especially are often characteristic features of steppe-life, for
in favourable places they readily become gregarious, and, like the
related marmots, form important settlements. It is usually towards
evening that one sees them, each sitting at the door of his burrow.
On the approach of the waggon or train of riders they hastily beat a
retreat, inquisitively they raise their heads once more, and then, at
the proper moment, they vanish like a flash into their burrows, only
to reappear, however, a few minutes later, peering out cautiously
as if to see whether the threatened danger had passed safely by.
Their behaviour expresses a continual wavering between curiosity and
timidity, and the latter is fully justified, since, apart from man,
there are always wolves and foxes, imperial eagles and spotted eagles,
on their track. Indeed one may be sure that the sousliks are abundant
when one sees an imperial eagle perching on the posts by the wayside
or on the trees by a village. The jerboa--by far the prettiest of the
steppe-mammals--is much less frequently seen, not indeed because he
occurs less frequently, but because, as a nocturnal animal, he only
shows himself after sunset. About this time, or later if the moon be
favourable, one may see the charming creature steal cautiously from his
hole. He stretches himself, and then, with his pigmy fore-limbs pressed
close to his breast, trots off on his kangaroo-like hind-legs, going
as if on stilts, balancing his slim erect body by help of his long
hair-fringed tail. Jerkily and not very rapidly the jerboa jumps along
the ground, resting here and there for a little, sniffing at things and
touching them with its long whisker-hairs, as he seeks for suitable
food. Here he picks out a grain of seed, and there he digs out a bulb;
they say of him also that he will not disdain carrion, that he will
plunder a bird’s nest, steal the eggs and young of those which nest on
the ground, and even hunt smaller rodents, from all which accusations
I cannot venture to vindicate him. Precise and detailed observation
of his natural life is difficult, for, his senses being keen and his
intelligence slight, timidity and shyness are his most prominent
qualities. As soon as man appears in what seems dangerous proximity,
the creature takes to flight, and it is useless to try to follow;
even on horseback one could scarce overtake him. With great bounds
he hurries on, jerking out his long hind-legs, with his long tail
stretched out as a rudder; bound after bound he goes, and, before one
has rightly seen how he began or whither he went, he has disappeared in
the darkness.[23]
The fauna of the steppe-mountains differs from that of the low-grounds,
differs at least, when, instead of gentle slopes or precipitous rocky
walls, there are debris-covered hillsides, wild deeply-cut gorges, and
rugged plantless summits. In the narrow, green valleys, through which a
brook flows or trickles, the sheldrake feeds--an exceedingly graceful,
beautiful, lively bird, scarce larger than a duck--the characteristic
duck of the central Asiatic mountains. From the niches of the rocks is
heard the cooing of a near relative of the rock-dove, which is well
known to be ancestor of our domestic pigeons; from the rough blocks
on which the wheatear, the rock-bunting, and the rock-grosbeak flit
busily, the melodious song of the rock-thrush streams forth. Around
the peaks the cheerful choughs flutter; above them the golden-eagle
circles by day, and the horned owl flies silently as a ghost by night,
both bent on catching one of the exceedingly abundant rock ptarmigan,
or, it may be, a careless marmot. More noteworthy, however, is the
_Archar_ of the Kirghiz, one of the giant wild sheep of Central Asia,
the same animal that I had the good fortune to shoot on the Arkat
mountains.
According to the reports which I gathered after careful
cross-examination of the Kirghiz, the archar occurs not only here, but
also on other not very lofty ranges of the western Siberian steppes.
They are said to go in small troops of five to fifteen head, rams and
ewes living in separate companies until the breeding season. Each
troop keeps its own ground unless it be startled or disturbed; in
which case it hastens from one range to another, yet never very far.
