on the Torgau.  In their speed lay their only hope—­in strength of foot, as before, 30 and not in strength of arm.  Onward, therefore, the Kalmucks pressed, marking the lines of their wide-extending march over the sad solitudes of the steppes by a never-ending chain of corpses.  The old and the young, the sick man on his couch, the mother with her baby—­all were left behind.  Sights such as these, with the many rueful aggravations incident to the helpless condition of infancy—­of disease and of female weakness abandoned to the wolves amidst a howling wilderness—­continued to 5 track their course through a space of full two thousand miles; for so much at the least it was likely to prove, including the circuits to which they were often compelled by rivers or hostile tribes, from the point of starting on the Wolga until they could reach their destined halting 10 ground on the east bank of the Torgau.  For the first seven weeks of this march their sufferings had been imbittered by the excessive severity of the cold; and every night—­so long as wood was to be had for fires, either from the lading of the camels, or from the desperate sacrifice 15 of their baggage wagons, or (as occasionally happened) from the forests which skirted the banks of the many rivers which crossed their path—­no spectacle was more frequent than that of a circle, composed of men, women, and children, gathered by hundreds round a central fire, 20 all dead and stiff at the return of morning light.  Myriads were left behind from pure exhaustion, of whom none had a chance, under the combined evils which beset them, of surviving through the next twenty-four hours.  Frost, however, and snow at length ceased to persecute; 25 the vast extent of the march at length brought them into more genial latitudes, and the unusual duration of the march was gradually bringing them into more genial seasons of the year.  Two thousand miles had at least been traversed; February, March, April, were gone; the 30 balmy month of May had opened; vernal sights and sounds came from every side to comfort the heart-weary travellers; and at last, in the latter end of May, crossing the Torgau, they took up a position where they hoped to find liberty to repose themselves for many weeks in comfort as well as in security, and to draw such supplies from the fertile neighborhood as might restore their shattered forces to a condition for executing, with less of wreck and ruin, the large remainder of the journey. 5

Yes; it was true that two thousand miles of wandering had been completed, but in a period of nearly five months, and with the terrific sacrifice of at least two hundred and fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and flocks past all reckoning.  These had all perished:  ox, 10 cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not one survived—­only the camels.  These arid and adust creatures, looking