sun, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his image
but some Christian miscreant; and they therefore resolved to
denounce war against him and all the Russians, who, they said, were
miscreants and Christians.
The governor, unwilling to make a breach, or to have any cause of
war alleged to be given by him, the Czar having strictly charged
him to treat the conquered country with gentleness, gave them all
the good words he could. At last he told them there was a caravan
gone towards Russia that morning, and perhaps it was some of them
who had done them this injury; and that if they would be satisfied
with that, he would send after them to inquire into it. This
seemed to appease them a little; and accordingly the governor sent
after us, and gave us a particular account how the thing was;
intimating withal, that if any in our caravan had done it they
should make their escape; but that whether we had done it or no, we
should make all the haste forward that was possible: and that, in
the meantime, he would keep them in play as long as he could.
This was very friendly in the governor; however, when it came to
the caravan, there was nobody knew anything of the matter; and as
for us that were guilty, we were least of all suspected. However,
the captain of the caravan for the time took the hint that the
governor gave us, and we travelled two days and two nights without
any considerable stop, and then we lay at a village called Plothus:
nor did we make any long stop here, but hastened on towards
Jarawena, another Muscovite colony, and where we expected we should
be safe. But upon the second day’s march from Plothus, by the
clouds of dust behind us at a great distance, it was plain we were
pursued. We had entered a vast desert, and had passed by a great
lake called Schanks Oser, when we perceived a large body of horse
appear on the other side of the lake, to the north, we travelling
west. We observed they went away west, as we did, but had supposed
we would have taken that side of the lake, whereas we very happily
took the south side; and in two days more they disappeared again:
for they, believing we were still before them, pushed on till they
came to the Udda, a very great river when it passes farther north,
but when we came to it we found it narrow and fordable.
The third day they had either found their mistake, or had
intelligence of us, and came pouring in upon us towards dusk. We
had, to our great satisfaction, just pitched upon a convenient
place for our camp; for as we had just entered upon a desert above
five hundred miles over, where we had no towns to lodge at, and,
indeed, expected none but the city Jarawena, which we had yet two
days’ march to; the desert, however, had some few woods in it on
this side, and little rivers, which ran all into the great river
Udda; it was in a narrow strait, between little but very thick
woods, that we pitched our camp that night, expecting to be
attacked before morning. As it was usual for the Mogul Tartars to
go about in troops in that desert, so the caravans always fortify
themselves every night against them, as against armies of robbers;
and it was, therefore, no new thing to be pursued. But we had this
night a most advantageous camp: for as we lay between two woods,
with a little rivulet running just before our front, we could not
be surrounded, or attacked any way but in our front or rear. We
took care also to make our front as strong as we could, by placing
our packs, with the camels and horses, all in a line, on the inside
of the river, and felling some trees in our rear.
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