122 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



year more grass is burnt during the summer, than 

 would suffice to provide a profusion of hay, for a 

 century of winters! It will hardly be matter of 

 surprise to any one, to learn that the winter is a 

 season of sickness and death to the horses of the 

 Steppe. After the mildest winter, the poor creatures 

 come forth, a troop of sickly looking skeletons ; but 

 when the season has been severe, or unusually long, 

 more than half of them, perhaps, have sunk under 

 their sufferings, or have been so reduced in strength 

 that the ensuing six months are hardly sufficient to 

 restore them to their wonted spirits. The year 1833 

 was remarkably destructive to the taboons, and they 

 had not recovered from its effects five years after- 

 wards, when I last visited the Steppe. In such years 

 of famine, the most enormous prices are sometimes 

 paid for hay ; yet every careful agriculturist may 

 secure his cattle against such sufferings, by a little 

 industry and forethought. In the proper season he 

 may have as much hay as he pleases, for the mere 

 trouble of cutting it ; and such is the dryness of the 

 climate during summer, that the hay may always be 

 carried home, and stacked within a few hours after it 

 has been mown. 



From the hardships of an ordinary winter, the 

 horses quickly recover amid the abundance of spring. 