Towards sunset the herd ascends, under the guidance of the leader,
to the highest peaks, there to sleep in places scarce accessible to
other creatures; at sunrise, both old and young descend to the valleys
to graze and to drink at chosen springs; at noon, they lie down to
rest and ruminate in the shade of the rocks, in places which admit of
open outlook; towards evening they descend again to graze. Such is
their daily routine both in summer and winter. They eat such plants
as domesticated sheep are fond of, and they are, when needs must,
easily satisfied; but even in winter they rarely suffer from want, and
in spring they become so vigorous that from that season until autumn
they are fastidious, and will eat only the most palatable herbs. Their
usual mode of motion is a rapid, exceedingly expeditious trot; and even
when frightened they do not quicken their steps very markedly unless a
horseman pursue them. Then they always take to the rocks and soon make
their escape. When in flight either on the plain or on the mountains
they almost always keep in line, one running close behind another,
and, if suddenly surprised and scattered, they re-form in linear order
as speedily as possible. Among the rocks they move, whether going
upwards or downwards, with surprising ease, agility, and confidence.
Without any apparent strain, without any trace of hurry, they clamber
up and down almost vertical paths, leap wide chasms, and pass from
the heights to the valley almost as if they were birds and could fly.
When they find themselves pursued, they stand still from time to time,
clamber to a loftier peak to secure a wider prospect, and then go on
their way so calmly that it seems as if they mocked their pursuer.
Consciousness of their strength and climbing powers seems to give them
a proud composure. They never hurry, and have no cause to regret their
deliberation except when they come within shot of the lurking ambuscade
or the stealthy stalker.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Archar Sheep or Argali (_Ovis Argali_).]
The sheep live at peace together throughout the year, and the rams only
fight towards the breeding season. This occurs in the second half of
October and lasts for almost a month. At this time the high-spirited,
combative rams become greatly excited. The seniors make a stand and
drive off all their weaker fellows. With their equals they fight
for life or death. The rivals stand opposed in menacing attitudes;
rearing on their hind-legs they rush at one another, and the crash of
powerful horns is echoed in a dull rumble among the rocks. Sometimes
it happens that they entangle one another, for the horns may interlock
inseparably, and both perish miserably; or one ram may hurl the other
over a precipice, where he is surely dashed to pieces.
During the last days of April or the first of May the ewe brings forth
a single lamb or a pair. These lambs, as we found out from captive
ones, are able in a few hours to run with their mother, and in a few
days they follow her over all the paths, wherever she leads them, with
the innate agility and surefootedness characteristic of their race.
When serious danger threatens, the mother hides them in the nooks of
the rocks, where the enemy may perchance overlook their presence. She
returns, of course, after she has successfully eluded the foe. The
lambkin, pressed close to the ground, lies as still as a mouse, and,
looking almost like a stone, may often escape detection; but not by
any means always is he safe, least of all from the golden eagle, which
often seizes and kills a lamb which the mother has left unprotected.
So we observed when hunting on the Arkat Mountains. Captive archar
lambs which we got from the Kirghiz were most delightful creatures,
and showed by the ready way in which they took to the udders of their
foster-mothers that they might have been reared without special
difficulty. Should it prove possible to bring the proud creatures into
domestication the acquisition would be one of the greatest value. But
of this the Kirghiz does not dream, he thinks only of how he may shoot
this wild sheep or the other. Not that the chase of this powerful
animal is what one could call a passion with him; indeed the sheep’s
most formidable enemy is the wolf, and it is only in the deep snow in
winter that even he manages to catch an archar.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Pallas’s Sand-grouse (_Syrrhaptes paradoxus_).]
As on the mountains, so on the driest, dreariest stretches of the
steppes, which even in spring suggest African deserts, there are
characteristic animals. In such places almost all the plants of the
highlands and valleys disappear except the low tufted grass and
diminutive bushes of wormwood. Here, however, grows a remarkable shrub
which one does not see elsewhere, a shrub called _ramwood_ on
account of its extreme hardness and toughness, which baffles the axe.
