YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

A YEAR

THE CIRCASSIANS.

VOL. II.

jj-i,

A YEAR

THE CIRCASSIANS.

J. A. LONGWORTH, ESQ.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON :
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1840.

LONDON :
IBOTSON AND PALMER, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.

CONTENTS
OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER L

A Circassian mansion — Funeral ceremonies — Marriage feast —
Administration of justice — Circassian horsemanship — Appear
ance of a Russian brig off the coast . . . Fage 1
CHAPTER IL
Experiments in legislation — Proposed Polish force in Circassia —
Our equivocal position — Tougouse, the Wolf — Visit to Tad-
jaguz — Lament of Pshukoi Bey — Apology of the Wolf . 27
CHAPTER III.
Visit to Hadji Ismael Effendi — AbdouUah the clerk — Hadji
Guz-Beg the Lion — Russian colony in Circassia — Reconnoi
tring  57

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.
Our unpleasant position — Suspicions of treachery — Arrival of a
Russian corvette — Ambuscade — Russian plot against us —
Russian commercial projects to subjugate the Circassians — Visit
to Ali Bey  . 78
CHAPTER V.
Announcement of our determination to leave the country — Visit to
the family of Zanu Oglou Sefir Bey — Djefe the hunchback 107
CHAPTER VI.
The plains of the Kuban — Vindication of the Circassians— Pro
vinces of Circassia — Discourse with Pshukoi Bey, Prince of
Zadoog — Exchange of presents  119
CHAPTER VII.
Good news — Salt springs — Delays and disappointments — Skirmish
ing with the Russians — Mehmet Zazi Oglou — Preparations at
Djouga — Nadir Bey, the Englishman . . . 143
CHAPTER VIII.
Retreat of the Russians — Gathering of the Circassians — Attempts
of the Russians to intercept Nadir Bey.^Bad news — Our pro
clamation  164
CHAPTER IX.
Important meeting of the Circassians — Our conference with the
Medjilis or Council — Disposal of the gunpowder — Composition
offends — Circassian marriages  184

CONTENTS. Vll
CHAPTER X.
Nadir Bey's warlike projects — Arrangements — Circassian com
merce — Silver mines — Pagan rites existing among the Cir
cassians  198
CHAPTER XI.
Retreat ofthe Russian army — Nadir Bey's reception at Semez —
Opening of a tumulus — We take leave of the Semezians 208
CHAPTER XII.
Visit to Mansour — Treatment of his wound — Our popularity —
War and romance— Kaplan the tiger . . . 224
CHAPTER XIIL
Internal reforms among the Circassians — The national oath —
We leave the Kuban — Advance of the Yebers — Guz-Beg
again — Nocturnal alarm  246
CHAPTER XIV.
Explanation of our nocturnal disturbance — Better prospects^
Shahin-Gheri — Battle of the Whips — The Rhamazan — Winter-
quarters at Shahin-Gheri's  269
CHAPTER XV.
Administration of the oath — Squabbles among the Yebers — In
action of the Circassians — Their gathering for an inroad into
the Russian territory — ^The nocturnal march — The result 287
CHAPTER XVL
Nadir Bey leaves Circassia — Mr. Bell proceeds to the south —
Capture of a Russian fort by the Circassians— Preparations for
my own departure from the country — Homeward bound — Re
turn to Constantinople  321

A YEAR

THE CIRCASSIANS.

CHAPTER I.
A Circassian Mansion — Funeral Ceremonies— Marriage Feast —
Administration of Justice — Circassian Horsemanship — Appear
ance of a Russian brig off the coast.
As the reader will perhaps be curious to know
something of the domestic arrangements of our
establishment, I shall endeavour to convey to him
some idea of them. The guest-house, with an
enclosed grass-plot before, was on the bank of a
rivulet — the tribute of our glen to the main stream
of Semez. On the declivity of the further bank
VOL. II. B

2 A CIRCASSIAN MANSION.
partially screened by the foliage, was the farm
yard, with its various tenements, folds, barns, out
houses, Sec, for the serfs and cattle. This was
the domain of Murtaza, the cowherd, Keri Oglu's
chief manager — himself a serf, yet thriving and
respected ; for among the live stock that enriched
the rural menagerie, were a number of blooming,
healthful little vagabonds, in whom, ragged as
they were — rolling in the dust or " paddling in
the burn," — imagination could already see the
three-tailed Pashas of the Asiatic province, or
the future delicicc of the Turkish harem.
Separated by the pathway, and on the slope of
the hill to our left, was the harem and its depen
dencies, over which, with a sway still more abso
lute, ruled the Khanoum of our host. I own
that such authority will appear inconsistent, after
what Ihave said of female subjection in Circassia.
Nature, however, will assert her rights all the
world over ; and between a woman in the mid
summer of her charms like the Khanoum, and
the personification of winter in the venerable
Shamiz, the balance of power established by cus
tom between the sexes was naturally a good deal
disturbed. Her administration of the household
was rigorous and thrifty in the extreme; and
Shamiz, whose wisdom it was that directed the
councils of Natukoitch and Shapsook, played, if

DOMESTIC ESTABLISHMENT. 3
the truth must be told, a very secondary part in
his household.
With respect to ourselves, our hostess was
everything that is kind and amiable ; and though
till the day of my departure I never had a per
sonal interview with her — for she was a strict
Mahometan — yet did her unceasing attention
display itself in all that could contribute to our
comfort. Her superiority as a housewife, not to
mention " All the savoury country messes
Which the neat hand Phillis dresses,"
was visible to us, like the good offices of some
invisible fairy, during our stay.
The family of our host was small. His eldest
son had been killed in a battle that was fought
near Anapa two years before. He had now
only two boys, the one in his eleventh, and the
other in his fifteenth year. The visit of the
English beyzades had attracted them to Semez,
otherwise they were seldom to be found there.
Their regular domicile was the house of their
foster-father, or ataluk ; but being each of them
provided with a horse, it mattered little where
they went — every house in the Caucasus was
alike open to them as their own. Boys of that
age commonly attach themselves, during a jour-
B 2

