The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

414 RUSSIA IN EUROPE.Lower Volga Basin.(Governments of Penza, Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, and Astrakhan.)This region is not so densely peopled as that of the Kama, nor is there heresuch a chaos of Slav, Finnish, Tatar, and other nationalities as in the north.Chuvashes, Mordvinians, and Tatars are the only non-Slav peoples south of Kazanand Chistopol as far as the confluence of the Great Irgiz in Samara. But herehegin the German settlements, occupying a space of 8,000 square miles on bothsides of the main stream. The appeal made in 1763 by Catherine II. to Westerncolonists to settle here, as a barrier against the nomad populations of the LowerVolga, was chiefly responded to, besides the Slavs, by the Germans and Swiss, andthe few French and Swede settlers have long been absorbed by the other immigrants.Although less highly favoured than the German colonies of New Russia,those of the Volga are more flourishing, thanks to the adoption of the Russianprinciple of holding their lands in common. The hundred and two original settlementshave greatly increased in numbers, and the Germans are now spread all overthe country, where they preserve intact their nationality, and still speak their mothertongue. They have recently founded higher schools in order to insure to theirchildren the privileges granted to the military classes, who are better educated andfamiliar with Russian. The Germans in Saratov and Samara number probablyover 300,000, and are increasing rapidly by the natural excess of the birth rate overthe mortality. The tracts between the German settlements are occupied chieflyby Little Russians, who, like the Ukranian Chumaks, are largely engaged in thesalt trade.The Kalmuks and Kirghiz.South and east of the great bend of the Volga at Tzaritzin the Russians areftrand only on the river banks, the bare steppes on both sides being still held bynomad populations. The nature of the soil, which is totally unfit for tillage,sufficiently accounts for this circumstance. Even the Russian officials in chargeof the natives are obliged to shift their quarters with the wandering nomadencampments. The Kalmuks (Kalmiki, called also Eliuts and O'irats), who arethe southernmost of these nomad peoples, occupy a tractof about 48,000 squaremiles between the Volga and the Kuma, in the saline depression formerly floodedby the waters of the Caspian. They also roam over the steppes along the leftbank of the Don, and some of their tribes pitch their tents near the Kirghiz, eastof the Akhtuba. Military service and migration to the towns have caused somereduction in their numbers, but these barren or grassy steppes still support about120,000 of them, so far, at least, as the estimates can be relied upon. Few live toa great age, mortality is enormous amongst the children, and the men are said toexceed the women by one-fourth.*The Kalmuks, a branch of the Mongolian race, with perhaps an admixture of• Kalmuks in European Russia (1S79) : 68,329 men; 51,267 (?) women; total 119,956 (f).