ppes as they are described to us in the
summer months, when hundreds of nomad tribes, like their forefathers
of old, migrate from place to place, with their families, flocks,
and herds, and relieve the dreary aspect of this vast flat expanse
with their picturesque _kibitkas_, or tents, while hundreds of
horses, grazing on the rich grass, are a source of considerable
wealth to the Kirghiz proprietors.

A large dining-table covered with naught but its white cloth is not
a cheery sight. To describe the country for the next one hundred
miles from Orsk, I need only extend the table-cover. For here,
there, and everywhere was a dazzling, glaring sheet of white, as
seen under the influence of a mid-day sun; then gradually softening
down as the god of light sunk into the west, it faded into a vast,
melancholy-looking, colourless ocean. This was shrouded in some
places from the view by filmy clouds of mist and vapour, which
rose in the evening air and shaded the wilderness around--a picture
of desolation which wearied, by its utter loneliness, and at the
same time appalled by its immensity; a circle of which the centre
was everywhere, and the circumference nowhere. Such were the Steppes
as I drove through them at night-fall or in the early morn; and
where, fatigued by want of sleep, my eye searched eagerly, but
in vain, for a station.

On arriving at the halting-place, which was about twenty-seven
versts from Orsk, Nazar came to me, and said, "I am very sleepy; I
have not slept for three nights, and shall fall off if we continue
the journey."

When I began to think of it, the poor fellow had a good deal of
reason on his side. I could occasionally obtain a few moments'
broken slumber, which was out of the question for him. I felt rather
ashamed that in my selfishness I had over-driven a willing horse,
and the fellow had shown first-class pluck when we had to pass
the night out on the roadside; so, saying that he ought to have
told me before that he wanted rest, I sent him to lie down, when,
stretching his limbs alongside the stove, in an instant he was
fast asleep.

The inspector was a good-tempered, fat old fellow, with red cheeks
and an asthmatic cough. He had been a veterinary surgeon in a Cossack
regiment, and consequently his services were much in request with
the people at Orsk. He informed me that land could be bought on
these flats for a rouble and a half a _desyatin_ (2,700 acres);
that a cow cost L3 2s. 6d.; a fat