We must content ourselves then with knowing, that Charles traversed the whole Ukraine in the month of February, burning the villages wherever he came, or meeting with others that had been laid in ashes by the Russians. He advancing south-east, came to those sandy deserts, bordered by mountains that separate the Nogay Tartars from the Don Cossacks. To the eastward of those mountains are the altars of Alexander. Charles was now on the other side of the Ukraine, in the road that the Tartars take to Russia; and when he was got there, he was obliged to return back again to procure subsistence: the inhabitants, having retired with all their cattle into their dens and lurking-places, would sometimes defend their subsistence against the soldiers, who came to deprive them of it. Such of these poor wretches, who could be found, were put to death, agreeably to what are falsely called, the rules of war. I cannot here forbear transcribing a few lines from Norberg.[77] 'As an instance,' says he, 'of the king's regard to justice, I shall insert a note, which he wrote with his own hand to colonel Heilmen. 'Colonel, 'I am very well pleased that you have taken those peasants, who carried off a Swedish soldier; as soon as they are convicted of the crime, let them be punished with death, according to the exigency of the case. 'Charles; and lower down, Budis.' Such are the sentiments of justice and humanity shewn by a king's confessor; but, had the peasants of the Ukraine had it in their power to hang up some of those regimented peasants of East Gothland, who thought themselves entitled to come so far to plunder them, their wives, and families, of their subsistence, would not the confessors and chaplains of these Ukrainers have had equal reason to applaud their justice? Mazeppa had for a considerable time, been in treaty with the Zaporavians, who dwell about the two shores of the Boristhenes, and of whom part inhabit the islands on that river. It is this division that forms the nation, of whom mention has already been made in the first chapter of this history, and who have neither wives nor families, and subsist entirely by rapine. During the winter they heap up provisions in their islands, which they afterwards go and sell in the summer, in the little town of Pultowa; the rest dwell in small hamlets, to the right and left of this river. All together choose a particular hetman, and this hetman is subordinate to him of the Ukraine. The person, at that time at the head of the Zaporavians, came to meet Mazeppa; and these two barbarians had an interview, at which each of them had a horse's tail, and a club borne before him, as ensigns of honour.