completely covered with a necklace which descended to her waist like a breast-plate, and consisted of gold coins, some of them very ancient and valuable, medals, red beads, and a variety of brilliant objects harmoniously combined. Her heavy gold bracelets had been made to order in Kazan after a pure Tatar model, and her soft-soled boots of rose-pink leather, with conventional designs in many-colored moroccos, sewed together with rainbow-hued silks, reached nearly to her knees. Her complexion was fresh and not very sallow, her nose rather less like a button than is usual; her high cheek-bones were well covered, and her small dark eyes made up by their brilliancy for the slight upward slant of their outer corners. Tatar girls, who made no pretensions to beauty in dress or features, did the milking, and were aided in that and the other real work connected with kumys-making by Tatar men. According to the official programme, the mares might be milked six or eight times a day, and the yield was from a half to a whole bottle apiece each time. Milk is always reckoned by the bottle in Russia. I presume the custom arose from the habit of sending the _muzhik_ ("Boots") to the dairy-shop with an empty wine-bottle to fetch the milk and cream for "tea," which sometimes means coffee in the morning. The mare's milk has a sweetish, almond-like flavor, and is very thin and bluish in hue. At three o'clock in the morning, the mares are taken from the colts and shut up in a long shed which is not especially weather-proof. In fact, there is not much "weather" except wind to be guarded against on the steppe. In about two hours, when the milk has collected, the colts follow them voluntarily, and are admitted and allowed to suck for a few seconds. Halters are then thrown about their necks, and they are led forward where the mothers can nose them over and lick them. The milkmaid's second assistant then puts a halter on the neck of a mare and holds her, or ties up one leg if she be restive. In the mean time the foolish creature continues to let down milk for her foal. The milkmaid kneels on one knee and holds her pail on the other, after having washed her hands carefully and wiped off the teats with a clean, damp cloth. If the mare resists at first, the milk obtained must not be used for kumys, as her agitation affects the milk unfavorably. Roan, gray, and chestnut mares are preferred, and in order to obtain the best milk great care must be exercised in the choice of pasture and the management of the horses, as well as in all the minor details of preparation. The milking-pails are of tin or of oak wood, and, like the oaken kumys churn, have been boiled in strong lye to extract the acid, and well dried and aired. In addition to the daily washing they are well smoked with rotten birch trunks, in order to destroy all particles of kumys which may cling to them.