50 . VIOLENT HURRICANES IN THE STEPPES. 



demon in the old German legend, drives before it the wild horses in 

 an access of violence. Half frozen by the cold, and exhausted with 

 hunger, they fly in a complete panic. Oftentimes their giddy head- 

 long course carries them forward upon the crust of ice which gathers 

 over the waters close to the shore ; it cracks, it breaks, and hundreds 

 perish ! The melting snow and heavy rains at the end of winter 

 drown the plains under vast sheets of water, which, however, quickly 

 evaporate in the first rays of the sun. Rain, in summer, is extremely 

 rare, and as there are neither brooks nor springs to refresh the thin 

 layer of earth in which the herbs and shrubs take root, all these 

 plants enjoy only a butterfly existence ; they bloom, they fade, they 

 die, with startling rapidity. 



The hurricanes are neither less numerous nor less furious in the 

 hot than in the cold season ; dust, however, takes the place of snow, 

 when, as is sometimes the case, no tremendous deluge of rain follows 

 in the track of the mighty wind. To sum up : the spring and 

 summer of the Steppes are compressed (so to speak) into two months ; 

 all the rest of the year seems given over to desolation. Two months 

 in the year of bloom, and sunshine, arid colour, and beauty, are all 

 that Nature grants the wandering Mongolian. 



Such being the general configuration of the Steppes, one may 

 easily imagine how stern and gloomy is the aspect of these immense 

 plains, with no other interruptions of the soil than their tumuli, no 

 other boundary than the sea. He who has not been habituated from 

 youth to their monotony finds himself wholly unable to struggle 

 against its depressing influence. Their dismal solitudes are in truth 

 an immeasurable prison, where he wanders to and fro without hope of 

 escape. In vain does he interrogate the north and south, the east 

 and the west ; in vain does he turn from one side to the other ; it 

 is always the same uniformity, the same immovability, the same 

 solitude.* 



* Madame Hommaire dc Hell : " Voyage aux Steppes dc la Mer Caspicnnc," tome l or - 



