From all this I have no intention of drawing the conclusion that the Kirghiz are, as a people, inhospitable or unfriendly to strangers.  My experience of them is too limited to warrant any such inference.  The letter of Genghis Khan insured us all the accommodation we required, but it at the same time gave us a certain official character not at all favourable to the establishment of friendly relations.  Those with whom we came in contact regarded us as Russian officials, and suspected us of having some secret designs.  As I endeavoured to discover the number of their cattle, and to form an approximate estimate of their annual revenue, they naturally feared—­having no conception of disinterested scientific curiosity—­that these data were being collected for the purpose of increasing the taxes, or with some similar intention of a sinister kind.  Very soon I perceived clearly that any information we might here collect regarding the economic conditions of pastoral life would not be of much value, and I postponed my proposed studies to a more convenient season.

The Kirghiz are, ethnographically speaking, closely allied to the Bashkirs, but differ from them both in physiognomy and language.  Their features approach much nearer the pure Mongol type, and their language is a distinct dialect, which a Bashkir or a Tartar of Kazan has some difficulty in understanding.  They are professedly Mahometans, but their Mahometanism is not of a rigid kind, as may be seen by the fact that their women do not veil their faces even in the presence of Ghiaours—­a laxness of which the Ghiaour will certainly not approve if he happen to be sensitive to female beauty and ugliness.  Their mode of life differs from that of the Bashkirs, but they have proportionately more land and are consequently still able to lead a purely pastoral life.  Near their western frontier, it is true, they annually let patches of land to the Russian peasants for the purpose of raising crops; but these encroachments can never advance very far, for the greater part of their territory is unsuited to agriculture, on account of a large admixture of salt in the soil.  This fact will have an important influence on their future.  Unlike the Bashkirs, who possess good arable land, and are consequently on the road to become agriculturists, they will in all probability continue to live exclusively by their flocks and herds.

To the southwest of the Lower Volga, in the flat region lying to the north of the Caucasus, we find another pastoral tribe, the Kalmyks, differing widely from the two former in language, in physiognomy, and in religion.  Their language, a dialect of the Mongolian, has no close affinity with any other language in this part of the world.  In respect of religion they are likewise isolated, for they are Buddhists, and have consequently no co-religionists nearer than Mongolia or Thibet.  But it is their physiognomy that most strikingly distinguishes them from the surrounding