[10] Dr. E. J. Dillon.
[11] The Hon. Maurice Baring.
CHAPTER VIII
The Steppes
Amongst all the interesting experiences of an unusually varied and adventurous life, since, in the very middle of my Oxford course I had, for health’s sake, to spend a couple of years ranching in the River Plate, my long drives across the steppes stand out in bold and pleasing relief.
They were necessitated by a Mining Camp Mission in Siberia, for the steppes form a large part of the eastern portion of the Russian Empire, and do not belong to Russia proper at all, lying beyond the Volga and the Urals. It is in that part of Asiatic Russia that the development of the empire’s vast resources is taking place with special rapidity, and our own countrymen are bearing a hand in it and playing no unworthy part.
I believe the word “steppes” is given to that undulating but level country in the provinces of Ufa and Orenburg, about two days’ and two nights’ journey by train east of Moscow, inhabited by the Bashkirs, the descendants of those Tartar hordes who nearly overwhelmed Russia at one time, and possibly Europe itself, and were called for their relentless cruelty “the Scourge of God.”
