104 THE EUROPEAN STEPPES. 



principal inhabitants are the timid deer, the sportive 

 squirrel, the hare and the rabbit, the partridge, and the 

 singing birds which fill the "waste places" with their song. 



We pass on then to the plains of Eastern Europe, where 

 Man and Nature have still before them a protracted 

 struggle for the mastery. 



Almost all Eastern and Northern Europe forms one 

 immense level, broken here and there by a few elevations 

 and ranges of low hills. The country between the Car- 

 pathian and Ural mountains is a dull flat ; and an equal 

 uniformity prevails in the Russian steppes. 



The word " steppe " is supposed to be of Tartar origin, 

 and signifies "a level waste, destitute of trees." Hence 

 the steppes vary in character according to the variation of 

 the soil. They begin at the river Dnieper, and stretch 

 along the shores of the Euxine. To the same region be- 

 longs all the country north and east of the Caspian Sea ; 

 and, passing between the Ural and the Altai ranges, the 

 steppes are continued in the barren lowlands of Siberia. 

 " Hundreds of leagues may be traversed east from the 

 Dnieper without variation of scene. A dead level of thin 

 but luxuriant pasture, bounded only by the horizon, day 

 after day the same unbroken monotony fatigues the eye. 

 Sometimes there is the appearance of a lake, w^hich 

 vanishes on approach, the phantom of atmospheric refrac- 

 tion." 



About June the heat grows intense in this dreary region, 

 and the drought excessive. The grasses wither before the 

 sun's keen rays. The dust is swept off the ground by the 

 wind, to whirl around in suffocating tornadoes. Thus the 



