The period of 20
his anxiety was not long. On the fifth day of the siege
he descried from the walls a succession of Tartar
couriers, mounted upon fleet Bactrian camels, crossing
the vast plains around the fortress at a furious pace and
riding into the Kalmuck encampment at various points. 25
Great agitation appeared immediately to follow: orders
were soon after dispatched in all directions; and it became
speedily known that upon a distant flank of the Kalmuck
movement a bloody and exterminating battle had been
fought the day before, in which one entire tribe of the 30
Khan's dependents, numbering not less than 9000 fighting
men, had perished to the last man. This was the
_ouloss_, or clan, called Feka-Zechorr, between whom and
the Cossacks there was a feud of ancient standing. In
selecting, therefore, the points of attack, on occasion of
the present hasty inroad, the Cossack chiefs were naturally
eager so to direct their efforts as to combine with
the service of the Empress some gratification to their own
party hatreds, more especially as the present was likely 5
to be their final opportunity for revenge if the Kalmuck
evasion should prosper. Having, therefore, concentrated
as large a body of Cossack cavalry as circumstances
allowed, they attacked the hostile _ouloss_ with a precipitation
which denied to it all means for communicating with 10
Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding an ample range
of pasturage, to meet the necessities of their vast flocks
and herds, had separated this _ouloss_ from the Khan's
headquarters by an interval of 80 miles; and thus it was,
and not from oversight, that it came to be thrown entirely 15
upon its own resources.
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