Next to these remains, showing the commercial importance of the Don basin in ancient times, are piously preserved the regalia, half-Tartar, half- Christian, of the old Cossack chieftains and atamans of the Don: horsetail standards, copied from those carried before the Asiatic khans when they went to war; the heavy silver-gilt houndchouks, or war-clubs, formerly the insignia of office, carried by the hetman; icons and Cossack standards embroidered with the pictures of wonder-working saints and martyrs of the Ukraine, who accompanied the wild chivalry of the Don in their wars against the Tartars.*
There is also preserved in the museum a memento of Empress Catherine's famous journeythrough the newly conquered provinces of Southern Russia. It was from the window of a travelling vehicle (which she presented to the Donskoi) that she gazed upon the camivalesque villages which the zeal of her favourite Potemkin caused to be erected all along the route followed by the imperial cortege in its journey across the empty Cossack steppes. The boisterous welcome of the Cossack stanitzi of the Don — a contrast to the theatrical rejoicings of the fictitious peasants and bayaderes of Potemkin's improvised population — seems to have pleased the august sovereign, who showed them the most gracious side of her character. The Donskoi, in turn, elected her an "honorary Cossack" and still cherish the memory of "Mother Catherine's" visit to their capital.
In the library of the museum are carefully preserved the charters and other documents attesting the privileges conferred upon the Donskoi race by
* Another interesting relic is a finely jewelled sword presented by the "Merchants of the City of London" (in recognition of the services the Cossacks rendered to the cause of the Grand Alliance of a century ago against the imperialistic "welt-politik" of Napoleon) to the famous hetman Platov, a native of old Tcherkask, and one of the founders of the present city.
KOUBAX COSSACKS
And "Cossacks" of the "Wild Division*
succeeding Tsars, each confirming the "rights" which the valour of the Cossack armies obtained at the hands of the Russian autocrats.
Novotcherkask is the centre of the Cossack educational system. It boasts of a large institution, the "Academy," whose facult>^ was famous all over Russia for the sturdy independence of its teachings. The Cossack school system was liberally endowed and ilHteracy is lower in the Don stanitzi than in any province of the old empire.
CHAPTER XII
LESS than a century ago no traveller would have dreamed of crossing the river Don without a strong escort of Russian troops — unless journeying as the guest of some Cossack chieftain or hetman of the "Cossacks of the Black Sea." Concerning this wild country the Englishman Clarke wrote in his celebrated "Travels in the Ukraine" as follows: "Here one finds the Cossack race still living according to the manners and customs of their ancestors. A savage pride in their complete independence is reflected in their dress and manner of existence. Each Cossack is the equal of every other member of the community, whether clad in simple sheep-skins and dwelling in a cave, or inhabiting a fine well-built house and dressed in velvet covered with gold and silver lace." And until the coming of the great trunk line connecting the "Petroleum-Metropolis" of Bakou on the Caspian Sea with Rostov-on-Don,* these primitive frontier conditions yvere to be found existing over all the fertile steppes to the north of the Caucasus.
* Rostov-on-Don is a busy young commercial city — the port and distributing centre for the Don region. It
These low-lying plains — the watershed of the Kuban and Terek — were formerly the bed of a great sea or strait connecting the Caspian with the Black Sea. Overlying a sandy substratum filled with the debris of shells and marine life is spread a generous layer of the famous agricultural soil known as "the black earth," the foundation of the agricultural empire of South Russia. The burial mounds of forgotten races, huge Kourgans, sometimes still surmounted by rudely carved guardian deities of stone, alone break the flat horizon. These are relics of the Scythian tribes who formerly pastured their flocks on the rich grass that covered these plains. Their numbers show that a numerous population, even in pre-historic times, occupied this favored territory.