it had been imagined that some vast troops of deer or other wild animals of the chase had been disturbed in their forest haunts by the Emperor’s movements, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for prey, and might be fetching a compass by way of re-entering the forest grounds at some remoter points, secure from 5 molestation.  But this conjecture was dissipated by the slow increase of the cloud and the steadiness of its motion.  In the course of two hours the vast phenomenon had advanced to a point which was judged to be within five miles of the spectators, though all calculations 10 of distance were difficult, and often fallacious, when applied to the endless expanses of the Tartar deserts.  Through the next hour, during which the gentle morning breeze had a little freshened, the dusty vapor had developed itself far and wide into the appearance of huge 15 aerial draperies, hanging in mighty volumes from the sky to the earth; and at particular points, where the eddies of the breeze acted upon the pendulous skirts of these aerial curtains, rents were perceived, sometimes taking the form of regular arches, portals, and windows, through 20 which began dimly to gleam the heads of camels “indorsed"[9] with human beings, and at intervals the moving of men and horses in tumultuous array, and then through other openings, or vistas, at far-distant points, the flashing of polished arms.  But sometimes, as the wind slackened 25 or died away, all those openings, of whatever form, in the cloudy pall, would slowly close, and for a time the whole pageant was shut up from view; although the growing din, the clamors, the shrieks, and groans ascending from infuriated myriads, reported, in a language not 30 to be misunderstood, what was going on behind the cloudy screen.

It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last extremities of their exhaustion, and very fast approaching to that final stage of privation and killing misery beyond which few or none could have lived, but also, happily for themselves, fast approaching (in a literal sense) that final 5 stage of their long pilgrimage at which they would meet hospitality on a scale of royal magnificence and full protection from their enemies.  These enemies, however, as yet, still were hanging on their rear as fiercely as ever, though this day was destined to be the last of their hideous 10 persecution.  The Khan had, in fact, sent forward couriers with all the requisite statements and petitions, addressed to the Emperor of China.  These had been duly received, and preparations made in consequence to welcome the Kalmucks with the most paternal benevolence. 15 But as these couriers had been dispatched from the Torgau at the moment of arrival thither, and before the advance of Traubenberg had made it necessary for the Khan to order a hasty renewal of the flight, the Emperor had not looked for their arrival on his frontiers 20 until