56

50

found to be the only Cossacks sufficiently skilled to cope with Schamyl's wild mountain horse-
men on equal terms. The Don Cossacks were lancers, and the Circassians quickly learned to
dodge within their guard and cut them down, they being among the most expert swordsmen
in the world.

But the descendants of Mazeppa's Cossacks were equally expert with the sword, and
so, in the matter of arms, as of horsemanship, met the enemy on equal terms. For many
years the Cossacks of the Caucasian line were engaged in perpetual border warfare with the
Circassian tribes. Their fighting was a series of little cavalry combats, surprises and raids,
similar to the American Indian frontier wars, the finest school for the development of mili-
tary horsemanship the world has seen since the days of Saladin and Coeur-de-Lion. Graduates
from this fierce, wild school of saddle and sabre, the Cossacks of the Caucasian line have
long enjoyed the reputation of being the flower of that vast horde of irregular cavalry, the
Cossack military colonies, that have been planted along the Southern frontier of the Russian
Empire, from the Crimea to the Chinese border on the Pacific.

Circassian blood plainly crops out in the Cossacks of the Buffalo Bill Wild West arena.
Indeed, some of them look the Circassian, even more than the Cossack. The infusion of Cir-
cassian, Georgian and Mingrellian blood began with stirring drama of strife and romance in
the days of Schamyl. Part of the policy of Russia was the suppression of the trade in Cir-
cassian beauties for the harems of Turkey, then carried on in small Turkish vessels in the
Black Sea. A Cossack
coastguard service was
organized for the pur-
pose, consisting of fleets
of rowboats concealed
in the creeks and inlets
of the Caucasian coast,
whence they could
pounce out on the slave
ships.

The vessels usual-
ly contained from forty
to fifty Circassian, Geor-
gian and Mingrelian
slave girls, lovely creat-
ures selected for the
harems of the Sultan
and the wealthy Pashas
of Constaninople. The
slaves thus captured
were given to the Cos-
sacks of the Kuban for
wives; hence the sons
and daughters of
Schamyl's fierce opponents are as much Circassian as Cossack. The combination is a "strain"
of horsemanship that has produced startling and unique results in the form of riders capable
of really marvelous feats of a kind never before seen outside of Russia. Visitors to the Wild
West who have marveled at the skill of the Indians and the Cow-boys with the bucking mus-
tangs, will marvel anew at the striking performances of these descendants of the famous
"Mazeppa."

SOUTH AMERICAN GAUCHOS AT THE "WILD WEST."

The latest addition to BUFFALO BILL'S "Wild West" makes the sixth delegation to the
"Congress of the Rough Riders of the World," which MESSRS. CODY and SALSBURY have organ-
ized in order to present the different schools of horsemanship to the world.

Having seen the performances of the Cow-boy, the Indian, the Vaquero, and, lastly, of
the Cossacks of the Caucasian line, our appetites are considerably whetted at the prospect of
seeing how the wild life on the South American pampas contrasts with theirs.

To the student of human progress, of racial peculiarities, of national characteristics, the
Gauchos are a subject of investigation as remarkable as anything modern history has to show