a single one, and, finally, to subdue them all by the aid of each other.  Had he ventured upon any less certain course, he must have risked a similar combination against himself.  He began by withholding the ordinary tribute from the Khan, but without exhibiting any symptoms of inallegiance.  He merely evaded the tax, while he acknowledged the right; and his dissimulation succeeded in blinding the Tartar, who still believed that he held the Grand Prince as a tributary, although he did not receive his tribute.  The Khan, completely deceived, not only permitted this recusancy to escape with impunity, but was further prevailed upon to withdraw the Tartar residents and their retinues, and the Tartar merchants who dwelt in Moscow and who infested, with the haughty bearing of masters, even the avenues of the Kremlin.

This latter concession was purchased by bribery, for Ivan condescended to buy the interference of a Tartar princess.  So slavish and degrading was his outward seeming that his wife, a noble and spirited lady, the daughter of the Emperor of Byzantium, could with difficulty prevail upon him to forego the humiliating usages which had hitherto attended the reception of the Mongol envoys.  It had been customary on the part of the grand princes to go forward to meet the Tartar minister, to spread a carpet of fur under his horse’s feet, to hear the Khan’s letter read upon their knees, to present to the envoy a cup of koumiss, and to lick from the mane of the horse the drops which had fallen from the lips of the negotiator:  and these disagreeable customs Ivan would have complied with but for the successful remonstrances of the Princess.

Kazan presented the most alluring point of actual attack.  The horde that had established that city subsisted by predatory excursions, and even the other bands of the barbarians were not unwilling to witness the descent of the Russians upon one of their own tribes that had acquired so much power.  The project was favored by so many circumstances that, although his policy was evidently at this period to preserve peace as long as he could, he was tempted to make a general levy, and to assemble the whole flower of the population for the purpose of driving out of his dominions the bold invaders who had intrenched themselves within the walls of a fortified town.  This was about 1468.  At that very time the army of the Golden Horde, inspired by some sudden impulse, was advancing into Russia.  It appears, however, that the multitudes assembled by Ivan were so numerous that the Khan’s troops retired upon the mere rumor of their approach; so that the display of his resources had all the effect he desired, and he won a signal victory without striking a blow.  The old Russian annalist dwells, with some pomp of words, upon this bloodless triumph, and, in the true vein of hyperbole, says that the Russian army shone like the waves of the sea illuminated by the sunbeams.  We take the expression for all it is worth, when we estimate the force as having been more numerous than that of the Tartars.