
 nese cavalry — so often did the Chinese governor of 
 the fort pour in his exterminating broadside ; until 
 at length the lake, at its lower end, became one vast 
 seething caldron of human bloodshed and carnage. 
 The Chinese cavalry had reached the foot of the 
 hills: the Bashkirs, attentive to tlieir movements, had 
 formed ; skirmishes had been fought : and, with a 
 quick sense that the contest was hencef orwards rapidly 
 becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs and Kirghises began 
 to retire. The pursuit was not as vigorous as the Kal- 
 muck hatred would have desired. But, at the same 
 time, the very gloomiest hatred could not but find, 
 in their own dreadful experience of the Asiatic des- 
 erts, and in the certainty that these wretched Bashkirs 
 had to repeat that same experience a second time, for 
 thousands of miles, as the price exacted by a retrib- 
 utory Providence for their vindictive cruelty — not 
 
 ^ Words barbarously adapted from the Latin military terms, 
 which see. Of course the whole scene is a product of the fancy. 
 
72 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 the very gloomiest of the Kalmucks, or the least re- 
 flecting, bilt found in all this a retaliatory chastisement 
 more complete and absolute than any which their 
 swords and lances could have obtained, or human 
 vengeance could have devised. 
 
 Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wanderings in 
 the Desert ; for any subsequent marches which awaited 
 them were neither long nor painful. Every possible 
 alleviation and refreshment for their exhausted bodies 
 had been already provided by Kien Long with the 
 most princely munificence ; and lands of great fertility 
 were immediately assigned to them in ample extent 
 along the river Ily, not very far from the point at 
 which they had first emerged from the wilderness of 
 Kobi. But the beneficent attention of the Chinese 
 Emperor may be best stated in his own words, as 
 translated into French by one of the Jesuit mission- 
 aries : — " La nation des Torgotes Qsavoir les Kal- 
 Tnuques) arriva a Ily, toute delabree, n'ayant ni de quoi 
 vivre, ni de quoi se vetir. Je I'avais pr^vu ; et j 'avals 
 ordonne de faire en tout genre les provisions neces- 
 saires pour pouvoir les secourir promptement : c'est 
 ce qui a ete execute. On a fait la division des terres ; 
 et on a assign^ a chaque famille une portion suffisante 
 pour pouvoir servir a son entretien, soit en la culti- 
 vant, soit en y nourissant des bestiaux. On a donne 
 a chaque particulier des etoffes pour I'habiller, des 
 grains pour se nourrir pendant I'espace d'une annee, 
 des ustensiles pour le menage, et d'autres choses neces- 
 saires : et outre cela plusieurs onces d'argent, pour se 
 pourvoir de ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a designe 
 des lieux particuliers, fertiles en paturages ; et on leur 
 a donne des boeufs, moutons, etc., pour qu'ils pussent 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 73 
 
 dans la suite travailler par eux-memes a leur entretien 
 et a leur bien-etre." ^ 
 
 These are the words of the Emperor himself, 
 speaking in his own person of his own paternal cares ; 
 but another Chinese, treating the same subject, records 
 the munificence of this prince in terms which proclaim 
 still more forcibly the disinterested generosity which 
 prompted, and the delicate considerateness which con- 
 ducted, this extensive bounty. He has been speaking 
 of the Kalmucks, and he goes on thus : — " Lorsqu'ils 
 arriverent sur nos frontieres (au nombre de plusieurs 
 centaines de mille, quoique la fatigue extreme, la faim, 
 la soif, et toutes les autres incommodites inseparables 
 d'une tres-longue et tres penible route en eussent fait 
 perir presque autant), ils etaient reduits a la derniere 
 misere ; ils manquaient de tout. II " [viz., I'Em- 
 pereur, Kien Long] " leur fit preparer des logemens 
 conformes a leur maniei'e de vivre ; il leur fit distribuer 
 des alimens et des habits ; il leur fit donner des boeufs, 
 des moutons, et des ustensiles, pour les mettre en etat 
 de former des troupeaux et de cultiver la terre, et tout 
 
