THE NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE STEPPES. 459 



the singer calls to the bride who is being led into the bridegroom's 

 yurt; 



" Say where is the play of the white locks 



And where the play of the foals, 



For kind as is the new father, 



He is not the old father to me," 



the bride answers to the youths who sing the " Jarjar ", the song of 

 consolation to the departing bride, referring by the words " Foal- 

 play" to the time of her first love. 



The wealth of a man is expressed in the number of horses he 

 possesses; payment for a bride is made in the value of so many 

 horses; the maiden who is offered as a prize to the winner in a 

 race is held as being worth a hundred mares; horses are given as 

 mutual presents; with horses atonement is made for assassination 

 or murder, limbs broken in a struggle, an eye knocked out, or for 

 any crime or misdemeanour; one hundred horses release from ban 

 and outlawry the assassin or murderer of a man, fifty, of a woman, 

 thirty, of a child. The fine imposed by the tribe for injuring 

 any one's person or property is paid in horses; for the sake of a 

 horse even a respectable man becomes a thief. The horse carries 

 the lover to his loved one, the bridegroom to the bride, the hero to 

 battle, the saddle and clothing of the dead from one camping-place 

 to another; the horse carries man and woman from yurt to yurt. 

 the aged man as well as the child firmly bound to his saddle, or 

 the youthful rider who sits for the first time free. The rich man 

 estimates his herds as equivalent to so many horses; without a 

 horse a Kirghiz is what a man without a home is among us; with- 

 out a horse he deems himself the poorest under the sun. 



The Kirghiz has thoroughly studied the horse, he knows all its 

 habits, its merits and defects, its virtues and vices, knows what 

 benefits and what injures it; sometimes, indeed, he expects an 

 incredible amount from it, but he never exacts it unless necessity 

 compels him. He does not treat it with the affectionate care of the 

 Arab, but neither does he ever show the want of consideration of 

 many other peoples. One does not see anything of that careful 

 and intelligent breeding of horses which is practised by Arabs and 



