although a considerable proportion of them were neither Orthodox nor Russian, but Lamaists of pure Mongol blood, and with a strikingly Japanese caste of features, which, by the way, led many of the newly arrived European troops to shoot or arrest them pretty frequently at this time.
There is a striking contrast between the bloodthirstiness of the Cossack's reputation and the peacefulness of his songs, which principally deal with love and home, and seldom with war.
Some of them are old and famous. The following is a free translation of the first stanza of a popular ballad, said to be more than two hundred years old,
but, nevertheless, only too applicable, alas! to th< recent war:
A Cossack rode out to a distant countrie,
To a distant countrie, with his " sotnia " so gay,
And in vain his fair " kazachka " looked o'er the lea From the rise of the sun to the close of the day;
For her young Cossack lover she never did see!
He died in the snow in that distant countrie....
Below I translate the first verse of a song which was composed by the famous Cossack leader Davidoff at the time of Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow, and which was chanted by the Cossacks as far as the gates of Paris. Like most Cossacks, Davidoff was a hard drinker, and his ballad bears witness to that fact The first verse runs as follows:
Happy he who in the strife
Bravely, like a Cossack, dies; Happy he who, at the feast,
Drinks till he can't ope his eyes.
Chorus: Silver on the horse's feet,
Half a farthing for the master, Good oats for the charger fleet;
A crust for you — you'll ride the faster.
Davidoff certainly interests me, for it is not often you find a great cavalry leader who is at the same time a good ballad-maker, and I should like to get more of his rousing songs.
The collector of Cossack ballads will notice that there is nothing that in the least resembles Beranger's wellknown song, " Le Chant du Cosaque," in which the
Cossack is made to declare that he will trample down sceptres and — the Cross:
faipris ma lance, et tout vont devant elle Humilier et le sceptre et la crotx.
As a matter of fact, the Cossack is the strongest supporter the throne has got, and, if the Tsar is overthrown, the revolutionists will have to reckon with the rider from the Don as the French revolutionists had to reckon with the peasants of La Vendee. Many of his songs are religious, and the expression " a man without a cross " (i.e., a man who does not wear a crucifix around his neck, as all Orthodox Christians are supposed to do) is, in his mouth, a term of reproach.