Note 40 — NICHOLAS GOGOL. (continued 4)

The Zaporoghians had their trowsers made (when they had the means to do so) of the most costly cloth, especially red, and to express their contempt of luxury, besmeared them with tar. The nagaïkas is the Cossack whip, a weapon the impression of which many a Frenchman bore on his back, after the invasion of Russia by Napoleon the Great. Its handle is not more than half a yard long, the lash, of the same length, consists of an iron wire, plaited all round with leathern thongs, terminating in a square piece of leather, about an inch in width. A blow of the nagaïka may break a bone, and a well-aimed stroke of its square end may cut out a piece of flesh.