full three months after the present time.  The Khan had, indeed, expressly notified his intention to pass the summer heats on the banks of the Torgau, and to recommence his retreat about the beginning of September.  The subsequent change of plan being unknown to Kien Long, 25 left him for some time in doubt as to the true interpretation to be put upon this mighty apparition in the desert:  but at length the savage clamors of hostile fury and clangor of weapons unveiled to the Emperor the true nature of those unexpected calamities which had so prematurely 30 precipitated the Kalmuck measure.

Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Emperor instantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly care for these erring children (as he esteemed them), now returning to their ancient obedience, must be—­to deliver them from their pursuers.  And this was less difficult than might have been supposed.  Not many miles in the rear was a body of well-appointed cavalry, with a strong detachment of artillery, who always attended the Emperor’s 5 motions.  These were hastily summoned.  Meantime it occurred to the train of courtiers that some danger might arise to the Emperor’s person from the proximity of a lawless enemy, and accordingly he was induced to retire a little to the rear.  It soon appeared, however, to 10 those who watched the vapory shroud in the desert, that its motion was not such as would argue the direction of the march to be exactly upon the pavilion, but rather in a diagonal line, making an angle of full 45 degrees with that line in which the imperial cortege had been standing, 15 and therefore with a distance continually increasing.  Those who knew the country judged that the Kalmucks were making for a large fresh-water lake about seven or eight miles distant.  They were right; and to that point the imperial cavalry was ordered up; and it was precisely 20 in that spot, and about three hours after, and at noonday on the 8th of September, that the great Exodus of the Kalmuck Tartars was brought to a final close, and with a scene of such memorable and hellish fury as formed an appropriate winding up to an expedition in all its parts 25 and details so awfully disastrous.  The Emperor was not personally present, or at least he saw whatever he did see from too great a distance to discriminate its individual features; but he records in his written memorial the report made to him of this scene by some of his own 30 officers.

The Lake of Tengis, near the frightful Desert of Kobi, lay in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate height, ranging generally from two to three thousand feet high.  About eleven o’clock in the forenoon, the Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a road which led through a cradle-like dip in the mountains right down upon the margin of the lake.  From this pass, elevated about two thousand feet above the level of the water, they continued to 5 descend,