sheep, two years old, 12s. 6d.;
and mutton or beef, a penny per pound. A capital horse could be
purchased for three sovereigns, a camel for L7 10s., while flour
cost 1s. 4d. the pood of forty pounds. These were the prices at Orsk,
but at times he said that provisions could be bought at a much lower
rate, particularly if purchased from the Tartars themselves. The
latter had suffered a great deal of late years from the cattle-pest,
and vaccinating the animals had been tried as an experiment, but,
according to my informant, with but slight success.

The Kirghiz themselves have but little faith in doctors or vets.
It is with great difficulty that the nomads can be persuaded to
have their children vaccinated; the result is, that when small-pox
breaks out among them it creates fearful havoc in the population.
Putting this epidemic out of the question, the roving Tartars are
a peculiarly healthy race. The absence of medical men does not seem
to have affected their longevity, the disease they most suffer
from being ophthalmia, which is brought on by the glare of the snow
in the winter, and by the dust and heat in the summer months.

The country now began to change its snowy aspect, and party-coloured
grasses of various hues dotted the Steppes around. The Kirghiz had
taken advantage of the more benignant weather, and hundreds of
horses were here and there to be seen picking up what they could
find. In fact, it is extraordinary how any of these animals manage
to exist through the winter months, as the nomads hardly ever feed
them with corn, trusting to the slight vegetation which exists
beneath the snow. Occasionally the poor beasts perish by thousands,
and a Tartar who is a rich man one week may find himself a beggar the
next. This comes from the frequent snow-storms, when the thermometer
sometimes descends to from forty to fifty degrees below zero,
Fahrenheit; but more often from some slight thaw taking place for
perhaps a few hours. This is sufficient to ruin whole districts,
for the ground becomes covered with an impenetrable coating of
ice, and the horses simply die of starvation, not being able to
kick away the frozen substance as they do the snow from the grass
beneath their hoofs. No horses which I have ever seen are so hardy
as these little animals, which are indigenous to the Kirghiz Steppes;
perhaps for the same reason that the Spartans of old excelled all
other nations in physical strength, but with this difference