and their head, the Lama, in some dark and mysterious rites of consecration, terminating 30 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, 5 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 10 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 15 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 20 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 25 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 30 to the 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 5 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 10 against the Russian Government, whilst, in reality, he first had suggested the alteration to the Empress, and he chiefly appropriated the political