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888 COXE’S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.
dous. The origin of thefe Coffacs is thus traced by the Ruffian hiftorians. In the
beginning of the 15th century, a tribe of the Coffacs, of the Ukraine, who inhabited
the territory between the Bog and the Dnieper, were known under the denomination
of Zaporogian *, from the fituation of their fetchat, or principal fettlement near the
cataracts of the Dnieper.
This fetcha was a fortrefs furrounded with a wooden wall, and at firft merely intended
as a place of aflembly, to deliberate on the method of carrying on their cuftomary
depredations, or for the purpofe of electing a chief. By degrees it was filled with ha-
bitations, and afterwards appropriated to a feparate community of perfons; who de-
voted themfelves folely to arms, and totally excluded all women from the precin& of
their military refidence. The inhabitants were divided into claffes; each of which
elected its refpective leader, and were all under the jurifdiction of a hetman or fupreme
chief, chofen by the whole fociety.
Thefe Zaporogian Coffacs became fo diftinguifhed for their bravery and fkill in deful-
tory war, that perfons flocked from diftant regions to this fociety of warriors. The
inhabitants of the fetcha were not obliged to continue in it for any fettled term; being
only bound, while they remained, to conform themfelves to the regulations and difci-
pline of their aflociates ; thofe who were difpofed to marry, quitted the fetcha, but were
permitted to fettle in the neighbouring diftrict, with the privilege of re-admiflion, pro-
vided they were not attended with the’ wives and families, whom they were allowed
occafionally to vifit. The Zaporogians increafed their numbers by affording an afylum
to deferters +, and by forcing and enticing youths and children from the Ukraine and
Poland, whom they trained to a military life, and admitted into their community.
The place of their refidence was occafionally varied ; when their numbers increafed, or
when the hordes wandered at a confiderable diftance from each other, different parties
erected and occupied diftin@ fetchas. The firft fetcha of this extraordinary fociety
feems to have been fituated on an ifland of the Dnieper below the cataracts; the lalt
which they inhabited, at the abolition of their government, and which at that period
svas the only one they poffefled, ftood near the rivulet Bufulak, at the point where it
falls into the Dnieper, in the government of Kiof §.
The members of this community being collected from various nations, and from the
nature of their conftitution perpetually changing, their number could never be exaétly
afcertained: Manftein relates, that in the war in which he ferved againft the Turks,
they brought eight thoufand horfe into the field, and on anemergency could have railed
twelve thoufand or fifteen thoufand. They frequently performed incredible feats of
valour in the campaigns of the Ruffians again{t the Turks and Tartars, nor were their
fervices confined folely to land: by their fkill in navigating the Dnieper, they occafion~
ally defended the mouth of that river, and attacked with fuccefs the armed veffels on the
contiguous coafts of the Black Sea. But while they were thus terrible to their enemies,
they were fearcely lefs formidable to their allies. Nominally dependant on the hetman
of the Ukraine, they were clafled among the fubjects of the Ruffian empire; but the
peculiarity of their manners, their feparation from all other fociety, their popular form
of government, together with their warlike difpofition, rendered them a barbarous and
* Porogi fignifies catara@s.
|; Setcha means any place furrounded with a wall, or fortification, feparated from the neighbouring dif-
tric. S. KR. Giiv. p. 4t4.
+S. Ri, Go ivepe dete
§ M Muller has accurately and circumftantially defcribed the fetcha of the Zaporogian Coffacs, from
_ which account I have felected this fhort extraé&. S. R.G.iv. p. 411—472,
unruly
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