on was principally the asylum for fugitives from
Great Russia; deserters and exiles from other parts of the country
joined them; and the Tartar population, which they found on the spot,
and the neighbouring Kalmuk tribes, mingled with them. These are the
Kozaks of the Don; of whom the Kozaks of Grebensk, of Yaitzk, and of
the Ural, are branches. They are Russians, and sing the songs of their
brethren, the Russians. The river Don, or, as it is familiarly and at
the same time respectfully called, _Don Ivanovitch_[32] plays a
prominent part in their ballads. They have a touching childlike love
for that noble river, so majestic and yet so gentle, that once gave
shelter on its banks to their forefathers. Father Don, the stilly
(_tikho_) Don, Don Ivanovitch, are its constant epithets. The scene of
a considerable number of their ballads is in the vessels which glide
upon the 'stilly' Don.

The fugitives who had congregated on the Dnieper were also Russians;
but the mixture of other nations, which they received, would appear to
have come principally from the Circassians of the Caucasus, as the
still beautiful shape and countenance of the Tshernomorski seem to
indicate;[33] and also in part from the Ruthenian tribes of the
Carpathian mountains, as their language proves. These are the
Zaporoguean Kozaks; so called from having their principal seats beyond
the _porogues_, or water-falls of the Dnieper. Both sections of the
Kozaks founded a kind of military democratic government; and tried to
shelter themselves against their enemies in those rude castles called
_Sicza_, best protected by thick woods and the surrounding water. They
soon began to spread out in the small towns called _Groazisko_,
fortified also indeed, but built so slightly that they were almost as
soon erected as destroyed. The Kozaks of the Don, after the
deliverance of Russia in the second half of the fifteenth century,
acknowledged in some degree the sovereignty of the Russian Tzar; and
aided Ivan II to conquer Siberia. They were used by his successors as
border guardians against the wild Asiatic hordes; whom they partly
chased from their homes in the Ural mountains, and settled there in
their stead. Thus they spread all over Siberia; always looking back
with a pensive and languishing feeling to their "dear fatherling,"
their gentle "nourisher," their "stilly Don Ivanovitch." [34]

From the Zaporoguean Kozaks, meanwhile, had issued the population of
the Ukraine.