 ^ The nation of the Torgotes (that is to say the Kalmucks) 
 reached the lly quite shattered, having neither food to eat nor 
 clothes to wear. I had foreseen this ; and I had caused to be 
 made every kind of preparation necessary for their speedy relief : 
 which was done. A distribution of lands was made ; and to 
 each family was assigned a portion sufficient to serve for its 
 maintenance, whether by cultivating it or feeding cattle on it. 
 To each individual were given materials for clothing, corn for 
 his sustenance for the space of a year, utensils for the house- 
 hold, and other things necessary : and besides this, several 
 ounces of silver to provide himself with anything that might 
 have been forgotten. Particular pieces of land were appointed 
 for them, fertile in pasturage ; and cattle and sheep, etc., were 
 given them, that they might in the future be able to work for 
 their own support and well-being. 
 
74 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 cela a ses propres frais, qui se sont monies a des 
 sommes immenses, sans compter I'argent qu'il a clonn^ 
 a chaque clief-cle-f amille, pour poui'voir a la subsistance 
 de sa femnie et de ses enfans." ^ 
 
 Thus, after their memorable year of misery, the 
 Kalmucks were replaced in territorial possessions, and 
 in comfort equal perhaps, or even superior, to that 
 which they had enjoyed in Russia, and with superior 
 political advantages. But, if equal or superior, their 
 condition was no longer the same ; if not in degree, 
 their social prosperity had altered in quality ; for, 
 instead of being a purely pastoral and vagrant people, 
 they were now in circumstances which obliged them 
 to become essentially dependent upon agriculture ; 
 and thus far raised in social rank, that, by the natural 
 course of their habits and the necessities of life, they 
 were effectually reclaimed from roving and from the 
 savage customs connected with a half nomadic life. 
 They gained also in political privileges, chiefly through 
 the immunity from military service which their new 
 relations enabled them to obtain. These were circum- 
 stances of advantage and gain. But one great dis- 
 
 ' When they reached our frontiers (to the number of some 
 hundreds of thousands, although extreme fatigue, hunger, thirst, 
 and all the other hardships inseparable from a very long and very 
 wearisome march had brought almost as many to their death) 
 they were reduced to the last stage of wretchedness ; they were 
 utterly destitute. He [viz., the Emperor, Kien Long] had hab- 
 itations prepared for them suitable to their mode of life ; he 
 caused food and clothing to be distributed to them ; he had 
 cattle and sheep given them, and implements to put them in a 
 condition to form herds and cultivate the land, and all at his 
 own charges, which reached immense sums, without counting 
 the money which he gave to each head of a family, to provide 
 for the support of his wife and children. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 75 
 
 advantage there was, amply to overbalance all other 
 possible gain : the chances were lost or were removed 
 to an incalculable distance for their conversion to 
 Christianity, without which, in these times, there is no 
 absolute advance possible on the path of true civ- 
 ilisation. 
 
 One word remains to be said upon the 'personal 
 interests concerned in this great drama. The catas- 
 trophe in this respect was remarkable and complete. 
 Oubacha, with all his goodness and incapacity of sus- 
 pecting, had, since the mysterious affair on the banks 
 of the Torgau, felt his mind alienated from his cousin ; 
 he revolted from the man that would have murdered 
 him ; and he had displayed his caution so visibly as 
 to provoke a reaction in the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, 
 and a displeasure which all his dissimulation could not 
 hide. This had produced a feud, which, by keeping 
 them aloof, had probably saved the life of Oubacha ; 
 for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more fatal than 
 his open enmity. After the settlement on the Ily this 
 feud continued to advance, until it came under the 
 notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit which 
 all the Tartar chieftains made to his Majesty at his 
 hunting lodge in 1772. The Emperor informed him- 
 self accurately of all the particulars connected with 
 the transaction — of all the rights and claims put 
 forward — and of the way in which they would sever- 
 ally affect the interests of the Kalmuck people. The 
 consequence was that he adopted the cause of Oubacha, 
 and repressed the pretensions of Zebek-Dorchi, who, 
 on his part, so deeply resented this discountenance to 
 his ambitious projects, that, in conjunction with other 
 chiefs, he had the presumption even to weave nets of 
 treason against the Emperor himself. Plots were laid, 
 
76 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 were detected, were baffled ; counterplots were con- 
 structed upon the same basis, and with the benefit of 
 the opportunities thus offered. 
 
 Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial 
 lodge, together with all his accomplices; and, under 
 the skilful management of the Chinese nobles in the 
 Emperor's establishment, the murderous artifices of 
 these Tartar chieftains were made to recoil upon them- 
 selves ; and the whole of them perished by assassina- 
 tion at a great imperial banquet. For the Chinese 
 morality is exactly of that kind which approves in 
 every thing the lex talionis :^ — 
 
 " Lex nee jiistior ulla est (as they think) 
 
 Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 
 
 So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and origina- 
 tor of the great Tartar Exodus. Oubacha, meantime, 
 and his people, were gradually recovering from the 
 effects of their misery, and repairing their losses. 
 Peace and prosperity, under the gentle rule of a 
 fatherly lord paramount, redawned upon the tribes : 
 their household lares^ after so harsh a translation to 
 distant climes, found again a happy reinstatement in 
 what had, in fact, been their primitive abodes : they 
 found themselves settled in quiet sylvan scenes, rich 
 in all the luxuries of life, and endowed with the per- 
 fect loveliness of Arcadian ^ beauty. But from the hills 
 of this favoured land, and even from the level grounds 
 as they approached its western border, they still look 
 out upon that fearful wilderness which once beheld a 
 
 ^ Law of retaliation. The quotation following is taken a little 
 inaccurately from Ovid, Ara Amaioria i. 655-6: "No law is 
 more just than that the devisers of murder should perish by 
 their own device." Cf. Hamlet iii. 4, lines 206-7. 
 
 ^ See a classical dictionary. 
 
FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 11 
 
 nation in agony — the utter extirpation of nearly half 
 a million from amongst its numbers, and, for the 
 remainder, a storm of misery ^ so fierce that in the end 
 (as happened also at Athens ^ during the Peloponne- 
 sian War from a different form of misery) very many 
 lost their memory ; all records of their past life were 
 wiped out as with a sponge — utterly erased and can- 
 celled : and many others lost their reason ; some in a 
 gentle form of pensive melancholy, some in a more 
 restless form of feverish delirium and nervous agita- 
 tion, and others in the fixed forms of tempestuous ma- 
 nia, raving frenzy, or moping idiocy. Two great com- 
 memoi-ative monuments arose in after years to mark 
 the depth and permanence of the awe — the sacred 
 and reverential grief, with which all persons looked 
 back upon the dread calamities attached to the year 
 of the tiger — all who had either personally shared 
 in those calamities and had themselves drunk from 
 that cup of sorrow, or who had effectually been made 
 witnesses to their results and associated with their 
 relief : two great monuments ; one embodied in the 
 religious solemnity, enjoined by the Dalai Lama, called 
 in the Tartar language a Romanang — that is, a na- 
 tional commemoration, with music the most rich and 
 solemn, of all the souls who departed to the rest of 
 Paradise from the afflictions of the Desert (this took 
 place about six years after the arrival in China) ; 
 secondly, another, more durable and more commensu- 
 rate to the scale of the calamity and to the grandeur 
 of this national Exodus, in the mighty columns of 
 granite and brass erected by the Empei-or Kien Long 
 near the banks of the Ily. These columns stand upon 
 
 1 Cf. p. 37, note 2 ; aud the prefatory note. 
 
 2 Cf. p. 38, text and note 1. 
 
78 DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 the very margin of the stej)pes ; and they bear a short 
 but emphatic inscription ^ to the following effect : — 
 
 By the Will of God, 
 
 Here, upon the Brink of these Deserts, 
 
 Which from this Point begin and stretch away 
 
 Pathless, treeless, waterless, 
 
 For thousands of miles — and along the margins of many mighty 
 
 Nations, 
 
 Rested from their labours and from great afflictions, 
 
 Under the shadow of tlie Chinese Wall, 
 
 And by the favour' of Klen Long, God's Lieutenant upon Earth, 
 
 The ancient Children of the Wilderness, — the Torgote Tartars — 
 
 Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 
 
 Wandering Sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial Empire 
 
 in the year 1616, 
 
 But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 
 
 Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd. 
 
 Hallowed be the spot forever, 
 
 and 
 
 Hallowed be the day — September 8, 17*71 ! 
 
 Amen. 
 
