The men were getting ready to break camp: tents were taken down, the horses were hitched to the wagons, the camels loaded, the men took up march formation, and at ten o’clock after the parting prayer, the caravan marched out.
The first to gallop off were the guides, accompanied by half a dozen Cossacks, to reconnoiter the trek. Half a verst behind them followed a company of infantry troops with two cannons, and after them came the rattling bulk of the main caravan. It moved in three files at a distance of more than a verst from one another. The wagons were followed by baggage camels, behind which plodded the flock of sheep intended partially for the needs of the Raïm Fort and partially to feed the huge mass of people who pushed through the steppe like a horde from the times of the Great
