DON COSSACKS. 
325 
tenants of these wide pastures. Mr. Cripps got C j I A , p ' 
upon the back of one of them, as the animal ' — » 
was kneeling : it rose immediately, and, with 
a very majestic pace, bore him towards the 
carriage. Our horses were so terrified at the 
sight, that they broke the ropes, and we had 
great difficulty in tranquillizing them. The 
dromedary, having passed, made off into the 
plain, with his head erect, prepared, no doubt, 
to undertake an expedition to very distant 
regions; when, having satisfied his curiosity, 
Mr. Cripps descended from his lofty back, as 
from the roof of a house, and fell with some 
violence upon the ground ; leaving the drome- 
dary to prosecute his voluntary journey, which 
he continued as far as our eyes could fol- 
low him. 
Innumerable inhabitants, of a smaller race, ofthe 
people these immense plains. Among the s ^ e c ’ " f r 
number of them, is an animal which the natives the Sl m K *- 
call Surohe ; the Arctomys Bobac of zoologists’. 
It grows here to the size of a large badger ; 
(2) See Shaw’s Zotilogy, vol. III. p. 120. PI. 144. — la the first 
edition we had described this animal as the Alpine Marmot, with 
which naturalists have sometimes confounded it. — The holes, or recep- 
tacles, of the Jiobac are lineil with the finest hay j and it is said that 
the quantity found in one nest is sufficient for a night’s provender for 
a horse. — The Bobac is the Mas Arctomys of Pallas. 
