Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/481

Rh obstinately obstructive to the civil settlement of the country that they had again to be expelled. They retired for the most part to the Crimea, and on the incorporation of that district with the Russian empire they were deported to Kuban to defend the frontiers against the Caucasian tribes. A small band which had migrated to the Balkan, was re called in 1823 by the Emperor Nicholas, and sent to form a sort of coast-guard on the Sea of Azoff. The character of the Zaporogian fraternity which was thus destroyed has been the object of very divergent judgments, some writers seeing in it little more than an organized band of ruffian adventurers, while others raise its members to the dignity of patriots and martyrs who fought and died in defence of national and religious liberty. The last view is well pre sented by Kulish, one of the most recent of the historians of Little Russia, and it receives no small support from the popular songs in which their virtues and valour are still commemorated among the people of the Ukraine. The Cossacks of the Don have all along had more direct connection, with the empire than their brethren of tha Dnieper ; and their insurrections, though numerous, have had less of the character of genuine revolt. About seven years after the foundations of their capital Cherkask had been fixed in the marshes of the Don, Ivan IV., irritated at their conduct, despatched against them his general Murashkme. At the approach of the formidable invader the Cossacks dispersed ; one band under Yermak pushed eastwards, and effected the conquest of Siberia ; another company established themselves in the Ural Mountains and expelled the Tartars from Jaik (Uralsk) ; while a third probably found a refuge in the Caucasus, where their descendants are still known as the Grebenski, or Mountain Cossacks. In 1637 the portion still left on the Don expelled the Turks from the town of Azoff; and they managed to keep possession of it till 1642 without aid from the Russian Government. Exasperated by the execu tion of some of their number, and by an attempt to introduce alterations in their religion, they were easily excited to rebellion by the freebooter Stenka (or Stephen) Razine ; but after it had risen to a formidable height, the insurrection was suppressed, and its leader executed at Moscow in 1671. In the following century another ad venturer found in the discontent of the Cossacks a formid able means of supporting his pretensions ; but the success of Pugacheff was as temporary as that of Razine, whom the local superstition imagined to have come to life in his person. The result to the Cossacks was a serious diminution of their privileges, and an extension of Russian control. Gradually brought under a more rigid military discipline, this restless and warlike race has furnished the empire with one of the most valuable elements in its national army ; and their services in the protection of the frontiers from the Caucasus to China are almost incalculable. They form a first-rate irregular cavalry, and render excellent service as scouts and skirmishers ; but their steadiness can hardly be trusted in an important engagement. So great is their superstition, that in the midst of a conflict they have been known to give chase to a hare in order to avert the omen by its destruction, and they still retain a large measure of the freebooter's fondness for plunder. According to their present distribution the Cossacks are distinguished as Cossacks of the Don, of the Azoff, of the Danube, of the Black Sea, of the Caucasus, of the Ural, of Orenburg, of Siberia, of the Chinese frontiers, and of Astrakhan. In their organization they retain the com munistic habits of earlier times. The territory is the common property of the stanitza or township; the hay can only be cut after public notice by the Ataman ; and no fish can be captured except at prescribed periods, when the whole community join in the enterprise. Among the privileges still retained by the Cossacks the most important are freedom from taxes, and the right of distilling, brewing, hunting, and fishing.

1em  COSTA RICA,, the most southern of the five states of Central America, occupies the isthmus between about 8 and 11 N. lat., and 82* and 86 W. long. It is bounded on the N. by Nicaragua, the frontier claimed on this side running from the Pacific coast at the stream called La Flor, immediately north of Salinas Bay, to the Lake of Nicaragua, and along its southern shore to the Rio San Juan, and thence down the right bank of the river to its most southerly mouth but this line is disputed by the Nicaraguan Government; on the S. by the Colombian state of Panama, the recognized boundary extending from the Golfo Duke to the Chiriqui river south of the islet called Escudo de Veragua this line also over lapping a debatable borderland; on the N.E. by the Caribbean Sea ; and on the S.W. by the Pacific Ocean. Its area within these limits, officially stated at 20,040 English square miles, has been found by planimetric measurements, made at Gotha, to be more accurately 21,495 square miles, or not quite double that of Belgium. The population, which consists mainly of people of Spanish descent, little mixed with foreign elements, is officially estimated at 1 75,000 (according to M. Belly it is 154,000), including about 5000 civilized Indians of pure blood, 1200 negroes, and 600 Chinese; but besides these there are from 10,000 to 12,000 uncivilized Indians within the limits of the republic. The Atlantic coastland is generally low, and is characterized by numerous lagoons which have been formed by the prevailing currents opposite the river mouths, the chief break in its extent being the great Lagoon or Gulf of Chiriqui ; the Pacific ceast rises higher and is marked by the two large peninsulas which inclose the Gulfs of Nicoya and Dulce. Inland the surface of the country is much diversified, but is chiefly occupied by mountains, plateaus, and valleys. In the northern portion a great volcanic range extends from north-west to south-east, from between the Lake of Nicaragua and the Pacific coast to the centre of Costa Rica, separating a narrower Pacific descent from the broader slope to the Atlantic ; the peaks of Orosi (5200 feet), Rincon de la Vieja, Miravalles, Poas (8845 feet), Barba, Irazu (10,850 feet), and Turrialba, (10,330 feet) are the summits of this range. The form of the southern half of Costa Rica is determined by the great range called the Montana Dota, 7000 to 9000 feet in elevation, which extends from west to east nearly across the country, in about 9 40 N. lat., and from which two branch range sxtends south-eastwards, the one close along the Pacific coast as far as the lower Terraba river, the other through the centre of the country, rising to its highest points in the Cerro Chirip6 and Pico Blanco or Nemu, 11,740 feet above the sea. Between the northern and southern masses lie the broad table-lands of San Jose&quot; and Cartago, marked out on the Pacific side by the ridges called the Cerro del Aguacate and Cerro de Candelaria, and towards the Atlantic by the Cerro Mateo. This central plateau has an elevation of from 3000 to 4000 feet above the sea, and is the most important, and as yet almost the only cultivated region of the country. The rivers which flow down the Atlantic slope in the 