, milk began to fail, and only the great number of camels
saved the children and the infirm.

The first of the subjects of Russia with whom the Kalmucks came into
collision were the Cossacks of the Jaik. At this season most of these
were absent at the fisheries on the Caspian, and the others fled in
crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was quickly summoned to
surrender by the Kalmuck khan. The Russian commandant, numerous as were
his foes, refused, knowing that they must soon resume their flight. He
had not long to wait. On the fifth day of the siege, from the walls of
the fort a number of Tartar couriers, mounted on the swift Bactrian
camels, were seen to cross the plains and ride into the Kalmuck camp at
their highest speed.

Immediately a great agitation was visible in the camp, the siege was
raised, and the signal for flight resounded through the host. The news
brought was that an entire Kalmuck division, numbering nine thousand
fighting-men, stationed on a distant flank of the line of march, and
between whom and the Cossacks there was an ancient feud, had been
attacked and virtually exterminated. The exhaustion of their horses and
camels had prevented flight, quarter was not asked or given, and the
battle continued until not a fighting-man was left alive.

The utmost speed was now necessary, for a sufficient reason. The next
safe halting-place of the Kalmucks was on the east bank of the Toorgai
River. Between it and them rose a hilly country, a narrow defile through
which offered the nearest and best route. This lost, the need of
pasturage would require a further sweep of five hundred miles. The
Cossack light horsemen were only about fifty miles more distant from the
pass. If it were to be won, the most rapid march possible must be made.

For a day and a night the flight went on, with renewed suffering and
loss of animals. Then a snowfall, soon too deep to journey through,
checked all progress, and for ten days they had a season of rest,
comfort, and plenty. The cows and oxen had perished in such numbers that
it was resolved to slaughter what remained, feast to their hearts'
content, and salt the remainder for future stores.

At length clear, frosty weather came: the snow ceased to drift, and its
surface froze. It would bear the camels, and the flight was resumed. But
already seventy thousand persons of all ages had perished, in addition
to those slain in battle, and new suffering and death impended, for