DON COSSACKS. 
and passed a very neat village belonging to a 
wealthy Greek, who, to our great surprise, had 
established a residence in the midst of these 
desolate plains. As we advanced, we per- 
ceived that wheresoever rivers intersect the 
steppes, there are villages, and a numerous 
population. A manuscript map of Tcherkask 
confirmed the truth of this observation. No 
maps have been hitherto published in Europe 
giving an accurate notion of the country. A 
stranger crossing the Cossack territory might 
suppose himself to be in a desert, although 
surrounded by villages. From the road, it is 
true, he will not often see these settlements ; 
but frequently, when we were crossing a river, 
after believing ourselves to be in the midst of 
an uninhabited country, we beheld villages to 
the right and left of us, that had been con- 
cealed by the banks of the river ; not a single 
house nor church of which would have been 
otherwise discerned®. We were approaching, 
in an oblique direction, the Lazovai, now aug- 
(2) “ Erected, or rather concealed,” says Gibbon, accurately de- 
scribing the dwellings of their forefathers, “ in the depth of forests, on 
the banks of rivers, or the edge of morasses, we may not perhaps, 
without flattery, compare them to the architecture of the beaver ; 
which they resembled in a double issue, to the land and water, for the 
escape of the savage inhabitant, an animal less cleanly, less diligent, 
and less social, than that marvellous quadruped.” History of the 
Homan Empire, chap. xlii. 
Y 2 