 1 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 bim and the Byzantine 
 Cffisars, as though the former, being of the same religion with 
 the latter (and occupying in part the same longitudes, thoHgh in 
 different latitudes), might be considered as his modern succes- 
 sor ; or else it refers simply to the Greek form of Christianity 
 professed by the Russian Emperor and Church. — De Quincey's 
 Note. These columns are, of course, of De Quincey's erect- 
 ing ; and the inscription is likewise entirely his. We can pardon 
 this foot-note under the circumstances only by assuming that in 
 these matters the opium-eater is not to be held to the accounta- 
 bility of ordinary adult humanity. 
 
I 
 
Modern Classics School Library. 
 
 34 volumes, cloth, averaging 312 pages, for $11.66. 
 
 Cost of delivery by mail, S1.50. The set weighs 20 lbs. 
 
 Any book will also be sent separatela, postpaid, on receipt of 40 cents. 
 
 A library of thirty-four volumes, containing many of the best 
 complete Stories, Essays, Sketches, and Poems in modern litera- 
 ture, including selections from the most celebrated authors of 
 England and America, and translations of masterpieces by Con- 
 tinental -writers. 
 
 In several instances the selections from an author are accom- 
 panied by a biographical essay by another eminent author, an 
 arrangement which cannot fail to lend greater interest to both 
 portions of the book and add materially to its value for use in 
 schools. 
 
 Dr. William T. Harris, U. S. Commissioner of Education, says 
 *' it is an unrivalled list of excellent works." 
 
 The list of volumes is as follows : — 
 
 1. Longfellow. Evangeline. The Courtship of Miles Stand- 
 
 ish. Favorite Poems. 
 
 2. Emerson. Culture, Behavior, Beauty. Books, Art, Elo- 
 
 quence. Power, Wealth, Illusions. 
 
 3. Emerson. Nature. Love, Friendship, Domestic Life. Suc- 
 
 cess, Greatness, Immortality. 
 
 4. Whittier. Snow-Bound. The Tent on the Beach. Fa- 
 
 vorite Poems. 
 
 5. Lowell. The Vision of Sir Launfal. The Cathedral. Fa- 
 
 vorite Poems. 
 
 6. Fields. In and Out of Doors with Charles Dickens. 
 Dickens. A Christmas Carol. 
 
 Fields. Barry Cornwall and some of his Friends. 
 
 7. Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner. Favorite Poems. 
 Wordsworth. Favorite Poems. 
 
 8. FouQUE. Undine. Sintrara. 
 St. Pierre. Paul and Virginia. 
 
 9. Dr. John Brown. Rab and his Friends. Marjorie Flem- 
 
 ing. Thackeray. John Leech. 
 
 10. Tennyson Enoch Arden. In Memoriam. Favorite Poems. 
 
 11. Tennyson. The Princess. Maud. Locksley Hall. 
 
 12. E. C. Stedman. Elizabeth Barrett Browning an Essay, 
 Mrs. Browning. Lady Geraldine's Courtship. 
 Robert Browning. Favorite Poems. 
 
 13. Carlyle. Goethe, an Essay. 
 Goethe. The Tale. Favorite Poems. 
 
 14. Carlyle. Schiller, an Essay. 
 
 Schiller. The Lay of the Bell, and Fridolin. Favorite 
 Poems. 
 
 15. Carlyle. Burns, an Essay. 
 Burns. Favorite Poems. 
 Scott. Favorite Poems. 
 
16. Macaulay. Byron, an Essay. 
 iivKON. Favorite Poems. 
 Hood. Favorite Poems. 
 
 17. Macaulay. Milton, an Essay. 
 Milton. L'AUegro, II Penseroso. 
 
 Gkay. Elegy in a Country Churchyard, etc. 
 
 18. Goldsmith. The Deserted Village, etc. 
 CowPER. Favorite Poems. 
 
 Mrs. Hemans. Favorite Poems. 
 
