• The business done at these fairs is triflins? compared to that transacted on the steppe itself. The contractors who supply the Russian cavalry, and other dealers on a large scale, travel about from one taboon to another, select their horses, and buy them at so much a head, for it is generally taken for granted, that the horses of tlie same taboon are pretty nearly all of the same value, all wild and vicious, and troublesome to tame. Some taboons, however, enjoy a higher reputation than others, and will command a better price.
in groups about the wall, and creep closely togetlier, In order mutually to impart a little warmth to each other. Nor is it from cold that they have most to suffer on these occasions. Early in winter they still find a little autumnal grass under the snow, and the tabuntshik scatters a little hay about the stable to help them to amuse the tedious hours of night. The customary improvidence of a Russian establrshment, however, seldom allows a sufficient stock of hay to be laid in for the winter. As the season advances, hay grows scarce, and must be reserved for the more valuable coach and saddle horses, and the tabuntshik is obliged to content himself with a portion of the dry reeds and straw stored up for fuel. For these he has soon to battle it with the cook and the stove-heaters, f whose interest never fails to outweigh that of the poor taboon horses. These, if the winter last beyond the average term, are often reduced to the thatch of the roofs, and sometimes even eat away one another's tails and manes ; and that in a country where every year more grass is burnt during the summer than would suffice to provide a profusion of hay for a century of winters ! It will hardly be matter of surprise to any one to learn that the winter is a season of sickness and death to the horses of the steppe. After tlie mildest winter, the poor creatures come forth a troop of sickly-looking skeletons ; but when the season has been severe, or unusually long, more than half of them, perhaps, have sunk under their sufferings, or have been so reduced in strength, that the ensuing six months are hardly sufficient to restore them to their wonted spirits. The year 1833 was remarkably destructive to the taboons, and they had not recovered from its effects five years afterwards, when I last visited the steppe. In such years of famine, the most enormous prices are sometimes paid for hay ; yet every careful agriculturist may secure his cattle against such sufferings by a little industry and forethought. In the proper season he may have as much hay as he pleases, for the mere trouble of cutting it : and such is the dryness of the climate during summer, that the hay may always be carried home and stacked within a few hours after it has been mown.
From the hardships of an ordinary winter, the horses quickly recover amid the abundance of spring. A profusion of young grass covers the ground as soon as the snow has melted away. The crippled spectres that stalked about a few weeks before, with wasted limbs and drooping heads, are as wild and mischievous at the end of the first month as though they had never experienced the inconvenience of a six months' fast. The stallions have already begun to form their separate factions in the taboon, and the neighing, bounding, prancing, galloping, and fighting goes on merrily from the banks of the Danube to the very heart of Mongolia.
In a taboon of a thousand horses, there are generally fifteen or twenty stallions, and four or five hundred brood mares. The stallions, and particularly the old ones, consider themselves the rightful lords of the community. They exercise their authority with very little moderation, and desperate battles are often fought among them, apparently for tiie mere honour of the championship. In almost every taboon there is one stallion who, by the rule of his hoof, has established a sort of supremacy, to which
As there arc neitlicr trees nor coal-mines on the steppe, dry weoJs and straw are the cliief sxibstitiiles for fuel.
f In the house of a wealthy Russian, there are almost always servants whose exclusive duty it is to look after tlie stoves.
his comrades tacitly submit. Factions, cabals, and intrigues, are not wanting. Sometimes there will be a general coalition against some particular stallion, who, if he get into a quarrel, is immediately set upon by ten or a dozen at once, and has no chance but to run for it. There is seldom a taboon without two or three of these objects of public animosity, who may be seen with a small troop of mares grazing apart from the main body of the herd.