De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROUTE OF THE TARTARS IN THEIR FLIGHT.]

NOTES.

THE ORIGINAL SOURCES.

In Professor Ma.s.son's edition of De Quincey, Vol. VII, p. 8, is the following discussion of the author's original sources:

"A word or two on De Quincey's authorities for his splendid sketch called _The Revolt of the Tartars_:--One authority was a famous Chinese state-paper purporting to have been composed by the Chinese Emperor, Kien Long himself (1735--1796), of which a French translation, with the t.i.tle _Monument de la Transmigration des Tourgouths des Bords de la Mer Caspienne dans l'Empire de la Chine_, had been published in 1776 by the French Jesuit missionaries of Pekin, in the first volume of their great collection of _Memoires concernant les Chinois_. The account there given of so remarkable an event of recent Asiatic history as the migration from Russia to China of a whole population of Tartars had so much interested Gibbon that he refers to it in that chapter of his great work in which he describes the ancient Scythians. De Quincey had fastened on the same doc.u.ment as supplying him with an admirable theme for literary treatment.

Explaining this some time ago, while editing his _Revolt of the Tartars_ for a set of Selections from his Writings, I had to add that there was much in the paper which he could not have derived from that original, and that, therefore, unless he invented a great deal, he must have had other authorities at hand. I failed at the time to discover what these other authorities were,--De Quincey having had a habit of secretiveness in such matters; but since then an incidental reference of his own, in his _Homer and the Homeridae_,[11] has given me the clue. The author from whom he chiefly drew such of his materials as were not supplied by the French edition of Kien Long's narrative, was, it appears from that reference, the German traveller, Benjamin Bergmann, whose _Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmuken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803_ came forth from a Riga press, in four parts or volumes, in 1804-1805. The book consists of a series of letters written by Bergmann from different places during his residence among the Tartars, with interjected essays or dissertations of an independent kind on subjects relating to the Tartars,--one of these occupying 106 pages, and ent.i.tled _Versuch zur Geschichte der Kalmukenflucht von der Wolga_ ("Essay on the History of the Flight of the Kalmucks from the Volga"). A French translation of the Letters, with this particular Essay included, appeared in 1825 under the t.i.tle _Voyage de Benjamin Bergmann chez les Kalmuks: Traduit de l'Allemand par M. Moris, Membre de la Societe Asiatique_. Both works are now very scarce; but having seen copies of both (the only copies, I think, in Edinburgh, and possibly the very copies which De Quincey used), I have no doubt left that it was Bergmann's Essay of 1804 that supplied De Quincey with the facts, names, and hints he needed for filling up that outline-sketch of the history of the Tartar Transmigration of 1771 which was already accessible for him in the Narrative of the Chinese Emperor, Kien Long, and in other Chinese State Papers, as these had been published in translation, in 1776, by the French Jesuit missionaries. At the same time, no doubt is left that he pa.s.sed the composite material freely and boldly through his own imagination, on the principle that here was a theme of such unusual literary capabilities that it was a pity it should be left in the pages of ordinary historiographic summary or record, inasmuch as it would be most effectively treated, even for the purpose of real history, if thrown into the form of an epic or romance. Accordingly he takes liberties with his authorities, deviating from them now and then, and even once or twice introducing incidents not reconcilable with either of them, if not irreconcilable also with historical and geographical possibility. Hence one may doubt sometimes whether what one is reading is to be regarded as history or as invention. On this point I can but repeat words I have already used: as it is, we are bound to be thankful. In quest of a literary theme, De Quincey was arrested somehow by that extraordinary transmigration of a Kalmuck horde across the face of Asia in 1771, which had also struck Gibbon; he inserted his hands into the vague chaos of Asiatic inconceivability enshrouding the transaction; and he tore out the connected and tolerably conceivable story which we now read. There is no such vivid version of any such historical episode in all Gibbon, and possibly nothing truer essentially, after all, to the substance of the facts as they actually happened."

Professor Ma.s.son's Appended Editorial Note on the Chinese Accounts of the Migration (Vol. VII, pp. 422-6):

"As has been mentioned in the Preface, these appeared, in translated form, in 1776, in Vol. I of the great collection of _Memoires concernant les Chinois_, published at Paris by the enterprise of the French Jesuit missionaries at Pekin. The most important of them, under the t.i.tle _Monument de la Transmigration des Tourgouths des Bords de la Mer Caspienne dans l'Empire de la Chine_, occupies twenty-seven pages of the volume, and purports to be a translation of a Chinese doc.u.ment drawn up by the Emperor Kien Long himself. This Emperor, described by the missionaries as 'the best-lettered man in his Empire,' had special reasons for so commemorating, as one of the most interesting events of his reign, the sudden self-transference in 1771 of so large a Tartar horde from the Russian allegiance to his own.