 19. Carlyle. Characteristics. 
 Shelley. Favorite Poems. 
 Keats. The Eve of St. Agnes, etc. 
 
 20. Pope. An Essay on Man. Favorite Poems. 
 MoORB. Favorite Poems. 
 
 21. Carlyle. The Choice of Books. 
 Lamb. Essays from Elia. 
 SouTHEY. Favorite Poems. 
 
 22. Thomson. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. 
 
 23. Campbell. The Pleasures of Hope. Favorite Poemfl. 
 Rogers. Pleasures of Memory. 
 
 24. Shakespeare. Sonnets. Songs. 
 Leigh Hunt. Favorite Poems. 
 
 25. Herbert. Favorite Poems. 
 
 Collins, Dryden, Marvell. Favorite Poems. 
 Herrick. Favorite Poems. 
 
 26. Macaulay. Lays of Ancient Rome, and Other Poems. 
 Aytoun. Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. 
 
 27. Charles Kingsley. Favorite Poems. 
 Owen Meredith. Favorite Poems. 
 Stedman. Favorite Poems. 
 
 28. Fields. Nathaniel Hawthorne, an Essay. 
 Hawthorne. Tales of the White Hills. Legends of Now 
 
 England. 
 
 29. Carlyle. Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 Hawthorne. A Virtuoso's Collection. Legends of the 
 Province House. 
 
 30. Holmes. Favorite Poems. My Hunt after " The Captain." 
 31- Lowell. My Garden Acquaintance. A Moosehead Journal. 
 
 Bloomfield. The Farmer's Boy. 
 
 32. Howells. a Day's Pleasure. Buying a Horse Flitting. 
 
 The Mouse. A Year in a Venetian Palace. 
 
 33. Holmes. Selections from the Breakfast-Table Series and 
 
 from Pages from an Old Volume of Life 
 
 34. Thackeray. Lighter Hours, including Dr. Birch and His 
 
 Young Friends, selections from The Book of Snobs and 
 from the Roundabout Papers, The Curate's Walk. 
 
 A pamphlet containing the Table of Contents of each voliune 
 will be sent free on application. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 4 Park Stbeet, Boston; 11 East 17th Street, New Yokk; 
 158 Adams Street, Chicago. 
 
SOME LITERARY MASTERPIECES 
 
 REQUIRED FOR ADMISSION TO 
 
 AMERICAN COLLEGES. 
 
 R. L. S. means Riverside Literature Series; M. O. means Modern Classics. 
 
 POK THE TEARS 
 
 George Eliot's Silas Marner. R. L. S. No. 83. Double No., 1897 
 
 paper, 30 cents; cloth, 40 cents. 
 Longfellow's Evangeline. R. L. S. No. 1. Paper, 15 cents ; 1897 
 
 cloth, 2-5 cents. 
 Macaulay's Essays on Johnson, Milton, and Addison. In R. 1897 1900 
 
 L. S. Nos. 102, 103, 104. Each, paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 
 
 cents. Milton in M. C. Vol. 17, bchool Edition, 40 cents. 
 Burke's Speech On Conciliation with America. R. L. S. No. 
 
 100. Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents. 
 Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. R. L. S. No. 55. Paper, 
 
 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 
 Shakespeare's As You Like It. R. L. S. No. 93.* Paper, 15 
 
 cents ; cloth, 25 cents, 
 Shakespeare's Macbeth. R. L. S. No. 106.* Paper, 15 cents ; 
 
 cloth, 25 cents. 
 Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. R. L. S. No. 82. Quadruple 
 
 No., paper, 50 cents ; cloth, 60 cents. 
 Scott's Marmion. Rolfe's Edition. To teachers, 53 cents. 
 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. R. L. S. No. 78. Double 
 
 No., paper, 30 cents ; cloth, 40 cents. 
 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. In M. C. Vol. 7. School Edi- 
 tion, 40 cents. In R. L. S. No. 80. Paper, 15 cents. 
 Milton's L'' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas. In R. L. 
 
 S. No. 72.* Paper, 15 cents. 
 Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I. -III. R. L. S. No. 94.* 
 
 Paper, 15 cents. 
 Carlyle's Essay on Burns. R. L. S. No. 105. Paper, 15 cents ; 
 
 cloth, 25 cents. In M. C. Vol. 15. School Edition, 40 cents. 
 De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. R. L. S. No. 110. 
 
 Paper, 1.5 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 
 Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal. In R. L. S. No. 30. Paper, 
 
 15 cents. 
 Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. R. L. S. No. 91. 
 
