At the period of the Kalmuck emigration Catherine II. filled the throne, and the Russian government was beginning to adopt those principles of uniformity which so highly characterise its present policy. Moreover, it was really impossible to allow that the whole southern portion of the empire should be given up to turbulent hordes, which, though nominally subjected to the crown, still indulged their propensity to pillage without scruple. Placed as they were between the central and the southern provinces, and occupying almost all the approaches to the Caucasus, the Kalmucks were destined, of necessity, to lose their independence, and fall beneath the immediate yoke of Russia. Catherine's intentions were soon no secret, and Oubacha saw that he must escape by flight from the encroachments of his powerful neighbours, if he would save what remained to him of the primitive authority of the khans. If we reflect, moreover, that the power of the Kalmuck princes had been considerably abridged by the new organisation of their administrative council; that Colonel Kitchinskoi, then grand pristof, had excited the general indignation of the tribes by his harsh conduct; that the political and military exigencies of Russia were continually on the increase; we shall have no difficulty in comprehending the real causes of the emigration of these Mongol tribes. Certainly it required all these combined motives to induce the Kalmucks to undertake such a journey through desert regions, the inhabitants of which were their natural enemies. Nevertheless, we believe the Chinese government was not altogether unconcerned in bringing about Oubacha's determination; for, as we shall see by and by, the emperor had already, in Aiouki's time, sent the mandarin Toulischin to the Kalmucks, to assure them of his protection, in case they would return to their native country.[38]
It was on the 5th of January, 1771, the day appointed by the high priests, that Oubacha began his march, with 70,000 families. Most of the hordes were then assembled in the steppes on the left bank of the Volga, and the whole multitude followed him. Only 15,000 families remained in Russia, because the Volga remained unfrozen to an unusual late period, and prevented them from crossing over to the rendezvous. Oubacha arrived, without impediment, beyond the Jaik, but was afterwards vigorously assailed by the Cossacks of the Ural and the Khirghis, and lost many men. After two months' marching, the exhausted hordes encamped on the Irguitch, which falls into Lake Aksakal, to the north of the sea of Aral. Next they had to cross the frightful desert of Chareh Ousoun, where they were exposed to all the torments of thirst, and suffered indescribable disasters; after which they arrived at Lake Palkache Nor, where many of them fell in a last encounter with the Khirghis. Oubacha then forced a passage through the country of the Burats, and at last reached China, after a march of eight months. Strange to say, the Muscovite government took no energetic means to arrest the fugitives, and detain them in Russia. General Traubenberg, indeed, who was in command at Orenberg, was sent in pursuit of them, but failed totally, whether from incapacity or otherwise. Thus was accomplished the most extraordinary emigration of modern times; the empire was suddenly deprived of a pastoral and warlike people, whose habits accorded so well with the Caspian steppes, and the regions in which many thousand families had fed their innumerable flocks and herds for a long series of years, were left desolate and unpeopled.
We will now extract that portion of the Memoirs of the Jesuits, Vol. I., in which Father Amiot recounts the arrival of the Kalmucks in China, dated Pekin, November 8th, 1772. I copy this curious document from Father Amiot's original manuscript.[39]