War has its pageantry as well as its woe.  The two flotillas, with fluttering pennants and resounding music, and crowded with gayly-dressed and sanguine warriors, floated down the streams until they met, at the confluence of these rivers, near Nizni Novgorod.  Here the two fleets, covering the Volga for many leagues, were united.  Spreading their sails, they passed rapidly down the river about two hundred miles, until they arrived at Kezan, the capital of the horde.  Deeming their enterprise a religious one, in which the cross of Christ was to be planted against the banners of the infidel, they all partook of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and engaged in the most earnest exercises of devotion the evening before they reached their place of landing.

In those days intelligence was only transmitted by means of couriers, at vast expense, and either accompanied by an army or by a strong body guard.  The Mogols had no suspicion of the tempest which was about to break over their heads.  On the 21st of May, 1469, before the dawn of the morning, the Russians leaped upon the shore near Kezan, the capital, and with trumpet blasts and appalling cries, rushed upon the sleeping inhabitants.  Without resistance they penetrated the streets.  The Russians, in war, were as barbaric as the Tartars.  The city was set on fire; indiscriminate slaughter ensued, and awful vengeance was taken for the woes which the horde had for ages inflicted upon Russia.  But few escaped.  Those who fell not by the sword perished in the flames.  Many Russian prisoners were found in the city who had been in slavery for years.

Thus far, success, exceeding the most sanguine anticipations, had accompanied the enterprise.  The victorious Russians, burdened with the plunder of the city, reembarked, and, descending the river some distance, landed upon an island which presented every attraction for a party of pleasure, and there they passed a week in rest, in feasting and in all festive joys.  Ibrahim, prince of the horde, escaped the general carnage, and, in a few days, rallied such a force of cavalry as to make a fierce assault upon the invaders.  The strife continued, from morning until night, without any decisive results, when both parties were glad to seek repose, with the Volga flowing between them.  The next morning neither were willing to renew the combat.  Ibrahim soon had a flotilla upon the Volga nearly equal to that of the Russians.  The war now raged, embittered by every passion which can goad the soul of man to madness.

One of the Russian princes, a man of astonishing nerve and agility, in one of these conflicts sprang into a Tartar boat, smiting, with his war club, upon the right hand and the left, and, leaping from boat to boat of the foe, warded off every blow, striking down multitudes, until he finally returned, in safety, to his own flotilla, cheered by the huzzas of his troops.  The Mogols were punished, not subdued; but this punishment, so unexpected and severe, was