route would carry them to the Torgau at a point unfitted for the passage of their heavy baggage.  The defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain; and yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of light 30 cavalry, there was little chance but it would be found preoccupied by the Cossacks.  They, it is true, had suffered greatly in the recent sanguinary action with the defeated ouloss; but the excitement of victory, and the intense sympathy with their unexampled triumph, had again swelled their ranks, and would probably act with the force of a vortex to draw in their simple countrymen from the Caspian.  The question, therefore, of preoccupation was reduced to a race.  The Cossacks were marching 5 upon an oblique line not above 50 miles longer than that which led to the same point from the Kalmuck headquarters before Koulagina; and therefore, without the most furious haste on the part of the Kalmucks, there was not a chance for them, burdened and “trashed"[6] as 10 they were, to anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the Cossacks in seizing this important pass.

Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on hearing this exposition of the case.  For they easily understood that too capital an interest (the summa rerum) 15 was now at stake to allow of any regard to minor interests, or what would be considered such in their present circumstances.  The dreadful week already passed—­their inauguration in misery—­was yet fresh in their remembrance.  The scars of suffering were impressed 20 not only upon their memories, but upon their very persons and the persons of their children; and they knew that, where no speed had much chance of meeting the cravings of the chieftains, no test would be accepted, short of absolute exhaustion, that as much had been accomplished 25 as could be accomplished.  Weseloff, the Russian captive, has recorded the silent wretchedness with which the women and elder boys assisted in drawing the tent ropes.  On the 5th of January all had been animation and the joyousness of indefinite expectation; now, on the contrary, 30 a brief but bitter experience had taught them to take an amended calculation of what it was that lay before them.

One whole day and far into the succeeding night had the renewed flight continued; the sufferings had been 5 greater than before, for the cold had been more intense, and many perished out of the living creatures through every class except only the camels—­whose powers of endurance seemed equally adapted to cold and heat.  The second morning, however, brought an alleviation to 10 the distress.  Snow had begun to fall; and, though not deep at present, it was easily foreseen that it soon would be so, and that, as a halt would in that case become unavoidable, no plan could be better than that of staying where they were, especially