Beauplan.
Thirst; indefatigable in War, bold, resolute, or rather rash, not valuing their Lives.
* A sort of carts with which the Cossacks hem themselves in when they march upon plain ground. They show most Valour and Conduct when they fight in their * Tabords, and cover'd with their Carts (for they are very expert at their Fire-arms, their usual Weapons) and in defending strong Places. At Sea they are not bad, nor very good a Horseback. I remember I have seen two hundred Polish Horse, rout two thousand of their best Men: True it is, a hundred of these Cossacks, under the shelter of their Tabords, do not fear a thousand Polanders, nor as many Tartars; and were they as brave a Horseback as they are afoot, I should think them invincible. They are well made, strong and sinewy; love to be well clad, and make it appear when they have been plundering among their Neighbours, for otherwise their Garments are indifferent enough. Naturally they are very healthy, and free enough even from that Distemper peculiar to Poland, which the Physicians call Blica, because all the Hair of the Head is sensible of it, tangles and clots together in a most unaccountable manner; the People of the Country call it Gosches. Few there die of Sickness, unless they be of a very great Age, most of them dying in the Bed of Honour, being kill'd in War.
Russian Nobility. The Nobility among them, whereof there is but a very small number, hold of that of Poland, and seems to be asham'd to be of any other Religion but the Catholick, to which they daily go over; tho all the great Men, and those that are call'd Princes, are come out of the Greek Church.
Peasants, their duty to their Lords. The Peasants there are very miserable, being oblig'd to work three days a Week, themselves and their Horses, for their Lord; and to pay, proportionably to the Land they hold, such a quantity of Wheat, abundance of Capons, Pullets, Hens, and Goslins; that is, at Easter, Whitsontide, and Christmas: Besides all this, to carry Wood for the said Lord, and a thousand other Jobs they ought not to do; besides the ready Mony they exact from them, as also the Tithe of their Sheep, Swine, Honey, and all sorts of Fruit, and every third Year the third Beef. In short, they are oblig'd to give their Masters what they please to demand; so that it is no wonder those Wretches never lay up any thing, being under such hard Circumstances. Yet this is not all, for their Lords have an absolute Power, not only over their Goods, but their Lives, so great is the Prerogative of the Polish Nobility (who live as if they were in Heaven, and the Peasants in Purgatory) so that if it happens that those wretched Peasants fall under the servitude of bad Lords, they are in a worse condition than Galley-slaves. This Slavery makes many of them run away, and the boldest of them fly to the Zaporouys, which is the Cossacks place of retreat in the Boristhenes; and after having pass'd some time there, and been once at Sea, they are reputed Zaporousky Cossacks; and this sort of desertion much increases the number of their Troops. This the present Revolt sufficiently testifys, these Cossacks after the defeat of the Polanders, rising in Rebellion to the number of 200000; who being Masters of the Field, have possess'd themselves of a Country above 120 Leagues in length, and 60 in breadth. I had forgot to observe, that in time of Peace, Hunting and Fishing are the usual Employments of the Cossacks; and this is what I had to say in general of the Manners and Customs of these People.
The Country along the River Boristhenes.
Now to return to the Matter in hand: It is believ'd that at the time when the antient Kiow, or Kiovia, was in its splendor, the Channel in the Sea which runs to Constantinople was not open; and there are grounds to conjecture, or rather certain proofs, that the Plains on the other side the Boristhenes, which stretch out as far as Muscovy, were once all under Water, as appears by the Anchors, and other Tokens found of late Years about Lofficza, upon the River Sula. Moreover, all the Towns built on those Plains, seem to be new Structures erected within some few Centuries. I had the curiosity to inquire into the Historys of the Russians, thinking to learn something concerning the Antiquity of those Parts, but without success ; for having ask'd some of the most knowing among them, I could only be inform'd that the great and bloody Wars which have always harass'd their Country from end to end, had not spar'd their Libraries, which even from the beginning had been burnt; but that they remembred it was deliver'd to them by antient Tradition, that formerly the Sea cover'd all those Plains, as has been said, which was about 2000 Years since; and that it was about 900 Years since Old Kiow had been totally ruin'd, excepting those two Churches before mention'd. Another powerful Reason is alledg'd to prove that the Sea extended as far as Muscovy, which is, thatall