Much of the previous part of his reign had been spent in that work of conquering and consolidating the Tartar appendages of his Empire which had been begun by his celebrated grandfather, the Emperor Kang Hi (1661-1721); and it so chanced that the particular Tartar horde which now, in 1771, had marched all the way from the sh.o.r.es of the Caspian to appeal to him for protection and for annexation to the Chinese Empire were but the posterity of a horde who had formerly belonged to that Empire, but had detached themselves from it, in the reign of Kang Hi, by a contrary march westward to annex themselves to the Russian dominions. The event of 1771, therefore, was gratifying to Kien Long as completing his independent exertions among the Tartars on the fringes of China by the voluntary re-settlement within those fringes, and return to the Chinese allegiance, of a whole Tartar population which had been astray, and under unfit and alien rule, for several generations. With this explanation the following sentences from Kien Long's Memoir, containing all its historical substance, will be fully intelligible:

"'All those who at present compose the nation of the Torgouths, unaffrighted by the dangers of a long and painful march, and full of the single desire of procuring themselves for the future a better mode of life and a more happy lot, have abandoned the parts which they inhabited far beyond our frontiers, have traversed with a courage proof against all difficulties a s.p.a.ce of more than ten thousand _lys_, and are come to range themselves in the number of my subjects.

Their submission, in my view of it, is not a submission to which they have been inspired by fear, but is a voluntary and free submission, if ever there was one.... The Torgouths are one of the branches of the Eleuths. Four different branches of people formed at one time the whole nation of the Tchong-kar. It would be difficult to explain their common origin, respecting which indeed there is no very certain knowledge. These four branches separated from each other, so that each became a nation apart. That of the Eleuths, the chief of them all, gradually subdued the others, and continued till the time of Kang Hi to exercise this usurped pre-eminence over them. Tse-ouang-raptan then reigned over the Eleuths, and Ayouki over the Torgouths. These two chiefs, being on bad terms with each other, had their mutual contests; of which Ayouki, who was the weaker, feared that in the end he would be the unhappy victim. He formed the project of withdrawing himself forever from the domination of the Eleuths. He took secret measures for securing the flight which he meditated, and sought safety, with all his people, in the territories which are under the dominion of the Russians. These permitted them to establish themselves in the country of Etchil [the country between the Volga and the Jaik, a little to the north of the Caspian Sea].... Oubache, the present Khan of the Torgouths, is the youngest grandson of Ayouki. The Russians never ceasing to require him to furnish soldiers for incorporation into their armies, and having at last carried off his own son to serve them as a hostage, and being besides of a religion different from his, and paying no respect to that of the Lamas, which the Torgouths profess, Oubache and his people at last determined to shake off a yoke which was becoming daily more and more insupportable. After having secretly deliberated among themselves, they concluded that they must abandon a residence where they had so much to suffer, in order to come and live more at ease in those parts of the dominion of China where the religion professed is that of Fo. At the commencement of the eleventh month of last year [December, 1770] they took the road, with their wives, their children, and all their baggage, traversed the country of the Hasaks [Cossacks], skirted Lake Palkache-nor and the adjacent deserts; and, about the end of the sixth month of this year [in August, 1771], after having pa.s.sed over more than ten thousand _lys_ during the s.p.a.ce of the eight whole months of their journey, they arrived at last on the frontiers of Charapen, not far from the borders of Ily. I knew already that the Torgouths were on the march to come and make submission to me. The news was brought me not long after their departure from Etchil. I then reflected that, as Ileton, general of the troops that are at Ily, was already charged with other very important affairs, it was to be feared that he would not be able to regulate with all the requisite attention those which concerned these new refugees. Chouhede, one of the councillors of the general, was at Ouche, charged with keeping order among the Mahometans there. As he found it within his power to give his attention to the Torgouths, I ordered him to repair to Ily and do his best for their solid settlement.... At the same time I did not neglect any of the precautions that seemed to me necessary. I ordered Chouhede to raise small forts and redoubts at the most important points, and to cause all the pa.s.ses to be carefully guarded; and I enjoined on him the duty of himself getting ready the necessary provisions of every kind inside these defences.... The Torgouths arrived, and on arriving found lodgings ready, means of sustenance, and all the conveniences they could have found in their own proper dwellings. This is not all. Those princ.i.p.al men among them who had to come personally to do me homage had their expenses paid, and were honorably conducted, by the imperial post-road, to the place where I then was. I saw them; I spoke to them; I invited them to partake with me in the pleasures of the chase; and, at the end of the number of days appointed for this exercise, they attended me in my retinue as far as to Ge-hol. There I gave them a ceremonial banquet and made them the customary presents.... It was at this Ge-hol, in those charming parts where Kang Hi, my grandfather, made himself an abode to which he could retire during the hot season, at the same time that he thus put himself in a situation to be able to watch with greater care over the welfare of the peoples that are beyond the western frontiers of the Empire; it was, I say, in those lovely parts that, after having conquered the whole country of the Eleuths, I had received the sincere homages of Tchering and his Tourbeths, who alone among the Eleuths had remained faithful to me.

