The quantity of waste land in Europe is very great, and there are also many swamps. A morass as long as England extends from the 52d parallel of latitude, following the course of the river Prepit, a branch of the Dnieper, which runs through its centre. There are swamps at the mouths of many of the sluggish rivers in Central Europe. They cover 1970 miles in Denmark, and mossy quagmires occur frequently in the more northerly parts. Towards the eastern extremity of Europe the great plain assumes the peculiar character of desert called a _steppe_, a word supposed to be of Tartar origin, signifying a level waste destitute of trees: hence the steppes may vary according to the nature of the soil. They commence in the river Dnieper, and extend along the shores of the Black Sea. They include all the country north and east of the Caspian lake and Independent Tartary; and, passing between the Ural and Altaï mountains, they may be said to occupy all the low lands of Siberia. Hundreds of leagues may be traversed east from the Dnieper without variation of scene. A dead level of thin but luxuriant pasture, bounded only by the horizon, day after day the same unbroken monotony fatigues the eye. Sometimes there is the appearance of a lake, which vanishes on approach, the phantom of atmospheric refraction. Horses and cattle beyond number give some animation to the scene, so long as the steppes are green; but winter comes in October, and they then become a trackless field of spotless snow. Fearful storms rage, and the dry snow is driven by the gale with a violence which neither man nor animal can resist, while the sky is clear and the sun shines cold and bright above the earthly turmoil. The contest between spring and winter is long and severe, for “Winter oft at once resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day, delightless.” Yet when gentler gales succeed, and the waters run off in torrents through the channels which they cut in the soft ground, the earth is again verdant. The scorching summer’s sun is as severe in its consequences in these wild regions as the winter’s cold. In June the steppes are parched, no shower falls, nor does a drop of dew refresh the thirsty and rent earth. The sun rises and sets like a globe of fire, and during the day he is obscured by a thick mist from the evaporation. In some seasons the drought is excessive: the air is filled with dust in impalpable powder, the springs become dry, and cattle perish in thousands. Death triumphs over animal and vegetable nature, and desolation tracks the scene to the utmost verge of the horizon, a hideous wreck.