432 



EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



Muscovite colonists of the Lower Don had already become numerous enough to 

 form a powerful confederacy, fully able to hold their own and retaliate on their 

 Tatar neighbours. In their plundering expeditions, however, it was agreed 

 between the two marauding races that the prairie grass, which fed the herds of 

 both, was never to be burnt. Later on the Zaporog Cossacks and other Little 

 Russians joined the Great Russian Cossacks on a footing of equality, settling 



Fi:;:- 2'28. — Vokoxej. 



mostly on the Lower Don. Even now the Little Russian Cossack travellers 

 seeking hospitality in this district are welcomed as kinsmen, whereas the Great 

 Russian peasantry are received only as guests. In these communities, however, 

 fugitives from all the races of East Europe and the Euxine seaboard found a 

 refuge ; all were hailed by these adventurers, at once brigands and heroes, on the 

 sole condition of taking the name of Cossack. Here are even met many German 