 Quadruple No., paper, 50 cents ; cloth, 60 cents. 
 Tennyson's Princess. R. L. S. No. 111. Double No., paper, 
 
 30 cents. Rolfe's Edition. To teachers, 53 cents. 
 The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. In R. L. S. Nos. 60, 61. 
 
 Paper, 15 cents each. In one volume, cloth, 40 cents. 
 Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. R. L. S. Nos. 95-98. Each 
 
 part, paper, 15 cents ; the four parts bound together in one 
 
 volume, cloth, 6U cents. 
 Pope's Iliad. Books I., VI., XXII.. XXIV. R. L. S. No. 1899 1900 
 
 101. Paper, 15 cents ; cloth, 25 cents. 
 
 Scott's Ivanhoe. R. L. S. No. 86. Quadruple No., paper, 50 1900 
 cents ; cloth, 60 cents. 
 
 * R. L. S. Nos, 72 and 94 also bound together, in one volume, cloth, 40 cents ; 
 likewise Nos. 93 and 106. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers. 
 
 1897 
 1899 
 1897 
 
 1898 
 1900 
 1898 
 
 1897 
 
 
 1898 
 1900 
 1897 
 
 1899 
 
 1897 
 1898 
 1900 
 1898 
 
 1899 
 1899 
 
 1898 
 
 
 1898 
 1900 
 
 1898 
 
 1899 
 1899 
 
 1898 
 1900 
 
 1898 
 1900 
 
 1898 
 
 1899 
 1899 
 1899 
 
 1898 
 
 1900 
 
 1898 
 1900 
 1899 
 
 1899 
 1900 
 
Z^z iStbemne Literature ^erie0» 
 
 {Co7iti7iued.) 
 Each regular single number, paper, 15 cents. 
 
 54. Bryant's Sella, Thanatopsis, and Other Poems.* 
 
 55. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Thukbek.* ** 
 
 56. Webster's birst Bnuker Hill Oration, and the Oration on Adams 
 
 and Jefferson. 
 
 57. Dickens's Christmas Carol.** Witli Notes and a Biography. 
 
 58. Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth.** 
 
 50. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading.* 
 
 60, 61. The Sir Roger de Coveriey Papers. In two parts, t 
 
 62. John Fiske's War of Independence. With Maps and a Biograph- 
 
 ioal Sketch. § 
 6.3. Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride, and Other Poems.** 
 64, 65, 66. Tales from Shakespeare. Edited by Charles and RLvRY 
 
 Lamb. In three parts. [Also, in one volume, linen, 50 cents.] 
 
 67. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.* ** 
 
 68. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, The Traveller, etc.* 
 
 69. Hawthorne's Old Manse, and A Few Mosses.** 
 
 70. A Selection from Whittier's Child Life in Poetry.** 
 
 71. A Selection from Whittier's Child Life in Prose.** 
 
 72. Milton's L'AUegro, II Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, etc.** 
 
 73. Tennyson's Eaoch Arden, and Other Poems. 
 
 74. Gray's Elegy, etc. ; Cowper's John Gilpin, etc. 
 
 75. Scudder's George Washington. § 
 
 76. Wordsworth's On the Intimations of Immortality, etc. 
 
 77. Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night, and Other Poems. 
 
 78. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. § 
 
 79. Lamb's Old China, and Other Essays of Elia. 
 
 80. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Other Poems; 
 
 Campbell's Lochiel's Warning, and Other Poems. 
 
 Also, bound in linen : * 25 cents. ** 11 and C3 in one vol., 40 cents; likewise 55 
 and 67, 67 and 58, 40 and 69, 70 and 71, 72 and 94. J Also in one vol., 40 cents. 
 § Double Number, paper, 30 cents ; linen, 40 cents. 
 
 EXTRA Nm/BERS. 
 
 A American Authors and their Birthdays. Prog^rammes and Svigges- 
 
 tions for the Celebration of tlie Birthdays of Authors. By A. S. Roe. 
 B Portraits and Biographies of 20 American Authors. 
 C A Longfellow Night. For Catholic Schools and Societies. 
 D Literature in School. Essays by Horace E. Scudder, 
 E Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dialoajues and Scenes. 
 
 F Longfellow Leaflets. (Each a Double Number, 30 cents; linen, 
 
 G Whittier Leaflets. 40 cents.) Poems and Prose Passages 
 
 H Holmes Leaflets. for Reading and Recitation. 
 
