in rolled
and eddied, until it assumed the appearance of vast aerial draperies
depending from the heavens to the earth; sometimes, where rent by the
eddying breeze, it resembled portals and archways, through which, at
intervals, were seen the gleam of weapons and the dim forms of camels
and human beings. At times, again, the cloud thickened, shutting all
from view; but through it broke the din of battle, the shouts of
combatants, the roar of infuriated hordes in mortal conflict.

It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last stage of misery and
exhaustion, yet still pursued by their unrelenting foes. Of the six
hundred thousand who had begun the journey scarcely a third remained,
cold, heat, famine, and warfare having swept away nearly half a million
of the fleeing host, while of their myriad animals only the camels and
the horses brought from the Toorgai remained. For the past ten days
their suffering had reached a climax. They had been traversing a
frightful desert, destitute alike of water and of vegetation. Two days
before their small allowance of water had failed, and to the fatigue of
flight had been added the horrors of insupportable thirst.

On came the flying and fighting mass. It was soon evident that it was
not moving towards the imperial train, and those who knew the country
judged that it was speeding towards a large freshwater lake about seven
or eight miles away. Thither the imperial cavalry, of which a strong
body, attended with artillery, lay some miles in the rear, was ordered
in all haste to ride; and there, at noon of September 8, the great
migration of the Kalmucks came to an end, amid the most ferocious and
bloodthirsty scene of its whole frightful course.

The lake of Tengis lies in a hollow among low mountains, on the verge of
the great desert of Gobi. The Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a
road that led down to the lake at about eleven o'clock. The descent was
a winding and difficult one, and took them an hour and a half, during
the whole of which they were spectators of an extraordinary scene below,
the last and most fiendish spectacle in eight months of almost constant
warfare.

The sight of the distant hills and forests on that morning, and the
announcement of the guides that the lake of Tengis was near at hand, had
excited the suffering host into a state of frenzy, and a wild rush was
made for the water, in which all discipline was lost, and the heat of
the day and the exhausti