split, and the next minute his horse, plunging violently, fell through.  Instead, however, of falling into a stream of cold water, Ivan found himself in a vast and chilly vault, with a small trickling stream in the middle, and at once recollected a not unfrequent phenomenon.  The river had been frozen over when high with floods, but presently the water sinking to its ordinary level, the upper crust of ice alone remained.  But Ivan had no desire to admire the gloomy, half-lit vault, extending up and down out of sight; but standing on his horse’s back, clambered up as best he might upon the surface, leaving the poor animal below.  This done, he ran to the shore, and used the well-remembered Yakouta device for extracting his steed:  he broke a hole in the ice near the bank, toward which the sagacious brute at once hurried, and was drawn forth.  Having thus fortunately escaped a serious peril, he resumed his search on foot, and about midday pursued his journey.

A few hours brought him to the curious plain of the Mioure, where he expected to find the camp of his friend Sakalar.  Leaving an almost desert plain, he suddenly stood on the edge of a hollow, circular in form and six miles across, fertile in the extreme, and dotted with numerous well-stocked fish-ponds.  The whole, as may plainly be seen, was once a lake.  Scattered over the soil were the yourtes of the Yakoutas, while cattle and horses crowded together in vast flocks.  Ivan, who knew the place well, rode straight to a yourte or cabin apart from the rest, where usually dwelt Sakalar.  It was larger and cleaner than most of them, thanks to the tuition of Ivan and the subsequent care of a daughter, who, brought up by Ivan’s mother while the young man wandered, had acquired manners a little superior to those of her tribe.

This was really needful, for the Yakoutas, a pastoral people of Tartar origin, are singularly dirty, and even somewhat coarse and unintellectual—­like all savage nations, in fact, when judged by any one but the poet or the poetic philosopher, who, on examination, will find that ignorance, poverty, misery, and want of civilization, produce similar results in the prairies of America and the wilds of Siberia, in an Irish cabin, and in the wynds and closes of our populous cities.  But the chief defect of the Yakouta is dirt.  Otherwise he is rather a favorable specimen of a savage.  Since his assiduous connection with the Russians he has become even rich, having flocks and herds, and at home plenty of koumise to drink and horse’s flesh to eat.  He has great endurance, and can bear tremendous cold.  He travels in the snow, with his saddle for a pillow, his horse-cloth for a bed, his cloak for a covering, and so sleeps.  His power of fasting is prodigious, and his eyesight is so keen that a Yakouta one day told an eminent Russian traveler that he had seen a great blue star eat a number of little stars, and then cast them up.  The man had seen the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites.  Like the red Indian, he recollects every bush, every stone, every hillock, every pond necessary to find his way, and never loses himself, however great the distance he may have to travel.