pearls, a kind of snail-shells, called Serpent-heads; looking-glasses, combs, razors, needles, silk-yarn and silk-thread; ceruse, rouge; all sorts of iron-wares, as cast and hammered boilers, ladles, trevets, chains, horse-harness, locks, pad-locks, iron-traps, axes, knives of all sorts, sizars, fire-steels; buckles, iron, copper and tin-buttons; funnels, needle-cases, snuff-boxes, pipes, tobacco, horn-cases; also copper and tin-ware, raw and in plates; iron-wire, tin-vessels, varnished and common cups; little trunks, with iron-bands; carts and waggons; materials for dying, as al∣lum, vitriol, red-wax, sealing-wax, pitch; groats, rye-bread and wheat, common tea, hay, &c. All these articles being mostly inland goods, are sold at a consi∣derable price to the Kirguese, and make a commer∣cial intercourse with that nation very important.
It being well authenticated that the adjacent districts of the step were free from Kirguese, I would not neg∣lect the opportunity of viewing some remarkable places there; I therefore went, on the 17th of August, to a Koschena, or Tartarian temple, kept sacred both by the Kirguese and Baskirians, and situated in the mid∣dle of the desart, upon a little river which flows into the Ui, about seventy-five miles from this place. My escort consisted of twenty Cossacks, from the district of the river Ui, and eighty Baskirians, Mestscheraks and Tartars, with the Baskirian Starchin Schoker. Hav∣ing travelled unmolested the whole day, I ordered my