One has not to go many years back to touch the epoch of that transaction. The remembrance of it is yet recent. And now--who could have predicted it?--when there was the least possible room for expecting such a thing, and when I had no thought of it, that one of the branches of the Eleuths which first separated itself from the trunk, those Torgouths who had voluntarily expatriated themselves to go and live under a foreign and distant dominion, these same Torgouths are come of themselves to submit to me of their own good will; and it happens that it is still at Ge-hol, not far from the venerable spot where my grandfather's ashes repose, that I have the opportunity, which I never sought, of admitting them solemnly into the number of my subjects.'

"Annexed to this general memoir there were some notes, also by the Emperor, one of them being that description of the sufferings of the Torgouths on their march, and of the miserable condition in which they arrived at the Chinese frontier, which De Quincey has quoted at p.

417. Annexed to the Memoir there is also a letter from P. Amiot, one of the French Jesuit missionaries, dated 'Pe-king, 15th October, 1773,' containing a comment on the memoir of a certain Chinese scholar and mandarin, Yu-min-tchoung, who had been charged by the Emperor with the task of seeing the narrative properly preserved in four languages in a monumental form. It is from this Chinese comment on the Imperial Memoir that there is the extract at p. 418 as to the miserable condition of the fugitives.

"On a comparison of De Quincey's splendid paper with the Chinese doc.u.ments, several discrepancies present themselves; the most important of which perhaps are these:--(1) In De Quincey's paper it is Kien Long himself who first descries the approach of the vast Kalmuck horde to the frontiers of his dominions. On a fine morning in the early autumn of 1771, we are told, being then on a hunting expedition in the solitary Tartar wilds on the outside of the great Chinese Wall, and standing by chance at an opening of his pavilion to enjoy the morning suns.h.i.+ne, he sees the huge sheet of mist on the horizon, which, as it rolls nearer and nearer, and its features become more definite, reveals camels, and horses, and human beings in myriads, and announces the advent of, etc. etc.! In Kien Long's own narrative he is not there at all, having expected indeed the arrival of the Kalmuck host, but having deputed the military and commissariat arrangements for the reception of them to his trusted officer, Chouhede; and his first sight of any of them is when their chiefs are brought to him, by the imperial post-road, to his quarters a good way off, where they are honorably entertained, and whence they accompany him to his summer residence of Ge-hol. (2) De Quincey's closing account of the monument in memory of the Tartar transmigration which Kien Long caused to be erected, and his copy of the fine inscription on the monument, are not in accord with the Chinese statements respecting that matter. 'Mighty columns of granite and bra.s.s erected by the Emperor Kien Long near the banks of the Ily' is De Quincey's description of the monument. The account given of the affair by the mandarin Yu-min-tchoung, in his comment on the Emperor's Memoir, is very different. 'The year of the arrival of the Torgouths,' he says, 'chanced to be precisely that in which the Emperor was celebrating the eightieth year of the age of his mother the Empress-Dowager. In memory of this happy day his Majesty had built on the mountain which shelters from the heat (Pi-chou-chan) a vast and magnificent _miao_, in honor of the reunion of all the followers of Fo in one and the same wors.h.i.+p; it had just been completed when Oubache and the other princes of his nation arrived at Ge-hol. In memory of an event which has contributed to make this same year forever famous in our annals, it has been his Majesty's will to erect in the same _miao_ a monument which should fix the epoch of the event and attest its authenticity; he himself composed the words for the monument and wrote the characters with his own hand. How small the number of persons that will have an opportunity of seeing and reading this monument within the walls of the temple in which it is erected!' Moreover the words of the monumental inscription in De Quincey's copy of it are hardly what Kien Long would have written or could have authorized. 'Wandering sheep who have strayed away from the Celestial Empire in the year 1616' is the expression in De Quincey's copy for that original secession of the Torgouth Tartars from their eastern home on the Chinese borders for transference of themselves far west to Russia, which was repaired and compensated by their return in 1771 under their Khan Oubache. As distinctly, on the other hand, the memoir of Kien Long refers the date of the original secession to no farther back than the reign of his own grandfather, the Emperor Kang Hi, when Ayouki, the grandfather of Oubache, was Khan of the Torgouths, and induced them to part company with their overbearing kinsmen the Eleuths, and seek refuge within the Russian territories on the Volga. In the comment of the Chinese mandarin on the Imperial Memoir the time is more exactly indicated by the statement that the Torgouths had remained 'more than seventy years' in their Russian settlements when Oubache brought them back. This would refer us to about 1700, or, at farthest, to between 1690 and 1700, for the secession under Ayouki.

