then heading towards the east, that the great Spassky Copper Mine is
reached, for which a drive of a thousand miles, there and back, is
necessary. I had not realized till just before I set out that I should
have to drive on day and night without stopping for anything but food
and to change horses, as there were no Russian rest-houses on that
route, and the Kirghiz tents were impossible owing to the great number
of living beings, other than human, which inhabited them. It was no
light thing to undertake, as it meant leaving on Tuesday and getting in
late on Saturday evening, and this only if all went well. Some people
can sleep under such conditions during the night. I don't know how they
possibly can, for there are no roads in any true sense of the word, and
none of the vehicles which cross them have springs.

The manager of the mine had kindly sent down the usual _tarantass_,
which, hooded like a victoria, is a very stout cart, lashed securely
upon poles, and drawn by three horses or _troika_. There is no seat
inside, but hay is placed over the bottom, and pillows and cushions on
the top, and there one reclines during the day, and lies down at night.
It all sounds very comfortable and even luxurious, but as there are no
roads, and only the roughest of tracks with fearful ruts and soft places
where water lingers, with sometimes a sloping bank down to a stream,
and, as the wild driver keeps his horses at their full speed, one is
hurled violently and roughly about the whole time, sleep, for me at
least, is beyond my wildest hopes from start to finish.

[Illustration: _Tarantass with its Troika for the Steppes._]

For the first day or so I had the greatest difficulty to avoid biting my
tongue in two as I was thrown about and it came between my teeth, and I
used to look with amazement and envy at my Kirghiz conductor, on the
box beside the driver, swaying about in all directions like a tree in a
hurricane, but sound asleep. His name was Mamajam, and on our arrival he
brought his little daughter Fatima to see me, and another youth named
Abdullah, completing the Arabian Nights impression he had already given
me.

There is no regularity in the arrangements for changing horses along the
steppes. Sometimes one would drive about twenty _versts_ (twelve and a
half miles) and then change, while at others we would go on as far as
sixty, or even eighty, _versts_ (fifty miles) without any change at all.
The horses are very strong