Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. Xavier Hommaire de Hell

makes its appearance and the eye rests on cultivated fields and green pastures. There are indeed here and there a few depressions, where the grass retains its verdure during a part of the year, and some stunted trees spread their meagre branches over a less unkindly soil than that of the steppe; but these are unusual circumstances, and one must often travel hundreds of versts to find a single shrub. Such being the general configuration of the country, it may easily be imagined how cheerless is the aspect of those vast plains with nothing to vary their surface except the tumuli, and with no other boundaries than the sea. No one who is unaccustomed to that monotonous nature can long endure its influence. Those dreary wastes seem to him a boundless prison in which he vainly exerts himself without a hope of escape. And yet that flat and barren soil from which the eye turns away so contemptuously, has become a source of wealth to its present proprietors by the great success of the first experiments in Merino sheep-breeding. It was M. Rouvier, who first conceived the happy idea of turning the unproductive steppes into pasture. The Emperor Alexander, always ready to encourage liberal ideas, not only advanced the projector a sum of a hundred thousand rubles, but gave him even a man-of-war to go and make his first purchases in Spain, and on his return, granted him an immense extent of land, where the flocks, increasing rapidly, brought in a considerable fortune to M. Rouvier in a few years. His sons-in-law, General Potier and M. Vassal inherited it, and formed those great establishments of which we have spoken. Thenceforth the stock of merinos increased with incredible rapidity in New Russia; but an enormous fall in the price of wool soon occurred, and many proprietors have now reason to regret their outlay in that branch of rural economy, and are endeavouring to get rid of their flocks. The rams which fetched 500 or 600 francs in 1834 and 1835, were not worth more than 250 or 300 in 1841. In 1842, a landowner of our acquaintance had made up his mind to part with his best thorough-bred rams for 140 and even 100 francs a head. The exportation of wool increased, nevertheless, during the last years of our stay in Russia; but this was only because the landowners, after holding out a long while, found themselves at last constrained to accept prices one-half lower than those current a few years before, and to dispose of the wools they had long kept in their warehouses. Here was another instance of the disastrous consequences of the Russian prohibitive system; it has been as fatal to the wool-trade as to that in corn.

      Clarofka is a village consisting of fifteen or twenty houses, each containing two families of peasants. It is some distance from the farm, which alone contains more dwellings and inmates than the whole village.

      The steward resides in a very long, low house, with small windows in the Russian fashion, and an earthen roof, and standing at the edge of a large pond, the fetid exhalations from which are very unwholesome during the hot season. A few weeping-willows wave their branches over the stagnant water, and increase still more the melancholy appearance of the spot. The pond is frequented by a multitude of water-fowl, such as teal, gulls, ducks, pelicans, and kourlis, that make their nests in the thick reeds on the margin. Beside the house, according to the Russian custom, stand the kitchens and other offices, the icehouse, poultry-yard, wash-house, cellar for fruit and vegetables, &c. A little further on are the stables and coach-houses, containing a great number of carriages, caleches, droshkies, and a dozen horses; other buildings, including the workmen's barracks, the forge, the gardener's and the miller's dwellings are scattered irregularly here and there. Two great wind-mills lift their huge wings above the road leading to the village. All this is not very handsome; but there is one thing indicative of princely sumptuousness, namely, an immense garden that spreads out behind the house, and almost makes one forget the steppes, so thick is the foliage of its beautiful alleys. One is at a loss to conceive by what miracle this park, with its large trees, its fine fruit, and its charming walks, can have thus sprung up out of the scorched and arid soil, that waits whole months for a few drops of water to clothe it in transient verdure. And indeed to create such an oasis in the heart of so barren a land, there needed not one miracle, but a series of miracles of perseverance, toil, and resolution, seconded by all the means at the disposal of a Russian lord. All kinds of fruit are here collected together; we counted more than fifty varieties of the pear in one alley. Grapes of all kinds, strawberries, beds of asparagus of incomparable flavour, every thing in short that the most capricious taste can desire, grows there in such abundance, that seeing all these things one really feels transported into the midst of regions the most favoured by nature.

      No one but a Russian lord could have effected such metamorphoses. Master of a whole population of slaves, he has never to pay for labour; and whims which would be ruinous to others, cost him only the trouble of conceiving them. In the dry season, which often lasts for more than five months, chain pumps worked by horses supply water to every part of this extensive garden, and thus afford what the unkind skies deny it. The work to be done in the spring season generally requires the labour of more than 200 pair of hands daily, and during the rest of the year three-score peasants are constantly employed in pruning the trees, plucking up the weeds that rapidly spring up in the walks, training the vines, and attending to the flowers. In return for all this expenditure the general has the satisfaction of seeing his table covered with the finest fruits and most exquisite preserves; and for one who inhabits a desert these things unquestionably have their value. On the whole Clarofka is a real pays de cocagne for good cheer: the steppes abound with game of every kind, from grouse to the majestic bustard. A hunter is attached to the farm, and daily supplies the table with all the delicacies of this sort which the country affords. The sea also contributes abundance of excellent fish. It is evident, therefore, that in a gastronomic point of view it would be difficult to find a more advantageous residence; but this merit, important as it is, fails to make amends for the intolerable ennui one labours under in Clarofka. Thanks to the garden, one may forget the steppe during the fine season; and then there is the amusement of fishing, and of picking up shells on the sea-shore, so that one may contrive to kill time passably well. But what are you to do in winter, when the snow falls so thickly that you cannot see the houses, particularly when the metel turns the whole country topsy-turvy? No language can give an idea of these metels or hurricanes. They come down on the land with such whirling and driving gusts, such furious and continuous tempests, such whistlings and groanings of the wind, and a sky so murky and threatening, that no hurricane at sea can be more alarming. The snow is now piled up like a mountain, now hollowed into deep valleys, and now spread out into rushing and heaving billows; or else it is driven through the air like a long white veil expanding and folding on itself until the wind has scattered its last shreds before it. In order to pass from one house to another, people are obliged to dig paths through the snow often two yards deep. Whole flocks of sheep, surprised by the tempest not far from their folds, and even herds of horses, have been driven into the sea and drowned. When beset by such dangers their instinct usually prompts them to cluster together in a circle and form a compact mass, so as to present less surface to the metel. But the force of the wind gradually compelling them forwards, they approach the shore, the ground fails them, and finally they all disappear beneath the waves. These tempests are generally succeeded by a dead calm, and an intense cold that soon changes the surface of the Dniepr and the sea-shore into a vast mirror. This is the most agreeable part of the winter. The communications between neighbours are renewed; sporting expeditions on a great scale, excursions in sledges, and entertainments within doors follow each other almost without interruption. Despite the intensity of the cold, the Russians infinitely prefer it to a milder temperature, which would put a stop to their business as well as to their pleasures. The great fairs of the empire generally take place in winter; for then the frozen lakes and rivers serve the inhabitants as a safe and rapid means of communication. In this way they traverse immense distances without quitting their sledges, and even without perceiving whether they are on land or water. Wrapped up in their furs they encounter with impunity a temperature of 35° for several consecutive days, without any other auxiliaries than brandy and tea, which they consume in fearful quantities. During our winter residence in Clarofka, we had an opportunity of convincing ourselves that people suffer much less from cold in northern than in southern countries.

In Constantinople, where we had passed the preceding winter, the cold and the snow appeared to us insupportable in the light wooden houses, open to every wind, and furnished with no other resource against the inclemency of the weather than a manghal, which served at best only to roast the feet and hands, whilst it left the rest of the body to freeze. But in Russia even the mujik has constantly a temperature of nearly 77° in his cabin in