Toorgai, counting the circuits that had to be made, was full two
thousand miles, much of it traversed in the dead of winter, the cold,
for seven weeks of the journey, being excessively severe. Napoleon's
army in its retreat from Moscow suffered no more from the winter chill
than did this migrating nation. On many a morning the dawning light
shone on a circle that had gathered the night before around a sparse
fire (made from the lading of the camels or from broken-up
baggage-wagons), now dead and frozen stiff as they sat.
But at length the snows ceased to fall, the frost to chill. Spring came.
March and April passed away. May arrived with its balmy airs. Vernal
sights and sounds cheered them on every side. During all these months
they continued their march, and towards the end of May the Toorgai was
reached and crossed, and the weary wanderers, having left their enemies
far in the rear, hoped to find comfort and security during weeks of
rest, and to complete their journey with less of ruin and suffering.
They little dreamed that the worst of their task had yet to be endured.
During the five months of their wanderings their losses had been
frightfully severe. Not less than two hundred and fifty thousand members
of the horde had perished, while their herds and flocks--oxen, cows,
sheep, goats, horses, mules, and asses--had perished, only the camels
surviving. These hardy creatures had come through the terrible journey
unharmed, and on them rested all their hopes for the remainder of their
flight.
But another two thousand miles lay before them, with hostility in front
and in rear. Should they still go on, or should they return and throw
themselves on the mercy of the empress? Oubacha, the khan, advised
return, offering to take all the guilt of the flight upon himself.
Zebek-Dorchi earnestly urged them to proceed, and not lose the fruit of
all their suffering. But the people, worn out with the hardships and
perils of their route, favored a return and a trust in the imperial
mercy, and this would probably have been determined upon but for an
untoward event.
This was the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg, the Russian
general, who, after a long and painful march, had approached within a
few days' journey of the fugitives about the 1st of June. On his way he
had been joined by large bodies of the Kirghis and Bashkir nomads. The
harsh tone and peremptory demands of the envoys aroused hostile feelings
among the Kalmuck chiefs. But the main check to negotiations was the
action of the Bashkirs, who, finding that Traubenberg would not advance,
left his camp in a body and set off for the Kalmuck halting-place.
In six days they reached the Toorgai, swam their horses across it, and
fell in fury upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed over leagues of
ground in search of pasture and food. Peace at once changed to war. Over
a field from thirty to forty miles wide, fighting, flight and pursuit,
rescue and death, went on at all points. More than once were the khan
and Zebek-Dorchi in peril of death. At one time both were made
prisoners. But at length, concentrating their strength, they forced the
Bashkirs to retreat. For two days more the wild Bashkir and Kirghis
cavalry continued their attacks, and the Kalmuck chiefs, looking upon
these as the advance parties of the Russian army, felt themselves
obliged to order a renewal of the flight. Thus suddenly ended their
hoped-for season of repose.
One event took place during this period of which it is important to
speak. A Russian gentleman, Weseloff by name, was held prisoner in the
Kalmuck camp, and had been brought that far on their route. The khan
Oubacha, who saw no object in holding him, now gave him leave to attempt
his escape, and also asked him to accompany him during a private
interview which he was to hold on the next night with the hetman of the
Bashkirs. Weseloff declined to do so, and bade the khan to beware, as
he feared the scheme meant treachery.
About ten that night Weseloff, with three Kalmucks who had offered to
join in his flight, they having strong reasons for a return to Russia,
sought a number of the half-wild horses of that district which they had
caught and hidden in the thickets on the river's side. They were in the
act of mounting, when the silence of the night was broken by a sudden
clash of arms, and a voice, which sounded like that of the khan, was
heard calling for aid.
