denied to it all means for communicating with 10 Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding an ample range of pasturage, to meet the necessities of their vast flocks and herds, had separated this ouloss from the Khan’s headquarters by an interval of 80 miles; and thus it was, and not from oversight, that it came to be thrown entirely 15 upon its own resources.  These had proved insufficient:  retreat, from the exhausted state of their horses and camels, no less than from the prodigious encumbrances of their live stock, was absolutely out of the question:  quarter was disdained on the one side, and would not 20 have been granted on the other:  and thus it had happened that the setting sun of that one day (the thirteenth from the first opening of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon the final agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched upon a bloody field, who on that day’s dawning had held and 25 styled themselves an independent nation.

Universal consternation was diffused through the wide borders of the Khan’s encampment by this disastrous intelligence, not so much on account of the numbers slain, or the total extinction of a powerful ally, as because 30 the position of the Cossack force was likely to put to hazard the future advances of the Kalmucks, or at least to retard and hold them in check until the heavier columns of the Russian army should arrive upon their flanks.  The siege of Koulagina was instantly raised; and that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the women and their children, once again resounded through the tents—­the signal for flight, and this time for a flight more rapid than ever.  About 150 miles ahead of their 5 present position, there arose a tract of hilly country, forming a sort of margin to the vast, sealike expanse of champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin both eastwards and westwards.  Pretty nearly in the 10 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which passed the nearest and the most practicable route to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river offered the next great station of security for a general halt).  It was the more essential to gain this pass before 15 the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only would the delay in forcing the pass give time to the Russian pursuing columns for combining their attacks and for bringing up their artillery, but also because (even if all enemies in pursuit were thrown out of the question) it was held, by 20 those best acquainted with the difficult and obscure geography of these pathless steppes—­that the loss of this one narrow strait amongst the hills would have the effect of throwing them (as their only alternative in a case where so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) upon a circuit 25 of at least 500 miles extra; besides that, after all, this circuitous