The Czar, who was as energetic as the King, after having sent fresh forces into Poland to assist the confederates, united under General Siniawski against Stanislas, and soon advanced into Ukrania, in the middle of this severe winter, to oppose the King of Sweden. He stayed there with the object of weakening the enemy by small engagements, for by this means he thought the Swedish army must be quite wrecked at last, as he was able to draw fresh forces every moment from his dominions, while they could not get recruits. The cold there must have been excessive, since it forced the two enemies to suspend hostilities. But on the first of February, amid ice and snow, they began to fight again. After several small skirmishes and some reverses, the King’s army was reduced in April to 18,000 men. Mazeppa alone, the Prince of the Cossacks, supplied them with the necessaries of life; without his assistance the army must have perished from hunger and destitution. At this moment, the Czar, to attract Mazeppa to his service again, offered him terms; but the Cossack stood by his new ally, either from fear of the terrible punishment of the wheel, by which his friends had perished, or because he sought revenge. Charles, with his 18,000 Swedes and as many Cossacks, had not abandoned his plan of reaching Russia. Towards the end of May he went to siege Pultawa, on the river Vorskla, on the extreme eastern frontier of Ukrania, about thirteen full leagues from the Borysthenes, where the Czar had a magazine. This country is that of the Zaporavians, the strangest people in the world. They are a collection of former Russians, Poles, Tartars, and all make profession of a kind of Christianity, and of a kind of freebooting brigandage. They elect a chief, whom they depose or assassinate; they allow no women to live among them, but they kidnap all the children for twenty or thirty leagues round, and train them in their ways. During summer they are always in the field, during winter they sleep in vast barns, containing 400 or 500 men. They fear nothing, and live at liberty; they risk death for the smallest booty, with the same boldness with which Charles XII faced it to bestow crowns. The Czar sent them 60,000 florins in the hope that they would side with him; they took the money and then, through the exertions of Mazeppa, declared for Charles: but they proved of very little use, for they think it ridiculous to fight for anything but booty. It was a great point gained that they did no harm: there were about 2,000 of them at most who did regular duty. Ten of their chiefs were one day presented to Charles, but they had great difficulty in finding those who were not intoxicated, for they always began the day in that condition. They were taken into the trenches, and showed their skill in shooting with long rifles, for they could pick off the enemies they singled out at 600 paces away. Charles added to these bandits some 1,000 Valaques; then he laid siege to Pultawa, with an