ists, established by Catherine near the Free Cossack lands, and therefore objects of particular hatred to the entire Cossack population, — he directed a popular crusade to restore this territory to the previous owners. His speedy triumphs were even tempered with a certain "royal" clemency. Leaving to his alien \actims the bare necessities of existence; in return for a promised tribute and the acknowledgment of his imperial claims their lives were spared. At the same time a rich booty provided his followers with much needed stores and equipment to continue their campaign.
Along the course of the lower Jaik only the principal town, Jaikskoi, was able to resist the fury of Pougatchev's attack. WTien summoned to surrender "in the name of the Tsar," the leaders of the garrison replied that they were too familiar with the name of Pougatchev and the reputation of the ruffians composing his band even to consider such an impudent demand. In the face of this challenge, whether because he felt himself unprepared for a siege, or on account of the possible effect of the derisive rebuke he had received upon the allegiance of his followers, Pougatchev now returned to his desert stronghold, where he began busily recruiting his forces for an attack upon Orenburg, the principal town of the Russian frontier provinces.
The Governor of Orenburg was at this time an officer in the regular Russian army, newly arrived and without experience in desert warfare. Under-
estimating the force of a movement led by so ridiculous an individual as a "false Peter III" he angrilyordered the small garrison of the two nearest frontier outposts to proceed, without delay, against the rebels. By a series of lightning marches — such as only Cossack troops are capable of performing — Pougatchev succeeded in defeating first one and then the other of these detachments. The soldiers who volunteered to join his ranks were welcomed among the armies of the pretender. The remainder, including nearly all the officers, were pitilessly massacred. (When one recalls the composition of Catherine's frontier armies, the lifelong exile of the serf-soldiers and criminals who served out their penal sentences in its ranks, it is in no way surprising to learn that many disciplined recruits were gained by the rebels from prisoners and deserters from the imperial forces.)
Orenburg, the rich centre of an important group of caravan trails crossing the Turcoman deserts, although defended by a fortress and heavy earthen walls, was next attacked. Only the courageous conduct of the garrison of a neighbouring post whose defense delayed the advance of the Cossacks long enough to enable the governor to obtain reinforcements, saved the capital of Russia's Asiatic provinces from the fierce attack of Pougatchev's army.
Following the continued success of their leader, these had now become a force by no means to be readily dispersed. Besides a majority of the Jaikskoi Cossacks, Pougatchev had under his command a great body of Bashkir tribesmen and several bands of unruly Budjiak Tartars who had but \ recently been exiled to these deserts from the Crimea by Catherine's orders. Eleven thousand Kalmoucks, after massacring the Russian officials set over them, joined his standard in a body. Even a detachment of Polish gentlemen and their retainers, exiles on their way to Siberia, lent him the aid of their militar\" knowledge, burning to avenge on Catherine, by any means at hand, the wrongs she had inflicted upon their country.
Pougatchev now found his word the undisputed law over an empire geographically as vast as the Central Europe of to-day. In all this wide but sparsely settled territory only the garrisons of a few strongly fortified towns were able to hold out against his assaults. Had the Cossacks waited until hunger and despair brought about the surrender of these isolated garrisons, the results might have been different. But in order to maintain the military ardour of his followers, anxious for plunder, an active siege of Orenburg was undertaken. In full sight of the garrison of Orenburg, the Cossack leader carried out the re\'iews and ceremonies of his grotesque court, seeking by every means in his power to impress both upon his fickle subjects and the beleaguered enemy a sense of his new importance.