468 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



between it and the hideous curs to be met with elsewhere in Siberia 

 and Turkestan is very marked and greatly in its favour. The head 

 is long but rather heavy, the limbs more like those of a greyhound 

 than a sheep-dog, the hair long and woolly, the colouring very varied. 



Watchful and courageous in the highest degree, he is a worthy 

 adversary of the wolf, an efficient and careful protector of the 

 weaker herds, a suspicious sentinel towards strangers, the faithful 

 slave of his master, an unsociable recluse as far as grown-up people 

 are concerned, but the willing playmate of the children. He has 

 many of the virtues of his race, and is therefore to be found in 

 every yurt or at least in every aul. 



The whole life of the Kirghiz centres in his herds, making use 

 of them and their products, and to that end tending them carefully. 

 The former is the chief occupation of the women, the latter the most 

 important work of the men. With the exception of the bones, 

 which are thrown away unheeded, every portion of the body of 

 every one of their animals is used, just as every female among the 

 live stock is milked as long as possible. The quantity of vegetable 

 food used by the Kirghiz is extremely small; milk and meat form 

 his chief diet in all circumstances, and vegetable products are merely 

 accessory. Bread, in the real sense of the word, he scarcely uses at 

 all, and even the little lumps of dough which may be reckoned as 

 such, are sodden in fat, not baked. Flour and rice, the latter a 

 frequent dish only among the rich, also serve to give variety to 

 the everlasting monotony of milk and meat dishes. Little wonder 

 then that death from starvation threatens the Kirghiz, indeed too 

 often overtakes him, when general murrain breaks out among his 

 beasts in the midst of the steppe. 



The wealthier people keep the milk of sheep and goats separate 

 from that of cows, and of mares and camels; poor people mix all the 

 milk in one vessel, and thus get only the effect of sheep's milk, 

 while the rich secure some differentiation of palatal pleasure. From 

 the milk of sheep and goats, which is invariably milked into the 

 same vessel and collected in the same leathern bottle, they prepare 

 not only various dishes, which are eaten at once with or without 

 flour, but also butter, small, sour or bitter, gritty cheeses, most 



