DON COSSACKS. 
origin of the Cossacks from them, should rather 
guide us to the parent stock, whence the Sclavo- 
vian, the Polish, the Prussian, the Muscovitish, 
Bohemian, and Transylvanian people and lan- 
guages were severally derived. All the antient 
historians and geographers confirm the truth ot 
its march from Media, through the Straits of 
Caucasus, towards the Tana'is, and round the 
Euxine. Its first colonies were called Sarma- 
tians : the earliest account of whom is given by 
Herodotus; who places them between Caucasus 
and the Tanais'. The defile of Caucasus has 
been celebrated in all ages, offering the only 
passage through that otherwise impenetrable 
barrier. It bore the appellation of the Pylje 
Sarmatic^e, from the Sarmat.®, who first 
passed through it : Sar being, according to 
Bochart, the Eastern mark of descent; as Sar- 
madai, Sar-mat.*; that is to say, * Children 
of the Modes' 1 2 3 .’ “ Diodorus Siculus observes 
the revered author cited below, “ who knew 
(1) Hcrodot, lib. iv. c. 117. 
(2) XAPMATA!, SATPOMATAI, MAIXtTAI, were the same people. See 
Bochart and the observations of the author’s Paternal Ancestor, in 
his valuable Dissertation on the “ Connection of the Roman, Saxon, 
and English Coins," p. 47. It is very grateful to make this tribute to 
the acknowledged learning of an ancestor, to whose Work the Reader 
is referred, not only for some of the authorities here noticed, but also 
for the most important information collected by any writer, respecting 
the original inhabitants of the countries bordering on the Black Sea, 
and of their intercourse with the people of Antient Greece. 
