572
THE Sieur de Beauplan, Author of this small Account, had a long time to make himself perfect in it, having serv'd, as he tells us, 17 years in the Ukraine, as Ingineer to the King of Poland. He gives a particular account of the Manners of the Poles and Cossacks, with whom in so many years he could not but be extraordinary well acquainted: he describes their Persons, particularizes much upon their manner of making War, which was his Profession, sets down to a tittle the manner of these Cossacks making their Irruptions into Turky and Tartary by way of the Black Sea, describes the Country, and particularly the River Boristhenes, with that exactness, as may be expected from a Mathematician who had view'd all those parts, and made special Observations, not only for his own curiosity, but to fufil the duty of his Employment, which was to erect Forts, and even build Towns in convenient places. Tho he calls this only a Description of Ukraine, yet he stops not there, but sets down the manner of electing the Kings of Poland, the Greatness of their Nobility, and way of Treating in solemn Feasts. Nor is this all, but he runs into Tartary, and besides describing the Country of Crim and Budziak, takes his course quite round the Black Sea, observing all Places of note upon it, and not only acquaints us with the Manners and Customs of both those People, but very particularly informs us, how they make their Irruptions into Poland and the Ukraine, both in Summer and Winter, and how they do to avoid coming to Battel when pursu'd. Nothing is wanting, but the Map which in some places he refers to; but in a short Advertisment he informs the Reader, that all his Papers and Draughts, which it seems he had left to be engrav'd in Poland, had been there seiz'd by the King, which has depriv'd us of the Satisfaction of so exact a Map as we might reasonably expect from him.