4 SCHIMAF BEY,
ney or campaign, to a Bey or Ouzden, in the
quality of page. They take charge of his horse
when he alights, and attend upon his person.
Nor is this service degrading, but, on the con
trary, honourable to them. Sheretluk and Nogai
were the names of our youthful squires.
Two hundred yards further up the glen was
the house of Schimaf Bey, Prince of Semez. He
had the year before occupied a house in the cen
tre of the valley, but it had been burnt to the
ground by Williamanoff's army. But though
he continued to keep up his enclosures, and to
cultivate the fields there, he had removed his
household, at the invitation of Shamiz, to his
neighbourhood. His rank of Pshee, or Prince,
inferred of itself neither power nor privilege.
His father, who was a man of a difierent stamp,
had exercised a great authority over the whole
valley, whose inhabitants, though freemen, had
been in some sort his vassals. Of such authority
I never had a clear definition ; the quantity of
tribute or service it procures him depends altoge
ther on the individual himself: and while, with
his father, whom nobody cared to offend, it was
almost paramount, it had, in the hands of Schimaf,
shrunk into a barren title and the control of his
own immediate serfs. The only persons from
whom he ventured to exact anything were At-

PRINCE OF SEMEZ.

menians ; and even these, pigeon-hearted as they
usually were, would, when emboldened by the
protection of another chief, set him completely at
defiance. In short, Schimaf, having none of the
qualities that command respect, destitute alike of
energy and generosity, had sunk into insignifi
cance. From the assiduous court he paid, we at
first imagined him to be sincerely attached to us.
To compare great things to small, the prince in
this respect greatly resembled one of the canine
species of the spaniel breed. He followed us
wherever we went, and where we took up our
abode stretched himself lazily by our couch. He
watched our every look and motion, prepared, as
I afterwards found, to snap up every inconsider
ate trifle we had to spare. Among other articles,
he had taken a decided fancy to my watch ; and
so often had I to open it for his inspection, and
so deep an interest he took in its movements,
that I was eventually compelled to surrender it
to him. The servants of the prince had not failed
to profit by so illustrious an example. They
seemed to enjoy the dolce far niente quite as much
as their master. Their only occupations, as far as
I could see, were racing, wrestling, pitching huge
stones, and sleeping under the hedges. In any
other country, it would have been a matter of
surprise how they were clothed and fed, for their

6 A POLITICIAN.
master allowed them no wages. And even here
their prowling habits were such as to be regarded
with suspicion; and whenever a theft occurred
in the valley of Semez, the prince and his follow
ers were the first to get the credit for it.
There was but one house more in this dell, and
it was at some distance higher up. It had a gar
den with mulberry trees, and was occupied by a
goatherd, who seemed well to do in the world.
He also was a constant visiter, and apparently a
great politician — certainly a great alarmist, since
hardly a day passed that he did not present him
self with his mouth wide open, and a whole
budget of intelligence with respect to the move
ments and designs of the Russians, which, since
our arrival there, he was firmly persuaded would
all be directed upon Semez, and more particularly
on our glen. He had one consolation under the
circumstances, and that was, the very secure
retreat it afforded in case of an attack in front.
Beyond the house of the goatherd, it contracted
into a sort of wild guUey, or chasm, with the
woods closing over it on either side, a cover from
which, it was easy to see, the Russians would feel
little disposition to unearth the Circassians. The
disposal of our time during our stay here was
somewhat monotonous. We rose with the sun,
for the concourse of visiters forming our levee

SYLVAN TOILET. 7
was such as to prevent our sleeping longer, had
we been disposed. The greatest inconvenience
we experienced, and one which distinguished
guests must submit to, was the public way in
which we lived : privacy of any sort was out of
the question. I therefore preferred making my
toilet in the brake" behind the house, which was
very commodious for that purpose.
It consists of wild fruit trees, crab, plum, &c.,
round the stem of which the wild vines wreath
ing themselves flung their pendent leaves and
branches over every aperture, so as to form a very
complete roof to my sylvan chamber, while the
water that ran through it supplied me with a bath.
The heat of the day was passed in reading and
receiving visits ; after dinner we took our ride or
walk, sometimes to the beach, at others to the
old castle or the forest, so that I flatter myself
we acquired a pretty accurate idea of the topo
graphy of the valley before we left it. In the
evening we had tea or coffee ; and when our stock
of these articles was exhausted, we found substi
tutes in the tchickory plant, and a sort of mint
made use of by the Circassians. The one, I
admit, was rather nauseous, and the other insipid,
but it was something still to see our kettle boil.
The time we found most agreeable was between
nightfall and the evening repast. Reposing on

8 MASTER AND SERVANT.
either side of the blazing hearth, we listened to
the legendary lore of our venerable host. His
household on these occasions formed a respectful
and attentive auditory, standing (for before sup
per they were not permitted to sit down) in the
lower part of the room. The relations of master
and servant are here, as in most other parts ofthe
East, of a primitive and affectionate character, so
different from the adventitious ones that connect
the mere hireling with his employer. The ser
vants of Shamiz, to use a common expression
here, " never departed from his word ;" that is to
say, it was the law and the prophets to them ;
their faith in their domestic oracle was unbounded.
The stories he recounted of his wars and travels,
were highly entertaining and often marvellous.
Those which related to his Circassian campaigns in
terested me the most — and even through the imper
fect medium of a translation, I could see he was
gifted with no ordinary powers of eloquence and
description. The following are imperfect sketches
of some of his legends.
The tempest of Russian warfare had not yet
burst over these devoted valleys. It then only
raged in the Cabardas, great and little, and the
chivalrous race who dwell by the tributary waters
of the Terek, still made head against the formi
dable power, whose rapid growth and unfailing

