The steppe presents nothing to attract notice but the long line of the telegraph posts, their wires vibrating in the breeze like the strings of a harp.

The road could be distinguished from the rest of the plain only by the clouds of fine dust which rose under the wheels of the tarantass.

Had it not been for this white riband, which stretched away as far as the eye could reach, the travelers might have thought themselves in a desert.
Michael and his companions again pressed rapidly forward.

The horses, urged on by the iemschik, seemed to fly over the ground, for there was not the slightest obstacle to impede them.

The tarantass was going straight for Ichim, where the two correspondents intended to stop, if nothing happened to make them alter their plans.
A hundred and twenty miles separated Novo-Saimsk from the town of Ichim, and before eight o'clock the next evening the distance could and should be accomplished if no time was lost.