90 



FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



mirrored on its surface, smiles kindly towards us, and the en- 

 livening effect of water makes itself felt even here. And when 

 a lake is ringed round by hills, or framed, as at Alakul, by lofty 

 mountains; when the steppes are sharply and picturesquely con- 

 trasted with the glittering water-surface, the dark mountain-sides, 

 and the snowy summits; when the soft haze of distance lies like a 

 delicate veil over hill and plain, suggesting a hidden beauty richer 



Fig. 11.— A Salt Mareli in the Steppes. 



than there really is; then we acknowledge readily and gladly that 

 there is a witchery of landscape even in the steppes. 



Even when we traverse the monotonous valleys many miles 

 in breadth, or the almost unbroken plains, whose far horizon is but 

 an undulating line, when we see one almost identical picture to 

 north, south, east, and west, when the apparent infinitude raises a 

 feelintr of loneliness and abandonment, even then we must allow 

 that the steppes have more to show than our heaths, for the 

 vegetation is much richer, more brilliant, and more changeful. In- 

 deed, it is only here and there, where the salt-steppes broaden out 

 around a lake, that the landscape seems dreary and desolate. In 



