The tsheredniks, like the tshabawns, serve on foot, the ox being less wild, and more easy to manage than the horse. The ox is more choice indeed in his food, but then his meal is more quickly despatched, and his afternoon nap lasts all the longer. He bears the rain but ill, and is very impatient of heat, but in a snow-storm he is less apt to get frightened, and pursues his com'se regardless whether the viugn blow from the front or the rear. He will also endm-e thust much better, and can go for two days together without drinking.
With the wolf the ox is much on the same terms as the horse, though it has been observed that the wolf attacks a tshereda much less frequently than a tahoon. The ox, on account of his long horns, is a much more formidable enemy than the horse, and generally pins his enemy to the ground at the first attack. Nevertheless, the wolf does liovcr occasionally about the herd, and if a lame or sickly ox happen to lag bcliind his companions, he frequently falls a victim to his vigilant and remorseless foe.
The exports from St. Petersburg are estimated at 120,000,000 rubles annually, and a third of the whole is made up of tallow. From the other Russian ports, the quantity exported of this article may amount to about 30,000,000 more. For these 70,000,000 of rubles, about 250,000,000 of pounds of tallow are furnished to the rest of the world, providing the chief supply of soap and candles to England, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, and the other countries of Europe. This is without including the extra quantity which the Russians themselves consume. Now, nearly the whole of this enormous quantity is furnished by the Pontine steppes, which may, therefore, be looked on as the main enlighteners and purifiers of the civilized world.
At a very early period of history, — perhaps so early as the times of Herodotus, but certainly in those of the Milesians, — tallow was an article of export from Scythia. At present the large tallow-manufactories, or Salgans, as they are called, are exclusively in the hands of the natives of Great Russia, who have their establishments in all parts of the steppe. They buy the poor oxen up by hundreds and thousands, and after fattening them up for a season, drive them to the salgans to be slaughtered. If the season is good, that is to say tolerably moist, so that the animals may fatten well, the specidation is likely to turn out well, but a long continued drought is ruinous in its consequences. The tallowboilers remain empty, and the poor meager ox has nothing left but his skin with which to pay the price of his board. After such a season, the owners of the salgans usually close their books, and declare themselves insolvent, for they are seldom possessed of much capital, and generally carry on their operations with the money advanced by the merchants of the seaport towns.
Towards the end of summer the tallow-boiler begins to drive his oxen in small parties towards the salgan^ generally a spacious courtyard surrounded by the buildings necessary for the unsavoury manufacture. There are large shambles in which to slaughter the oxen, and houses containing enormous boilers, in which to boil down their meat. Other buildings are set apart for the salting of the hides, besides which there are counting-houses, and dwellings for the workmen. In summer the whole cstablishm.ent is untenanted, unless by dogs and birds of prey, who hover about all the year round, being attracted by the nauseous smell of the place, for during autumn the soil becomes so satm'ed with blood, that the smell continues for the rest of the year, despite the viugas of winter and the north west storms of the spring.
To the dogs this smell appears to be attractive enough. To the olfacfactory nerves of an unsophisticated stranger it is infinitely disgusting, but how much more so must it be to those of the poor oxen who are made to walk to this their scene of execution. They seem as they approach the place, to become conscious of what awaits them. They smell the odious salgan afar off, grow more and more restless the nearer they approach it, and it is often only by main force that they can be dragged towards the fatal enclosure. Their piteous bellowing is then enough to awaken compassion in any but the hearts of their executioners. To get them into the salgan neither force nor blows would always suffice, but there are attached to every place of the kind a number of tame oxen who have become familiarized to the scenes enacted there, and who are taught to entice their bellowing brethren to their fate. These traitors are brought out and mingled with the herd, they afterwards lead the doomed and despairing multitude to the scene of slaughter ; and when once the poor creatures have entered the courtyard, the gate closes upon them, and they never come out again except in the shape of tallow and leather.