IN SEARCH OF RUSSIAN BUTTERFLIES. 239 
The left bank of the Volga almost along its whole length is 
flat, but the right bank on which Sarepta, as before mentioned, 
is situated, is an almost continuous range of hills, in some places 
attaining a height of over 1000 ft.; at Sarepta they are from 
200 ft. to 300 ft. in altitude. These hills have apparently 
been formed in the long distant past by the prevailing wind 
from the east blowing the sand formed in the river bed into 
dunes; these dunes being in the process of time converted 
into solid earth by the growth of plants, the roots of which have 
bound the soil together. The tops and sides are generally 
covered with a growth of low plants; in the folds and cross 
ravines, however, there are woods and bushy slopes full of life 
of all kinds, insect and otherwise. 
The Volga, which above Sarepta flows for several hundred 
miles in a south-west direction, skirting for the whole distance 
the base of the hills, has within comparatively recent times 
carved out for itself a new course which commences immediately 
north of the town; this course leaves the hills and strikes out 
across the steppe in a south-easterly direction. At Sarepta the 
distance from the river to the hills is about two miles, and the 
town lies on the level plain midway between the two. 
Having decided to make a stay of several weeks at Sarepta, 
we left, Novorossisk on the evening of May 18th, bound thither. 
The distance is about 500 miles, across the steppe the whole 
distance, in traversing which we did not see a hill or even an 
undulation ; it was a weary journey, which the train is timed to 
do in twenty-four hours, and which it actually accomplished in 
twenty-seven hours. This journey we did on bread, cheese, and 
beer, for we were warned at the last moment at Novorossisk, too 
late to take a supply of food with us, that the more solid eatables 
to be had on route were bad, and that it was dangerous to 
partake of them. 
At Sarepta I had obtained through a German correspondent 
the address of a person who kept an inn, the only one there, 
and on arrival, to our great relief, we found airy rooms, clean 
beds, and wholesome, if rough, food, and in Herr Georg Enke a 
most obliging, intelligent, and helpful host. 
I must confess that it was with a feeling of keen disappoint- 
ment that I surveyed my surroundings on the morning after our 
arrival. I had expected to find Sarepta, which contains some 
six thousand people, a model town. I had pictured the steppe, 
by some well-thought out scheme of irrigation, made to 
blossom like the rose, and the whole district converted into 
vineyards, fruit orchards, and gardens. ‘There is some spas- 
modic irrigation, but not by any means sufficient to transform 
the arid plain into fertility, only just enough to water a few 
gardens. ‘There is no evidence of want of prosperity of a kind, 
with plenty of good houses, for Russia, even some fruitful and 
