As the
price of his frankness, his liberty was given him, and he hastened to
announce to his master that the predictions of the soothsayers of
Siberia were being realized, for according to some accounts these
pretended sorcerers had for a long time proclaimed the near and
inevitable downfall of this state by an invasion of Christians. Tausak
spoke of the Cossacks as wonderful men and invincible heroes, lancing
fire and thunder which penetrate through the cuirasses. Nevertheless,
Kutchum, although deprived of sight, had a strong soul. He made ready to
defend his country and his faith with courage. He at once gathered all
his subjects, made his nephew Mahmetkul enter the campaign at the head
of a large force of cavalry, and he himself threw up fortifications on
the bank of the Irtisch, at the foot of the Tchuvache mountain, thus
closing to the Cossacks the road to Isker.
The conquest of Siberia resembles, in more than one regard, that of
Mexico and Peru. Here, also, it was a handful of men who, by means of
fire-arms, put to flight thousands of soldiers armed with arrows or
javelins. For the Moguls, like the Tartars of the North, were ignorant
of the use of gunpowder, and toward the end of the sixteenth century
they still used the arms employed in the time of Genghis. Each one of
Iermak's warriors faced a crowd of the enemy.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333