OUR HOST S NARRATIVE. t*
resources were to them matters as much of asto
nishment as of distress. It was during this pro
tracted struggle, which lasted with slight inter
mission upwards of twenty years, that our host
and other adventurous spirits, gathered from the
remotest parts of the Caucasus, had contributed
by their valour to retard the progress of the
invader. Exhausted, at length, by a conflict
which threatened them with extermination, the
majority of the people entered into a sort of capi
tulation, under which, though allowed to retain
their arms and to be governed by their own chiefs,
they were compelled to give hostages, and to
assist in the pacification of their neighbours.
There were many, however, who sternly rejected
these conditions, and retreating into Caratchai
and the wildest regions of Elborouz, still bade
defiance to the Muscovite. Descending from the
mountains, they not only made forays into the
Russian territory, but visited with the severest
retribution those who had been induced to capi
tulate. To punish these desperate men, the Rus
sians, led by Cabardian guides,at length undertook
an incursion into Caratchai ; but they found to their
cost that nature herself was there in arms against
them ; her rocks, glaciers, and forests, afforded no
theatre for war to display its art upon ; amidst
B 5

10 RUSSIAN CRUELTY.
her more stupendous magnificence, " its pride,
pomp, and circumstance " dwindled into nothing ;
and the army, consisting of more than ten thou
sand men, which scaled Elborouz in pursuit of
the Circassians, was compared by Shamiz, as he
disdainfully recalled its appearance to mind, to a
caterpillar on the trunk of the forest oak.
The expedition was a fatal one : they succeeded
in burning some of their hamlets, but the Circas
sians themselves, though ever at hand, could not
be overtaken. After a bootless chase of several
weeks, and leaving more than half their number a
prey to the vultures of Elborouz, they once more
made their appearance, haggard as their ghosts,
on the plains of the Terek. Such a contest has
a tendency to quench every spark of humanity :
with men who prefer death, or worse than death, to
bondage, whose habitations have been repeatedly
fired, and themselves hunted from their inheritance,
the voice of humanity, that of interest itself, is
drowned in the cries of vengeance. The pri
soners, whose sale or ransom is so lucrative all over
the Caucasus, in this campaign found no mercy —
the stragglers, who fell into the hands of the
Circassians, were all put to the sword. The
Russians retaliated, and, as we were told, even
burnt some of their captives over a slow fire.

CIRCASSIAN REPRISALS. II
The ingenuity of their enemies was taxed to re
quite thern, and the torture inflicted on some of
these wretches was fantastic as it was terrible.
They were taken to the Russian frontier — and as
they had left their own homes to burn those of
the Circassians, they were sent back again bound
hand and foot to their horses, with a lighted
bundle of straw to speed them over the steppes at
their cruppers.
Among other exploits, Shamiz had once headed
an assault upon Soukouin Kal^. To protect his
men in their approaches, he had invented a sort
of moveable fascine, of cylindrical shape, and
filled with earth. These were rolled towards the
fortress, while those that propelled them flattered
themselves that they might safely advance under
their cover to the walls. But the batteries which
opened upon them as they drew near soon con
vinced them of their error. Their machines were
pounded about their ears with such vigour and
despatch, that they were themselves reduced to a
nonplus, and compelled to seek their safety in a
precipitate flight. This invention of Shamiz was
crowned with no better success than his subse
quent one of wooden cannons, which, however
ingenious in theory, proved in execution more
fatal to his friends than his enemies.

12 SUPERSTITION.
In such conversations we spent our evenings ;
and about three hours after sunset the doors of
our apartment would fly open, while the crowd
in the lower part of it made way for a train of
tables and dishes, preceded by ewer, basin, and
napkin, for supper. The staple of it was beef,
mutton, or goat's flesh, for everything is con
sumed as fast as it is slaughtered, and our ser
vants and neighbours helped us through with an
entire sheep, to say nothing of poultry, pastry,
&c., every day. Such profusion in feasting had
not been seen in the country since the visit of
Hassan Pacha, who, as we were naively informed,
had, while presents lasted, been treated with the
greatest consideration, but on the failure of these,
having subsequently sunk very much in popu
larity, he received the by no means flattering
surname of TurTi Hassan.
A ceremony always observed during these re
pasts is the careful inspection of the mutton
shoulder blades, the transparent part of which,
ov the scapula,is held" up to the light, and, accord
ing to the marks orstains it presents, held to be
of good or evil augury. The same superstition
prevails in Greece, and I believe throughout the
Levant. The gravity with which these bones are
handed about to the guests, or passed to some
wrinkled and spectacled seer, who is supposed to

MUTTON BONES. 13
be wiser than the rest, and who pores on it as
though the fate of the country depended on its
contents, is truly admirable. The more pious
Mussulmans, however, thoiigh listening to it very
attentively I thought, affect a contempt for this
sort of soothsaying, and style the bones, in deri
sion, Abass^ Kitab, or the Abasian Koran. But
the general faith in them is very strong ; so much
so, that I believe what is predicted from them is
frequently assumed as matter of fact and history,
and reported accordingly. Hence the quantity
of false news in circulation, and hence the posi
tive announcement we so often heard of the
arrival of our fleet in the Black Sea.
All these falsehoods might be safely charged
to the mutton bones, which here, as in Greece,
were not merely the organs of divination, but
appropriate substitutes fot- those of the press.
Such at least was the opinion of Mavrocordato,
who sent from Missolonghi to a correspondent
who had written to him for news, a string of the
bones in question, adding, " There is a file of our
newspapers." One evening, returning from our ride, we were
not a little alarmed by the shrieks and wailing
that issued from the harem ; and, on inquiry, we
learned that a messenger had arrived from the
south with the afflicting intelligence of the loss

14 CIRCASSIAN HEROISM.
of our hostess's three brothers, who had fallen
while bravely opposing the debarkation of the
Russian troops at Ardiler. We now learned
that the operations of this campaign were not
confined to the north, but that another army,
under General Rosen, was co-operating with that
of Williamanoff, by a simultaneous attack from
the direction of Soukouin Kale, and that having
failed in forcing its way through the defiles, it
had next attempted a descent on the coast at
Ardiler. Fifty vessels, including a steamer and
transports, had suddenly stood into the bay, and
iipwards of a hundred boats having been lowered
and manned, made directly for the beach. To
prevent their landing, only sixty warriors, all
nobles, we were told, could for some time be
mustered ; but this little band of resolutes ad
dressed itself with such gallantry to the task,
keeping up a well-directed fire on the boats as
they approached, and sallying sword in hand
from their trenches on the soldiers before they
could form on the beach, that notwithstanding
the murderous broadsides of the ships of war
poured as usual on Russians and Circassians in
discriminately, the former could obtain no foot
ing. The neighbourhood had in the mean time
rallied, and, animated by the example of the
heroic handful who had nobly kept the Russians

