covered altogether a distance as far as from the
earth to the moon and six thousand miles besides.

My new driver now appears and calls out "The _troika_[8] is ready." Then
I pack myself in again among the cushions and rugs and off we speed once
more through the darkness and snow.

After forty-eight hours we are in Orsk, which also stands on the Ural
River; and when we leave this town with fresh horses and steer
southwards we are on Asiatic ground, in the vast Kirghiz Steppe, which
extends from Irkutsk to the Caspian Sea, from the Ural River to the
Syr-darya.[9] It is extremely flat and looks like a frozen sea. Day
after day we drive southwards, the horses ready to run away; there is
nothing to drive over, no ditches to fall into, no stones to carry away
a wheel. The hoofs hammer on the hard ground, the wheels creak, I and my
things are shaken and thrown about in the carriage, the coachman plants
his feet firmly against the foot-board lest he should tumble off, and on
we go over the flat dreary steppe. As we drive on day and night the
_tarantass_ seems always to be in the centre of the same unbroken
landscape, always at the same distance from the horizon.

Here live the Kirghizes, a fine race of graziers and horsemen. They
support themselves by their large flocks of sheep, and also own numerous
horses and camels, as well as cattle. Therefore they are dependent on
the grass of the steppe, and wander like other nomads from pasture to
pasture. When their flocks have eaten up the grass at one place, they
roll up their black tents, pack all their belongings on camels and
migrate to another spot. They are a freeborn, manly people and love the
boundless steppe. Life in the open air and on the level country, which
affords grazing to their flocks, has sharpened their intellect to a
wonderful degree. They never forget a place they have once seen. If the
steppe plants grow closer or thinner, if the ground shows the slightest
inequality, if there is grey or black gravel of different
coarseness--all these details serve as marks of recognition. When we
rest a minute halfway between two post-houses to let the horses breathe,
the Kirghiz driver turns round and says, "Yonder rides a Kirghiz on a
dappled mare." Yet on directing my field-glass towards the indicated
spot, I can only see a small dot, and cannot distinguish what it is.

The stations on our road are usually small solid wooden houses with two
lamp-posts at the door and a wh