Anabaptists, by whom more than one hundred villages were peopled, first set the example of agriculture upon the most enlightened system, so that, in a short time, immense fields of corn displayed their waving verdure on plains which, formerly, scarcely afforded to the Tartars pasturage for their cattle. [42] Now about 80,000.--_Ed._ It became necessary to establish a sort of feudal system to defend the country against the invasions of the Circassians, armed, as in the time of the Crusades, with golden helms and knightly mail; and the Duke, brave, devoted to his undertaking, and desirous of glory, became the military chieftain of the colony. It was impossible the establishments on the Black Sea should attain their full greatness until Circassia should have submitted to the Russian government; this conquest the Russian cabinet is at present accomplishing.[43] [43] The government of Odessa includes the island of Taman, and part of the Caucasian line, inhabited by the Cossacks of the Black Sea, who were settled on the Lower Kouban by Potemkin, as a defence against the incursions of the Circassians; forming a chain of intrenched villages, sufficiently near to communicate by signals, and supported by some regiments of infantry and artillery. The Circassians have never been able to make any serious impression on this line; and the Russians, whose object was purely defensive, never even crossed the Kouban with an intention of permanently establishing themselves beyond the river till the conclusion of the last Turkish war, during which Anapa, and all other forts possessed by the Turks on the Black Sea, were ceded to Russia. The Circassians had only tolerated these nominal dependencies of Turkey, as affording convenient points of trade and export for the slaves captured from Russia and Georgia, as well as those taken during their own domestic wars. The natural strength of the country and its deadly climate have hitherto checked the Russian conquests, but, sooner or later, it must yield to a power capable of sending unlimited reinforcements, while every action permanently diminishes the strength of the mountain tribes. The war, which has now lasted sixty years, can have no effect on the prosperity of the southern provinces of Russia, nor is it felt twenty miles from the frontier. The few Circassians that have been educated in Russia are not permitted to return to the tribes. The Caucasian guard formed by Prince Paskewitch in 1830, and who return periodically to their own country, may have a much greater effect; they are taken indiscriminately from all the tribes, Circassians, Lesghis, Chechens, and Ossatinians, forming a body of about two hundred men, in some measure resembling the Mamelukes of Napoleon.--_Editor._