It roots on those rare spots in the wilderness where the rain-storms
have washed together some poor red clay. There it sometimes grows into
bushwork of considerable extent, affording shelter and shade to other
plants, so that these green spots come to look like little oases in
the desert. But these oases are no more lively than the dreary steppes
around, for apart from a shrike, the white-throat, and a wood-wren, one
sees no bird, and still less any mammal. On the other hand, amid the
desolation there live some of the most notable of the steppe animals,
along with others which occur everywhere; besides the short-toed
lark and calandra lark there is the coal-black Tartar lark, which
those aware of the general colour-resemblance between ground-birds
and the ground would naturally look for on the black earth. Along
with the small plover there is the gregarious lapwing, along with
the great bustard the slender ruffed bustard, which the Kirghiz call
the ambler, along with the sand-grouse there is Pallas’s sand-grouse
or steppe-grouse.[24] It was this last bird which some years ago
migrated in large numbers into Germany and settled on the dunes and
sandy places, but was so inhospitably received by us, so ruthlessly
persecuted with guns, snares, and even poison, that it forsook our
inhuman country and probably returned to its home. Here, too, along
with the specially abundant souslik, there are steppe antelopes and the
_Kulan_, the fleet wild horse of the steppes. I must restrict myself to
giving a brief sketch of the last, so as not to overstep too far the
limits of the time allowed me.
If Darwin’s general conclusions be reliable, we may perhaps regard the
kulan as the ancestor of our horse, which has been gradually improved
by thousands of years of breeding and selection. This supposition is
more satisfactory than the vague and unsupported assertion that the
ancestor of our noblest domestic animal has been lost, and to me it
is more credible than the opinion which finds in the Tarpan which
roams to-day over the Dnieper steppes an original wild horse, and not
merely one that has reverted to wildness.[25] As recent investigations
in regard to our dogs, whose various breeds we cannot compute with
even approximate accuracy, point to their origin from still existing
species of wolf and jackal, my conclusion in regard to the horse
acquires collateral corroboration. Moreover, the ancestor of our
domestic cat, now at last recognized, still lives in Africa, and the
ancestor of our goat in Asia Minor and in Crete.[26] As to the pedigree
of our sheep and cattle we cannot yet decide with certainty, but I have
consistent information from three different quarters, including the
report of a Kirghiz who declared that he had himself hunted the animal,
to the effect that in the heart of the steppes of Mongolia there still
lives a camel with all the characteristics of wildness.[27] I cannot
doubt the truth of the reports which I received, and the only question
is, whether this camel represents the original stock still living in
a wild state, or whether, like the tarpan, it be only an offshoot of
the domesticated race which has returned to wild life. As the veil is
slowly being lifted which hid, and still hides, the full truth from our
inquiring eyes, as the ancestors of our domesticated animals are being
discovered one after the other, and that among species still living,
why should we suppose that the ancestor of the horse, the conditions of
whose life correspond so thoroughly with those of the broad measureless
steppes, has died out without leaving a trace? It is, I maintain, among
the still living wild horses of the Old World that we must look for the
progenitor of our horse, and among these none has more claims to the
honour of being regarded as the ancestor of this noble creature than
the kulan. It may be that the tarpan more closely resembles our horse,
but, if it be true that the Hyksos brought the horse to the ancient
Egyptians (from whose stone records we have our first knowledge of the
domesticated animal), or that the Egyptians themselves tamed the horse
before the time of the Hyksos, and therefore at least one and a half
thousand years before our era, then certainly the race had not its
origin in the steppes of the Dnieper and the Don. For nearer at hand,
namely in the steppes and deserts of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Persia,
and in several valleys of Arabia and India, they had a wild horse full
of promise, one which still lives, our kulan. This differs indeed in
several features from our horse, but not more than the greyhound,
the poodle, or the Newfoundland differs from the wolf or any other
wild dog, not more than the dachshund, the terrier, or the spaniel
from the jackal, not more than the pony from the Arabian horse, or
the Belgian-French cart-horse from the English racer. The differences
between our domesticated horse and the wild form which seems to me its
most probable ancestor are indeed important, but horse and kulan seem
to regard themselves as belonging to the same blood, since they seek
each other’s company.
