the steppe. The steppe, the opposite side of the river, and the
roads, were all deserted. If very occasionally mounted men
appeared, the Cossacks in the cordon and the Chechens in their
aouls (villages) watched them with surprised curiosity and tried
to guess who those questionable men could be. At nightfall people
from fear of one another flock to their dwellings, and only birds
and beasts fearless of man prowl in those deserted spaces. Talking
merrily, the women who have been tying up the vines hurry away
from the gardens before sunset. The vineyards, like all the
surrounding district, are deserted, but the villages become very
animated at that time of the evening. From all sides, walking,
riding, or driving in their creaking carts, people move towards
the village. Girls with their smocks tucked up and twigs in their
hands run chatting merrily to the village gates to meet the cattle
that are crowding together in a cloud of dust and mosquitoes which
they bring with them from the steppe. The well-fed cows and
buffaloes disperse at a run all over the streets and Cossack women
in coloured beshmets go to and fro among them. You can hear their
merry laughter and shrieks mingling with the lowing of the cattle.
There an armed and mounted Cossack, on leave from the cordon,
rides up to a hut and, leaning towards the window, knocks. In
answer to the knock the handsome head of a young woman appears at
the window and you can hear caressing, laughing voices. There a
tattered Nogay labourer, with prominent cheekbones, brings a load
of reeds from the steppes, turns his creaking cart into the
Cossack captain's broad and clean courtyard, and lifts the yoke
off the oxen that stand tossing their heads while he and his
master shout to one another in Tartar. Past a puddle that reaches
nearly across the street, a barefooted Cossack woman with a bundle
of firewood on her back makes her laborious way by clinging to the