could flee did so. All rose and scattered after the manner of that
lawless, reckless age, when they built neither fortresses nor castles,
but each man erected a temporary dwelling of straw wherever he
happened to find himself. He thought, "It is useless to waste money
and labour on an izba, when the roving Tatars will carry it off in any
case." All was in an uproar: one exchanged his plough and oxen for a
horse and gun, and joined an armed band; another, seeking concealment,
drove off his cattle and carried off all the household stuff he could.
Occasionally, on the road, some were encountered who met their
visitors with arms in their hands; but the majority fled before their
arrival. All knew that it was hard to deal with the raging and warlike
throng known by the name of the Zaporozhian army; a body which, under
its independent and disorderly exterior, concealed an organisation
well calculated for times of battle. The horsemen rode steadily on
without overburdening or heating their horses; the foot-soldiers
marched only by night, resting during the day, and selecting for this
purpose desert tracts, uninhabited spots, and forests, of which there
were then plenty. Spies and scouts were sent ahead to study the time,
place, and method of attack. And lo! the Zaporozhtzi suddenly appeared
in those places where they were least expected: then all were put to
the sword; the villages were burned; and the horses and cattle which
were not driven off behind the army killed upon the spot. They seemed
to be fiercely revelling, rather than carrying out a military
expedition. Our hair would stand on end nowadays at the horrible
traits of that fierce, half-civilised age, which the Zaporozhtzi
everywhere exhibited: children killed, women's breasts cut open, the
skin flayed from the legs up to the knees, and the victim then set at
liberty. In short, the Cossacks paid their former debts in coin of
full weight. The abbot of one monastery, on hearing of their approach,
sent two monks to say that they were not behaving as they should; that