His courage in no way affected by this sight, he proceeded quietly to awaken his sleeping comrades. It was determined that the best method of meeting the attack would be to place at the few available windows the most skilful of the Cossack marksmen, while the others should load and pass to them guns and pistols in rapid succession. This system of defense in which the other hourens presently joined, was apparently so disconcerting to the Turkish troops, that when the gallant defenders sallied out for a final assault they foimd only a demoralized mob of the enemy upon whom to wreak their vengeance.
Following the example of the Cossack historian we shall pass over the minor tactical details of the struggle which ensued, confining ourselves to the glorious outcome. The results of this indiscreet invasion, according to the chronicler, was a "loss of no less than 13,500 men among the Janissaries alone, while on the Cossack side a loss of but fifty killed is recorded, besides eighty wounded" (sic). The first pious duty of the Cossacks was to bury their own dead in consecrated ground, while the wounded were given over "to the care of the barber." In the meantime some two thousand cavalrymen started out in pursuit of the Khan of Crimea, who, on the defeat of his Turkish allies, had "fled like a wolf" to his distant stronghold. To judge by the account we have quoted, one of the principal "annoyances" caused by this invasion was the question of how to dispose of the numerous bodies, of slain Tartars and Janissaries, which encumbered the streets of the Cossack encampment. These, after much discussion (recorded at even greater length in the original manuscript than the account of the actual fighting itself) were pushed under the ice of the river Dnieper through holes laboriously cut for that purpose, whence they were swept away by the swift current.
The "facts" contained in the above short summary are at least borne out by the tone of the correspondence which ensued between the Zaporogian Cossacks and the Turkish Sultan, whose disloyal actions during a time of peace had been so signally punished. One letter reads as follows:
"To the Khan of Tartary
Our Unworthy Neighbour',
We, the Cossack troops of the sitch, would never have conceived the idea of entering upon this war had you not commenced hostilities. You have sent against us (what treachery!) not only your savage Tartars, but also the troops of that old fool, the Sultan. Had it not been for the intervention of our constant friend, the great Lord Jesus — we might all have perished in our sleep I Now, since your disloyal ways have brought upon you disaster — refrain from troubling us. Otherwise, we will treat you after our fashion, and that of our noble Cossack ancestors, by beating down your own gates!
We wish your Majesty a long and prosperous reign.
Signed by Ivan Sieko, — Koshovoy Ataman
(for the whole community) "
At the same time a letter was written to the Sultan in Constantinople, Mahmoud III — beginning with a parody of his imperial titles as set forth at the beginning of a letter admonishing the Cossacks to keep the peace. The epithets show a cunning knowledge of what would be most insulting to a pious Moslem.
''Thou Turkish Devil:
Brother and Companion of Lucifer himself I
Who dares call himself Lord of the Christians — but is not I Babylonish cook I Brewer of Jerusalem! Goat-keeper of the herds of Alexandria! Swineherd of Great and Lesser Egj^t! Armenian Sow and Tartar Goat! Insolent L^nbeliever! May the Devil Take you! The Cossacks refuse every demand and petition that you now make to them — or that you may in future invent. Thank us for condescending to answer you!
(Signed) Ivan Sirko and the Cossack troops/*
The originals of the above epistles, which, for obvious reasons, have been considerably condensed and modified, are to be found in the annals of Kiev, Vol. II, pp. 371, 382, 1891. See also a pamphlet published in Petrograd in 1902 by Professor I. Evamitzky,
YERMAK AND THE COSSACK CONQUEST OF SIBERIA