The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

201 KUSSIA IN EUEOPE.whence thev soon removed further south to an island at the junction of theChcrtomlik.The Cossacks do not constitute a family fundamentally distinct in speech ordescent from the other Slavs of the steppes. The resemblance of the wordCherkasi to Cherkess (Circassian) gave rise to the erroneous theory of theirCaucasian origin ; but at the same time the term Cossack is really Tatar, andPetcheneg, Khazar, and Kara-Kalpak elements were doubtless early assimilated bythem, before they were formed into organized communities. The typical Cossacksare the Zaporogs and their descendants, who still claim the title of " GoodCossacks." These were organized in lairins, or septs, under a common hetman(from the German Hauptmamt, or head-man), a sort of dictator, whose powers werelimited only by common usage. The smallest group constituted a commune, withpower to enforce its own laws, so that the Hetman Khmelnitzkiy could say," Wherever there are three Cossacks the delinquent is judged by the two others."In their expeditions drunkards were expelled from the camp, and on these occasionsthey employed the tabor, or chariot, borrowed from the Bohemians, and with whichthey often broke the ranks of the enemy. Their greatest bond of union was thecommon danger, and their love of the steppe, which they swept with their swiftand hardy ponies." All are welcome who, for the Christian faith, are willing tobe impaled, broken on the wheel, quartered, all who are ready to endure allmanner of tortures, and have no fear of death."Such was the proclamation of theZaporog head-men, who, after becoming defenders of the faith, aspired also to thechampionship of their "mother," Ukrania, and its freedom.This "frontier" region between the Slavs and Tatars shifted its borders withthe vicissitudes of war and armed colonisation. Much of the space between the" black lands " and the coast had become a perfect desert, and even in the secondhalf of the seventeenth century it was agreed that an area of about 20,000 squaremiles between the Dnieper, Tasmin, and Dniester should remain unpeopled as aneutral zone between the Slav and Tatar lands.Later on the Polish nobles heldout every inducement to the peasantry to settle in this wilderness, impunity fromall crimes, and free possession of the soil.Attracted by these promises, the serfspoured in in hundreds of thousands, towns and villages were founded along theriver banks, the steppe was reclaimed under the magic spell of liberty. But whenthe lords wished to resume their lands, and again reduce the peasantry to thecondition of serfs,they found they had to do with Cossacks who claimed to be free,and the attempt served only to precipitate the ruin of Poland itself. Theautonomy of the Little Russian Hetmanship was recognised in 1649, and in 1654it was transferred by the treaty of Pereyaslav from Polish to Muscovite protection.But its freedom was not long respected. The Boyards complained that theirrunaway serfs sought refuge in Ukrania, and Peter the Great demanded theextradition of the Don emigrants to whom the Zaporogs had given hospitality.The Little Russian Cossacks had become an obstacle to Muscovite centralization,and their confederacy was crushed. Thousands of Cossacks perished by forcedlabour on the shores of Lake Ladoga under Peter the Great. In 1765 Catherine II.