3-052-620 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Russian Sketches: teaching Cossacks to ride, 1880. Depiction '...of the elementary cavalry drill prescribed by that vast military empire for the instruction of its celebrated troops of light horsemen...The poor lout of a Don Cossack, a mere clumsy peasant..., has no doubt much suffering to endure from the severity of the regimental riding-master, whose whip cannot be wanted for the horse - this being a wooden one...and it is therefore to be feared that the lash will often be laid upon the raw recruit's back and shoulders, to stimulate his attention to the word of command. The Cossack's face, as our Artist has drawn it, has an expression of mingled pain, anxiety, terror, and subdued resentment, that is exquisitely humorous. The stolid tranquillity of the other soldiers, repressing their amusement at the spectacle, as well as the stern impatience of the non-commissioned officer, is equally true to the life and character of men in that class of the military service. Even the accessories of background scenery in the rustic farm-yard, the pigs and poultry, the open stable-door, the curious machine for hoisting the bucket from the well, and the wooden front gallery outside the dwelling-house, are quite in keeping with the provincial locality'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.