We may mention, as also proper to Central Asia, the Aquila bifasciata of Dr. Gray, and several species of buzzards, hawks, and falcons. These Raptores live very peacefully in the desert solitudes, where none disturb them; and so little do they fear man, that they venture into the Mongol encampments and carry off the provisions destined for the travellers’ refreshment. An incident of this nature is recorded by the Abbé Huc, who, with his companions, was at the time preparing to sup on a quarter of a kid skilfully “dished up” by their Tartar neophyte, Samdadchiemba.
“We had just seated ourselves,” says M. Huc, “in a triangle on the grassy sward, having in our midst the lid of the pot which served instead of a dish, when suddenly a noise like thunder broke over our heads. A great eagle fell like an arrow on our supper, and rose again with the same rapidity, carrying off in his claws some slices of kid. When we had recovered from our surprise, we had nothing better to do than laugh at the adventure. However, Samdadchiemba could not laugh, not he; he was exceedingly wroth, not on account of the stolen kid, but because the eagle, in flying off, had insolently buffeted him with the tip of his wing....
“The eagle,” adds our author, “is found almost everywhere in the deserts of Tartary. You see him sometimes hovering and wheeling round and round in the air; sometimes, perched upon a hillock in the middle of the plain, he remains there for a long time as motionless as a sentinel. Often we encounter him on the ground, apparently larger than an ordinary sheep; when we draw near, he is compelled, before he can rise into the air, to make a long detour, agitating his heavy wings; after which, succeeding in lifting himself a little above the ground, he soars aloft at pleasure.”
The Erpetological fauna of the Steppes is little known, and is probably very scanty. Unfortunately, this region has not been explored by scientific naturalists, and the unprofessional travellers who have visited it do not appear to have met with any reptiles which seemed to them worthy of detailed notice. Atkinson, however, speaks of the stony ridges of the plain as “swarming with serpents.”—“I observed,” he says,[32] “four varieties: A black one, three feet eight inches long, and about one inch and an eighth in diameter. Another was of slaty-gray colour, from two to three feet long, and smaller in diameter than the black snake. This breed was numerous, and often difficult to see, they so nearly resembled the colour of some of the rocks. We also found some of an ashy-green and black, with deep crimson specks on the sides; as they moved along in the sun the colours were most brilliant.” Another, which Mr. Atkinson’s companions killed, was of a dark-brown, with greenish and red marks on the sides, and evidently very venomous. He measured five feet two inches and a half without his head, and four inches and a quarter round his body.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE INHABITANTS OF THE STEPPES:—TARTARS, COSSACKS, KALMÜKS, KIRGHIZ, MONGOLS.
THE Steppes of Tartary and Mongolia, interrupted, says Humboldt,[33] by chains of mountains of various aspects, separate the ruder peoples of Northern Asia from the primitive races, which have been for ages civilized, of Hindostan and Thibet. Their existence has influenced the destinies of mankind in various important ways. They have rolled back the populations towards the south, and more than the Himálaya, more than the snow-crowned peaks of Serinagur and Goorkha, have raised an obstacle to the alliances of peoples, while opposing, in the north of Asia, insuperable barriers to the refinement of manners and the genius of the arts.
But it is not only as barriers that History should regard the plains of Central Asia; they have several times let loose on earth a torrent of calamity and devastation. The pastoral races of the Steppes—Mongols, Getæ, Alans, and Huns—have convulsed the world. If, in the course of ages, intellectual culture has directed its course from east to west, like the vivifying light of the sun, Barbarism at a later period has followed in the same track, when threatening to plunge all Europe into darkness. A people of tawny shepherds, Tou-Kin (that is to say, Turkish) in origin, the Hioung-Nou, inhabited, under tents of skin, the elevated Steppe of the Gobi. Long formidable to the Chinese power, a horde of the Hioung-Nou was driven back towards the south into Central Asia. The impulse which they gave spread uninterruptedly even into the native country of the Fins, on the borders of the Oural, and thence the Huns, the Avars, the Chasurs, and various mixtures of Asiatic races, poured forth in furious violence. The Hunnish hosts first appeared on the banks of the Volga, then in Pannonia, and finally on the banks of the Marne, and on those of the Po, ravaging the beautiful fields where, from the days of Antenor, the genius of man had accumulated its glorious monuments. Thus from the Mongolian deserts blew a pestiferous wind, which choked even in the Cisalpine plains the delicate blossom of art, the object of such tender and continual cares.