e, and partly scrub and sand,
which lie another day and night still further east, and extend for
thousands of miles to the south till they reach nearly to the borders
of Turkestan. These are the steppes I know best. There is also a
pastoral steppe of large extent and of agricultural character just above
the Black Sea.

If the reader will refer to the map he will see what a huge portion even
of the great country of Siberia is taken up by the Kirghiz Steppes, and
as they are extraordinarily rich in minerals, so far as one can judge
from enterprises already successfully started, produce large crops, and
sustain innumerable flocks and herds, it will be seen how much they are
likely to count for in the progress of Russia. The Kirghiz, familiarly
called the "Ks" in the mining camps, are a Tartar race, like the
Bashkirs, and, like them also in religion, are Mohammedans; but while I
saw mosques amongst the Bashkirs filled with praying congregations, I
never saw either mosque or prayers amongst the Kirghiz, nor their women
veiled. They are small in stature, very strongly built, rather like the
Japanese, and splendid horsemen. A Kirghiz when mounted seems part of
his horse as he dashes across the steppes at full speed with the merest
apology for reins and bit, ready to pull up in the twinkling of an eye.

They struck me always as very friendly, though I have read that others
have not found them so.

That they are very hospitable every one admits. A traveller, it is said,
can go thousands of miles across the steppes without a rouble in his
pocket, and want for nothing. Everywhere he will be hospitably
entertained. A Russian, of course, asks nothing better than to have a
guest, and considers himself honoured in being asked to take him in for
a meal or for the night; and the Kirghiz are Eastern in their reception
of guests as well.

In the steppes governments of Ufa, Orenburg, and Akmolinsk the
population must be nearly seven millions, of which the great majority
are the nomadic Kirghiz, living in tents in the summer, and taking their
flocks and herds away to the south and into villages, where they can
have roofs and walls during the seven months--at least!--of terrible
winter.

The tent is a most comfortable abode, though not much to look at from
outside. It has a wooden floor, with a rug or skins upon it, is circular
in its area, but has no pole of any kind, being built up very neatly and
ingeniously upon a framework of cane