 Lowell Leaflets. 
 
 1 The Riverside Manual for Teachers, containing Suggestions and 
 
 Illustrntive Lessons leading up to Primary Reading;. By t. F. Hall. 
 K The Riverside Primer and Reader." (Special Number.) In paper 
 
 covers, with cloth back, 25 cents ; in strong; linen binding, 30 cents. 
 L The Riverside Song Book. Containing Classic American Poems set 
 
 to Standard Music. (.Double Kumber, 30 cents; boards, 40 cents.) 
 M Lowell's Fable for Critics. (Double Number, 30 cents.) 
 
Clje lSiber0iDc Lite library of congress 
 
 (Conliniied 
 
 JEach regular single nuinh 
 
 Recent Issi 
 
 81. Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakf a 014 456 290 2 m 
 
 cents; linen, 50 cents.) ▼ 
 
 82. Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. §§ 
 
 83. George Eliot's Silas Marner. § 
 
 84. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. §§ 
 
 85. Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days. §§ 
 
 86. Scott's Ivanhoe. With a Biographical ("ketch, and Notes. §§ 
 
 87. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. §§ 
 
 88. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. §§ 
 
 8!). Swift's Gullivers Voyage to Lilliput.** 
 
 90. Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Biobdiiignag.** 
 
 91. Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. With an Introductory 
 
 Sketcli. §§ 
 
 92. Burroughs's A Bunch of Heibs, and Oiher Papers. With an 
 
 Introductory Sketch, and Notes. 
 
 93. Shakespeare's As You Like It. Edited by Kichard Grant White, 
 
 and fnrni.slied with Additional Notes.* ** 
 
 94. Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I. -III. With an Introduction, and 
 
 Notes.** 
 
 95. 9G, 97. 98. Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. With an Introduction 
 
 by Susan Fenimore Cooper, a Biograiiliical Sketch, and Notes. In four parts. 
 (The four purls also boinul in one roliiine, linen, bo cents.) 
 
 99. Tennyson's Coming of Arthur, and Other Idylls of the King. 
 
 With Introductions and Notes. 
 
 100. Burke's Conciliation with the Colonies. Edited by Robert An- 
 
 dersen, A. M. With an Introduction, and Notes.* 
 
 101. Homer's Iliad. Books I., VI., XXII., and XXIV. Translated 
 
 by Alexander Pope. Witli Introductions and Notes.* 
 
 102. Macaulay's Essays on Johnson and Goldsmith. Edited by Wil- 
 
 liam P. Trent. Witli Introductions and Notes.* 
 
 103. Macaulay's Essay on Milton. Edited by William P. Trent. 
 
 Witli an Introduction and Notes.* 
 
 104. Macaulay's Life and "Writings of Addison. Edited by William 
 
 P. Trent. With an Introduction and Notes.* 
 
 105. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Edited by George R. Noyes. With 
 
 an Introduction and Notes.* 
 
 106. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Edited by Richard Grant White, and 
 
 furnislied with Additional Notes by Helen Gray Cone.* ** 
 
 107. 108. Grimm's German Household Tales. With Notes. In two 
 
 parts. ( T/ie Ino />iirls also hound in one rolnnie. linen, 41) cents.) 
 
 109. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Edited by William Vaughn Moody. 
 
 With an Introduction and Notes. § 
 
 110. De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. Edited by Milton 
 
 Haight Turk. With an Introduction, Notes, and Map.* 
 
 111. Tennyson's Princess. Edited by W. J. Rolfe. With copious Notes 
 
 and Numerous Illustration.e. (Double Number, iiO cents. Al.so, in Eolfe's Stu- 
 dents'' Series, cloth, to Teachers, 53 cents.) 
 Also, bouiMl ill linen : *'i5 cents. ** 72 and 94 in one vol., 40 cents; likewise 89 
 
 and 90 ; 93 and 100. § Double number, paper, 30 cents ; linen, 40 cents. §§ Quadruple 
 
 number, paper, 50 cents ; linen, GO cents. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 4 Park Street, Boston; 11 East 17th Street, New York; 
 
 378-388 Wabash Avenxje, Chicago. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 456 290 2