270 
DON COSSACKS. 
chap. sav of themselves. The Cossacks of the Don 
— relate, that a party of their countrymen being- 
engaged in their usual occupation ot hunting, 
near the range of Mount Caucasus, met a number 
of people, with whom they were unacquainted, 
going towards the East ; and having inquired 
who they were, the strangers answered, that 
they were emigrants from Poland, who had fled 
from the oppression of their nobles, and were 
proceeding to Persia, to join the troops ot that 
country against the Turks. The Cossacks told 
them, they might spare themselves the trouble 
of so long a march in order to exercise hostili- 
ties against the Turks ; and persuaded the Poles 
to return with them to the town of Tcherhask, 
where they would find an asylum, and whence, 
in concert with their own forces, they might 
attack the fortress of Azof. Assisted by these 
auxiliaries, and with only tour pieces ot cannon, 
all the artillery they possessed at that time, 
they laid siege to Azof, which fell into the hands 
of the allied army. From the circumstances of 
this alliance, first enabling the Cossacks to make 
a figure among the nations at war with Turkey, 
may have been derived the erroneous notion of 
their having migrated from Poland, d he Cossacks 
of the Don, according to the account the best 
instructed give of their own people, (and they are 
much better qualified to write their own history 