WANT OF SYSTEM. 15
at bay till their arrival, the people of Ardiler, for
that time at least, effectually prevented the de
barkation. Later in the season the attempt was
renewed with better result, and Rosen succeeded
in landing his troops and constructing a fort.
Here, as well as elsewhere, the system, or rather
the absence of system, that characterises Circas
sian warfare, became sufficiently manifest. The
only rule they observe in the event of an invasion,
is to gather as quickly as possible at the report
of the first gun ; all who hear it obey this sum
mons immediately. But the obligation of defence
only extends to the inhabitants of the threatened
district, to whom, in ordinary cases, it would be
an insult to suppose that they were not ready
and able to provide for it. Where there are
standing armies, and arms form a profession apart,
the idea of a portion of the community being en
gaged to protect the rest is one to which we have
long been familiar : but an armed population is
not so easily reconciled to the custom of paying
others to fight its battles; and hence it is that
while every individual of it prides himself on his
personal prowess and his martial accomplish
ments, discipline and combination are altogether
unknown. The habits and feelings engendered
in such a country are not easily eradicated. In
removing from it they have been transplanted to

16

FUNERAL CRY.

the soil of Egypt, and the same insubordination,
the same personal advantage, formerly distin
guished the Mamelukes, while the " mettle of
their original pastures " no less displayed itself
in headlong and fiery onset, to be quelled only
in their own or their enemies' blood. Out ofthe
sixty who opposed the landing of the Russians at
Ardiler, forty were killed and the rest severely
wounded. Among the former, as I have already
stated, were the three brothers of our hostess.
The cries of the poor woman, refusing appa
rently to be comforted, at this fearful havoc of
her race, were truly heart-rending ; but when I
was given to understand that these vivid demon
strations of grief were prescribed by custom,
which required their continuance for the space
of two hours, and when the gossips of the Kha
noum, who had visited her on the occasion, in
stead of endeavouring to console her, played their
part as chorus, and " yelled forth like syllables of
dolour" I must confess my sympathy was not
quite so keen. Still the effect ofthe funeral cry,
heard amidst the woods and wilds of Circassia,
has a thrilling solemnity, which none who have
listened to it can ever forget. The other observ
ances by which custom, the only tyrant here,
seeks to regulate the emotions of sorrow, accord
ing to the sex or station of the mourner, bordei;.

FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 17
I am afraid, on the ludicrous : for while an Ouz
den is only expected to look very dismal and
touch his beard, the grief of a Toear is to know
no bounds ; he is to beat his head with his whip,
thump his breast, throw himself on the couch,
blubber^ groan, and sob with great perseverance,
till two of the inmates of the house seizing him
by the arms, put a period to his sorrows by
thrusting him out of doors. In former times it
was the custom to bury the dead with their arms
and accoutrements ; but the modern Circassians,
wiser in their generation, seem to think the de
funct will be equally satisfied by being decorated
with them previously, and then buried without
them. In the evening, Shamiz, in alluding to this do
mestic calamity, bitterly inveighed against the
Russians, whose ambition caused the desolation
of so many families, and on our endeavouring to
comfort him by the remark that they had been
amply avenged by the wholesale slaughter of
their enemies, he indignantly exclaimed, " Think
you that the blood of a single Ouzden can be
atoned for by that of a whole herd of swine like
the Muscovites?"
A wealthy merchant of Semez, named Has-
sim, having purchased a wife for one of his
household slaves, we were invited to grace the

18 MARRIAGE FEAST.
nuptials by our presence. His house was in a
dell, situated on the same side of the valley as
our own, and separated by three or four others,
the silence of which in traversing them on our
road was broken only by the woodland melody.
But the merry and monotonous notes of the
mountain pipe, and the festive murmur of the
multitude, prepared us, as we ascended the height
above it, for the scene of simple revelry — a scene
of the olden time, enfolded in its windings.
The walls of a palace excluding all but the elite
of Almack's or the cr&me of Vienna, contain more
of taste and grandeur, but certainly less of
real enjoyment. The spirit of hospitality that
presides at these festivals, is neither selfish nor
exclusive ; free, hearty, and sociable, unconfined,
and open as the day, its pleasures are accessible
to all ; its halls, such as nature herself has un
locked for them in the mountains, and when
these are not large enough for the feast, the heath
or the mountain itself affords room for its cele
bration. On the present occasion the party being
small, it was entertained in the shelter of Hus-
sim's snug little valley, into which, as we arrived,
the good folks of Semez were pouring amain from
every quarter.
Their notions of splendour, as exhibited in the
holiday finery of the beaus and belles, were cer-

MARRIAGE FEAST. 19
tainly not very extravagant. Some of our Dely-
Canns might carry their heads an inch or two
higher than the others, on the strength of new
morocco shoes, silk anteri, or a superfluous depth
of silver lace in the border, while some of the
beauties might be no less elate, conscious of
wearing, in addition to the silver studs, sto
macher, and clasps, which in their day had also
decorated their grandmothers, a new brooch or
kerchief, or as a substitute, a long piece of
white calico, sweeping in ample folds from their
hair down to their heels; yet, notwithstanding
these, and other similar tokens of a taste some
what ambitious, the costumes were on the whole
rather homely than brilliant. In some instances,
so far from being provided with wedding gar
ments, the apparel of the guests (for all the
world was welcome) was even considerably the
worse for wear, both as regards the upper and
nether integuments; nay, in some instances I
was led, by the careful adjustment of the former,
to speculate (but too justly I fear) on the total
absence of the latter. These persons, however,
if such there were, kept very prudently in the
back ground, and looked picturesquely enough
as half-lengths among the bushes. All were in
high spirits, though their mirth was neither

