THE RAINS. 361 



Tender heart, grow strong for peril, 



Be to mem'ry true ! 

 Now, sleep on wild days are coining 



Bai-oosh-kie-baiou ! 



The words ' bai-oosh-kie-baiou ' are merely the 

 refrain of the song, and as untranslatable as our 

 4 lullaby,' so that I have left them in the original. 



From scraps of songs which I have from time 

 to time heard crooned in the Crimea and elsewhere, 

 1 should almost imagine that Poushkin's words 

 here translated are only a remodelled and completed 

 form of some popular cradle-song in use in his time 

 among the Cossacks. 



I am sadly afraid the Cossacks are no longer the 

 romantic personages they were when the poet wrote 

 of them. ' Richard's occupation's gone ' may be said 

 of them. There is no one left for them to tight, 

 and their existence as Cossacks would lack an 

 object were it not for their duties as postmen. 

 They are as rough as e\er, but not, I should say, as 

 ready with their weapons. Their love of cattle- 

 lifting can no longer be legitimately gratified, and 

 I fear I have cause to add that it has degenerated to 

 the level of petty pilfering. 



Singing and smoking we passed the night, 

 trying in vain to still the voices of our unappeased 

 appetites with the dull narcotic which refused to 

 numb our pain. The rain had partially ceased at 

 dawn, and with that wonderful rapidity which 



