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.

To give you an idea how they ride, I will describe one scene that took
place on the steppe.

Some travellers from Europe were on a visit to a Tartar prince: (for
there are _princes_ in the desert,) and they were taken to see a herd of
wild horses. The prince wished to have one of these wild horses caught.