98 THE HORSE AND HIS RJDER. 



in a circle and form a compact mass, so as to present 

 a less surface to the metel. But the force of the wind 

 gradually compels them onwards ; they reach the 

 shore, their footing fails, and finally they are all 

 engulphed in the waves. 



In the European Steppes the cold often reaches 

 30 Reaumur, or far below the point at which boiling 

 water cast up in the air falls to the earth in a shower 

 of frozen hailbeads. Even where some of the most 

 southern Asiatic Steppes assume the character of the 

 African Sahara, and where the camel in the summer 

 sinks up to his knees in the burning sand, in winter 

 the icicles gather as thickly on the few straggling hairs 

 of the Tartar's chin, as they do on the bushy beard of 

 the Muscovite on the banks of the Neva. Perovski, 

 the governor of Orenburg, on his expedition to Khiva, 

 six winters since, was arrested by the impassable snow, 

 on the very route which he dared not undertake in 

 the summer months for fear of being buried under the 

 hot and drifting sand, as it has not unfrequently 

 happened to the caravans which ventured to invade 

 the solitude of this desert. 



The region of the Steppes is the home of the Cos- 

 sacks, of a portion of the Mongol race, and of more 

 than a score of Tartar tribes. It is the home of the 

 camel and of the fat-tailed Kirghis sheep ; of the wild 