20 MARRIAGE FEAST.
low nor vulgar. A Circassian rarely indulges
in levity, or forgets his habitual good-breeding.
The sky was clear and unclouded, but the heat
of the day was tempered by the sea-breeze, (the
sweet south, as the poet sings,) which, in addition
to its usual burthen from the violet beds, was
now fraught with a savoury steam infinitely
more grateful to the nostrils of the whole party,
as indicative of the good cheer in preparation — r
tidings, which a glance towards the interior of
the glen served decidedly to confirm, for there,
in the neighbourhood of the thickly embowered
cottages of our host, might be discovered more
than one blazing fire ; over every fire a tripod of
stakes, and depending from each of these, a
noble-charged spit or kettle ; while, to complete
the gypsy-like appearance of the scene, a number
of old ladies in feridges might be seen busying
themselves about these preparations with the
most laudable activity.
The bottom of the glen had been abandoned
to the revels, the old folks, among whom we took
our seats on our mats and cushions, looking on
from the shaded declivities on either side. The
women, old and young, all flocked together ; and
when the dancing commenced, the veiled mother
led forth the unveiled daughter, stately as an

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 21
antelope, and in public, looking almost as timid,
to secure her a place among the dancers. There,
literally jammed between two of the rougher sex,
for much of the spirit of the thing consists in
squeezing them almost to suffocation, the fair
creatures went languidly or were carried^ rather,
round with the circle, whose movements con
sisted more of a certain undulation of the body
than any extraordinary exertion of the legs.
Some of the young men, however, hopped very
vigorously, and the whole party revolved round
and round to the sprightly music of their un
wearied minstrel, looking as grave all the while
as judges, or the council-ring itself.
Semez has not much to boast of in the way of
beauty, and the decidedly pretty girls to be seen
in the circle were exceptions to the general rule.
They were all fair, nevertheless ; their eyes ri
valled the azure of the noon-day sky above them,
and their tresses, though in some cases too fiery,
its golden hues at sunset.
In the midst of this revelry, an incident oc
curred by which it was somewhat rudely inter
rupted. Among the most conspicuous individuals
in the circle of dancers, was a young fellow with
a calpac of long goatskin, capering, frisking, and
leering right and left on his fair neighbours with
the look of a satyr. He had not perceived, during

22 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
his antics, anbther person who had come sud
denly behind him, as seemingly with no very
friendly intentions. Though a grey-bearded elder,
his ruddy cheeks and muscular frame betokened
great strength; as the hazel-stick in his hand,
freshly peeled, and such as (an Irishman would
say) " springs pleasantly off a man's head," de
noted his intention of giving us a proof of it. A
single blow of this formidable weapon levelled
the luckless wight in his glory to the earth, and
put a temporary stop to the festivities of the day.
One party had surrounded the assailant, who,
with flushed countenance, flashing eyes, and flou
rished cudgel, was with difficulty restrained from
inflicting further chastisement on his fallen adver
sary. He, on the other hand, lay extended on the
greensward. His thick calpac had afforded no
protection to his crown, which was bleeding pro
fusely, and he was carried away stunned and in
sensible to the adjacent cottages.
Mr. Bell, justly incensed at this outrage, de
manded an immediate explanation — declaring for
us both, that unless the offender was punished
we should withdraw forthwith from the assembly.
But the elders, who expressed great concern for
what had happened, proved nevertheless that it
was all in regular course, and requisite for the
due administration of justice in the country.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 23
The young man who had been knocked down so
unceremoniously, had, it appeared, been himself
the original aggressor — having been guilty of
assault and robbery on the person of a member
ofthe present assailant's tribe. Satisfaction had
not yet been accorded to it by his own, and it
was incumbent on him, in the mean while, till the
fine had been duly adjusted, to avoid coming
into collision with the aggrieved parties, and not
to obtrude himself unnecessarily on the public
attention. He had consequently paid the penalty
of his rashness in the way I have mentioned, being
reminded, by having them scored somewhat un
pleasantly on his pate, that accounts had not
yet been settled for him by his tribe.
This explanation was satisfactory to us, and I
was pleased moreover to observe, that the first
act of violence, which elsewhere would have been
the signal for a general riot, was followed by no
evil consequences. The whole company, aware
of the expense attending it, were too apprehensive
of a feud, to be betrayed into excesses that might
lead to one. They all, therefore, acted as peace
makers, and the principals in the strife having
been removed, and the damsels, who had fled
from it as precipitately as a flock of wild fowl,
having once more returned, the piper struck up
a tune, and the dance proceeded as merrily as
before.

24 MARRIAGE FEAST.
A bustle among the crowd at the top of the
glen now showed that the feasting was about to
begin ; large bowls of boya had been circulating
very briskly for some time past, and Hussein our
host at length made his appearance, sustaining a
table piled with a whole pyramid of good things,
and followed by a file of domestics bearing similar
burdens. Feasts upon the scale they are given here de
mand more than one pair of hands to officiate at
them. Briareus himself would have been puz
zled to do the honours. Our host, therefore, was
assisted in his task by many stewards, or aides-de
camp rather, who might be seen fiying about on
horseback, each of them bearing aloft a well-
loaded table. Around each of these centres of
attraction the company, agreeably to the laws of
gravitation in such cases, had quickly disposed
itself; that is, all except the serfs, and lads of
every condition, whose turn was to come after
ours, but who were in the mean time liberally re
galed, as they stood in patient expectation around
the feasters, with lumps of meat and pastry.
These they would retire with, and munch very
modestly behind a tree.
After the banquet, and when, as Homer sings,
" The rage of hunger was repressed," began the
sports, which, as I have previously described, it is

