No one lives there now, and one only sees the tracks of the deer, the wolves, the hares, and the pheasants, who have learned to love these places.

From village to village runs a road cut through the forest as a cannon-shot might fly.

Along the roads are cordons of Cossacks and watch-towers with sentinels in them.

Only a narrow strip about seven hundred yards wide of fertile wooded soil belongs to the Cossacks.

To the north of it begin the sand-drifts of the Nogay or Mozdok steppes, which fetch far to the north and run, Heaven knows where, into the Trukhmen, Astrakhan, and Kirghiz-Kaisatsk steppes.