the steppes yielded no bread to the Cossacks. In time of
peace, therefore, a multitude of Zaporojians scattered, them-
selves yearly over the inhabited districts. The Ukraine, and
indeed all Russia, was full of them. Some rose to be land
stewards; some sold liquor on the highways; some labored
in hamlets and towns, in trade and industry. In every vil-
lage there was sure to be a cottage on one side, at a distance
from the rest, in which a Zaporojian dwelt. Some of them
had brought their wives with them, and kept house in these
cottages. But the Zaporojian, as a man who usually had
passed through every experience, was generally a.benefactor
to the village in which he lived. There were no better black-
smiths, wheelwrights, tanners, wax-refiners, fishermen, and
hunters than they. The Cossack understood everything, did
everything; he built a house, he sewed a saddle. But the
Cossacks were not always such quiet inhabitants, for they
lived a temporary life. Whoever wished to carry out a
decision with armed hand, to make an attack on a neigh-
bor, or to defend himself from an expected attack, had only
to raise the cry, and straightway the Cossacks hurried to him
like ravens to a ready spoil. The nobility and magnates,
involved in endless disputes among themselves, employed
the Cossacks. When there was a lack of such undertakings
the Cossacks stayed quietly in the villages, working with all
diligence, earning their daily bread in the sweat of their
brows.

They would continue in this fashion for a year or two,
till sudden tidings came of some great expedition, either
of an ataman against the Tartars or the Poles, or of Polish
noblemen against Wallachia; and that moment the wheel-
wrights, blacksmiths, tanners, and wax-refiners would de-
sert their peaceful occupations, and begin to drink with
all their might in every dram-shop of the Ukraine. After
they had drunk away everything, they would drink on
credit,--not on what they had, but on what they would
have. Future booty must pay for the frolic.
This phenomenon was repeated so regularly that after
awhile people of experience in the Ukraine used to say:
"The dram-shops are bursting with men from below; some-
thing is on foot in the Ukraine."

The starostas strengthened the garrisons in the castles at
once, looking carefully to everything; the magnates in-
creased their retinues; the nobility sent their wives and
children to the towns.