DON COSSACKS. 
333 
was taught by an old woman to offer the fol- 
lowing singular prayer : 
“ Four corners to my bed. 
Four angels over head : 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
Bless the bed that 1 lie on.” 
A party of Cossachs arrived as pilgrims, 
returning homeward from the war in Italy. 
We afterwards met numbers, who had tra- 
versed on foot the whole of the immense terri- 
tory from the Alps to the Don, and who arrived 
with scarcely a rag to their backs. They were 
loud in complaints against their unprincipled 
commanders. Some of them had learned a 
little of the Italian language ; and made use of 
it in telling us that the Russian officers, having 
first stripped them of every thing they had, 
turned them adrift upon the frontier of Italy, 
to find their way home on foot. One of them 
assured us, that he had begged during the 
whole journey; and that before he left the 
Russian army, they had taken away his watch, 
and even his clothes. We gave them a little 
brandy ; and the poor people of the hut brought 
them some broth, made with fish and wild 
herbs. They sat around it in a circle, eating 
all out of one bowl ; and having ended their 
CHAP. 
xir. 
' — „ — ' 
Straggler* 
from the 
Army. 