The Russian, remembering what Oubacha had told him, rode off hastily
towards the sound, bidding his companions follow. Reaching an open glade
in the wood, he saw four men fighting with nine or ten, one, who looked
like the khan, contending on foot against two horsemen. Weseloff fired
at once, bringing down one of the assailants. His companions followed
with their fire, and then all rode into the glade, whereupon the
assailants, thinking that a troop of cavalry was upon them, hastily
fled. The dead man, when examined, proved to be a confidential servant
of Zebek-Dorchi. The secret was out: this ambitious conspirator had
sought the murder of the khan.
Accompanying the khan until he had reached a place of safety, Weseloff
and his companions, at the suggestion of the grateful Oubacha, rode off
at the utmost speed, fearing pursuit. Their return was made along the
route the Kalmucks had traversed, every step of which could be traced by
skeletons and other memorials of the flight. Among these were heaps of
money which had been abandoned in the desert, and of which they took as
much as they could conveniently carry. Weseloff at length reached home,
rushed precipitately into the house where his loving mother had long
mourned his loss, and so shocked her by the sudden revulsion of joy
after her long sorrow that she fell dead on the spot. It was a sad
ending to his happy return.
To return to the Kalmuck flight. Two thousand miles still remained to be
traversed before the borders of China would be reached. All that took
place in the dreary interval is too much to tell. It must suffice to say
that the Bashkirs pursued them through the whole long route, while the
choice of two evils lay in front. Now they made their way through desert
regions. Now, pressed by want of food, they traversed rich and inhabited
lands, through which they had to win a passage with the sword. Every day
the Bashkirs attacked them, drawing off into the desert when too sharply
resisted. Thus, with endless alternations of hunger and bloodshed, the
borders of China at length were approached.
And now we have another scene in this remarkable drama to describe. Keen
Lung, the emperor of China, had been long apprised of the flight of the
Kalmucks, and had prepared a place of residence for these erring
children of his nation, as he considered them, on their return to their
native land. But he did not expect their arrival until the approach of
winter, having been advised that they proposed to dwell during the
summer heats on the Toorgai's fertile banks.
One fine morning in September, 1771, this fatherly monarch was enjoying
himself in hunting in a wild district north of the Great Wall. Here, for
hundreds of square leagues, the country was overgrown with forest,
filled with game. Centrally in this district rose a gorgeous
hunting-lodge, to which the emperor retired annually for a season of
escape from the cares of government. Leaving his lodge, he had pursued
the game through some two hundred miles of forest, every night pitching
his tent in a different locality. A military escort followed at no great
distance in the rear.
On the morning in question the emperor found himself on the margin of
the vast deserts of Asia, which stretched interminably away. As he stood
in his tent door, gazing across the extended plain, he saw with
surprise, far to the west, a vast dun cloud arise, which mounted and
spread until it covered that whole quarter of the sky. It thickened as
it rose, and began to roll in billowy volumes towards his camp.
This singular phenomenon aroused general attention. The suite of the
emperor hastened to behold it. In the rear the silver trumpets sounded,
and from the forest avenues rode the imperial cavalry escort. All eyes
were fixed upon the rolling cloud, the sentiment of curiosity being
gradually replaced by a dread of possible danger. At first the
dust-cloud was imagined to be due to a vast troop of deer or other wild
animals, driven into the plain by the hunting train or by beasts of
prey. This conception vanished as it came nearer, until, seemingly, it
was but a few miles away.
And now, as the breeze freshened a little, the vapory curtain rolled
and eddied, until it assumed the appearance of vast aerial draperies
depending from the heavens to the earth; sometimes, where rent by the
eddying breeze, it resembled portals and archways, through which, at
intervals, were seen the gleam of weapons and the dim forms of camels
and human beings. At times, again, the cloud thickened, shutting all
from view; but through it broke the din of battle, the shouts of
combatants, the roar of infuriated hordes in mortal conflict.
