. Adventures of two youths in the open Polar Sea. beria. There was a Cossack population inEastern Siberia, and the governor-general gave orders that a hundredvillages should be transferred to the Amoor. RUSSIAN COSSACKS. 65 The order was carried out without delay. In each case the old vil-lage was abandoned for the new one, a thousand miles away; the people,with their household goods, cattle, and other portable possessions, werefloated on rafts down the Amoor to the points that had been selected fortheir homes. In the new village each family found itself with the sameneighbors as of old, and e
. Adventures of two youths in the open Polar Sea. beria. There was a Cossack population inEastern Siberia, and the governor-general gave orders that a hundredvillages should be transferred to the Amoor. RUSSIAN COSSACKS. 65 The order was carried out without delay. In each case the old vil-lage was abandoned for the new one, a thousand miles away; the people,with their household goods, cattle, and other portable possessions, werefloated on rafts down the Amoor to the points that had been selected fortheir homes. In the new village each family found itself with the sameneighbors as of old, and everything went on as before. The governmentsupplied them with food, and paid a part of the expense of building newhouses, but of course the move was a severe loss to the people, as theyabandoned the fields they had cultivated, and were forced to make new onesin the country to which they were carried. The ordinary peasant popula-tion of Russia cannot be moved about in this way, but the government cando pretty much as it pleases with the A VILLAGE ON THE AMOOR RIVER. Havent I read somewhere, said one of the youths, that a Cossackis a robber ? Quite likely you have, was the reply,and in many cases you arenot so far out of the way. In some parts of Russia the Cossacks indulgein robbery to an extent greater than accords with our notions of honesty,and this is particularly the case along the frontier of Central Asia. The 5 6Q THE VOYAGE OF THE VIVIAN. word kazak in Turkish means robber, but its Tartar interpretation isthe equivalent of soldier. Most of the inhabitants of Eastern Siberiaare Cossacks; the whole country was originally explored and settled byCossacks escaping from punishment which had been decreed for someimproper conduct on the banks of the river Don. Their leader, Termak,received an imperial pardon for himself and his men, in consideration ofthe addition they had made to the empire, and for this reason the Cos-sacks of Siberia are naturally proud of their an
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