This traitor, impelled by insane ambition as much as by hate, had ordered the movement so as to attack Siberia.

Mad indeed he was, if he hoped to rupture the Muscovite Empire.
Acting under his suggestion, the Emir--which is the title taken by the khans of Bokhara--had poured his hordes over the Russian frontier.

He invaded the government of Semipolatinsk, and the Cossacks, who were only in small force there, had been obliged to retire before him.

He had advanced farther than Lake Balkhash, gaining over the Kirghiz population on his way.

Pillaging, ravaging, enrolling those who submitted, taking prisoners those who resisted, he marched from one town to another, followed by those impedimenta of Oriental sovereignty which may be called his household, his wives and his slaves--all with the cool audacity of a modern Ghengis-Khan.