When, on the 3rd June, 1876, we were riding through the dreary desert
steppes between the Saisan lake and the Altai--a region from which
I have drawn the main features of the above sketch--we saw in the
course of the forenoon no fewer than fifteen kulans. Among these we
observed one pair in particular. They stood on the broad crest of a
near hillock, their forms sharply defined against the blue sky, and
powerfully did they raise the desire for the chase in us and in our
companion Kirghiz. One of them made off as we appeared, and trotted
towards the mountain; the other stood quietly, and seemed as if
considering a dilemma, then raised its head once and again, and at last
came running towards us. All guns were at once in hand; the Kirghiz
slowly and carefully formed a wide semicircle with the intention of
driving the strangely stupid and inconceivably careless creature
towards us. Nearer and nearer, halting now and then, but still steadily
nearer he came, and we already looked upon him as a sure captive. But
a smile broke over the face of the Kirghiz riding beside me; he had
not only discovered the motive of the creature’s apparently foolish
behaviour, he had recognized the animal itself. It was a Kirghiz horse,
dappled like a kulan, which, having strayed from his master’s herd, had
fallen in with wild horses, and, for lack of better company, had stayed
with them. In our horses he had recognized his kin, and had therefore
forsaken his friends in need. Having come quite near to the Kirghiz, he
stopped again as if to reflect whether he should once more yield his
newly-healed back to the galling saddle; but the first steps towards
return were followed by others, and without an attempt at flight he
allowed them to halter him, and in a few minutes he was trotting as
docilely by the side of one of the horsemen as if he had never known
the free life of his ancestors. Thus we were able to confirm by
personal experience the already accepted fact, that horse and kulan do
sometimes keep company.
The kulan is a proud, fascinating creature, full of dignity, strength,
and high spirits. He stares curiously at the horseman who approaches
him; and then, as if deriding the pursuer, trots off leisurely,
playfully lashing his flanks with his tail. If the rider spurs his
horse to full speed, the kulan takes to a gallop as easy as it is
swift, which bears him like the wind over the steppes and soon carries
him out of sight. But even when at full speed he now and again suddenly
pulls himself up, halts for a moment, jerks round with his face to the
pursuer, neighs, and then, turning, kicks his heels defiantly in the
air, and bounds off with the same ease as before. A fugitive troop
always orders itself in line, and it is beautiful to see them suddenly
halt at a signal from the leader, face round, and again take to flight.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--The Kulan (_Equus hemionus_).]
As among all horses, each troop of kulans has a stallion for leader,
and he is the absolute master of them all. He leads the troop to
pasture as well as in flight, he turns boldly on carnivores which are
not superior in force, he permits no quarrelling among his followers,
and tolerates no rival, indeed no other adult male in the herd. In
every district which the kulans frequent, solitary individuals are
to be seen unaccompanied by any troop; they are stallions which have
been vanquished and driven off after furious and protracted combats,
and which must roam about alone until the next breeding season. In
September they again approach the herds, from which the old stallion
now drives off the newly-matured stallions, and a fierce battle begins
when they catch sight of an opponent. For hours at this season they
stand on the crests of steep ridges, with widely-open nostrils raised
to the wind, with their eyes on the valley before them. As soon as the
banished one sees another stallion, he rushes down at full gallop, and
fights to exhaustion with both teeth and hoofs. Should he conquer the
leader of a herd, he enters upon his rights, and the mares follow him
as they did his predecessor. After the battles are over comes the time
of wandering, for the hard winter drives the herds from one place to
another, and it is only when spring has fully come that they return
to their old quarters. Here, in the end of May or in the beginning of
June the mare brings forth her foal, which in every respect resembles
that of the domestic horse--a somewhat awkward-looking, but very nimble
and lively creature. We had the good fortune to be able to make its
acquaintance.
