64

BUFFALO BILL'S COW-BOY BAND.

"A MERITORIOUS MUSICAL FEATURE." - London Times.

Not the least interesting and popular adjunt of the Wild West entertainmnt is the music furnished by the famous Cow-boy Band. This band has always taken a prominent place with the organization, and has received the highest praise from educated musicious as well as the public in all parts of the world. It consists of thirty-six cow-boy musicians, each of whom would be considered a solosit on his own instrument, and when combined and playing together under the capable direction of Mr. Wm. Sweeney, their leader, they make music that compels the admiration of the masses. They give a convert before each performance, and incidental music that is a source of pleasure to all who hear it, and are daily greeted with rounds of applause. This band has been the recipient of commendations from nearly all the musical connoisseurs and leaders and members of the finest bands in Europe, Lieut. Dan Godfrey, the leader of the famous Grenadier Guards Band, having presented Mr. Sweeney, after a six months' engagement in the gardens connected with the Wild West in London, with a solid gold cornet, at the same time saying that the thirty-six members of the Cow-boy Band would produce more good music than any band he had ever heard with even double the number of musicians. For thiry minutes prior to the entertainment this band will give selections of both classical and popular music.

COSSACKS WITH THE WILD WEST.

In pursuance of their intention to assemble together at the World's Fair a congress of the representative horsemen of the world, MESSRS. CODY AND SALSBURY have had their agents in all parts of the earth looking for rough riders who could compete with or excel the original riders of the Wild West, the native product of America. In the Russian Coassack they found a horsemn whose style was new, novel and striking, and one who could compete with the finest in the world. These Cossacks, in the pictureesque garb of the Caucasus, form the latest acquisition of the Wild West. They are a troop of "Cossacks of teh Causcasian Line," under the command of Prince Soucca.

The Prince and his comrades, it is interesting to the public to know, belong to the same branch of the great Cossack family, the Zaporogians, immortalized by Byron's "Mazeppa." Mazeppa was the beif of the Saporogian community of the Cossacks of the Ukraine.

When Byron's famous hero came to grief at the battle of Poltava, the Cossacks fled to the Crimea, then Turkish territory, to avoid the vengeance of Peter the Great. Subsequently they were deported to the Kuban, and settled along the river as military colonists to defend the Russian frontier against the marauding tribes of the Caucasus.

On this dangerous frontier the qualities of horsemanship that made the name of MAzeppa and his warlike followers household words throughout the whole of Europe, became still further developed in the following generations, so that the Kuban Cossacks quickly became, in many respects, the most remarkable riders in the world.

On their lithe steppe horse, as fiece and active as themselves, they proved themselves more than worthy of their sires. During the heroic struggle of teh Circassian mountaineers to maintain their independence against Russia, the sons of Mazeppa's Zaporogians were