We have little to say of the education of the Kalmucks. Their princes and priests alone boast of some learning, but it consists only in a knowledge of their religious works. The mass of the people grovel in utter ignorance. Nevertheless, a very notable intellectual movement took place among the tribes in the beginning of the seventeenth century, at which period Zaia Pandity, one of their high priests, invented a new alphabet, and enriched the old Mongol language with many Turkish elements. Thereupon the Kalmuck nation had a literature of its own, and soon, under the influence of its numerous traditions, and its historical, sacred, and political books, it exhibited all the germs of a hopeful, nascent civilisation; nor was it rare in those days to find men of decided talent among the aristocracy. But Oubacha's emigration blighted all these fair hopes. The books were all carried off by the fugitives; the old traditions, so potent among Asiatic nations, gradually became extinct, the natural bond that knitted the various hordes together was broken, and the Kalmucks that remained in Europe soon relapsed into their old barbarian condition.
[47] The emperor subjoins in a note: "The nation of the Torgouths arrived at Ily in total destitution without victuals or clothing. I had foreseen this, and given orders to Chouhede and others, to lay up the necessary provisions of all kinds, that they might be promptly succoured. This was done. The lands were divided, and to each family was assigned a sufficient portion for its support by tillage or cattle rearing. Each individual received cloth for garments, a year's supply of corn, household utensils, and other necessaries, and besides all this several ounces of silver to provide himself with whatever might have been forgotten. Particular places, fertile in pasturage, were pointed out to them, and they were given oxen, sheep, &c., that they might afterwards labour for their own sustenance and welfare."