The Don Cossacks are fairly distinct from the Orenburg and Siberian Cossacks who live east of the desert patches that lie north-west of the Caspian Sea. In what is broadly Cossack country lies the very different Kuban country, with an almost Mediterranean climate and possibilities of fruit cultivation; it is said to have had an autonomous organization of its own for some time during the recent years of unrest. Its people are doubtless related to various elements among the Cossacks, but one gathers that the descendants of old traders are more marked than elsewhere. The Tatar (Turki) groups are so obviously an intrusion from Asia that we need not say much about them as such; we may more profitably think of them as pressing upon Europe at one time and being pressed upon by Europe at another. Their tribal organization on a kinship basis and their mobility have given them a power and a cohesion for offensive purposes from time to time, and as Huns, Magyars, Bulgars, Szeklers, and Tatars, they have been formidable hindrances to the settlement of East and South-east Europe on western lines. We may note first that Huns, Magyars, Szeklers, and Bulgars, penetrating far from the South Russian steppe either past the Iron Gates, or through the Carpathians or over the Danube into the Balkan Mountains, have become settled folk. In Hungary they have formed a landed aristocracy with its rural dependants, while leaving the peopling of the towns largely to Jews and Germans and persons of mixed blood. In the Balkan {79} Mountains under less spacious conditions and with Turk interference they have merged into a South Slav people, but have modified that people and its language in the course of the process. In South and East Russia there are many groups still distinct, and the Crimea has long been theirs in principle. The relation of these Asiatic warriors with Muscovy makes up the political history of the Middle Ages in the future Russian plain, and when that plain did become Russian, its religious autocracy found greater possibilities of co-operation with the Asiatic element than with the Western Powers then developing so fast towards industrialism. So it came about that Peter the Great's historic experiment in westernization, difficult for reasons of climate, position, and opportunities, failed, and the Tsardom was drawn towards the Orient on the whole against its will.