It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last stage of misery and
exhaustion, yet still pursued by their unrelenting foes. Of the six
hundred thousand who had begun the journey scarcely a third remained,
cold, heat, famine, and warfare having swept away nearly half a million
of the fleeing host, while of their myriad animals only the camels and
the horses brought from the Toorgai remained. For the past ten days
their suffering had reached a climax. They had been traversing a
frightful desert, destitute alike of water and of vegetation. Two days
before their small allowance of water had failed, and to the fatigue of
flight had been added the horrors of insupportable thirst.
On came the flying and fighting mass. It was soon evident that it was
not moving towards the imperial train, and those who knew the country
judged that it was speeding towards a large freshwater lake about seven
or eight miles away. Thither the imperial cavalry, of which a strong
body, attended with artillery, lay some miles in the rear, was ordered
in all haste to ride; and there, at noon of September 8, the great
migration of the Kalmucks came to an end, amid the most ferocious and
bloodthirsty scene of its whole frightful course.
The lake of Tengis lies in a hollow among low mountains, on the verge of
the great desert of Gobi. The Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a
road that led down to the lake at about eleven o'clock. The descent was
a winding and difficult one, and took them an hour and a half, during
the whole of which they were spectators of an extraordinary scene below,
the last and most fiendish spectacle in eight months of almost constant
warfare.
The sight of the distant hills and forests on that morning, and the
announcement of the guides that the lake of Tengis was near at hand, had
excited the suffering host into a state of frenzy, and a wild rush was
made for the water, in which all discipline was lost, and the heat of
the day and the exhaustion of the people were ignored. The rear-guard
joined in the mad flight. In among the people rode the savage Bashkirs,
suffering as much as themselves, yet still eager for blood, and
slaughtering them by wholesale, almost without resistance. Screams and
shouts filled the air, but none heeded or halted, all rushing madly on,
spurred forward by the intolerable agonies of thirst.
At length the lake was reached. Into its waters dashed the whole
suffering mass, forgetful of everything but the wild instinct to quench
their thirst. But hardly had the water moistened their lips when the
carnival of bloodshed was resumed, and the waters became crimsoned with
gore. The savage Bashkirs rode fiercely through the host, striking off
heads with unappeased fury. The mortal foes joined in a death-grapple in
the waters, often sinking together beneath the ruffled surface. Even the
camels were made to take part in the fight, striking down the foe with
their lashing forelegs. The waters grew more and more polluted; but new
myriads came up momentarily and plunged in, heedless of everything but
thirst. Such a spectacle of revengeful passion, ghastly fear, the frenzy
of hatred, mortal conflict, convulsion and despair as fell on the eyes
of the approaching horsemen has rarely been seen, and that quiet
mountain lake, which perhaps had never before vibrated with the sounds
of battle, was on that fatal day converted into an encrimsoned sea of
blood.
At length the Bashkirs, alarmed by the near approach of the Chinese
cavalry, began to draw off and gather into groups, in preparation to
meet the onset of a new foe. As they did so, the commandant of a small
Chinese fort, built on an eminence above the lake, poured an artillery
fire into their midst. Each group was thus dispersed as rapidly as it
formed, the Chinese cavalry reached the foot of the hills and joined in
the attack, and soon a new scene of war and bloodshed was in full
process of enactment.
But the savage horsemen, convinced that the contest was growing
hopeless, now began to retire, and were quickly in full flight into the
desert, pursued as far as it was deemed wise. No pursuit was needed,
even to satisfy the Kalmuck spirit of revenge. The fact that their
enemies had again to cross that inhospitable desert, with its horrors of
hunger and thirst, was as full of retribution as the most vindictive
could have asked.
Here ends our tale. The exhausted Kalmucks were abundantly provided for
by their new lord and master, who supplied them with the food necessary,
established them in a fertile region of his empire, furnished them with
clothing, tools, a year's subsistence, grain for their fields, animals
for their pastures, and money to aid them in their other needs,
displaying towards his new subjects the most kindly and munificent
generosity. They were placed under better conditions than they had
enjoyed in Russia, though changed from a pastoral and nomadic people to
an agricultural one.
