its parched lips in supplication for a few drops of water that are not vouch. safed. Heavy and tantalizing clouds, it is true, sweep over the steppe, but instead of showering their blessings on the thirsty land, hurry away to the Carpathian mountains or to the sea. The sun at this season rises and sets like a globe of fire, but the evaporations raised from the earth by the mid-day heat seldom fail to give a misty appearance to the sky towards noon. The heat, meanwhile, is rendered intolerable by its duration, for any thing like a cool interval never occurs, and shade is not to be thought of in a country where hills and trees are alike unknown. This season is one of great suffering to all living beings on the steppe. Every trace of vegetation is singed away, except in a few favoured spots; the surface of the ground becomes browner and browner, and at last completely black. Men and cattle assume a lean and haggard look, and the wild oxen and horses, so fierce and ungovernable in May, become as tame as lambs in July, and can scarcely crawl in August, Even the tanned skin of the poor Khakhols (as the Russians call the inhabitants of the steppe) hangs in wrinkled folds upon their hollow checks; their steps are feeble, and every thing about them assumes a dejected and melancholy look. Ponds dry up, wells cease to furnish water, and the beds of lakes are converted into sandy hollows. Water now rises in price, and becomes an article which it is worth a thief's while to steal. The few springs that continue to yield must have a guard set upon them night and day, or the legitimate owner will scarcely keep enough to slake his own thirst. At this season, thousands of cattle perish on the steppe of thirst, while, as if to mock their sufferings, the horizon seems laden with humid clouds, and the parched soil assumes to the cheated eye in the distance the appearance of crystal lakes and running streams. Such is the faithful picture of a dry summer on the steppe, but, of course, the description does not apply every year. The years 1837 and 1838, for instance, were remarkable for their humidity; but in general, the summer is a period of wretchedness over the whole face of the steppe, and three or four thirst-and-hunger summers frequently succeed each other. The following description of the summer of 1833 is given by an eye-witness : "The last rain fell early in May, and throughout the summer the whole steppe presented an endless black plain, in which the eye sought in vain for a green spot. Scarcely a breath of wind ever stirred, and the nights were as sultry as the days. However exhausted the frame might be, it was scarcely possible to obtain any refreshing sleep. The moment either man or beast stirred, a thick black cloud was raised from the ground; nor could even a bird rise without filling the atmosphere with a column of what looked more like smoke than dust. Even the plants that were most carefully tended by the hand of man had a sickly look. The wheat, that usually rises to so luxuriant a height, scarcely peeped from its furrows, with its red blades and cornless ears. The hunger and thirst of the poor horses rose to a scarcely credible pitch, and the wretched animals were only kept alive by driving them into the corn-fields, to crop what had been intended as food for man. The few wells from which water could be obtained were guarded against intrusion by locks, and chains, and bars; but these were broken without hesitation, and even where sentinels had been set, they were driven away by the famishing multitude. All business was at a standstill, for no merchant could venture to send a caravan from the coast, when it was known that a draught of water could not be had by the traveller without fighting for it. Many of the taboons* were broken up altogether, the animals refusing to submit to any control, and dispersing in different directions in search of water. Straggling horses were Herds of half-wild horses. everywhere to be met with, rushing madly up the ravines, and sniffing the air in search of a few drops of moisture to cool their burning thirst." In many respects, the summer on the steppe is more cruel even than in the Sahara of Africa, or in the Llanos of Spanish America, for in neither of these does the moisture so completely disappear from the soil, and in the African desert, wherever there is water, a little terrestrial paradise of date trees and flowering shrubs is certain to be grouped around; but in the steppe, even the rivers flow only between grass, and reeds are the only shrubs by which the banks are fringed, while from the parched and gaping earth not even a cactus or an aloe peeps forth, into which a thirsty animal might bite to moisten its lips with the juice. In August, the dryness of the atmosphere reaches the extreme point; but before the end of the month, the night dews set in, and thunder-storms are occasionally followed by rain. The leaden dusty sky becomes clear and blue again, and every thing reminds you that the delights of autumn are approaching. The temperature of September is mild and refreshing, and the detestable black dust of the steppe, kept down by frequent showers, no longer gives to every creature the complexion of a negro. A fresh green herbage quickly covers the whole plain, and man and beast in a short while recover their strength and spirits. Could Darius and his troops, when they invaded Scythia, but have endured the thirst of July, they might easily have kept their ground in September, and would have had abundant leisure to prepare their winter quarters. Delightful the autumn of the steppe unquestionably is, but short and fleeting are its charms, for October is already a gusty Scythian month, marked by cold rains and fogs, and usually closing amid