Thus liberated, almost by a miracle, from his dungeon, he lost no time in descending the Volga and the river Irghis which flows in the desert; and reappearing on the banks of the laik under more favourable circumstances, adopted fresh expedients for the furtherance of his projects. The Cossacks, who bear the name of that river, are the scattered remains of the ancient inhabitants of Kaptshak; a curious mixture of Russians, Tatars, Kalmucks, and Kerghis. On the whole, they were more barbarous than their western brethren; rather pagan than Christian, ignorant, superstitious, leading a wandering life, hating the culture of the soil, and subsisting chiefly on rapine, the produce of their fisheries, and the breeding of cattle, as well as extracting salt from their extensive marshes. The Russian government robbed them, inch by inch, not only of the vast tracts of fertile soil which they never touched, but also of the abundant pastures which fed their herds in these cold and dreary solitudes. Deprived of the scanty allowance which was due to them on the sacred faith of voluntary treaties with Russia; deprived unjustly of all the comforts of existence; obliged to sell almost for nothing their celebrated herds of beast, and denied redress from Petersburg, where their deputies were treated as rebels, they dispersed, partly in wilder tracts towards the Uralian mountains, and partly in other directions. Passionately attached to the creed of the Russian puritans (Roskolniki), to their barbarous customs, to their laws, bearing a strange resemblance to the customs of the Zaporogues, they obstinately rejected all the changes and reforms intended for their civilisa- tion; they were more attached to the conservation of their beards than of their lives. The Russians, agreeably to the order transmitted to them by the czarina, endeavoured to transform them from regiments of Cossacks, into regiments of regular cavalry; but they absolutely refused to allow their beards to be cut, and raised a rebellion. Major-General Trauenberg was sent against them with some regulars; but he was beaten and massacred, together with their own attaman, who was suspected of being favourable to the Russians. The approach of winter, so terrible in these climates prevented a speedy quelling of their insurrection; but in the following spring the Russian general Freyman, with a large body of troops, traversed their territory, routed them, and took laitzkay by storm. After putting to the sword their principal leaders and committing great cruelties, he quelled their rebellion, and left the town to the care of a Russian colonel, who had under his command a large body of regulars.
In spite of all this, many of the unfortunate Cossacks, and even some of their leaders, escaped into the wilds which surround the lakes of Kamish SamarsMe, where they lived on fish and some animals which frequent, occasionally, its bleak and inhospitable shores; as well as on the scanty provisions which their families sent them secretly, with great difficulty and danger, till they found a skilful chief who terribly avenged the cruelties mercilessly inflicted on them.
It is very difficult to fix on the correct time when Pugatchef assumed the name of Peter III.: before, however, he determined on the adoption of that dangerous character, he did not fail, during his stay in Podolia and elsewhere, to collect all the information possible relative to Stenko Razin, the celebrated rebel, and likewise respecting the peculiarities of character that had distinguished the ill-fated Peter. His friends hinted also to some of the Cossacks, that he was sent secretly by a few discontented Russian nobles in quest of the lost emperor; others, that he wished to ascertain in what manner they would consider the idea of his assuming the character of the deceased czar. It is, however, a weU-known fact, that when Pugatchef was sent to his general with a despatch, during the siege of Bender in 1769, all the officers of his staff were surprised at his extraordinary resemblance to the late emperor Peter III., in consequence of which, he was invited to dine at the table of General Totleben, where this resemblance was fully and unanimously confirmed: it is also to be remarked that when Pugatchef, after deserting his ranks, was in Podolia, two clergymen knelt before him and acknowledged him as the Russian czar. In vain some authors deny this resemblance: the great majority of them, as well as some disinterested testimonials, and even the portraits of Peter III. and Pugatchef, to be found in the British Museum, and which we have carefully examined, fully confirm it. All these things combined together made a deep impression on the mind of o Pugatchef, and he resolved to try his fortune in that capacity. His resemblance, even, to the late czar was not absolutely necessary for seducing the credulous, ignorant, and persecuted people living at a great distance from the capital.