On climbing one of the elongated hillocks of these desert-steppes, we
suddenly saw at a short distance three old kulans and a foal, which
seemed to be only a few days old. Our Russian companion fired a shot,
and away rushed the wild horses, with their hoofs scarce touching the
ground, yet exerting their incomparable agility almost with the ease
of play, and obviously keeping themselves in check for the sake of
the foal. Down rushed all the Kirghiz and Cossacks of our company;
our attendants, carried away with the general excitement, also gave
chase; and down we also rushed. It was a wild chase. Still playing
with their strength, the wild horses made for the distant mountains,
while all the riders urged on their steeds to their utmost, till their
bellies seemed almost to touch the ground. The desert resounded with
the jubilant cries of the Kirghiz, the thundering of their horses at
full gallop, the neighing of our slower horses which gnashed at their
bridles; fluttering cloaks and kaftans and whirling clouds of dust
filled and enlivened the solitudes. Further and further rushed the
chase. Then the foal separated itself from its older companions and
fell behind; the distance increased between it and the anxious glance
which the mother repeatedly cast back; the distance between it and
our horsemen decreased; and in a few minutes it was taken. Without
resistance it gave itself up to its pursuers; it showed no trace of the
characteristic qualities of the adults--wildness, hardly governable
self-will, and inconquerable roguishness, which often degenerates
into downright spite. Innocently it gazed at us with its large lively
eyes, with apparent pleasure it allowed us to stroke its soft skin,
without resistance it allowed itself to be led along with a halter,
in child-like carelessness it lay down beside us seeking obviously
much-needed rest after the heat of the chase. The charming creature at
once captivated every one. But who was to find a milk-mare to be its
foster-mother, who was to give it rest and care? Both were impossible,
and on the second day the lovable creature was dead. With the passion
of sportsmen would we have killed a full-grown kulan, but to see the
foal die gave us genuine sorrow.
In vain we tried to capture one of the adults; in vain we lay in ambush
beside the bound foal in hopes of inveigling its mother; in vain we
tried to effect something by driving; none of us had any luck. As a
sportsman, I left the dreary solitudes with regret, but as a naturalist
I was in the highest degree satisfied, for there I had come to know the
noblest creature of the steppes.
THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA.
Siberian scenery gives one an impression of uniformity and monotony,
which is mainly due to the fact that the whole country consists of
three zones, each more or less homogeneous within itself, though
distinct from the other two. Each of these zones preserves its special
character everywhere, and the same picture is repeated a hundred times,
satiating and blunting the senses till one becomes almost incapable
of recognizing or appreciating the charms of any scene. Thus it is
that we seldom hear anyone speak with appreciation, much less with
enthusiasm, of the scenery of this wide region,--although it certainly
deserves both--and, thus, gradually there has become fixed in our minds
an impression of Siberia which refuses correction with an obstinacy
proportionate to its falseness. Siberia is thought of as a terrible
ice-desert, without life, without variety, without charm, as a frozen
land under the curse of heaven and of miserable exiles. But it is
entirely forgotten that Siberia includes a full third of Asia, and that
a region which is almost twice as large as the whole of Europe, which
extends from the Ural to the Pacific Ocean, from the Arctic sea to the
latitude of Palermo, cannot possibly be excessively monotonous nor
uniform in all its parts. But people usually picture only one district
of Siberia, and even that in a false light.
In truth the country is richer in variety than any one has hitherto
described it. Mountains interrupt and bound the plains, both are
brightened by flowing and standing water, the sun floods hills and
valleys with shimmering light and gleaming colour, lofty trees and
beautiful flowers adorn the whole land, and men live happily, joyous in
their homes.