treasure might make his appearance too soon, and she made such undue haste that she faithlessly omitted the finishing touch,—­ blacking her pretty teeth.  I gathered from her remarks that something particularly awful would result should she be caught with those pearls obscured in the presence of any other man when her husband was not present; but she may have been using a little diplomacy to soothe us.  Though she was not a beauty in the ordinary sense of the Occident, she certainly was when dressed in her national garb, as I had found to be the case with the Russian peasant girls.  Her loose sack, of a medium but brilliant blue woolen material, fell low over a petticoat of the same terminating in a single flounce.  Her long black hair was carefully braided, and fell from beneath an embroidered cap of crimson velvet with a rounded end which hung on one side in a coquettish way.  Her neck was completely covered with a necklace which descended to her waist like a breast-plate, and consisted of gold coins, some of them very ancient and valuable, medals, red beads, and a variety of brilliant objects harmoniously combined.  Her heavy gold bracelets had been made to order in Kazan after a pure Tatar model, and her soft-soled boots of rose-pink leather, with conventional designs in many-colored moroccos, sewed together with rainbow-hued silks, reached nearly to her knees.  Her complexion was fresh and not very sallow, her nose rather less like a button than is usual; her high cheek-bones were well covered, and her small dark eyes made up by their brilliancy for the slight upward slant of their outer corners.

Tatar girls, who made no pretensions to beauty in dress or features, did the milking, and were aided in that and the other real work connected with kumys-making by Tatar men.  According to the official programme, the mares might be milked six or eight times a day, and the yield was from a half to a whole bottle apiece each time.  Milk is always reckoned by the bottle in Russia.  I presume the custom arose from the habit of sending the muzhik ("Boots”) to the dairy-shop with an empty wine-bottle to fetch the milk and cream for “tea,” which sometimes means coffee in the morning.  The mare’s milk has a sweetish, almond-like flavor, and is very thin and bluish in hue.

At three o’clock in the morning, the mares are taken from the colts and shut up in a long shed which is not especially weather-proof.  In fact, there is not much “weather” except wind to be guarded against on the steppe.  In about two hours, when the milk has collected, the colts follow them voluntarily, and are admitted and allowed to suck for a few seconds.  Halters are then thrown about their necks, and they are led forward where the mothers can nose them over and lick them.  The milkmaid’s second assistant then puts a halter on the neck of a mare and holds her, or ties up one leg if she be restive.  In the mean time the foolish creature continues to let down milk for her foal.  The milkmaid