470 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



his beasts, and some of his sheep, cattle, and horses for various 

 other commodities of the general market; with the proceeds of 

 the sale of his herds he pays his taxes and tributes, buys the 

 uncoined silver with which he loves to make a display, the iron 

 which he works, the rugs, garments, and silk stuffs with which he 

 decks his person and his yurt. The herds are and must remain 

 the sole support and source of wealth of the nomadic herdsman; the 

 little land which he occasionally ploughs, sows, waters, and reaps is 

 hardly worth taking into account. 



It is not their own humour, but the necessity Of satisfying the 

 requirements of their stock, that regulates the roamings and sojourn- 

 ings of the Kirghiz, that compels them to wander this way to-day and 

 that to-morrow, to rest for a little in one place, and shortly afterwards 

 to leave it for another. The journey ings of these people are there- 

 fore by no means aimless wanderings about the vast steppe, but 

 carefully-considered changes of residence determined by the season, 

 and by the species of animal requiring fresh pasture. The steppe 

 allows no planless roaming either in summer or winter, autumn or 

 spring; aimless roving would expose the herds in winter to the 

 most terrible storms, in summer to the danger of drought; in spring 

 there would probably be an embarrassing superfluity of fodder, and 

 by autumn the supply would have unpleasantly diminished. So 

 the Kirghiz begins his journey from the low-lying plains, ascends 

 slowly to the higher ground and even to the mountains, then moves 

 slowly back to the low grounds again. But the various herds have 

 different needs: sheep and goats like hard, fragrant plants such as 

 are to be found on the salt steppe; horses prefer the mountain 

 plants, especially those growing among masses of rock, while the 

 favourite grazing-ground of cattle is soft meadow-land, and camels, 

 besides eating the hard salt steppe plants, appear to look upon 

 thorns and thistles as an indispensable part of their food. The well- 

 to-do, who can group the different animals in separate herds, let 

 each herd wander and feed by itself, and only the poorer people 

 move from one place to another with all their stock together. 

 Finally, the movements of one party are influenced by those of 

 another. There are, indeed, no landmarks nor boundary stones, but 



