climax of a miracle of gi'owth. Under the rays of an almost tropical sun the wide fields of grain change from silvery green to tawny gold in the space of days rather than weeks. But with the advent of another season the arctic winds sweep straight from the Polar seas, unchecked by hill or! mountain range, all conquering, across the whole level expanse of New Russia. Upon the simny steppes tightens once more the icy grip of the ji Empire of the North. There can be no softening of the fibre, no slackening of the powers of sturdy resistance which above all else characterize the Russian race in the population of such a land. Both in physique and temperament the lithe dark inhabitant of the Ukraine presents the type of a ' southerner. While sprung from the same stock he is as distinct from the blond dweller of the north as the Provencal of France is different from the blue-eyed Norman. To his Slav nature the brief vision of southern summer has added a touch of imagination, a capacity for boisterous enjoyment, lacking, at any rate less apparent, in the Russian of "Muscovy."
Before the coming of the farmer and his plough the plains of the Ukraine were everywhere covered by high waving grasses, similar to the vanished prairies of far western America, or the vegas of southern Andalusia. Often this growth is so thick that a horseman can only with difficulty force his way, and the half -wild cattle almost disappear in
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the richness of their pasture. Xot even a tree or bush breaks the straight sky line of the horizon. Meandering in wide curves, often with a scarcely perceptible fall from north to south, four great rivers form the most striking geographical features of these plains: the Dnieper, the Don, and farther eastward the mighty "Mother Volga" and her lesser companion, the Ural. "Her rivers," says Rambaud, "are the only allies of man against Russia's great enemy — distance." In winter their frozen surface, and in summer their broad tide, are the principal pathways from one part of this great land to another.
It was upon the shores of the great river Dnieper, known to the Ancients as the Borysthenes, that the first permanent Cossack communities established had their settlements.
By slow degrees, under the increasing influence of peasant immigration from the North (bringing with it the religion of Russia and such rude civilization as the northern woods had developed) the Asiatic and "tribal" features of Cossack life began to disappear. Dming the early days of the XVIth centurj^ they had so strengthened their hold upon the broad lands lying between the Dnieper and the Don, that we find the terms "Free Cossacks of the Ukraine" and even "The Republic of the Don"j used to describe their settlements.
But the early condition of these wandering Cossack communities must have been a matter of scorn even to the primitive tribes of the Boujiak Tartars who were their neighboui's. Family life or social organization were all but impossible under the conditions of their harried existence. Some of these steppe bands (as we shall later observe in the case of the "Brotherhood" of the Zaporogian Cossacks, inhabiting the shores and islands of the Dnieper) even appear to have forbidden the presence of women in their camps.
In the growing Cossack settlements or slopods only the sturdiest of the children were allowed to survive. As a preparation for a lifelong struggle with the forces of the steppes "their mothers were wont to plunge them at birth either into a snowdrift or in a mixture of salt and water."* None of the scanty provisions of the tribe could be wasted upon weaklings or those of unpromising physique. When scarcely able to walk, the young Cossacks were placed on horseback and "soon learned to swim wide rivers thus mounted" (ibid). At an early age they were only allowed food when by their unaided skill with bow and arrow they had brought down the wild game wliich supplied the family cook-pot. The clothing of the first Cossack tribesmen was contrived from sheepskins or the hides of wild beasts. Only the chieftains of the
* Histoire de la Guerre des Kosaqv.es. P. Chevalier. Paris, 1668.
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highest rank were able to afford garments of coarsely woven cloth dyed in brilliant colours (ibid). In case of sickness the Cossack remedy was to momit on horseback and, after galloping across the plain mitil both steed and rider were exhausted, to open a small vein in the shoulder of their mount and drink the warm blood.*