CHAPTER VII. 



The Cossacks. The Circassians. The Mamelukes. 



UNDER the name of Cossacks of the Bug, of the 

 Don, of the Ural, of Orenburgh, 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 ages 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 

 civilisation, 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 

 camel to traverse it. Distance and climate vanish 

 before his wandering and adventurous spirit : the re- 

 gions where the burning sun destroys all life and 

 vegetation, or those where "the frost burns frore 

 and cold produces the effect of fire," have never stayed 



