ed it on the green sward; and the mother poured forth her thanks in
a long and continued bleat. (Capt. Brown's Pop. Nat. Hist.)

The following history was related by one of the shepherds to whom the
circumstance occurred. "We were seven of us, grazing the sheep of a rich
Bulgarian, on the steppe of Atkeshoff, and had a flock of 2000 sheep,
and 150 goats. It was the month of March, and they were just driven out;
the weather was mild, and the grass had appeared, but the wind was
bitterly cold in the evening, and it began to rain. The rain soon turned
to snow, and our wet cloaks were frozen as hard as boards. A few hours
after, came a Siberian _viuga_, or snowdrift, from the north-east,
whistling about our ears till seeing or hearing was impossible. We tried
to find our way home, from which we were not far distant; but the sheep
would not face the wind, and even the goats, who will face anything but
a _viuga_, began to run before the storm. To prevent the flock from
scampering away was impossible, and all that could be done was to keep
them together. We had to race all night, and in the morning there was
nothing but snow all round us. The _viuga_ raged all that day, and the
poor sheep were even more wild and frightened than in the night.
Sometimes we gave up all as lost, but roused ourselves again, and ran
with the screaming, bleating flock, while the oxen trotted after with
the wagon, and the dogs came howling behind. The poor goats were all
lost, or frozen to death the first day, in which we ran at least fifty
or sixty versts, leaving a track of dead sheep behind us. In the
evening the poor beasts were less wild, being exhausted by hunger and
fatigue. Two of our party reported themselves sick, and crept under the
mats and skins in the wagon, and the rest had only time to take a
little bread and snow to save life.

"Night came, no house was near, and this was worse than the preceding.
The storm was driving us upon the coast, and we expected to be blown
with our stupid cattle into the sea. Another shepherd fell sick, and we
thought that night would have been the last for us all. In the morning
the wind shifted, and drove us towards some houses, which we saw through
the drifting snow, but though they were not more than thirty feet away,
it was quite impossible to make the foolish sheep turn aside. On they
went before the wind, in spite of all we could do, and we soon lost
sight of the houses. Their inhabitants, however, had