The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

'THE DON COSSACKS. 431Inhabitants.—Tin:Don Cossacks.In the region draining to the Sea of Azov the most noteworthy race, politically,socially, and historically, are the Don Cossacks, descended mostly from GreatRussian refugees, though with a certain admixture of Krim-Tatar elements. Thefirst Don Cossack chief, mentioned in 1549, even bears the Tatar name ofSariazman, nor was their first church erected till 1653, over a century thereafter.Till the eighteenth century also the marriage ceremony consisted of a simpleFig. 227.Races of the Don Basix.According to Rittich. Scale 1 : 4,400,000.Little Russians. Great Russians Germans. Greeks. Bulgarians. ArmenPoles.White Russians.SO Miles.declaration before the Cossack assembly. The peasantry and townsfolk, oppressedby nobles or voivodes, and often threatened with wholesale extermination, andlater on the persecuted Easkolniks, all found a refuge in the steppes. Escapingfrom their oppressors, they here established themselves in the remote ravines orsheltered low-lying tracts, ever on their guard, ever ready again to take flightor hold their ground according to the strength of their Moslem or Christianassailants. Thus was gradually peopled all the region between the Don andMedveditza confluence and the Sea of Azov, a region which till 1521 hadremained uninhabited. During the second half of the sixteenth century the