Here Mr. Atkinson struck westward to find the aul of Sultan Bak, the Rothschild of the steppes; a man who owns ten thousand horses, and a proportionate number of camels, sheep, and oxen. Wealthy men are not always well disposed towards stranger guests, and Sultan Bak evinced his dislike of intrusion by sending Mr. Atkinson a diseased sheep! This was immediately returned, with an intimation that Mr. Atkinson wanted neither his company nor his gifts; he was the first Sultan who had shown himself so discourteous, and though he had a large body, it was clear his heart was that of a mouse. It is not surprising that a message of this kind provoked him to wrath. He ordered the intruders to quit his aul; if they did not, his men should drive them into the lake. But when he found that they were well armed, that discretion which is the better part of valour enabled him to subdue his temper; he sent one of his finest sheep as a peace-offering, with an assurance that they might stay as long as they liked, and should have men and horses when they left. Evidently the Kirghiz patriarch knew how to make the best of a bad situation. Accompanied by his poet, he paid a visit to Mr. Atkinson’s camp, supped heartily off his own mutton, and exchanged the warmest professions of friendship. The minstrel, at his master’s bidding, sang wild songs to wilder tunes in glorification of the prowess and freebooting expeditions of the Sultan and his ancestors, to the great edification of the listening Kirghiz. So the evening passed peacefully, and the Sultan and the white man parted on cordial terms. Next day, Mr. Atkinson was riding towards the Karatou, a mountainous chain of dark purple slate; and six days later he visited Sultan Boubania, on the river Lepson. In the neighbourhood were many large tumuli, the largest being the most ancient. One of these was built up of stone, and formed a circle of 364 feet in diameter, with a dome-like mound thirty-three feet in height. Tradition has not preserved the name of the dead honoured with so extraordinary a memorial; the Kirghiz attribute it to demons working under the direction of Shaitan. Another kind of tumulus, of more recent construction, was circular in plan, but carried up to the height of fifty-four feet, in the shape of “a blast furnace,” with an aperture at the top, and lateral opening two feet square and four feet from the ground. In the interior were two graves covered with large blocks of stone. According to the Kirghiz, these tombs were built by the people who inhabited the country before the Kalmucks. A third kind, of sunburnt bricks, and Mohammedan in design, are ascribed to Timour Khan and his race.