DON COSSACKS. 
the women is singular: it differs from all the 
costumes of Russia; and its magnificence is 
displayed in the ornaments of a cap, some- 
what resembling the mitre of a Greek: bishop. 
The hair of married women is concealed under 
the cap, which is covered with pearls and gold, 
or it is adorned with flowers. The dress 
of a Cossack girl is elegant ; a silk tunic, with 
trowsers fastened by a girdle of solid silver, 
yellow boots, and an Indian handkerchief worn 
as a turban upon the head. A proof of Cossack 
wealth was afforded in the instance of the 
mistress of the house where we lodged. This 
woman walked about the apartments without 
shoes or stockings ; but being asked for some 
needles to secure the insects we had collected, 
she opened a box, wherein she shewed us pearls 
valued at ten thousand roubles. Her cupboard 
was, at the same time, filled with plate and 
costly porcelain. The common dress of men in 
TcherJcask is a blue jacket, with a waistcoat and 
trowsers of white dimity ; the latter so white 
and spotless, that they seem always new. The 
tattered state of a traveller’s wardrobe but ill 
fitted us to do credit to our country in this 
respect. We never saw a Cossack in a dirty 
suit of clothes. Their hands, moreover, are 
always clean, their hair free from vermin, their 
teeth white, and their skin has a healthy and 