zamets and viugas; and as to November, that is set down as a winter month even by the most seasoned Russian, and the severest weather of an English January might almost be deemed autumnal, compared to the cold that often prevails at Odessa in November. One of the first words that a stranger learns in the steppe is burian. The constant topic of the farmer's lamentations is burian; and the gardener, the herdsman, and the herd, join with equal bitterness in heaping maledictions on the detested burian. The curiosity of every new arriver is, therefore, soon excited by an expression of such constant occurrence, and after some inquiry he finds that every plant or herb on which the cattle will feed is known by the general name of trava, and that every woody, wiry stem, from which they turn away, is ruthlessly classed in the condemned list of burian. Weeds of various kinds are, indeed, of frequent occurrence, owing to the salt and acrid nature of the soil; and many, which with us remain modestly concealed by the grass, shoot up into bushes on the steppe, driving the gardener and the husbandman to despair, and seldom rendering any other service either to man or beast than that of helping to boil the Russian's national dish of borsht. The thistle deserves the first place among the burian of the steppe. We have but little notion in England of the height to which a thistle will often grow in Southern Russia, where it not unfrequently assumes the form and size of a tree, overshadowing with its branches the low-sunken dwellings of the Troglodytes of the steppe. In places peculiarly favoured by the thistle, this description of burian will sometimes grow in such abundance, as to form a little grove, in which a Cossack on his horse may completely hide himself. Another description of weed that stands in very bad odour in the steppe, has been aptly denominated wind-witch by the German colonists. This is a worthless plant, that expends all its vigour in the formation of innumerable thread-like fibres, that shoot out in every direction, till the whole forms a light globular mass. The little sap to be obtained from this plant is bitterer than the bitterest wormwood, and even in the driest summer no animal will touch the wind-witch. It grows to the height of three feet, and in autumn the root decays, and the upper part of the plant becomes completely dry. The huge shuttlecock is then torn from the ground by the first high wind that rises, and is sent dancing, rolling, and hopping over the plain, with a rapidity which the best mounted rider would vainly attempt to emulate. Hundreds of them are sometimes detached from the ground at once on a windy day, and when seen scouring over the plain, may easily be mistaken at a distance for a taboon of wild horses. The Germans could not have christened the plant more aptly, and in bestowing on it the expressive name by which it is known among them, they no doubt thought of the national legends long associated with the farfamed witch-haunted recesses of the Blocksberg. The wild dances with which fancy has enlivened that ill-reputed mountain are yearly imitated by the wind-witches on the steppe. Sometimes they may be seen skipping along like a herd of deer; sometimes describing wide circles in the grass; sometimes rolling madly over one another, and sometimes rising by hundreds into the air, as though they were just starting to partake in the diabolical festivities of the Blocksberg itself. They adhere to each other sometimes like so many enormous burrs, and it is not an uncommon sight to see some twelve or twenty rolled into one mass, and scouring over the plain like a huge giant in his sevenleague boots. Thousands of them are yearly blown into the Black Sea; but with this salto mortale ends the witch's career, who loses in the water all the fantastic graces that distinguished her while ashore. As next in importance among the burian of the steppe, the bitter wormwood must not be forgotten. It grows to the height of six feet, and sometimes, in a very dry summer, the cattle will not disdain to eat of it. All the milk and butter then becomes detestably bitter, and sometimes particles of the dry wormwood adhere to the wheat, in which case the bitter flavour of the plant is certain to be imparted to the bread. Poisonous herbs are but little known in the European steppes, but in those of Asia there is a great abundance of venomous fungi, which spring up in autumn in such quantities, that at times the plain appears to be covered with them as far as the eye can reach. They are mostly white, and sometimes make the steppe appear in the morning as though there had been a heavy fall of snow during the night. The noon-day heat generally destroys them, but the following night often produces a fresh crop. We might, of course, extend our list of the botanical peculiarities of the steppe much farther, but, upon the whole, the variety of plants that grow upon this vast grazing land of the Tartars is more limited than would be sup posed. Botanists, we believe, reckon only five hundred species as native to the steppe, and each species usually grows in large masses. For leagues together the traveller will see nothing but wormwood; and, on leaving so bitter a specimen of vegetation, he will come to a tulip-bed, covering many thousands of acres; and at the end of that, to an equal extent of wild mignionette, to which, cultivation has not, however, imparted the delicious perfume which recommends it to the horticulturist of more civilized lands. For days toge ther, the droshky will then roll over the same description of coarse grass, ungainly to look upon, but on which the sheep thrive admirably, and which is said to give to Tartar mutton a delicious flavour that the travelled epicure vainly