372 



ASIATIC STEPPES. 



CHAPTER 

 XXVIIL 



Vepctation 

 of the 

 steppes. 



Eemarkatle 

 lieiglit of 

 flowering 

 plants. 



Iiiflu.-nce on 

 pupiilutiou. 



the world, I myself enjoyed an opportunity, full thirty 

 years after my South American travels, of visiting that 

 portion of the steppes which is occupied by Kalmuck- 

 Kirghis tribes, and is situated between the Don, the 

 Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the Chinese Lake of Dsai- 

 san^^, and which consequently extends over an area of 

 nearly 2800 geographical miles. The vegetation of the 

 Asiatic steppes, which are sometimes hilly, and inter- 

 spersed with pine forests, is in its groupings far more 

 varied than that of the Llanos and the Pampas of Cara- 

 cas and Buenos Ayres. The more beautiful portions of 

 the plains, inhabited by Asiatic pastoral tribes, are 

 adorned with lowly slirubs of luxuriant white-blossomed 

 Rosacea;, Crown Imperials (Fritillarice), Cypripediee, and 

 Tulips. As the torrid zone is in general distinguished 

 bj' a tendency in the vegetable forms to become arbores- 

 cent, so we also find, that some of the Asiatic steppes of 

 the temperate zone are characterized by the remarkable 

 height to which flowering plants attain ; as, for instance. 

 Saussurese, and other Synanthereee ; all siliquose plants, 

 and particularly numerous species of Astragalus. On 

 crossing the trackless portions of the herb-covered steppes 

 in the low carriages of the Tartars, it is necessary to 

 stand upright in order to ascertain the direction to be 

 pursued through the copselike and closely-crowded 

 plants that bend under the wheels. Some of these 

 steppes are covered with grass; others with succulent, 

 evergreen, articulated alkaline plants; while many are 

 radiant with the effulgence of licben-like tufts of salt, 

 scattered irregularly over the clayey soil like newly- 

 fallen snow. 



" These ^Mongolian and Tartar steppes, which are inter- 

 sected by numerous mountain chains, separate the an- 

 cient and long-civilized races of Thibet and Ilindostan 

 from the rude nations of Northei-n Asia. They have 

 also exerted a manifold influence on the changing des- 

 tinies of mankind. They have inclined the current of 

 population southward, impeded the intercourse of nations 



