392 
DON COSSACKS. 
CHAP. 
XIII. 
' y ' 
Greek Im- 
postor. 
incredulity to the wife of Lieutenant-colonel 
Papof ; but she persisted in asserting that she 
had taken them from her own finger, in the 
presence of many witnesses. To cure this 
malady, they apply the leaves of a plant some- 
what like plantain : this they say extracts the 
hairs. We saw those leaves dried, and sus- 
pended, as a remedy for this complaint; but, 
in their desiccated state, we could not exactly 
determine what they were. Biliary obstruction 
is a common disorder among the Cossacks. As 
a cure for the jaundice, they drink an infusion 
of the yellow flowers of a Gnaphalium, found 
in all the steppes. Situate as they arc, either 
in mud yielding unwholesome exhalation, or in 
water full of frogs, filth, and substances putre- 
fying as the flood retires, nothing could preserve 
them from pestilence, were it not for their great 
attention to cleanliness. The water of the Don 
is unwholesome, and it particularly disagrees 
with strangers ; causing flatulency, with violent 
pain of the bowels, and dysentery. Many of 
the Russian rivers have the same quality ; espe- 
cially the Neva at Petersburg . 
A Greek brought to us some coins of the 
Emperor Constantine, procured in Turkey. He 
kept them, he said, for the cure of diseases of 
all kinds; and, in proof of their miraculous 
power, swore, by all his Saints, that if any one 
