Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/49

Rh strength; dire necessity wrested it from the bosom of the people. In place of the original principalities were small towns filled with huntsmen and dog-keepers, in place of the warring and bartering petty Princes in cities, there arose great colonies, hamlets, and districts bound together by a common danger, and by hatred toward the heathen robbers. Every one already knows from history how their incessant fighting and roving life saved Europe from the savage invasions which threatened to overwhelm her. The Polish Kings, finding themselves, in place of the Appanage Princes, sovereigns—though distant and feeble,—over those vast territories, understood, nevertheless, the significance of the kazáks, and the advantages of this warlike, lawless life. They encouraged them and flattered this propensity. Under their distant rule, the Hetmans, chosen from among the kazáks themselves, transformed the districts and hamlets into regiments and uniform provinces. It was not an army in the regulation sense, no one would have noticed its existence; but in case of a war or a general uprising, it required a week and no more, for every man to make his appearance on horseback, fully armed, receiving only one ducat in payment from the King; and in two weeks, such an army was assembled as no recruiting officers would ever have been able to collect. When