looks for in the gorgeous restaurants of Paris, or in that joint-stock association of comfort and luxury, a London club. A singular phenomenon of the steppe manifests itself when man presumptuously attempts to invade it with his plough. The disturbed soil immediately shoots forth every variety of burian, against which the farmer must exert unceasing vigilance, or else farewell to the hope of a productive harvest. If the same land is afterwards left fallow, the burian takes possession of the field, and riots for a few years in undisturbed luxuriance. A struggle then goes on for some years longer between the weeds and the grass; but the latter, strange to say, in almost every instance, triumphs in the end, and a beautiful pastureground succeeds, which goes on improving from year to year, till it attains its highest degree of perfection. A reaction then ensues. A species of coarse grass, known by botanists under the name of stipa pinnata, takes possession of the ground, which it covers with its hard and woody stems, till the farmer, taking advantage of the first dry weather in spring, clears away the whole plantation by setting fire to it. The burning of the steppe is the only kind of manuring to which it is ever subjected, and is generally executed in spring, in order that a fresh crop of grass may immediately rise, like a young phenix, from the ashes. This department of Tartar husbandry is usually managed with much caution, and the conflagration rarely extends beyond the limits intended to be assigned to it; but sometimes a fire arises by accident, or in consequence of a malicious act of incendiarism, and then the " devouring element," as our newspapers call it, rages far and wide, sweeping along for hundreds of leagues, destroying cattle and corn-fields, and consuming not only single houses, but whole villages, in its way. These fires are more particularly dangerous in summer, owing to the inflammable condition, at that season, of almost every description of herbage. The flaming torrent advances then with irresistible force, towering up among the lofty thistles, or advancing with a stealthy snakelike step through the parched grass. Not even the wind can always arrest its destructive course, for a fire of this kind will go steaming in the very teeth of the wind, now slowly and then rapidly, according to the nature of the fuel that supplies its forces. At times the invader finds himself compressed between ravines, and appears to have spent his strength, but a few burning particles blown across by a gust of wind enable him to make good his position on new ground, and he loses no time in availing himself of the opportunity. A well-beaten road, a ravine, or a piece of sunk ground in which some remnant of moisture has kept the grass green, are the points of which advantage must be taken if the enemy's advance is to be stopped. At such places, accordingly, the shepherds and herdsmen post themselves. Trenches are hastily dug, the flying particles are carefully extinguished as they fall, and sometimes the attempt to stop the course of such a conflagration is attended with success. Often, however, the attempt fails, and the despairing husbandmen see one wheat-field after another in a blaze, their dwellings reduced to ashes, and the affrighted cattle scouring away over the plain before the advancing volumes of smoke. The course of one of these steppen-fires is often most capricious. It will leave a tract of country uninjured, and travel on for eight or ten days into the interior, and the farmer whose land has been left untouched will begin to flatter himself with the belief that his corn and his cattle are safe; but all at once the foe returns with renewed vigour, and the scattered farm-houses, with the ricks of hay and corn grouped in disorder around, fall a prey to the remorseless destroyer. The farmer, however, is not without his consolation on these occasions. The ashes of the herbage form an excellent manure for the ground, and the next crops invariably repay him a portion of his loss. Indeed, so beneficial is the effect, that many of the large proprietors subject their land regularly every four or five years to the process of burning; but this operation is then performed with much caution, wide trenches being first dug around the space within which it is intended that the fire should remain confined. To the same process likewise are subjected the forests of reeds by which all the rivers of the steppe are fringed, but this is deemed so dangerous, that the law imposes banishment to Siberia as the penalty of the offence. Nevertheless, there are few places where the reeds are not regularly burnt away each returning spring, at which season, during the night, the Dnieper and Dniester appear to be converted into rivers of fire. There are two motives for setting light to the reeds, and these motives are powerful enough completely to neutralize the dread of Siberia: in the first place, the reeds serve as a cover to multitudes of wolves, which, when driven by the fire either into the water or into the open plain, are easily destroyed by their remorseless enemies, the shepherds and herdsmen. The second motive is, the hope of obtaining a better supply of young reeds, by destroying the old ones. The reeds, it must be borne in mind, are of great value in the steppe, where, in the absence of timber and stones, they form the chief material for building. A HOME SCENE. A WIFE WAITING FOR HER HUSBAND. The noon-day sun has set, and still she stands Up the green path a shadowy step draws near; No; other cottage-faces look for him ; And other cottage-ears his steps await; Hark! down yon field rebounds his garden-gate. Sadly she shuts again the parlour door, Oh joyous sound!-her tearful vigil past,- |