Boolba was stubborn to an excess. His was one of those characters, which could only take their rise in the gloomy fifteenth century, in a semi-nomad corner of Europe, at a time when the whole of primitive Southern Russia was left by its sovereign princes a prey to the fire and sword of the unconquerable Mogul invaders; when the natives of that country grew daring, after having lost hearth and roof; when they settled upon the sites of their former dwellings, within view of their terrible neighbours and of incessant danger, and learned to forget that there was any such thing in the world as fear; when after having remained dormant for centuries, the Slavonic spirit was inflamed with the love of war. Then it was that the _Cossacks_ broke forth, that powerful sinew of Russian nature, and then the banks of all the rivers and the valleys and rich pasturages were covered with Cossacks. Nobody could number them, and rightly did their bold comrades give answer to the Sultan, who inquired their number, "Who can tell it? all the steppe over; for every mound there is a Cossack!" In truth it was an extraordinary outburst of Russian strength; calamity struck it out of the breast of the Russian people, just as steel strikes fire out of flint. Ancient principalities had disappeared; small towns, with prickers and huntsmen, were no more; petty sovereigns exchanging their possessions had had their time. Instead of these, there arose formidable hamlets, villages and communities bound together by common danger from, and common hatred to, the foes of the Cross. History makes us acquainted how it was that their incessant struggles, and restless life, prevented Europe from falling a prey to the irresistible flood of Tartar invaders, and from being overthrown by them. The Polish kings, who had superseded the Russian princes in the possession of their wide expanse of land, although far from these their possessions, and without the means of enforcing their rule over them, understood the mission of the Cossacks and the advantages derivable from their warlike, lawless mode of life. They gave encouragement to their pursuits, nay, they even flattered them. It was under their remote sway, that Hetmans, chosen from among the Cossacks themselves, transformed hamlets and communities into regiments and regular military circuits. There was no regular standing army; not a soldier was to be seen; but in case of war or any general movement, every one, before eight days were over, appeared on horseback armed from head to foot, but receiving only a ducat from the king, and thus in a fortnight was gathered such a militia as no regular enlistments could ever have produced. The campaign once over, the warrior returned to his fields and pastures, or to the ferries over the Dnieper, betook himself to fishing, trading and brewing beer, and he became once more a _free Cossack_. Well might foreign writers of this period express their astonishment at the manifold accomplishments of a Cossack.