A Russian Tsar might speedily collect from amongst this people a larger and more formidable force of cavalry than the whole of united Europe could bring together; and in all the regular cavalry of the Russian line, there never was a horseman, however laboriously drilled, whom the untutored Cossack would not charge, wheel round, and overcome, though armed _cap-a-pie_, with his mere _nagaica_, or whip. The Cossacks are invaluable as light cavalry; they are the most daring and intelligent foragers in the world, who take care of themselves by instinct, and without taxing the foresight or the ingenuity of the general. Spreading on every side, they strike terror into the neighbourhood, and render it almost impossible to surprise a Russian force. Brought up amongst turbulent tribes, the vigilant Cossack never exposes himself to be taken unawares, as all other light troops do, when scattered abroad; and thus he can act even in the midst of a guerilla peasantry. France still remembers with shuddering rage the two irruptions of those terrible barbarians upon her soil. The fearful image of another Cossack invasion has been embodied by Beranger, the greatest poet of France, in his “Chant du Cosaque,” thus vigorously translated by “Father Prout:”— Come, arouse thee up, my gallant horse, and bear thy rider on! The comrade thou, and the friend I trow, of the dweller on the Don: Pillage and death have spread their wings; ’tis the hour to hie thee forth, And with thy hoofs an echo wake to the trumpets of the North. Nor gems, nor gold do men behold upon thy saddle tree; But earth affords the wealth of lords for thy master and for thee. Then proudly neigh, my charger grey! Oh! thy chest is broad and ample. And thy hoofs shall prance o’er the fields of France, and the pride of her heroes trample. Europe is weak, she hath grown old, her bulwarks are laid low; She is loath to hear the voice of war, she shrinketh from a foe: Come, in our turn, let us sojourn in her goodly haunts of joy, In the pillared porch to wave the torch, and her palaces destroy: Proud as when first thou slak’st thy thirst in the flow of conquered Seine, Ay, thou shalt lave within that wave thy blood-red flank again: Then proudly neigh, &c. Kings are beleaguered on their thrones by their own vassal crew, And in their den quake noblemen, and priests are bearded too. And loud they yelp for the Cossack’s help to keep their bondsmen down, And they think it meet, while they kiss our feet, to wear a tyrant’s crown. The sceptre now to my lance shall bow, and the crosier and the cross, All shall bend alike, when I lift my pike, and aloft that sceptre toss. Then proudly neigh, &c.