ho AFTER WILD SHEEP IN THE ALTAI 



headgear, and long boots of soft leather, often of 

 a bright red colour, constitute their footgear. Some 

 Kalmuks are comparatively wealthy and own several 

 thousand horses. They feed on "koumiss," or fer- 

 mented mare's milk, from which also they distil a 

 feeble alcoholic beverage. Their language seemed 

 to me to resemble the Turki dialect, though a great 

 many words have nothing in common with the latter. 

 Thus good and\bad is Iakski and Taman; water, sou; 

 white and black, ak and kara ; rock, task ; but, on 

 the other hand, wind is salkhyn ; big horn, jahn muss, 

 which differs from the equivalent terms in Turki. 

 The name which the Kalmuks apply to a wild ram 

 (Kotckkor) bears no resemblance to the Kirghiz 

 Gultcka, but the ewes are known in both languages 

 as Arkhar. Thus the two dialects seem here and 

 there to fuse. 



A few versts before reaching Ongudai we passed 

 the Tenga lake and saw a great many Cranes, 

 Ducks, and Brahminy Geese on the marshes round 

 it. Our Ispravnik told us at the station where 

 we halted that once, when a police official in the 

 district, he had been assaulted by 500 Kalmuks, 

 and had to seek refuge from them in a boat on 

 this very lake. The reason of this was that he 

 had been given orders to announce to the 