"The discrepancies are partly explained by the fact that De Quincey followed Bergmann's account,--which account differs avowedly in some particulars from that of the Chinese memoirs. In Bergmann I find the original secession of the ancestors of Oubache's Kalmuck horde from China to Russia _is_ pushed back to 1616, just as in De Quincey. But, though De Quincey keeps by Bergmann when he pleases, he takes liberties with Bergmann too, intensifies Bergmann's story throughout, and adds much to it for which there is little or no suggestion in Bergmann. For example, the incident which De Quincey introduces with such terrific effect as the closing catastrophe of the march of the fugitive Kalmucks before their arrival on the Chinese frontier,--the incident of their thirst-maddened rush into the waters of Lake Tengis, and their wallow there in b.l.o.o.d.y struggle with their Bashkir pursuers,--has no basis in Bergmann larger than a few slight and rather matter-of-fact sentences. As Bergmann himself refers here and there in his narrative to previous books, German or Russian, for his authorities, it is just possible that De Quincey may have called some of these to his aid for any intensification or expansion of Bergmann he thought necessary. My impression, however, is that he did nothing of the sort, but deputed any necessary increment of his Bergmann materials to his own lively imagination."

1 1. The first three paragraphs of the essay, comprising the formal introduction, are intentionally rather more picturesque and vivacious in style than the ordinary narrative that follows. If these paragraphs be read consecutively aloud, the student will surely feel the sweep and power of De Quincey's eloquence. Attention may well be directed to the author's own apparent interest in his subject because of its appeal to the _imagination_ (p. 1, l. 4), of the _romantic circ.u.mstances_ (p. 1, l. 11), of its _dramatic capabilities_ (p. 2, l.

8), of its _scenical situations_ (p. 3, l. 8). Throughout the essay effort should be made to excite appreciation of the significance of words, and De Quincey's mastery in the use of words may be continually ill.u.s.trated. In paragraph 1, note the fitness of the word _velocity_ (l. 12) and the appropriateness of the epithets in _almighty instincts_ (l. 17), _life-withering marches_ (l. 18), _gloomy vengeance_ (l. 19), _volleying thunders_ (p. 2, l. 1).

1 5. Tartar. Originally applied to certain tribes in Chinese Tartary, but here used for Mongolian. Look up etymology and trace relation of the word to _Turk_.--steppes. A Russian word indicating large areas more or less level and devoid of forests; these regions are often similar in character to the American prairie, and are used for pasturage.

1 6,7. terminus a quo, terminus ad quem. The use of phrases quoted from cla.s.sic sources is frequent in De Quincey's writings. Note such phrases as they occur, also foreign words. Is their use to be justified?

1 18. leeming. The lemming, or leming. A rodent quadruped. "It is very prolific, and vast hordes periodically migrate down to the sea, destroying much vegetation in their path."--_Century Dictionary_.

1 22. Miltonic images. "Miltonic" here characterizes not only images used by Milton, but images suggestive of his as well. Yet compare:

Or from above Should intermitted vengeance arm again His red right hand to plague us?

--_Paradise Lost_, II, 172-4.

