United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There a tattered Nogay labourer, with prominent cheekbones, brings a load of reeds from the steppes, turns his creaking cart into the Cossack captain's broad and clean courtyard, and lifts the yoke off the oxen that stand tossing their heads while he and his master shout to one another in Tartar.
Novomlinsk village lies about two and a half miles away from the Terek, from which it is separated by a dense forest. On one side of the road which runs through the village is the river; on the other, green vineyards and orchards, beyond which are seen the driftsands of the Nogay Steppe.
The other day when we went to the Tartar village, Girey Khan asked us to come to Nogay to take some horses, but no one went, and how was I to go alone? 'And what of Daddy? Do you think I am quite dried up? ... No, I'm not dried up. Let me have a horse and I'll be off to Nogay at once. 'What's the good of talking nonsense! said Luke. 'You'd better tell me what to do about Girey Khan.
'Yes, Daddy, but you see I have to buy a horse; and they say you can't get one the other side of the river under fifty rubles, and mother has not yet sold our wine. 'Eh, we didn't bother, said the old man; 'when Daddy Eroshka was your age he already stole herds of horses from the Nogay folk and drove them across the Terek. Sometimes we'd give a fine horse for a quart of vodka or a cloak.
One saw the blood-red troughs in the pent-houses in the yards and Nogay labourers with their trousers rolled up and their legs stained with the juice. Grunting pigs gorged themselves with the empty skins and rolled about in them. The flat roofs of the outhouses were all spread over with the dark amber clusters drying in the sun.
'Well, have you carried off many Nogay horses? asked a lean old man with a frowning, lowering look. 'Have you counted them, Grandad, that you ask? replied Lukashka, turning away. 'That's all very well, but you need not take my lad along with you, the old man muttered with a still darker frown.
'I have prepared and have procured everything for Maryanka. We will give her away properly. Only there's one thing not quite right. Our Lukashka has been running rather wild. He has been too much on the spree! He's up to tricks! The other day a Cossack came here from his company and said he had been to Nogay. 'He must mind he does not get caught, said Olenin. 'Yes, that's what I tell him.
Only a narrow strip about seven hundred yards wide of fertile wooded soil belongs to the Cossacks. To the north of it begin the sand-drifts of the Nogay or Mozdok steppes, which fetch far to the north and run, Heaven knows where, into the Trukhmen, Astrakhan, and Kirghiz-Kaisatsk steppes.
Ferdinand the Catholic succeeds to the throne in Aragon; union of Castile and Aragon. Founding of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Spain, by Cardinal Mendozas. See "INQUISITION ESTABLISHED IN SPAIN," viii, 166. Maine and Provence united to France. Battle of Bielawesch; the Nogay Tartars crush the Golden Horde and secure the independence of Russia.
'We were bargaining for one beyond the river the other day and they would not take sixty rubles for it, though it is a Nogay horse. 'Really now, I have two and I don't want both. 'How don't want it? Lukashka said, laughing. 'Why should you make me a present? We'll get on by ourselves by God's help. 'No, really!
Word Of The Day