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Updated: May 9, 2025
This hill must formerly have been used by the ancients as a burial-place, for everywhere, if the earth is only scraped away, small narrow sarcophagi, consisting of four stone slabs, are found. The view from the top is extensive, but tame; on three sides a treeless steppe, whose monotony is broken only by innumerable tumuli; and on the fourth side, the sea.
The fourth article in the creed is that mares grazing on the rich plume-grass of the steppe produce milk which is particularly rich in sugar, very poor in fat, and similar to woman's milk in its proportion of albumen, though better furnished: all which facts combine to give kumys whose chemical proportions differ greatly from those of kumys prepared elsewhere.
Another delay of two hours now occurred, the engine having broken down; but the carriages, like those of most Russian railways, were beautifully warmed, and we slept soundly, undisturbed by the howling of the wind and shouting of railway officials. When I awoke, we were swiftly rattling through the dreary monotonous steppe country that separates Tiflis from the Caspian Sea.
Now he would dismount to ease his steed for a moment, and again he would place his ear to the ground to listen for the sound of galloping horses upon the steppe. Nothing arousing his suspicions, he resumed his way. On the 30th of July, at nine o'clock in the morning, Michael Strogoff passed through the station of Touroumoff and entered the swampy district of the Baraba.
He was undecided. However, having weighed the pros and cons, he thought that whatever might be the difficulties of a journey across the steppe without a beaten path, he ought not to risk capture a second time by the Tartars. He was just proposing to Nicholas to leave the road, when a shot was heard on their right. A ball whistled, and the horse of the kibitka fell dead, shot through the head.
The rising moon was just throwing into dark, bold relief the shaggy outlines of the peaks on our right, as we roused up our dogs and plunged into the throat of a dark ravine which led downward to the steppe.
The rooks awakening, flew one after another in silence over the earth. No meaning was to be seen in the languid flight of those long-lived birds, nor in the morning which is repeated punctually every twenty-four hours, nor in the boundless expanse of the steppe. The overseer smiled and said: "What space, Lord have mercy upon us! You would have a hunt to find treasure in it!
One gets into the carriage which is so pleasant after the train and is borne along the road through the steppe, and by degrees there are unfolded before one views such as one does not see near Moscow immense, endless, fascinating in their monotony.
Several of the more intelligent peasants with whom I spoke advised me strongly to visit Alexandrof-Hai, a village situated on the borders of the Kirghiz Steppe. This prediction was fulfilled in a somewhat unexpected way.
I have ridden some buck-jumping Argentine horses which were expert performers: many of the wild Russian steppe horses are very bad buck-jumpers. Some English horses, especially thoroughbreds, can give a very fair imitation of this foreign equine accomplishment.
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