DON COSSACKS. 
3/9 
nothing of the etymology, asserts the fact: C ^'^ I P ‘ 
speaking of the several clans of the Scythians, 1 — v — 
he says, that one came out of Media, settled 
upon the banks of the Tana'is, and were called 
Sauromatce V’ 
The Circassians of the present day are a circat- 
horde of banditti, inhabiting the region whence 
the Cossacks originally descended. Continually 
repelled from their antient boundary, the Tana'is 
and Lake Mceotis , and ultimately driven beyond 
the Kuban and the Terek, they hang, as it were, 
upon the northern sides of Caucasus, or carry 
on predatory incursions from the swampy plains 
at its feet, above two hundred miles from 
Tcherkask. These mountaineers, as well as the 
Tahtars of Kuban, are ever at war with the 
Cossacks. They pretended to make peace with 
them at the end of the last Turkish war ; but, 
whenever occasion offers, they seize the persons 
of the Cossacks, or any strangers who may be 
found among them, and sell them for slaves to 
the Persians. Their manner of fighting, as de- 
scribed by the Don Cossacks, is this ; they hide 
themselves in the long reeds, or grass, of 
marshes, lying even in the water, until they 
reconnoitre the strength of their adversary. If 
(3) Diod. Sic. lib.ii. p. 155. Ed .Wctslcin. 
