the city. The inhabitants resolved to defend themselves to the utmost
extent of their power, and to fight to the last extremity, preferring
to die in their squares and streets, and on their thresholds, rather
than admit the enemy to their houses. A high rampart of earth
surrounded the city; and in places where it was low or weak, it was
strengthened by a wall of stone, or a house which served as a redoubt,
or even an oaken stockade. The garrison was strong and aware of the
importance of their position. The Zaporozhtzi attacked the wall
fiercely, but were met with a shower of grapeshot. The citizens and
residents of the town evidently did not wish to remain idle, but
gathered on the ramparts; in their eyes could be read desperate
resistance. The women too were determined to take part in the fray,
and upon the heads of the Zaporozhians rained down stones, casks of
boiling water, and sacks of lime which blinded them. The Zaporozhtzi
were not fond of having anything to do with fortified places: sieges
were not in their line. The Koschevoi ordered them to retreat, saying,
"It is useless, brother gentles; we will retire: but may I be a
heathen Tatar, and not a Christian, if we do not clear them out of
that town! may they all perish of hunger, the dogs!" The army
retreated, surrounded the town, and, for lack of something to do,
busied themselves with devastating the surrounding country, burning
the neighbouring villages and the ricks of unthreshed grain, and
turning their droves of horses loose in the cornfields, as yet
untouched by the reaping-hook, where the plump ears waved, fruit, as
luck would have it, of an unusually good harvest which should have
liberally rewarded all tillers of the soil that season.

With horror those in the city beheld their means of subsistence
destroyed. Meanwhile the Zaporozhtzi, having formed a double ring of
their waggons around the city, disposed themselves as in the Setch in