stood by urging the horses to greater speed. The interest in these performances soon became most intense and I found myself, quite unconsciously, cheering as lustily as if it were a Varsity football match.
One trifling incident revealed a trait of Cossack character that would scarce find approval in England or in America. A young Cossack, reaching for a coin on the ground, almost succeeded in grasping it, but he lost his balance and fell to the ground amid the loud jeers of the people. Jumping to his feet he ran back to where the coin lay, picked it up, and ran off with it. The crowd laughed uproariously at this and did not call to him to come back with the prize thus unfairly captured. A moment later another rider failed completely in snatching at another coin which was thrown down, and he threw himself from the saddle and secured the money. This was a little strained, it seemed to me, so I asked a man near me why the crowd did not protest, and he answered: “Once a Cossack gets his fingers on money he never lets go. It does not matter how he gets it.”
There were several accidents. In no case was the slightest sympathy manifested toward the injured man. Once, when a man fell from his horse and was stepped on, the crowd laughed and even jeered as he dragged himself off. In another instance a young fellow of not more than twenty lost his balance while reaching for a coin on the ground. As he fell his foot slipped through one of the stirrups, and he was dragged several yards, and in full view of us all the horse stepped squarely on him. The crowd laughed uproariously at this and one old woman toddled up to him and handed him a rag with which to wipe the blood from his face. But she did not offer to assist him. The poor fellow was left quite by himself and after a few minutes I saw him climb slowly on to his horse and canter off. That evening I inquired about him and was told that he was all right. The men expressed surprise that I should have thought of him. About nine o’clock, however, he was brought in to me. “He is much worse than we thought,” said the men who brought him, “and there is no doctor within twenty versts.” They laid him on the bed, and upon examination I found the print of a hoof clearly on the man’s face, his nose being crushed flat to his cheeks. He complained of his chest, so I loosened his clothing and found another hoof-print. This one not so clearly outlined, nor was the skin bruised, but there was swelling and inflammation, and, as nearly as I could discover, two ribs broken. The nose I could do little about. It looked to me as if a very considerable amount of skill, and certainly instruments, would be needed to set it right. The ribs I was able to set, however, and, with poultices and massage, to reduce the inflammation and relieve the sharper pain. I found this injured Cossack every bit as susceptible to human pains as the rest of men, and every bit as appreciative of the little relief which I was able to give him. Their games are of the roughest and thus are they trained to that bigger game which is their life, the war game, but their feelings and sufferings prove them normal. The government of the country, as well as their local customs, encourage the most brutal sports, and roughest treatment of men, for the crueler and more callous they are the better soldiers do they make.
Each Cossack stanitza is provided with a government riding-master, who drills young Cossacks in rough riding. All young Cossacks eligible for military service are obliged to spend one month each year in rigorous training, so that when the call to arms comes to them they shall not be like new recruits. A Cossack soldier is never a recruit, really. He enters the service hardened by the experience of much training—and with the blood and spirit of the Cossack free and easy soldiering urging him to meet the expectations of his masters.
During the two days that I lingered at this village I found the meals were jolly times, though the food was neither delicate nor varied. The women did not sit at table with us, though in other houses I sometimes saw the women and men eating together. Nor did the children have places with us. The season being Lent, when a strict fast is prescribed, there was no meat on the table. Black bread, cakes of maize and chopped cabbage were the chief foods, followed by a kind of pie or tart. This consisted of an upper and lower crust with preserved grapes between. Tea was drunk freely. Likewise a light beer. Before meals, vodka. It must not be gathered from this, however, that moderation in drinking is the rule. When I asked several men if they were fond of drink, they laughed and replied: “We drink vodka at a birth, at every feast, during every fast, at every marriage, and every meal.” There appear to be no sentiments whatever with regard to temperance. There is a famous Cossack ballad ascribed to a Cossack leader named Davidoff, which runs,
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.
One man explained to me, when I was questioning him about Cossack massacres of Jews, that when the Cossacks were called upon to do particularly disagreeable work, that it was customary for them to get drunk first. Vodka looks like simple water or gin. The taste, to me, is of wood alcohol. It is gulped rather than drunk, as is an ordinary beverage, consequently vodka drinkers seek only the effect. It is slightly warming, though not so strong as whisky, being only forty, or little over forty, per cent. alcohol. The effects are marked. First a warming, then a numbing, dulling sensation. In excess it produces wild hilarity and jocularity, and intensifies the passions. In later stages it besots. Vodka drinkers soon become overpowered by sleep. This is why so many drunkards in Russia lie about the streets. Overcome by drowsiness they sink into sleep wherever they fall. The Cossack looks upon excessive drinking as his prerogative. Drink and plunder were what his ancestors fought for and in this the Cossack of to-day has not much altered. In the Don country the Cossacks are of distinctly inferior race to the Mountain Cossacks. There I saw excessive drinking among women as well as men. In the Terek and Kuban I saw none. This does not mean that it does not exist, but simply that I did not see it, and, therefore, it is probably less common.
In the late afternoon my Cossack host announced that it was time for him to attend the local Duma meeting, and I was invited to accompany him. It was held in a small building at one corner of the great square, and was attended by all the males resident in the stanitza, and then at home. There are always many young men absent from the Cossack stanitza, owing to the military obligations which fall upon them all.
The meeting was conducted not in the building but in the yard behind. As nearly as I could follow the proceedings they were as follows: The ataman, or chief, who is elected by popular vote, stood upon the steps of the building and addressed the “meeting,” which was gathered about him. The ataman announced the topic to be