on the rich plume-grass of the steppe produce milk which is particularly
rich in sugar, very poor in fat, and similar to woman's milk in its
proportion of albumen, though better furnished: all which facts combine
to give kumys whose chemical proportions differ greatly from those of
kumys prepared elsewhere. Moreover, on private estates it is not always
possible to observe all the conditions regarding the choice and care of
the mares.

At our establishment there were several Tatars to milk the mares and
make the kumys. The wife of one of them, a Tatar beauty, was the
professional taster, who issued her orders like an autocrat on that
delicate point. She never condescended to work, and it was our opinion
that she ought to devote herself to dress, in her many leisure hours,
instead of lounging about in ugly calico sacks and petticoats, as
hideous as though they had originated in a backwoods farm in New
England. She explained, however, that she was in a sort of mourning. Her
husband was absent, and she could not make herself beautiful for any one
until his return, which she was expecting every moment. She spent most
of her time in gazing, from a balcony on the cliff, up the river, toward
the bend backed by beautiful hills, to espy her husband on the steamer.
As he did not come, we persuaded her, by arguments couched in silver
speech, to adorn herself on the sly for us. Then she was afraid that the
missing treasure might make his appearance too soon, and she made such
undue haste that she faithlessly omitted the finishing touch,--
blacking her pretty teeth. I gathered from her remarks that something
particularly awful would result should she be caught with those pearls
obscured in the presence of any other man when her husband was not
present; but she may have been using a little diplomacy to soothe us.
Though she was not a beauty in the ordinary sense of the Occident, she
certainly was when dressed in her national garb, as I had found to be
the case with the Russian peasant girls. Her loose sack, of a medium but
brilliant blue woolen material, fell low over a petticoat of the same
terminating in a single flounce. Her long black hair was carefully
braided, and fell from beneath an embroidered cap of crimson velvet with
a rounded end which hung on one side in a coquettish way. Her neck was
completely covered with a necklace which descended to her waist like a
breast-plate, and consisted of gold coins, some of them very ancie