The Cossack looks on a woman as the instrument of his well-being. Only while she is unmarried does he allow her to be idle and make merry; but when she is once a wife he compels her to work for him from youth to the very end of old age. He is thoroughly Oriental in his demand on her obedience and toil. As the result of this state of things, woman, though to all appearances in subjection, becomes powerfully developed both physically and morally, and, as is commonly the case in the East, possesses incomparably more influence and consequence in domestic affairs than in the West. Her seclusion from society and her inurement to hard manual labour give her still more authority and command in domestic affairs. The Cossack who, in the presence of strangers, regards it as unbecoming to talk affectionately or gossip with his wife, cannot help feeling her superiority when he is left alone with her. His whole house, his whole estate, his whole estabhshment have been acquired by her, and are maintained solely by her labours and exertions. And though he is obstinately convinced that toil is degrading for a Cossack, and is the proper occupation only of a Xogai labourer or a woman, yet he has a dim consciousness that ever\i:hing that redounds to his comfort, and that he calls his own, is the result of this toil, and that it is in the power of his mother or his wife, even though he looks on her as his serf, to deprive him of all that makes his life agreeable.
Moreover, the constant hard field labour, and the duties intrusted to them, give a peculiarly independent, masculine character to the "grehen'* women, and have served to develop in them, to a remarkable degree, physical powers, healthy minds, decision and stability of character. The women are for the most part stronger and more intelligent, better developed and handsomer, than the men. The beauty of the women among the "Grebensky" (or Terek) Cossacks is due to the striking union in them of the purest type of the Tcherkess with the full and powerful build of the northern woman. Their usual dress is Tcherkess: the Tartar shirt, the heshmet, or imder-tunic, and the foot-gear called chuvyaki; but they wear the kerchiefs in the Russian way. The wearing of clean, rich and elegant attire, and the decoration of their cottages, belong to the inseparable conditions of their existence."
While the monotonous garrison routine of the stanitzi of the Terek still offers the occasional congenial adventure of a foray against their wild mountaineer neighbours, the Astrakhan Cossacks who have their headquarters in the picturesque, but unhealthy metropolis of the lower Volga, are principally engaged in the lucrative but unwarlike trade of fishing. The Astrakhan Cossacks form a fast disappearing branch of the Cossack race. Originally an offshoot of the Donskoi they are now slowly being absorbed by the neighbouring non- Cossack population.
The whole northern end of the shallow sandybottomed Caspian is a vast natural fish-pond. In spite of a yearly catch of countless sturgeon, herring, beluga, soudak and other varieties of fish, many of them wholly unknown outside the waters of this finny paradise, the supply seems inexhaustible.
From the Volga fisheries (and those of the Ural) is obtained the world's principal supply of the famous Russian delicacy — caviar; unknown, however, under that name, and always locally called ikra. As the Cossack communities of the Volga and Ural have preserved to a great extent ancient exclusive rights to the river fisheries, they are by far the richest of the Cossack armies. These fisheries, which have existed for centuries, are now exploited by the most scientific methods. The neverfailing demand for ca\nar, of both the coarse and finer qualities, always far exceeds the supply. In Russia as well as in Europe, it is a higlily expensive delicacy. In the early days of these colonies, salted caviar, packed in little wooden kegs, formed the most acceptable tribute which could be offered to the Russian court, and this delectable product purchased indemnity for many a Cossack misdeed. On account of its portable nature the price of caviar is almost as high in the restaurants of Astrakhan as in the great restaurants of Europe. A true gourmet will, however, be rewarded threefold should he make the pious pilgrimage to Astrakhan for the purpose of tasting the silver-grey, nearly unsalted ikra, only to be obtained at its best near the place of origin.
Just across the administrative boundaries of European Russia lies the little Cossack capital of Uralsk, still in many ways the most characteristic of the Cossack communities. The adventurous history of t