FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE KIRGHIZ. 485 



When he has dismounted, he acts upon all the rules deduced from 

 long experience for the care of an over-strained horse, and is as 

 careful of it as he had previously been inconsiderate. On festive 

 occasions the Kirghiz performs feats of horsemanship for the 

 amusement of the spectators, who are never awanting; he raises 

 himself erect in the stirrups, which are crossed over the saddle, and 

 springs from them without falling, he holds fast to the saddle or 

 stirrups with his hands, and stretches his legs into the air, or hangs 

 from one side of the saddle, and attempts to pick up some object 

 from the ground, but he does not seem to practise the military sports 

 of his Turkish relatives. Racing is to him the greatest of all 

 pleasures, and every festival is celebrated by a race. 



To the race, which is called " Baika ", only the finest horses, and 

 of these only amblers are usually admitted. The distances to be 

 traversed are always considerable, never less than twenty, and 

 frequently forty kilometres: the riders make for a certain point in 

 the steppe, such as a hillock, or a burial-place, and then return as 

 they went. Boys of seven, eight, or at most ten years of age, sit 

 in the saddle, and guide the horses with remarkable skill. The 

 spectators ride slowly to meet the returning horses, give help, called 

 " guturma ", to the steed which seems to have most chance of win- 

 ning, by taking off the little rider, seizing reins, stirrups, mane, and 

 tail, and leading, or rather dragging it to the goal between fresh 

 horses. The prizes raced for consist of various things, but are always 

 reckoned as equivalent to so many horses. Two or three thousand 

 silver roubles are frequently offered as the first prize: among the 

 richer families the stakes are one hundred horses or their equivalent. 

 Young girls, too, are sometimes offered as prizes, the winner of one 

 being allowed to marry her without making the usual payment 

 to her family. 



While the race-horses are on their way, the men often pass the 

 time by exercising their own physical powers. Two men divest 

 themselves of their outer garments, baring the shoulders and upper 

 parts of the body, and begin to wrestle. The mode of attack varies. 

 The combatants seize one another, bend towards one another, turn 

 about in a circle, each always watching the other carefully, and 



