Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/291

Rh, or fleeing from the enemy, they do everything suddenly and rapidly, so that neither infantry nor artillery can be of any use to them. Both infantry and artillery have however been used by the present Prince Vasiley, for when the King of Precop, on his return from investing his nephew with the sovereignty of Kasan, had pitched his camp at thirteen miles' distance from Moscow, the Prince Vasiley in the following year pitched his camp by the River Occa, and then for the first time made use of infantry and artillery, perhaps with the view of displaying his strength, or to blot out the disgrace which he had incurred the year before from a most disgraceful flight, in which he was said to have hidden himself some days under a hay stack; or possibly he may have done so with the intention of ridding his territories of a king whom he thought likely to invade his throne. It is certain that he had to my knowledge, for I saw them, nearly fifteen hundred infantry, consisting of Lithuanians, and a host of men of various nations.

They make the first charge on the enemy with great impetuosity; but their valour does not hold out very long, for they seem as if they would give a hint to the enemy, as much as to say, "if you do not flee, we must". They seldom take a city by storm, or by a sudden assault, but prefer a long siege, and to reduce the people to surrender by hunger or by treachery. Although Vasiley besieged the city of Smolensko with cannon, some of which he had taken with him from Moscow, and some he had founded there during the siege, and though he battered the city to pieces, he accomplished nothing. In like manner he besieged Kasan with a large force of men, and brought up some cannon against it, which he had conveyed thither by the river, but on that occasion also he produced no beneficial result; for such was the cowardice manifested on this occasion, that during a lapse of time while the citadel was in flames and was burning down to the ground — aye, and even might have been completely