“On the west side of the Volga is a great dry and waste heath, called the Step. On this heath is a strange kind of fruit found, called ‘Baromez’ or ‘Barnitsch,’ from the word ‘Boran,’ which is “a Lamb” in the Russian tongue, because of its form and appearance much resembling a sheep, having head, feet and tail. Its skin is covered with a down very white and as soft as silk. The Tartars hold this in great esteem, and it is sold for a high price. I have myself paid five or six roubles for one of these skins, and doubled my money when I sold it again. The greater number of persons have them in their houses, where I have seen many. That which caused me to observe it with greater attention was that I had seen one of these fruits among the curiosities in the house of the celebrated Mr. Swammerdam, in Amsterdam, whose museum is full of the rarest things in Nature from distant and foreign lands. This precious plant was given to him by a sailor who had been formerly a slave in China. He found it growing in a wood, and brought away sufficient of its skin to make an under-waistcoat. The description he gave of it did very much agree with what the inhabitants of Astrachan informed me of it. It grows upon a low stalk, about two and a half feet high, some higher, and is supported just at the navel. The head hangs down, as if it pastured or fed on the grass, and when the grass decays it perishes: but this I ever looked upon as ridiculous; although when I suggested that the languishing of the plant might be caused by some temporary want of moisture, the people asseverated to me by many oaths that they have often, out of curiosity, made experience of that by cutting away the grass, upon which it instantly fades away. Certain it is that there is nothing which is more coveted by wolves than this, and the inward parts of it are more congeneric with the anatomy of a lamb than mandrakes are with men. However, what I might further say of this fruit, and what I believe of the wonderful operations of a secret sympathy in Nature, I shall rather keep to myself than aver, or impose upon the reader with many other things which I am sensible would appear incredible to those who had not seen them.”