But if the Kalmucks resolved to press forwards, regardless of their enemies—­in that case their attacks became so fierce and overwhelming that the general safety seemed likely to be brought into question; nor could any effectual remedy 15 be applied to the case, even for each separate day, except by a most embarrassing halt and by countermarches that, to men in their circumstances, were almost worse than death.  It will not be surprising that the irritation of such a systematic persecution, superadded to a previous, 20 and hereditary hatred, and accompanied by the stinging consciousness of utter impotence as regarded all effectual vengeance, should gradually have inflamed the Kalmuck animosity into the wildest expression of downright madness and frenzy.  Indeed, long before the 25 frontiers of China were approached, the hostility of both sides had assumed the appearance much more of a warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst creatures acknowledging the restraints of reason or the claims of a common nature.  The spectacle became too atrocious; it 30 was that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of fiends.

* * * * *

On a fine morning in early autumn of the year 1771, Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his amusements in a wild frontier district lying on the outside of the Great Wall.  For many hundred square leagues the country was desolate of inhabitants, but rich in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with game of every description.  In a central spot of this solitary 5 region the Emperor had built a gorgeous hunting lodge, to which he resorted annually for recreation and relief from the cares of government.  Led onwards in pursuit of game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 miles or more from his lodge, followed at a little distance by a 10 sufficient military escort, and every night pitching his tent in a different situation, until at length he had arrived on the very margin of the vast central deserts of Asia.[8] Here he was standing by accident, at an opening of his pavilion, enjoying the morning sunshine, when suddenly 15 to the westward there arose a vast, cloudy vapor, which by degrees expanded, mounted, and seemed to be slowly diffusing itself over the whole face of the heavens.  By and by this vast sheet of mist began to thicken toward the horizon and to roll forward in billowy volumes.  The 20 Emperor’s suite assembled from all quarters; the silver trumpets were sounded in the rear; and from all the glades and forest avenues began to trot forwards towards the pavilion the yagers—­half cavalry, half huntsmen—­who composed the imperial escort.  Conjecture was on 25 the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon; and the interest continually increased in proportion as simple curiosity gradually deepened into the anxiety of uncertain danger.  At first