He became extremely sulky when he observed our preparations to depart. He no longer talked, but contented himself with restlessly watching all that was going on in the room; peering at every article of our baggage, as if he would look through and through it. Whenever our men carried any thing to the carriage, he followed them with angry looks, as if they were committing a robbery upon him. At last, on the sixth day after our arrival at Selenoi Sastava, we had the pleasure to turn our backs on the lieutenant-colonel and his miserable cabin. I doubt if the fear of the Circassians would have been able to detain us longer in such a spot.
The dryness of the atmosphere, which had lasted from the time we left Houidouk, was succeeded by heavy rain when we reached Selenoi, and this was the chief cause of our long stay there. On the day of our departure the sky looked rather threatening, notwithstanding which we stepped into the carriage with inexpressible delight. I would rather have taken my chance of ten deluges in the open steppe, than have spent twenty-four hours more in Selenoi; but fortune was pleased to compensate us in some degree for our recent vexations by affording us the most agreeable weather that travellers could desire. The rain had given the sand a pleasant degree of solidity, and had, besides, spread a mild and subdued tone over the steppes that was peculiarly agreeable. Autumn was now come, with its sharp morning air and its melancholy tints; and accustomed as we had been to the scorching reverberation of the sunshine, we felt as if an earthly paradise was opening before us. In one day more the sky was cleared of its last vapours, and reappeared in all its azure purity, streaked only with a few rich and warm-coloured clouds, that seemed to take away the aridity of the desert. But the sun had lost much of its power, and though it shone down on us without obstruction, we reached the sources of the Manitch without being much inconvenienced by the heat.
These sources are formed by a depression of about twenty-five versts in diameter, towards which converge several small ravines. They were quite dry when we arrived at them, and all the vicinity, intercepted by small brackish lakes, displayed no kind of vegetation. The total want of water and fodder hindered us from proceeding to the Don, as we had intended, and my husband was obliged to suspend his levelling operations. It was not, of course, without sore regret that he put off the solution of his great scientific problem until the following year. Our men were in good spirits, our health excellent, and we were by no means prepared to expect such an obstacle as that which now stopped us in a course we had pursued with such perseverance; but nature commanded, and we were forced to obey.
We passed the night near the sources in the midst of a total solitude, and early next morning we retraced our steps, and proceeded towards the Kouma, distant about seventy-five versts; the men were all mounted again on their camels, and seemed well pleased to have no more pedestrian labours in prospect; for with all their willingness, they had not been able to accustom their limbs to that sort of service. We encamped for two nights successively among Kalmucks, for the steppes grew less lonely as we departed from our first course. These good people heard the story of our journey through their plains with eager curiosity. As soon as supper was over they squatted themselves round our kibitka, lending a religious attention to the most improbable tales, for our men, who took upon them the office of historiographers, paid very little respect to truth in their compositions. One of our camel-drivers, especially, had been endowed by Heaven with an imagination of extraordinary fecundity. It was his peculiar office to amuse the whole escort during the bivouac, and when he had to do with a new audience, his captivating eloquence attained the utmost limits of possibility, enchanting even those who heard him every day.