354 THE AESTHETICS OF 



extensive Bush, even overtopping the horseman, who is as 

 helpless in it as in a wood, since they intercept the sight 

 and yet afford no trunk which might be climbed. Beside 

 the Thistle rises the Wormwood, intermingled with the 

 gigantic Mullein or High-taper, the " Steppe-light" of 

 lesser Russia. Even the little Milfoil grows several feet 

 high and is not a little prized, since the inhabitants, who, 

 from their poor provision, carefully examine the heating 

 power of the Burian, value it as the best material for fuel. 

 But the most characteristic of all the plants of the Burian 

 is that which the Russians call " Perekatipole" the " Leap 

 in the field," and the German colonists almost more 

 happily, the " Wind Witch." A poor Thistle-plant, it 

 divides its strength in the formation of numerous dry, 

 slender shoots which spread out on all sides and are 

 entangled with one another. More bitter than Wormwood, 

 the cattle will not touch it even in times of the utmost 

 famine. The domes which it forms upon the turf are 

 often three feet high and sometimes ten to fifteen in circum- 

 ference, arched over with naked, delicate thin branches. Tn 

 the Autumn the stem of the plant rots off, and the globe of 

 branches dries up into a ball, light as a feather, which is then 

 driven through the air, by the autumnal winds, over the 

 Steppe. Numbers of such balls often fly at once over the 

 plain with such rapidity that no horseman can catch them ; 

 now hopping with short, quick springs along the ground, 

 now whirling in great circles round each other, rolling 

 onward in a spirit-like dance over the turf, now, caught 

 by an eddy, rising suddenly a hundred feet into the air. 

 Often one Wind Witch hooks on to another, twenty 

 more join company, and the whole gigantic yet airy 

 mass rolls away before the piping east-wind. Surely Man 

 does not need a rocky abyss, a mine, or howling sea- 



