Such is Tartary. What is a country without hills, without trees, without
brooks? Can it be pleasant? This flat, bare, dry plain, is called the
steppes of Tartary. In one part of Tartary, there is a chain of
mountains, and there are a few towns, and trees, but _very few_. You may
travel a long while without seeing one.
Nothing can be so dreary as the steppes appear in winter time. The high
wind sweeping along the plain, drives the snow into high heaps, and often
hurls the poor animals into a cold grave. Sledges cannot be used,
because they cannot slide on such uneven ground. But if the _white_
ground looks dreary in winter, the _black_ ground looks hideous in
summer; for the hot sun turns the grass black, and fills the air with
black dust, and there are no shady groves, no cool hills, no refreshing
brooks. There must, indeed, be a _little_ shade among the thistles, as
they grow to twice the height of a man; but how different is such shade
from the shade of spreading oaks like ours! Instead of nice fruit, there
is bitter wormwood growing among the grass, and when the cows eat it,
their milk becomes bitter.
WILD ANIMALS.--The most common, is a pretty little creature called the
sooslik. It is very much like a squirrel.
But can it live where squirrels live,--in the hollows of trees? Where are
the trees in the steppe? The sooslik makes a house for itself by digging
a hole in the ground, just as rabbits do in England.
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