The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

TIIE LITTLE RUSSIANS AND COSSACKS 291in the seventeenth century. Those are now distributed over the governments ofKharkov, Kursk, and Voronej.The Little Russians merge imperceptibly with the "White Russians northwards,and with the Slovaks beyond the Carpathians; but they are sharply distinguishedboth from the Poles and Yeliko-Russians. Crossings between theGreat and Little Russians are very rare. Physically the latter are distinguishedby a broader and shorter head, more flattened at the poll, and very brachycephalous.About half of them have chestnut hair and brown eyes, with a meanheight of 5 feet 6 inches ; but they lack the muscular strength of the GreatRussians. The women have a graceful carriage, soft voice, and mild expression,with a picturesque costume resembling that of the "Wallachian Rumanians.The Little Russians seem, on the whole, to surpass the Great Russians in naturalintelligence, good taste, poetic fancy, but are less practical, solid, and persevering.It is difficult to say what relationship they may have with the prehistoric peoplewhose remains have been collected in the government of Poltava, associated withmammoth bones and shells of the glacial epoch. The graves of the stone agefound near Ostrog, in Yolhynia, contain skeletons greatly differing from those ofthe Slavs, with very narrow long heads, and flat tibire curved like a sword blade.This race seems allied to the dolmen builders of the West.But their barrows weresucceeded by countless kurgans, scattered all over the land ; and althoughthousands have disappeared, the}- are still numerous enough to form the distinctivefeature of the landscape in many places. They mostly stand on cliffs, headlands,and other natural eminences, but in the Dniester valley they run in long lines atthe foot of the cliffs. The most noteworthy, those of the " Royal Scythians,"whose funeral rites are described by Herodotus, occur chiefly in the region west ofthe Dnieper rapids.Some are connected together by avenues of stones, and others,like that of Perepetikna, in the government of Kiev, are no less than G60 feetround, and encircled by smaller mounds like a king in the midst of his courtiers.Many were formerly distinguished by rude statues, or baba, whence the namebabavati applied to the barrows themselves. The features of these figures areratherMongolian than Slav, and they may possibly be those monuments of thesteppes to which Ammianus Marcellinus compares the Huns. Most of thernhave disappeared, but those still in situ are highly revered by the peasantry.Amongst these mounds there are specimens of all the stone, bronze, and ironages. Some are relatively modern, and even of Christian origin, as shown by theirByzantine or Russian contents, but others contain objects of the oldest stoneepoch. The most characteristic are those of the Scythian period, at a timewhen the Scythians had established constant relations with the Greeks. But,besides objects of purely Hellenic art, bronze arms and implements occur of adistinctly Asiatic type. The megalithic graves scattered between the Dniesterand Dnieper, north of Odessa, belong again to another epoch and another religion.Some of the mound builders also seem to have passed rapidly through the land,while others were long settled here, and have doubtless left their traces in thopresent Little Russian race.