G 
KUBAN TAHTARY. 
eii^Ap. Sea of Azof, as far as the rivers Ae and 
— v - — t Laba; an extent of territory comprehending 
upwards of one thousand square miles'. They 
had also allotted to them a constitution in 
all respects similar to that of the Don Cos- 
sacks, and received the appellation of “ Cos- 
sacks of the Black Sea." They were, more- 
over, allowed the privilege of choosing an 
Ataman; but their numbers have considerably 
diminished. They could once bring into the 
field an army of forty thousand effective cavalry. 
At present, their number of troops does not 
exceed fifteen thousand. Upon their coming 
to settle in Kuban Tahtary, it was first neces- 
sary to expel the original inhabitants, who 
were a tribe as ferocious as the Circassians. 
Part of these were driven to the Deserts of 
Nagay, and the steppes north of the Isthmus of 
the Crimea : the rest fled over the Kuban to 
Circassia, and became subject to the princes who 
inhabit Caucasus. At the time we traversed 
Kuban, the Tchernomorski occupied the whole 
country from the Ae to the Kuban, and from the 
Black Sea to the frontier of the Don Cossacks. 
The Russians speak of them as of a band of 
lawless banditti. We soon found that they had 
(l) Starch, Tableau de Russ. tom. 1. p. 65. 