CIRCASSIAN HORSEMANSHIP. 25
unnecessary to detail at length. They consisted
as usual of racing and rifle shooting. The former
of these amusements is pursued with an emula
tion and zest which none but horsemen, I mean
such as are " native, and to the manner born,"
can appreciate.
Put a Circassian on horseback, and though,
like a beggar, he may not ride it to the devil, he
will at least put its mettle very satisfactorily to
the proof; and many an unfortunate Rosinante
is, in order to make good its master's opinion, or
rather his boasting, made to perform the feats of
a Bucephalus. The Deli-Kanns, or mad-caps, who
had hitherto conducted themselves so decorously,
were no sooner mounted, than they fully justified
by their pranks the epithet which had been
bestowed on them. Such charging, chasing,
racing, and hustling, it had never been my lot
to witness elsewhere. One of the party, advanc
ing to the assembled females, vaulted in full
career from his saddle, and having received from
the hands of one of them a crimson scarf, re
sumed it as lightly — then set off with hjs prize
streaming like a meteor towards the main va-lley.
Six cavaliers had started in pursuit of him, and
the multitude were eagerly watching their pro
gress, when the report of cannon all at once drew
their attention to the harbour. A Russian brig
VOL. II. c

26 RUSSIAN BRIG.
was exchanging a salute with the distant castle
of Doha, but as it did not shorten sail, but held
on its course towards the centre of the bay, it
excited, if not alarm, at least an unusual degree
of interest. The sports were suspended, and a
party of us mounted our horses, and proceeded
to an eminence that commanded a view ofthe sea.
The brig having approached within a mile of the
beach, cast anchor, and there, encircled by the
hostile shores of Semez, but beyond the reach of
its rifles— tranquil apparently as the waters where
it was moored, but with broadsides ready — it had
taken up its station, a truly suspicious looking
craft. The Circassians, however, viewed it with
little alarm, and, after stationing a few sentinels
along the coast, they withdrew.

PROJECTS OF REFORM. 27

CHAPTER II.

Experiments in legislation — Proposed Polish, force in Circassia —
Our equivocal position — Tougouse the Wolf — Visit to Tadjaguz
— Lament of Pshukoi Bey — Apology of the Wolf.
During the month of July, which we passed at
Semez, there occurred no events of importance.
The Russians continued at Pchat, occupied with
the construction of their fort, but were otherwise,
like the Circassians, inactive. The latter were
far too much engrossed by their expectations of
foreign assistance, the illusions raised by the de
spatches of their ambassador, and the solution and
sequel of the Vixen affair, duly to direct their
energies to the measures of internal organization,
military and civil, required by the emergency,
and which we, though as sanguine as themselves
as to England's interference, did not cease to jiress
c 2

28 projects of reform.
on their attention. The chief of these was the esta
blishment of a permanent council, invested with
administrative authority, and a standing force,
however small, for the contingencies of the cam
paign. Mr. Bell was also desirous of formings
corps from the Polish deserters. But these inno
vations, simple as they might appear, and prompt
ed, moreover, by the necessity of the times, were
such as I afterwards found involved great organic
changes in the customs and social institutions of
the country. The associations on which the per
sonal security and independence of the Circassians
depend, are maintained by them witha pride and
tenacity which renders the introduction of any
other elements of power, for national or political
purposes, a matter of- very great difficulty. It is
true that the national councils I have spoken of,
have, from a sense of urgent necessity, more
than once been invested with paramount autho
rity ; but that it should be delegated to any par
ticular body of individuals, or exercised for any
specific period or purpose, is an idea to which
they could not for a moment reconcile them
selves. The year before our arrival, at the recommen
dation of an English gentleman who was in com
munication with their ambassador at Constanti
nople, twelve of the most distinguished of the

projects of reform. 29
Tamatas,or elders, had constituted themselves into
a permanent administration at Semez ; finding,
however, that, instead of commanding respect
and obedience, they were fast becoming the laugh
ing-stocks of the whole country, and fearing that
by the assumption of this extraordinary power
they might endanger the influence they really
possessed with their countrymen, they had, some
months before we came, dissolved this parliament
sine die, and sneaked away to their respective
hamlets. The experiment has never since been renewed,
and the failure that had already taken place, no
doubt, contributed greatly to deter them from
attempting it again. The office also to be ful
filled by the individuals so elected, besides being
a thankless one, must "remain wholly unremu-
nerated ; for the collection of a revenue would
not only be opposed to the habits and feelings of
the people, but, in the total absence of a currency,
almost impracticable. Contributions in kind,
though certainly levied by the different tribes for
social and judicial purposes, would, I fear, be re
fused to the public service ; or rather there are
no persons of sufficient authority to demand them.
The same reasons wouid militate against the es
tablishment of a standing force, not to mention

30 polish force in circassia.
the reluctance of an armed population to pay
for it.
Their repugnance, it is natural to suppose,
would be still stronger to a Polish subsidiary
force ; indeed, if a corps of that nation could be
organised without any expense to the Circassians,
it may be questioned if, with the radical differ
ences existing in the religion, customs, and lan
guage of their races, it would be at all tolerated
among them. I admit there are now many thou
sand Poles living with the appearance of the
most perfect docility under Circassian masters,
which may be easily accounted for by their state
of subjection and isolation from each other; but
were they collected into a corps, and to do this an
indemnity of four hundred piastres, or four
pounds, fiir every man, would have to be paid to
the proprietors; the inevitable consequence of
such a concentration would be, the revival of all
the national characteristics by which a race, noble,
patriotic, and somewhat headstrong withal, are
originally distinguished, and which, under such
circumstances, could scarcely fail to bring them
into collision with the inhabitants of a wild and
mountainous region, so essentially differing fi-om
themselves, and accustomed to view all foreigners
with suspicion and dislike. Such are the difficul-

POLISH FORCE IN CIRCASSIA. 31
ties inseparable, I am afraid, from the organisa
tion of a Polish force in Circassia, and I have
stated them fairly and conscientiously, believing
at the same time that Mr. Bell, who I doubt
not is equally on his guard against allowing his
wishes to mislead him, entertains to this day a
more favourable opinion as to its practicability.
At the time I now allude to, both Mr. Bell
and myself strenuously urged this and other
measures on the Circassians ; but in addition to
the aforesaid objections, there was another which,
though not alleged by them, must, I imagine, have
equally indisposed them to listen to us, and that
was the mystification they still laboured under
with respect to ourselves, and the anticipation of
succours from abroad, which they fully believed
would supersede the necessity of any change in
the administration of their affairs. " Should Eng
land and the Porte decline to assist us, we will
then withdraw our ambassadors from Turkey,"
they said, " and take measures for our own safety ;
or if they will send us out a governor, we will
obey him in all things."
As to ourselves, from the deficiency in our cre
dentials, it was easy to perceive they were placed
in a no small dilemma, from which our own asse
verations by no means tended to relieve them.
The more strongly we disclaimed being the emis-

