And meanwhile, amongst other people, they met some of the elderly Cossacks, with old gray crown-locks, who were held in great respect by all the Ssiecha, and had been many times chosen Elders. Tarass was not long without meeting many well-known faces. Ostap and Andrew heard nothing but greetings such as these:--"Ah, here thou art, Petcheritza!" "Good day, Kozoloop!" "In Heaven's name, whence comest thou, Tarass?" "Why art thou here, Doloto?" "Good day, Kirdiaga!" "Good day, Gostoi!" "Who would have thought to see thee, Remen!" And warriors, assembled from the whole of the loose world of Western Russia, embraced one another. Next came the questions:--"And what of Kassian? where is Borodavka? where Koloper? where Pidsyschok?" But Tarass Boolba only got for answer that Borodavka had been hanged by the Poles, that Koloper had been flayed alive by the Tartars, that Pidsyschok's head had been salted and sent in a tub to Constantinople. Old Tarass bent his head and thoughtfully muttered, "Good Cossacks were they!" III. Tarass Boolba and his sons had remained already more than a week at the Ssiecha. Ostap and Andrew had not yet much profited by warlike exercises. The Zaporoghians did not like spending their time in the mimicry of war; the education and martial accomplishments of the young were acquired by experience alone, during the raging of battles which, for the same reason, were almost incessant. The Cossacks found it dull work to employ their leisure in learning discipline, and if they ever studied anything it was shooting at a target, and sometimes pursuing on horseback the wild animals of the steppes; the whole remaining time was given up to carousing--the proof of a widely diffused freedom. The whole Ssiecha presented a strange scene; it was like an unceasing festival, a banquet which had begun noisily and forgotten to end. Some Zaporoghians were occupied in different handicrafts; others had shops and busied themselves with trade; but the greater part feasted from morning till night, as long as the possibility of feasting jingled in their pockets, and as long as the conquered booty had not found its way into the hands of the tradesmen and the proprietors of brandy-shops. This universal festival had something seductive about it; it was not an assembly of men who had been driven to drunkenness by grief; it was nothing but the maddest expression of mirth. Every one who had found his way thither, forgot and at once cast off everything which had till then occupied his mind. He seemed to drive away all his past life, and to give himself up, soul and body, with the fanaticism of a new convert, to freedom and to comradeship, with men who, like himself, had no relations, nor home, nor family, and to whom nothing was left but the canopy of Heaven, and the unintermittent festival of their hearts. This gave rise to that mad gaiety, which could never have found any other source. The tales and narratives which might be