TARTARY.
This is one of the largest countries in the world, yet it does not contain as many people as the small land of France. How is this? You will not be surprised that many people do not live there, when you hear what sort of a country it is.
Fancy a country quite flat, as far as eye can see, except where a few low sand-hills rise; a country quite bare, except where the coarse grass grows;—a country quite dry, except where some narrow muddy streams run. Such is Tartary. What is a country without hills, without trees, without brooks? Can it be pleasant? This flat, bare, dry plain, is called the steppes of Tartary. In one part of Tartary, there is a chain of mountains, and there are a few towns, and trees, but very few. You may travel a long while without seeing one.
Nothing can be so dreary as the steppes appear in winter time. The high wind sweeping along the plain, drives the snow into high heaps, and often hurls the poor animals into a cold grave. Sledges cannot be used, because they cannot slide on such uneven ground. But if the white ground looks dreary in winter, the black ground looks hideous in summer; for the hot sun turns the grass black, and fills the air with black dust, and there are no shady groves, no cool hills, no refreshing brooks. There must, indeed, be a little shade among the thistles, as they grow to twice the height of a man; but how different is such shade from the shade of spreading oaks like ours! Instead of nice fruit, there is bitter wormwood growing among the grass, and when the cows eat it, their milk becomes bitter.
WILD ANIMALS.—The most common, is a pretty little creature called the sooslik. It is very much like a squirrel.
But can it live where squirrels live,—in the hollows of trees? Where are the trees in the steppe? The sooslik makes a house for itself by digging a hole in the ground, just as rabbits do in England. Will it not surprise you to hear that wolves follow the same plan, and even the wild dogs? The houses the dogs make are very convenient, for the entrance is very narrow, and there is plenty of room below.
There are some very odious animals on the steppe. Snakes and toads. Yes, showers of toads sometimes fall. But neither snakes nor toads are as great a plague as locusts. These little animals, not bigger than a child's thumb, are more to be dreaded than a troop of wolves. And why? Because they come in such immense numbers. The eggs lie hid in the ground all the winter. O if it were known where they were concealed, they would soon be destroyed. But no one knows where they are till they are hatched. In the first warm days of spring the young animals come forth, and immediately they begin crawling on the ground in one immense flock, eating up all the grass as they pass along; in a month they can fly, and then they darken the air like a thick cloud; wherever any green appears, they drop down and settle on the spot. The noise they make in eating can be heard to a great distance, and the noise they make in flying is like the rustling of leaves in a forest. They cannot be destroyed: but there are two things they hate,—smoke and noise,—and by these they are sometimes scared and induced to fly away.
PEOPLE AND CUSTOMS.—Besides the wild animals, there are tame animals, who inhabit the steppe with men and women who take care of them. They are all wanderers, both men and beasts. You can easily guess why they wander. It is to find sufficient grass for the cattle.
Every six weeks the Tartars move to a new place. Yet one place is so like another, that no place appears new;—there is always the same immense plain—without a cottage, or an orchard, a green hill, or running brook, to make any spot remembered. It is great labor to the Tartar women to pack up the tents and to place them on the backs of the camels, and then to unpack and to pitch the tents. It is a great disgrace to the men to suffer the women to work as hard as they do: but the men are very idle, and like to sit by their tents smoking and drinking, while their wives are toiling and striving with all their might. The women have the care of all the cattle: and the men attend only to the horses. Perhaps they would not even do this, were it not that they are very fond of riding; and such riders as the Tartars are seldom seen.