THE LITTLE RUSSIANS AND COSSACKS. 291 



in the seventeentli century. These are now distributed over the governments of 

 Kharkov, Kursk, and Voronej. 



The Little Russians merge imperceptibly with the White E.ussiaus north- 

 wards, and with the Slovaks beyond the Carpathians ; but they are sharply dis- 

 tinguished both from the Poles and Veliko-Russians. Crossings between the 

 Great and Little Russians are very rare. Physically the latter are distinguished 

 by a broader and shorter head, more flattened at the poll, and very brachy- 

 cephalous. About half of them have chestnut hair and brown eyes, with a mean 

 height of 5 feet 6 inches ; but they lack the muscular strength of the Great 

 Russians. The women have a graceful carriage, soft voice, and mild expression, 

 with a picturesque costume resembling that of the Wallachian Rumanians. 



The Little Russians seem, on the whole, to surpass the Great Russians in natural 

 intelligence, good taste, poetic fancy, but are less practical, solid, and persevering. 

 It is difficult to say what relationship they may have with the prehistoric people 

 whose remains have been collected in the government of Poltava, associated with 

 mammoth bones and shells of the glacial epoch. The graves of the stone age 

 found near Ostrog, in Volhynia, contain skeletons greatly differing from those of 

 the Slavs, with very narrow long heads, and flat tibise curved like a sword blade. 

 This race seems allied to the dolmen builders of the West. But tlieir barrows were 

 succeeded by countless kurgans, scattered all over the land ; and although 

 thousands have disappeared, they are still numerous enough to form the distinctive 

 feature of the landscape in many places. They mostly stand on clifls, headlands, 

 and other natural eminences, but in the Dniester valley they run in long lines at 

 the foot of the cliffs. The most noteworthy, those of the "Royal Scythians," 

 whose funeral rites are described by Herodotus, occur chiefly in the region west of 

 the Dnieper rapids. Some are connected together by avenues of stones, and others, 

 like that of Perepetikna, in the government of Kiev, are no less than 660 feet 

 round, and encircled by smaller mounds like a king in the midst of his courtiers. 

 Many were formerly distinguished by rude statues, or baba, whence the name 

 babavati applied to the barrows themselves. The features of these figures are 

 rather Mongolian than Slav, and they may possibly be those monuments of the 

 steppes to which Ammianus Marcellinus compares the Huns. Most of them 

 have disappeared, but those still in situ are highly revered by the peasantry. 



Amongst these mounds there are specimens of all the stone, bronze, and iron 

 ages. Some are relatively modern, and even of Christian origin, as shown by their 

 Byzantine or Russian contents, but others contain objects of the oldest stone 

 epoch. The most characteristic are those of the Scythian period, at a time 

 when the Scythians had established constant relations with the Greeks. But, 

 besides objects of purely Hellenic art, bronze arms and implements occur of a 

 distinctly Asiatic type. The megalithic graves scattered between the Dniester 

 and Dnieper, north of Odessa, belong again to another epoch and another religion. 

 Some of the mound builders also seem to have passed rapidly through the land, 

 while others were long settled here, and have doubtless left their traces in the 

 present Little Russian race. 