As for Zebek-Dorchi, his attempt on the life of the khan had produced a
feud between the two, which grew until it attracted the attention of the
emperor. Inquiring into the circumstances of the enmity, he espoused the
cause of Oubacha, which so infuriated the foe of the khan that he wove
nets of conspiracy even against the emperor himself. In the end
Zebek-Dorchi, with his accomplices, was invited to the imperial lodge,
and there, at a great banquet, his arts and plots were exposed, and he
and all his followers were assassinated at the feast.
As a durable monument to the mighty exodus of the Kalmucks, the most
remarkable circumstance of the kind in the whole history of nations, the
emperor Keen Lung ordered to be erected on the banks of the Ily, at the
margin of the steppes, a great monument of granite and brass, bearing
an 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 labors and from great afflictions
Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall,
And by the favor of KEEN LUNG, 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, 1771.
Amen.
_A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE._
Catharine the Great earned her title cheaply, her patent of greatness
being due to the fact that she had the judgment to select great generals
and a great minister and the wisdom to cling to them. Russia grew
powerful during her reign, largely through the able work of her
generals, and she forgave Potemkin a thousand insults and unblushing
robberies in view of his successful statesmanship. Potemkin possessed,
in addition to his ability as a statesman, the faculty of a spectacular
artist, and arranged a show for the empress which stands unrivalled amid
the triumphs of the stage. It is the tale of this spectacle which we
propose to tell.
Catharine had literary aspirations, one of her admirations being
Voltaire, with whom she corresponded, and on whom she depended to
chronicle the glory of her reign. The poet had his dreams, in which the
woman shared, and between them they contrived a scheme of a modern
Utopia, a Russo-Grecian city of whose civilization the empress was to be
the source, and which a decree was to raise from the desert and an idea
make great. This fancy Potemkin, who stood ready to flatter the empress
at any price, undertook to realize, and he built her a city in the
fashion in which cities were built in the times of the Arabian Nights,
and made it flourish in the same unsubstantial fashion. The magnificent
Potemkin never hesitated before any question of cost. Russia was rich,
and could bleed freely to please the empress's whim. He therefore
ordered a city to be built, with dwellings and edifices of every
description common to the cities of that date,--stores, palaces, public
halls, private residences in profusion. The buildings ready, he sought
for citizens, and forcibly drove the people from all quarters to take up
a temporary residence within its walls. It was his one purpose to make a
spectacle of this theatrical city to enchant the eyes of the empress. So
that it had an appearance of prosperity during her visit, he cared not a
fig if it fell to pieces and its inhabitants vanished as soon as his
supporting hand was removed. He only required that the scenes should be
set and the actors in place when the curtain rose.
And the city grew, on the banks of the Dnieper, eighteen million rubles
being granted by the empress for its cost,--though much of this clung to
the bird-lime of avarice on Potemkin's fingers. It was named Kherson.
The desert around it was erected into a province, entitled by the wily
minister _Catharine's Glory_ (Slava Ekatarina). Another province,
farther north, he named after his imperial mistress Ekatarinoslaf. And
thus, by fraud and violence, a city to order was brought into existence.
The stage was ready. The next thing to be done was to raise the curtain
which hid it from Catharine's eyes.
It was early in the year 1787 that the empress began her journey towards
her Utopian city, to receive the homage of its citizens and to exhibit
to the world the magnificence of her reign. Great projects were in the
air. Poland had just been cut into fragments and distributed among the
hungry kingdoms around. The same was to be done with Turkey. Joseph II.
of Austria was to meet the empress in Kherson to consult upon this
partition of the Turkish empire; while Constantine, grand duke of Russia
and grandson of the empress, was to reign at Byzantium, or
Constantinople, over the new empire carved from the Turkish realm. Such
was the paper programme prepared by Potemkin and the empress, the
minister doubtless smiling behind his sleeve, his mistress in solid
earnest.
