With these barks, well-furnished with arms, ammunition, and ships'-stores, the Cossacks, having chosen a naval chief and a favourable season, made sail for the Turkish coast. To form some idea of the boldness and reckless daring of these marauders, it may be remarked, that the Turks possessed at the mouth of the Dnieper and along the two opposite banks, Kissikerman and Tavangorod; and that the passage was defended by strong iron chains, stretched across under the cannon of both fortresses. The Cossacks, previously to their arrival at this spot, usually felled an enormous tree, which they drove before them on the surface of the stream with prodigious force: the chains were burst asunder, and, at the alarm thus given, the cannon were discharged. But the Cossacks, after clearing the obstacle in question, and in utter contempt of the Turkish fire now opened upon them, pushed forward into the Black Sea. Like the ancient Danes, wherever they x made good a landing, they spread slaughter, conflagra- \ tion, and ruin; they burned the fleets, pillaged the / towns, gathered together their booty, carried off they young women and children, massacred without pity all the males, and disappeared before news could be spread of their sudden appearance, or the necessary measures taken for repelUng their terrible incursions. The time chosen for these murderous attacks was generally at day-break, or, occasionally, under cover of the darkest midnight. Their very name created terror along the coasts of the Black Sea. Not unfrequently they would even penetrate into the centre of Natolia. At sea, they directed their course without the aid of any nautical instruments, but by the sole guidance of the stars; and this with a regularity and precision difficult to be conceived — presaging winds, calms, and tempests, with mathematical exactness. By dint of these continual cruises on the Black Sea, and of their expeditions, almost invariably successful, they had acquired so intimate an acquaintance with its navigation, that, even through the darkest and most tempestuous night, they could sail on its waters with far greater certainty and security from danger than could the Turks in mid-day. The vessels that gave chase to them on their retreat, not only could never come up with them, but were frequently exposed to considerable loss. The Cossacks, to whom all the harbours were well known, took refuge, with their light barks, in shallows and sheltered creeks; from whence, having thus enticed their pursuers into dangerous and sometimes fatal positions, they slipped away beyond reach of their vengeance, and arrived safely with their booty on the desert islands of the Dnieper, in triumphant defiance of the Turkish vessels sent out to chase them. The number of the Cossacks engaged in these piratical expeditions, varied from six to ten thousand picked men. The retreatj however, of the Cossacks into the shelter afforded by their islands was occasionally attended with considerable difficulty, and with greater hazard than even their attack, seeing that, closely watched, as was often the case by the Turkish navy at the mouth of the Dnieper, and not having the advantage of sailing with the tide in their favour, they were compelled to secrete themselves in the tall osier-beds, and to gain at high tide a bay separated only by a narrow slip of land from a lake. This lake communicated with a river which discharged itself into the Dnieper, a few miles above the mouth of the latter stream. The Cossacks, having once reached the vicinity of the lake, transported overland, and on their shoulders, their portable barks, gained the lake, on which they then re-embarked, and by this route returned home, thereby avoiding the Turkish batteries: at other times, they would retreat by way of the Don, ascending the course of a small stream which flows into that river close by the Samara. Such a mode of retreat was, however, but of rare occurrence, as in general they boldly ventured to make good their passage homewards under the very beards of the Turks. It may also be remarked that, as it was only during the clear bright nights that the Cossacks were liable to interruption by the Turks in 24 THE COSSAOKS their movements, they generally chose for their piratical excursions the period of new moon, when the nights are dark and gloomy.
There never yet have been, as there probably never will be, a finer race of seamen navigating the Black Sea, than were formerly the Cossacks in question: they were never equalled, but in order to have again a Kke class of men, it would be necessary that a state of circumstances similar to those then existing should likewise be revived, an event which is all but impossible.