110 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



no little ingenuity in repairing the mischief that may 

 have accrued from the carelessness of the preceding 

 night. 



The tabunshick lives in constant dread of the 

 horse-stealer, and yet there is hardly a tabunshick on 

 the Steppe that will not steal a horse if occasion pre- 

 sents itself. The traveller, who has left his horses 

 to graze during the night, or the villager, who has 

 allowed his cattle to wander away from his house, 

 will do well to ascertain that there be no taboon in the 

 vicinity, or in the morning he will look for them in 

 vain. The tabunshick, meanwhile, takes care to rid 

 himself, as soon as possible, of his stolen goods, by 

 exchanging them away to the first brother herdsman 

 that he meets, who again barters them away to 

 another ; so that in a few days, a horse that was stolen 

 on the banks of the Dniepr, passes from hand to hand 

 till it reaches the Bug or the Dniestr ; and the rightful 

 owner may still be inquiring after a steed, which has 

 already quitted the empire of the Czar, to enter the 

 service of a Moslem, or to figure in the stud of a 

 Hungarian magnate. The tabunshicks have con- 

 stantly little affairs of this kind to transact with one 

 another, for which the Mongolian tumuli, scattered 

 over the Steppe, afford convenient places of ren- 

 dezvous. 



Accustomed to a life of roguery and hardship, and 

 indulging constantly in every kind of excess, the 