And now we have the story to tell of one of the most marvellous journeys
ever undertaken. It was made through a thinly inhabited wilderness,
which to the belief of the empress was to be converted into a populous
and thriving realm. That the journey might proceed by night as well as
by day, great piles of wood were prepared at intervals of fifty perches,
whose leaping flames gave to the high-road a brightness like that of
day. In six days Smolensk was reached, and in twenty days the old
Russian capital of Kief, where the procession halted for a season before
proceeding towards its goal.
As it went on, the whole country became transformed. The deserts were
suddenly peopled, palaces awaited the train in the trackless wild,
temporary villages hid the nakedness of the plain, and fireworks at
night testified to the seeming joy of the populace. Wide roads were
opened by the army in advance of the cortege, the mountains were
illuminated as it passed, howling wildernesses were made to appear like
fertile gardens, and great flocks and herds, gathered from distant
pastures, delighted the eyes of the empress with the appearance of
thrift and prosperity as her vehicle drove rapidly along the roads. To
the charmed eyes of those not "to the manner born" the whole country
seemed populous and prosperous, the people joyous, the soil fertile, the
land smiling with abundance. There was no hint to indicate that it was a
desert covered for the time being by an enamelled carpet.
[Illustration: SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM.]
The Dnieper reached, the empress and her train passed down that river in
fifteen splendid galleys, with the pomp of a triumphal procession. It
was now the month of May, and the banks of the river showed the same
signs of prosperity as had the sides of the road. At Kaidack the emperor
Joseph met the empress, having reached Kherson in advance and gone north
to anticipate her coming. He accompanied her down the stream, looking
with her on the show of prosperity and populousness which delighted her
inexperienced eyes, and smiling covertly at the delusion which
Potemkin's magic had raised, well assured that as soon as she had passed
silence and desertion would succeed these busy scenes. At a new
projected town on the way, of which Catharine had, with much ceremony,
laid the first stone, Joseph was asked to lay the second. He did so,
afterwards saying of the farcical proceeding, "The Empress of Russia and
I have finished a very important business in a single day: she has laid
the first stone of a city, and I have laid the last." He had no doubt
that, when they had gone, the buildings in which they had slept, the
villages which they had seen, the wayside herders and flocks, would
vanish like theatrical scenery, and the country present the dismal
aspect of a deserted stage.
At length the new city was reached, the magical Kherson. Catharine
entered it in grand state, under a noble triumphal arch inscribed in
Greek with the words "The Way to Byzantium." It was a busy city in which
she found herself. The houses were all inhabited; shops, filled with
goods, lined the principal streets; people thronged the sidewalks,
spectators of the entry; luxury of every kind awaited the empress in the
capital which had arisen for her as by the rubbing of Aladdin's ring,
and entertainments of the most lavish character were prepared by the
potent genius to whom all she saw was due. Potemkin hesitated at no
expense. The journey had cost the empire no less than seven millions of
rubles, fourteen thousand of which were expended on the throne built for
the empress in what was named the admiralty of Kherson.
Such was the scenery prepared for one of the most theatrical events the
world has ever witnessed. It cost the empire dearly, but Potemkin's
purpose was achieved. He had charmed the empress by causing the desert
to "blossom like the rose," and after the spectators had passed all sank
again into silence and emptiness. The new empire of Byzantium remained a
dream. Turkey had not been consulted in the project, and was not quite
ready to consent to be dismembered to gratify the whim of empress and
emperor.
As for the city of Kherson, its site was badly chosen, and its seeming
prosperity and populousness during the empress's presence quickly passed
away. The city has remained, but its actual growth has been gradual, and
it has been thrown into the shade by Odessa, a port founded some years
later without a single flourish of trumpets, but which has now grown to
be the fourth city of Russia in size and importance. Of late years
Kherson has shown some signs of increase, but all we need say further of
it here is that it has the honor of being the burial-place of the shrewd
Potemkin, under whose fostering hand it burst into such premature bloom
in its early days.
_KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND._