During the other six months of the year, the horses remain under shelter at night, and are driven out only in the day, when they must scrape away the snow for themselves, to get at the scanty grass underneath. When we say the horses remain under shelter, it must not be supposed that the shelter in question resembles in any way an English stable. The shelter alluded to consists of a space of ground enclosed by an earthen mound, with now and then something like a roof towards the north, to keep off the cold wind. There the poor creatures must defend themselves, as well as they can against the merciless Boreas, who comes to them unchecked in his course all the way from the pole. To a stranger it is quite harrowing to see the noble animals, in severe weather, in one of these unprotected enclosures. The stallions and the stronger beasts, take possession of the shed; the timid and feeble stand in groups about the wall, and creep closely together, in order to impart a little warmth to each other. Nor is it from cold that they have most to suffer on these occasions. Early in winter they still find a little autumnal grass under the snow, and the tabunshick scatters a little hay about the stable to help them to amuse the tedious hours of night. The customary improvidence of a Russian establishment, however, seldom allows a sufficient stock of hay, to be laid in for the winter. As the season advances, hay grows scarce, and must be reserved for the more valuable coach and saddle horses, and the tabunshick is obliged to content himself with a portion of the dry reeds and straw stored up for fuel. For these he has soon to battle it with the cook and the stove heaters, whose interest never fails to outweigh that of the poor taboon horses. These, if the winter last beyond the average term, are often reduced to the thatch of the roofs, and sometimes even eat away one another’s tails and manes; and that in a country where every year more grass is burnt during the summer, than would suffice to provide a profusion of hay, for a century of winters!—It will hardly be matter of surprise to any one, to learn that the winter is a season of sickness and death to the horses of the Steppe. After the mildest winter, the poor creatures come forth, a troop of sickly looking skeletons; but when the season has been severe, or unusually long, more than half of them, perhaps, have sunk under their sufferings, or have been so reduced in strength that the ensuing six months are hardly sufficient to restore them to their wonted spirits. The year 1833 was remarkably destructive to the taboons, and they had not recovered from its effects five years afterwards, when I last visited the Steppe. In such years of famine, the most enormous prices are sometimes paid for hay; yet every careful agriculturist may secure his cattle against such sufferings, by a little industry and forethought. In the proper season he may have as much hay as he pleases,