ous array of cavalry, were ready to receive their
assailants, and fell upon them with such impetuosity and courage that
the Russians were overpowered, and driven back, with much slaughter,
to their boats. They consequently retreated to await the arrival of
the cavalry. The Tartars, imagining that the foe, utterly discomfited,
had fled back to Moscow, surrendered themselves to excessive joy. A
month passed away, and on the 22d of June an immense assemblage of
uncounted thousands of Tartars were gathered in festivity on the
plains of Arsk, which spread around their capital city. More than a
thousand tents were spread upon the field. Merchants from all parts
were gathered there displaying their goods, and a scene of festivity
and splendor was exhibited, such as modern civilization has never
paralleled.

Suddenly the Russian army, horse and infantry, were seen upon the
plain, as if they had dropped from the clouds. They rushed upon the
encampment, cutting down the terrified multitude, with awful butchery,
and trampling them beneath their horses' feet. The fugitives, in
dismay, sought to regain the city, crushing each other in their flight
and in the desperate endeavor to crowd in at the gates and along the
narrow streets. The Russians, exhausted by their victory, and lured by
the luxuries which filled the tents, instead of taking the city by
storm, as, in the confusion they probably could have done, surrendered
themselves to pillage and voluptuous indulgence. They found the tents
filled with food, liquors of all kinds and a great quantity of
precious commodities, and forgetting they were in the presence of an
enemy, they plunged into the wildest excesses of festivity and
wassail.

The disgraceful carousal was briefly terminated during the night, but
renewed, with additional zest, in the morning. The songs and the
shouts of the drunken soldiers were heard in the streets of Kezan,
and, from the battlements, the Tartars beheld these orgies, equaling
the most frantic revels of pagan bacchanals. The Tartar khan, from the
top of a bastion, watched the spectacle, and perceiving the negligence
of his enemies, prepared for a surprise and for vengeance. On the 25th
of June, just at the dawn of day, the gates were thrown open, and
twenty thousand horsemen and thirty thousand infantry precipitated
themselves with frightful yells upon the Russians, stupefied with
sleep and wine. Though the Russians exceeded the Tartars two to one,
ye