CHAPTEK TIL 



THE COSSACKS THE CIKCASS1ANS THE MAMELUKES. 



r NDER the name of Cossacks of the Bug, 

 of the Don, of the Ural, of Orenburg, 

 of Astrakhan Cossacks of the Black 

 |\ Sea and Siberian Cossacks this hardy 

 and spirited race is disseminated over all 

 the southern portions of European and 

 Asiatic Russia. Every man of them, 

 between the age of fifteen and fifty, is 

 a soldier, eager for war, and ready to engage in 

 it, no matter at what extremity of the earth. The 

 Russian empire is undoubtedly indebted to these 

 tribes for the vast extension of its dominion ; and 

 Europe has to thank them for the preservation of her 

 civilization, when threatened by the ruthless Tartar 

 invaders. Nature seems to have fitted the Cossack to 

 become the conqueror of the Tribes of the Desert by 

 endowments as peculiar as those which enable the 



