The southwestern portion only of the steppe-land falls within the limits of Europe. This exhibits an unbroken expanse of level plain--fatiguing to the eye from its perfect uniformity--dry and burned up by excessive heat in summer, a pathless expanse of snow during the opposite season of the year. The steppe is only productive during the brief time that the thirsty soil is refreshed by the rains of spring and early summer. Its aspect is then, for a time, glowing and verdant; grass and wild flowers cover the earth with a carpet of varied and attractive hues, and the wild cattle and horses luxuriate in the abundant pasture. In the autumn, when the herbage has become dry and withered, the steppe sometimes exhibits a vast sheet of rolling flame, the grass being occasionally fired by accident, at other times intentionally, for the sake of the young crop which springs up through the ashes. The illusive phenomena of _mirage_--the result of atmospheric refraction, engendered by the intense dryness of the air--are of frequent occurrence in the steppe. Sometimes the eye is cheated by the semblage of a lake, which vanishes on approach. In other instances, the traveler over these wild regions appears to see rising before him, and glittering through the dense mist which often prevails during the hours of midday heat, the towers and other buildings of a distant city. Spires, trees, bridges, rivers, all appear in picturesque combination, only to sink into confusion as they are approached. When the spot where the city of enchantment had seemed to stand is actually reached, there is found only the long, dry grass, waving as elsewhere in the surrounding waste. The vast accumulation of dry sand on the surface gives rise to another phenomenon, of frequent occurrence on the steppe, resembling waterspouts upon the sea, excepting that the column is filled with dust instead of water. “Suppose the great flat steppe stretched out beneath the blue sky--nothing visible--no breath of air apparently stirring--the whole plain an embodiment of sultriness, silence, and calmness--when gradually rise in the distance six or eight columns of dust, like inverted cones, two or three hundred feet high, gliding and gliding along the plain in solemn company; they approach, they pass, and vanish again in the distance, like huge genii on some preternatural errand.”