In this city our traveller enjoyed an opportunity of observing the manners of the Kirghees. These people purchased annually from the Russians a number of golden eagles, used by their hunters in the chase of the wolf, the fox, and the gazelle, and would sometimes give a horse in exchange for one of these birds, while others were hardly valued at a sheep, or even a small piece of money. During his stay at Orenburg he visited the great salt-mines of Hetzkain, and learned the laborious and ingenious methods by which the fossil salt is extracted from the bowels of the earth. The mines are chiefly worked in summer, and the salt, being left to accumulate until the winter months, is then transported to distant places by the peasantry. In these solitary regions he saw a caravan of thirty camels returning from China, having crossed the vast deserts of Central Asia, where both men and animals had nearly perished for want, in consequence of the excessive heat of the summer. From thence he proceeded to the Jasper Mountains, where many stones were found beautifully variegated; some representing, when split, the figures of trees upon their surfaces, while others were dotted with spots of different colours. On the summits of these mountains he beheld numerous Kirgheesian tombs constructed with prodigious blocks of jasper, with more than imperial magnificence. From Orenburg he descended along the course of the Jaik, through a mountainous country, intersected by numerous ravines, and of a wild, desolate aspect. Near Kalmikova, on the eastern shore of the Jaik, he saw a Kirghees camp. When the party drew near, about the close of the day, the Kirghees seemed terrified at their approach; but were soon reassured upon observing their pacific disposition. They then crowded round them with joyful faces, and, bringing forth their koumiss, or prepared mare’s milk, enabled several of Pallas’s attendants to steep their senses in forgetfulness. Still, our honest travellers, conscious, perhaps, that the Kirghees had some injuries to revenge against the Russians, were fearful of passing the night in the camp, and therefore hastened to return before dark to the city. Thence he continued proceeding in a southern direction to the ruins of Sarai, of which the ditch and the rampart are nearly all that now remain. It sunk gradually with the decay of the Tartar power, until the inhabitants at length emigrated to Chiva, and allowed it to fall entirely. The road from thence to Gourief, on the Caspian, lies over a dry marsh, where nothing but a few red wild-flowers meet the eye. Here Pallas embarked in a boat with a Mons. Euler, in order to visit a small island in the Caspian, the waters of which were of a grayish green, though the sailors assured them that the colour farther out at sea was a greenish black. It was said, that during summer phosphoric fires were occasionally beheld upon its waves.