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Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers

T >> Thomas De Quincey >> Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers




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 documents bearing on the
case, more especially the letters or minutes of Council subsequently
discovered, in the handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, and the important
evidence of the Russian captive Weseloff, who was carried off by the
Kalmucks in their flight, that beyond all doubt Oubacha was powerless
for any purpose of impeding, or even of delaying the revolt. He
himself, indeed, was under religious obligations of the most terrific
solemnity never to flinch from the enterprise, or even to slacken in
his zeal; for Zebek-Dorchi, 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 personal 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 honors 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 temperament. For Oubacha was a brave man, as respected all
bodily enemies or the dangers of human warfare, but was as sensitive
and 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 demeanor on the part of this Prince at the approach of the
critical moment, 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 effectually 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
discretion; and nothing was finally resolved but under 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
favor, 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 illustrious of all the Kalmuck Khans, stood upon
a better basis than that of Oubacha, who derived from a collateral
branch: secondly, with respect to that sole advantage 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 independence, 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 Council, which he had used as a
principal topic of abuse and malicious insinuation against the Russian
Government, whilst in reality he first had suggested the alteration to
the Empress, and he chiefly appropriated the political advantages which
it was fitted to yield. For, as he was himself appointed the chief of
the Sargatchi, and as the pensions of 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 capable of controlling the Khan, being held by the Sarga
under its new organization, 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 supply 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 standard 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,
such 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 delayed; 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 deliberation, the following plan
was adopted:--Couriers, it was contrived, should arrive in furious
haste, one upon the heels of another, reporting a sudden inroad of the
Kirghises and Bashkirs upon the Kalmuck lands, at a point distant about
one hundred and twenty miles. Thither all the Kalmuck families,
according to immemorial custom, were required to send a separate
representative; 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 Russian could be present. Zebek-Dorchi then came
forward. He did not waste many words upon rhetoric. He unfurled an
immense sheet of parchment, visible from the outermost distance at
which any of this vast crowd could stand; the total number amounted to
eighty thousand; all saw, and many heard. They were told of the
oppressions 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
preliminary measures she had already taken by erecting forts upon many
of the great rivers of their neighborhood; 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 freeborn 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 survivorship where so many are sacrificed.' At this
point of his harangue, Zebek produced several papers, (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 language 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 first-born, (an artifice which was indispensable to his
purpose, because 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 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
remarkable, however, that, with all his audacity and his reliance upon
the momentary excitement of the Kalmucks, 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 further
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 favorable audience.

These things, in the irritated condition of the simple 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 Kichinskoi, a man memorable for his vanity, and
memorable also as one of the many victims to the Tartar revolution.
This Kichinskoi had been sent by the Empress as her envoy to overlook
the conduct of the Kalmucks; he was styled the _Grand Pristaw_, or
Great Commissioner, and was universally known amongst the Tartar tribes
by this title. His mixed character of ambassador and of political
_surveillant_, combined with the dependent 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 communication 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 rumors; 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, continued to utter, amongst those of the
Khan's attendants who staid behind, to catch his real sentiments in a
moment of unguarded passion, all that the blindest frenzy of rage could
suggest to the most presumptuous of 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 representing 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 beside.

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 instantly forwarded to
Kichinskoi. Now, it happened that between this governor--a Russian
named Beketoff--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 persisted 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 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 three hundred miles a day, pursued his route to St.
Petersburg, rushed into the Imperial presence,--announced the total
realization of his worst predictions,--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 captivity. These orders
were eagerly fulfilled, and the unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards
expired of grief and mortification in the gloomy solitude of a dungeon;
a victim to his own immeasurable vanity, and the blinding self-
delusions of a presumption that refused all warning.

The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful 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
movement of some great morning of battle. Tens of thousands continued
moving off the ground at every half-hour's interval. Women and
children, to the amount of two hundred thousand and upwards, were
placed upon wagons, 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 stayed
behind the rest of the tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder
more violent than prudence justified, or the amiable character of the
Khan could be supposed to approve. But in this, as in other instances,
he was completely overruled by the malignant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi.
The first tempest of the desolating fury of the Tartars 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 authorize 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 utensils, and that part of the woodwork 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 throughout 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 character of valedictory
vengeance, and thus have left 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 provoked. This part of the tragedy, however,
was happily 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 impossibility 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 absolute 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
heavily-laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing notion is,
that some accidental movements on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian
troops in the neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, 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 intrigues 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 that 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 neighbors 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 chieftains did not
dare to put to hazard the safety of their brethren under the first
impulse of the Czarina's vengeance 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 reasons they also had for
gratitude on account of an interposition so unexpected, and which at
the moment they so generally deplored. Could they but have witnessed
the thousandth part of the sufferings which overtook their Eastern
brethren in the first 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 afterwards succeeded.

For now began to unroll the most awful 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 destroying
nations, such as the Huns, or the 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 lightning.
Those who were spared at first would generally be spared to the end;
those who perished would perish instantly. 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 sufferings did not commence in good earnest until about one
month from the time of leaving Moscow; and though 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
tragedy, which lasted for more than as many months? But the main
feature of horror, by which the Tartar march was distinguished from the
French, lies in the accompaniment of women [Footnote: Singular it is,
and not generally known, that Grecian women accompanied the
_Anabasis_ of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent Retreat of the
Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were 'many' women in the
Greek army--pollai aesun etairai en tosratenaeazi; and in a late stage
of that trying expedition it is evident that women were amongst the
survivors.] and children. There were both, it is true, with the French
army, but so few as to bear no visible 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 accompaniment 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 under a continued
interposition of Heaven for their comfortable support. Earthquakes,
again, however comprehensive 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 visited Athens in the Peloponnesian war, or London 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 misery was withdrawn from public notice into private
chambers and hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian and his
son, taken in its entire circumstances, 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 natural affections even of maternal love.
But, after all, each case had circumstances of romantic misery peculiar
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 was not above three hundred miles
from the main point of departure 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 visionary 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 coloring and external
features: what variety, however, there was, will be most naturally
exhibited by tracing historically the successive stages of the general
misery, exactly as it unfolded itself under the double agency of
weakness still increasing from within, and hostile pressure 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 advancing regularly with the advances of the
march, 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, and even an
accelerated rate, as prevailing through 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 two thousand miles; one thousand miles further on the assaults
became even more tumultuous and murderous; and already the great
shadows of the Chinese Wall were dimly descried, when the frenzy and
_acharnement_ of the pursuers, and the bloody desperation of the
miserable fugitives had reached its uttermost 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.

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