Or, with solitary hand Reaching beyond all limit, at one blow Unaided could have finished thee.

--_Paradise Lost_, VI, 139-41.

2 12. sanctions. The word here means not permission, nor recognition merely, but the avowal of something as sacred, hence obligatory; a thing ordained.

2 13, 14. a triple character. De Quincey is fond of thus a.n.a.lyzing the facts he has to state. Notice how this method of statement, marked by "1st," "2dly," "3dly," contributes to the clearness of the paragraph.

2 17. "Venice Preserved." A tragedy by Thomas Otway, one of the Elizabethan dramatists (1682).--"Fiesco." A tragedy by the great German dramatist Friedrich Schiller (1783), the full t.i.tle of which is _The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa_.

2 22. Cambyses, the Third (529-522 B.C.). He was king of Persia and led an expedition into Ethiopia, which ended disastrously for him.

2 23. anabasis. The word itself means "a march up" into the interior.--katabasis (l. 28) means "a march down,"--in this case the retreat of the Greeks. The _Anabasis_ of the Greek historian Xenophon is the account of the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against Artaxerxes, which ended with the death of Cyrus at the battle of Cunaxa (401 B.C.).

2 25. Cra.s.sus. A Roman general who led an army into Parthia (or Persia) (54 B.C.). He was defeated and put to death by torture.--Julian (l. 26), the Apostate, lost his life while invading Persia (363 A.D.).

2 28. the Russian anabasis, etc. The historic invasion of Russia by the armies of Napoleon in 1812, followed by the terrible retreat from Moscow.

3 3. This triple character, etc. Note this method of making clear the connection between paragraphs. Make close study of these paragraphs; a.n.a.lyze their structure. Compare the manner of introducing subsequent paragraphs.

3 14. Wolga. The German spelling. The Volga is the longest river in Europe. It is difficult to locate with certainty all the points here mentioned.

3 16. Koulagina was a fort somewhere on the Ural river; perhaps to be identified with Kulaschinskaja, or Kologinskaia.

3 17. Cossacks. A people of mixed origin, but of Russian rather than Tartar stock. There are two branches, the Ukraine and the Don Cossacks. This people is first heard of in the tenth century. The t.i.tle of the leader was _Hetman_; the office was elective and the government was democratic. The Cossacks have been noted always as fierce fighters and are valuable subjects of the czar. The _Bashkirs_ (l. 18) are Mongolians and nomadic in their habits.

3 18. Ouchim was evidently a mountain pa.s.s in the Ural range (compare p. 37, l. 18).

3 19. Torgau, spelled also _Torgai_ by De Quincey, though elsewhere _Turgai_, indicates a district east of the Ural mountains; it is also the name of the princ.i.p.al city of that district.

3 20. Khan. A Tartar t.i.tle meaning chief or governor.

3 22. Lake of Tengis. Lake Balkash is meant. Compare p. 56, l. 18, and note thereon.

3 23. Zebek-Dorchi. One of the princ.i.p.al characters in the following narrative.

3 32. Kalmucks. A branch of the Mongolian family of peoples, divided into four tribes, and dwelling in the Chinese Empire, western Siberia, and southeastern Russia. They were nomads, adherents of a form of Buddhism, and number over 200,000.--_Century Cyclopedia of Names._

4 12. exasperated. As an ill.u.s.tration of the discriminating use of words, explain the difference in meaning of _exasperated_ and _irritated_ (l. 19); also point out the fitness of the word _inflated_ in the phrase (l. 13).

5 23. rival. Why "_almost_ a compet.i.tor"? What is the meaning of each word?

5 32. odius. Is there any gain in force by adding _repulsive_?

6 5. Machiavelian. Dest.i.tute of political morality. A term derived from the name of Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian statesman and writer (1469-1527), who, in a treatise on government ent.i.tled "The Prince,"

advocated, or was interpreted to advocate, the disregard of moral principle in the maintenance of authority. In this sentence discriminate between the apparent synonyms _dissimulation_, _hypocrisy_, _perfidy_.

6 15. Elizabeth Petrowna. Daughter of Peter the Great and Catharine I. Empress of Russia 1741-1762.

6 28. Tcherkask. An important city of the Cossacks, near the mouth of the Don.--tents. A common method of counting families among nomads. What figure of speech does this ill.u.s.trate?

7 25. roubles. A rouble is the Russian unit of value, worth seventy-seven cents. The word is etymologically connected with the Indian _rupee_.