As the Cossacks knew very little about land-surveying, and still less about land-registration, the precise boundary between two contiguous yurts--as the communal land of a stanitsa was called--was often a matter of uncertainty and a fruitful source of disputes.

When the boundary was once determined, the following method of registering it was employed.

All the boys of the two stanitsas were collected and driven in a body like sheep to the intervening frontier.

The whole population then walked along the frontier that had been agreed upon, and at each landmark a number of boys were soundly whipped and allowed to run home! This was done in the hope that the victims would remember, as long as they lived, the spot where they had received their unmerited castigation.* The device, I have been assured, was generally very effective, but it was not always quite successful.
Whether from the castigation not being sufficiently severe, or from some other defect in the method, it sometimes happened that disputes afterwards arose, and the whipped boys, now grown up to manhood, gave conflicting testimony.

When such a case occurred the following expedient was adopted.