About the growing modem city of Ekaterinodar, or "Catherine's gift" — another reminder of the famous visit which that great Russian ruler made to her Cossack territories in South Russia — lies the pro\'ince where the famous Zaporogian Cossacks were formerly granted lands in order to protect the new frontiers from the inroads of the Tcherkess (Circassians) and other wild mountain tribes of the Caucasus. No encouragement was given these emigrants from the shores of the Dnieper to resume the peculiar organization of their has, however, lost all Cossack character, and its population is principally made up of Armenians, Jews, Great- Russians and other "strangers."
sitch^ the armed camp or stronghold whence they formerly set at defiance not only the authority of the Turks and Tartars, but also (when it so pleased their humour) the commands of the Russian Tsars as well. At the present day the descendants of the "Free Companions" differ little from other Cossack communities of the Russian frontier. The enterprise and energy which characterized their forbears is now exercised along wholly peaceful lines. Foreign agricultural machines are sold in all the principal shops of Ekaterinodar. The spectacle afforded by a bewhiskered Cossack armed with the inevitable dagger, peacefully bestriding an American mowing machine — is wholly typical of the "new days." Bee culture, a traditional occupation of the steppes, where the wildflowers give honey of especially agi*eeable flavour, is another vocation carried on with success by these descendants of the redoubtable pirates of the Lower Dnieper. In the sandier parts of the plains cattle and sheep raising (pastoral pursuits in which the Cossack population excel) are the principal source of the wealth of these fortunate "Cossacks of the Kuban."
Along the foothills of the great Caucasian walls, where the Terek flows through flat, sandy plains to the Caspian Sea, lies the territory of the "Cossack Army of the Terek." To the north lies a salt desert inhabited only by nomad Buddhist Kalmoucks — so isolated by their inhospitable surroundings that they are able to continue the primitive existence of their forefathers within a few hundred versts — as the crow flies — of Russian ci^TJization. These are generally peaceably disposed, but in the mountains to the south of the Terek in the highland fastness of Kabardia and Daghestan dwell Mussulman tribes whose independent spirit is a continual source of pettj^ disorder. Here, in a veriti.i'le natural fortress, the Caucasian hero Scham/1 and his followers made their last heroic stand against the Russian forces but half a century ago.
In the isolated valleys, unvisited except by that unwelcome fellow brigand, the Russian tax-gatherer, Schamyl's descendants have maintained their tribal customs to the present day. On these the Cossack stanitzi still keep careful watch, for now and again some local Robin Hood ventures to exercise the old tribal right to exact an involuntary toll on the Russian post roads.*
In Tolstoi's splendid story, "The Cossack," is found the following description from the Russian view-point of the old Grebenski stanitzi, of whom the present-day Cossacks of the Kuban and Terek are the successors:
* But a few months before the writer's last visit to "Vladikavkas, a noted outlaw had been hunted down by the Terek Cossacks. I talked with several people who had seen this popular hero's body brought into the city,
"The whole line of the Terek along which, for some eighty versts, are scattered the stanitzij or villages of the Grebensky Cossacks, has a distinctive character, by reason not only of its situation, but also of population. The river Terek, which separates the Cossacks from the mountaineers, flows turbid and swift, but still in a broad and tranquil current, constantly depositing gray silt on the low, reed-grown right bank, and undermining the steep but not lofty left bank, with its tangled roots of century-old oaks, decaying plane trees, and underbrush. On the right bank lie auls, or native villages, peaceable but restless; along the left bank, half a verst from the river, and seven or eight versts apart, stretch the Cossack villages. In former times, the majority of these villages or outposts were on the very edge of the river; but the Terek each year, sweeping farther away from the mountains toward the north, has kept undermining them, and now there remain in sight only the old ruins, gardens, pear trees, poplars, and limes, thickly overgrown, and twined about with blackberries and wild grape-vines. No one any longer lives there, and the only signs of life are the tracks on the sand, made by deer, wolves, hares, and pheasants, which haunt such places.