In this posture we encamped for the night; but the enemy was upon us before we had finished.  They did not come on like thieves, as we expected, but sent three messengers to us, to demand the men to be delivered to them that had abused their priests and burned their idol, that they might burn them with fire; and upon this, they said, they would go away, and do us no further harm, otherwise they would destroy us all.  Our men looked very blank at this message, and began to stare at one another to see who looked with the most guilt in their faces; but nobody was the word—­nobody did it.  The leader of the caravan sent word he was well assured that it was not done by any of our camp; that we were peaceful merchants, travelling on our business; that we had done no harm to them or to any one else; and that, therefore, they must look further for the enemies who had injured them, for we were not the people; so they desired them not to disturb us, for if they did we should defend ourselves.

They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer:  and a great crowd of them came running down in the morning, by break of day, to our camp; but seeing us so well posted, they durst come no farther than the brook in our front, where they stood in such number as to terrify us very much; indeed, some spoke of ten thousand.  Here they stood and looked at us a while, and then, setting up a great howl, let fly a crowd of arrows among us; but we were well enough sheltered under our baggage, and I do not remember that one of us was hurt.

Some time after this we saw them move a little to our right, and expected them on the rear:  when a cunning fellow, a Cossack of Jarawena, calling to the leader of the caravan, said to him, “I will send all these people away to Sibeilka.”  This was a city four or five days’ journey at least to the right, and rather behind us.  So he takes his bow and arrows, and getting on horseback, he rides away from our rear directly, as it were back to Nertsinskay; after this he takes a great circuit about, and comes directly on the army of the Tartars as if he had been sent express to tell them a long story that the people who had burned the Cham Chi-Thaungu were gone to Sibeilka, with a caravan of miscreants, as he called them—­that is to say, Christians; and that they had resolved to burn the god Scal-Isar, belonging to the Tonguses.  As this fellow was himself a Tartar, and perfectly spoke their language, he counterfeited so well that they all believed him, and away they drove in a violent hurry to Sibeilka.  In less than three hours they were entirely out of our sight, and we never heard any more of them, nor whether they went to Sibeilka or no.  So we passed away safely on to Jarawena, where there was a Russian garrison, and there we rested five days.