32 OUR EQUIVOCAL POSITION.
saries of our government, or of Sultan Mahmoud,
the more certainly did they set us down as such,
since the only alternative their simplicity ad
mitted of was, that we were Russian spies, and
in that case it was clear we should willingly
have accepted the character they were them
selves disposed to confer upon us. To say the
truth, they were not a little puzzled, nor did
our sagacious old host, or Konac Bey Shamiz
Keri Oglu, to whom, as a sheitain, a very devil
for penetration, we had been consigned with a
view of worming out our secret, at all succeed in -
clearing up the mystery. Day after day would
he return to the charge ; seated at the foot of
our couch, or propped on the staff, or crutch, on
which the wisdom of the Circassian Tamata is
accustomed to support itself, he would, with many
excuses for his rudeness and curiosity, stating
they were hill-folk, (dagh adamler,) poor and ig
norant, it might be, but " perplexed in the ex
treme," set about a cross-examination, as close and
ingenious as was ever instituted by counsel at the
bar; in which if he was baffled, it must have
been simply for the reason that we had nothing
to conceal from him. This sort of persecution
proved sometimes very annoying to us ; and, per
ceiving his drift, I more than once took fire at it,
for the inferences which resulted from his supposi-

OUR EQUIVOCAL POSITION. 33
tions were occasionally far from agreeable to us.
Not only were we presumed to be the depositaries
of Sultan Mahmoud's secrets, but, as it appeared, of
his treasures also; and though what we had given
in the way of presents served to convince them
they were under no obligations to ourselves for
them being far too much, in their opinion, for pri
vate individuals to bestow, it, on the other hand,
fell equally short of what they conceived they
had a right to expect from the dispensers of the
sultan's bounty.
There was another circumstance, that gave us
uneasiness. We began to have serious doubts as
to the degree of freedom accorded to us. Com
munities, like individuals, accustomed to their
own way in everything, seldom consult any other
— nor could we escape from the popular control
which had been hitherto undisputed in these moun
tains. But what was still more provoking, we
found, on establishing ourselves at Semez, that the
good people of that valley busied themselves with
the same degree of solicitude about our affairs,
as had been displayed by the national council of
Shapsouk and Natu-koitch. As these had cho
sen to consider us as their special musafirs, or
guests, and had determined we should not stir out
of their provinces; so the Semizians, pluming
themselves no less on our sojourn amongst them,
c6

34 VISIT TO THE WOLF.
had resolved to appropriate us in like manner ;
nor was it only the honour of our presence they
coveted ; they were also in hopes that the stream
of our munificence, whose sources they supposed
to be at Stamboul, would henceforth meander ex
clusively through their favoured valley.
Disappointed in their expectations, and per
ceiving the hints they gave to our dragomans
and attendants were thrown away, they assembled
the Memleket, or country, (for this imposing cha
racter is assumed by every petty council that may
meet on local matters in Circassia,) and there,
after a good deal of discussion, by which it was
elicited that our backwardness was owing to the
intrigues and bad disposition of those by whom
we were surrounded, it was decided a deputation
should wait upon us, and pray for a change in the
administration. All this was very amusing in its way ; but wish
ing to emancipate ourselves from attentions which
had grown troublesome, we accepted an invitation
given to us by Tchorook Oglou Tougouse, the
wolf, to visit his house, situated in the valley of
Tedjaguz, on the other side of the mountains. At
the time the invitation was made, our host, whom
we consulted, made no objection to it ; but as the
day which had been agreed on drew near, many
difficulties presented themselves to our departure.

OBJECTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES. 35
Our horses were reported to be out of condition,
the cavaliers who were to escort us were ill or en
gaged, and finally, as a reason for declining his in
vitation, the character of Tougouse, compromised
as it was by his avowed transactions with the
Russians, was strongly insisted on. But as we
had previously been informed that he had made
ample amends for his misconduct by his bravery
and devotion in the common cause, we could only
consider this another pretext for detaining us.
Finding us deaf to his entreaties, or rather to
his squire Ougasof, for when our politic old host
had anything unpalatable to propose he was
sure to do it through a third person, he had
recourse to a measure which he as invariably re
sorted to on an emergency, and that was to sum
mon to his assistance the most influential men
of the neighbouring valleys — Mehmet Hagioli
Effendi, the judge, and Kariak Oglou Ali Bey,
of the tribe of Kutzuk.
The morning before that fixed upon for our
•journey, we were surprised by a visit from both
these worthies, nor were we long in discovering
the object of it. It was to join their persuasions
to those of our host, in order to make us break
our engagement with Tougouse. But this was a
point which neither the coaxing and blustering
of the burly priest, nor the more laconic recom-

36 OBJECTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES.
mendations of the black-browed giant by whom
he was accompanied, whatever might be the usual
weight of such arguments, could accomplish.
Trifling as it may appear, our minds were
made up about it ; and if, as we now suspected,
our personal liberty was to be circumscribed, we
determined to ascertain the length of our tether.
The good people of Semez, informed of our obsti
nacy, were not a little disconcerted by it, but, as
a last expedient, invited us the next day to a
farewell breakfast. This, they trusted, would
operate as a diversion, and consume so much of
the day, that time would not be left for our ride,
which was one of four or five hours. Accord
ingly, when we reached the place, a green and
sunny glade, where the feast was to be given,
and which was on the side of the valley opposite
to that of the road to Tedjaguz, we found a for
midable array not only of delikans, or gallants,
but of blooming damsels also ; for Semez had
mustered its beauty as well as its valour to way
lay us. Noon had passed away before the tables
made their appearance ; we despatched them,
however, as quickly as we could, and declining
to stay a moment longer for the sports, we slung
on our rifles and ordered our horses. But there
still remained something to settle. The memle
ket, or country, which provides for everything.

OBJECTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES. 37
had not yet chosen our body-guard ; and to ar
range this momentous affair a council ring was
formed under a tree at a few hundred yards' dis
tance from us, and was presently engaged in an
earnest and protracted discussion.
All this, it was evident, was but another strata
gem to gain time ; so after two hours had elapsed,
and we saw the sun was declining over the moun
tains towards Anapa, we sent a message to the
council to the effect that we would no longer
wait, but would proceed instanter, with or without
escort, to Tadjaguz. They then pereceived their
opposition was fruitless, but, before they would
abandon it altogether, a final effort was made to
shake our resolution. If our minds were so
absolutely fixed on paying a visit, they said, why
not go to the house of Khass Demir, who had
come thither on purpose to invite us? Khass
Demir was one of the richest Tocars in Natu
koitch, residing in the plain of Anapa, influen
tial and respected, but in his manners a complete
magnifico, and something of a churl withal.
When we had refused this invitation on the
ground of the one we had previously accepted, he
came to us with the rest of the elders, who now
enclosed us in their circle, and addressed us in
the following terms.
" If the Beyzades are come here only for one

38 DISCUSSION WITH THE SEMEZIANS.
man, they are perfectly right in paying him this
visit ; but if they are interested in the welfare of
the whole community, let them attend to its
affairs : why do they not summon a council, and
lay before it the measures they may deem neces
sary for the public advantage? Why not un
fold to them the pleasure of the King of England
and of Sultan Mahmoud on these matters ; and
inform them, moreover, when they are to expect
the assistance, ' the gunpowder, cannons, and
engines,' promised to them ?"
To this speech I answered, without the least
hesitation, and somewhat wrathfully, " That for a
whole month we had, day after day, urged upon
them the adoption of measures we deemed indis
pensable to the safety of the country — a fact which
Khass Demir himself might have ascertained,
had he been at the trouble of waiting on us be
fore ; we had also proposed a national council
for the decision of them, but that, under one pre
text or another, it had been constantly deferred ;
if such were assembled, we were still ready to
attend, and though, as we had repeatedly in
timated, we had no instructions from our govern
ment, we would, as private individuals, offer them
the best advice in our power : we were afraid,
however, that the subject of the council was now
brought forward merely as an inducement for us

DISCUSSION WITH THE SEMEZIANS. 39
to break the word we had pledged to another per
son, but which no consideration whatever could
prevail with us to do ; for though we. pretended
to no authority from Sultan Mahmoud, we were
at any rate free agents, not their slaves : we
would therefore set out that instant to Tedjaguz,
and they might detain us at their peril."
The tone of resolution we assumed with them
more than ever convinced the Semezians that our
disclaimer of authority from Sultan Mahmoud
was only a piece of policy on our part. They
were struck with sudden awe, and no longer
opposed our departure. Many of the company,
and among the rest Kutzuk Ali Bey, volunteered
to escort us.
Our party, therefore, rode off to the centre of
the valley, penetrated the forest, and our horses,
fresh and vigorous, were soon straining up the
side of the mountain. In two hours we had
gained the summit, and in looking back into the
valley we could see the multitude still collected
in groups, and the council ring in the place we
had left it ; they had not yet recovered from the
astonishment into which our assertion of inde
pendence, in a district that, time out of mind,
had acknowledged no law but their own sovereign
will, was caculated to throw them.
Bidding adieu for the present to the valley of

40 TOUGOUSE THE WOLF.
Semez, we pursued our way through the forest
paths in silence. This was the first time that
anything like a quarrel had occurred between us
and our friends ; and though we were conscious
of being in the right, the excitement produced by
it was as usual followed by a feeling of mortifica
tion and regret. We were also not without our
misgivings as to the person we were about to
visit ; our Konag Bey Shamiz had positively
refused to accompany us, and the escort that
attended us was certainly smaller than it had
hitherto been. All this might be owing to the
bad repute into which Tougouse had fallen with
his countrymen. But whatever repugnance we
might feel to the company of one whom Mahmet
Hadgioli, the judge, did not hesitate to class
among the Djacits and Psikaseys, the renegades
and ruffians by whom so many districts had
been compromised and infested, it was overcome
in some measure by more than one consideration,
and believing these are in no small degree illus
trative of the times and circumstances we had
fallen upon in Circassia, I shall briefly unfold
them to the reader.
There can be no doubt that a great change for
the better has within the last few years taken
place in the two provinces of Shapsook and
Natu-koitch.

POSITION OF THE WOLF. 41
The turbulence of the Pshas and their
retainers, the military aristocracy of the Cauca
sus, has been entirely suppressed there. The
war between the provinces, and the feuds among
the tribes, have also in great measure ceased : a
sense ofthe common danger from without has acted
as a panacea to intestine discord. It has served as
an argument more efficacious than could before
be discovered to the party who, under the banner
of Islam, would establish peace and order in the
land. " Had you previously submitted to the
paternal authority of the Porte," said they to
their countrymen, " it would never have aban
doned you in your utmost need to the Muscovite :
your only chance of regaining that protection is
by timely repentance, and by the spontaneous esta
blishment of tranquillity and concord, which will
be a pledge to it of your future obedience." The
extraordinary measures taken by this party for
the promotion of their patriotic intentions, and
which we were ourselves during our residence in
the country witnesses to, I shall enter more
fully into hereafter ; at present it suffices to
observe that they had been eminently successful,
but the reform superinduced by their efforts,
beneficial as it undoubtedly proved to the com
munity at large, was not obtained without the

42 POSITION OF THE WOLF.
usual sacrifice of the habits and feelings of indi
viduals. The state of misrule that formerly prevailed
here, though one by no means calculated to
develope the best feelings of our nature, begat
nevertheless the same chivalrous spirit by
which the anarchy of the feudal ages was in some
measure tempered and redeemed in Europe. In
the transition to a more sober epoch, the knights
errant of Circassia, like those of the West, found
their occupation gone, and those who, Hke
Tougouse, though old enough to remember a more
stirring period, were still in the prime of manhood,
could find, under existing circumstances, no means
of allaying their thirst of enterprise, but in the
deadly warfare with the Russians. The life
which the " Wolf" was in the interim reduced to
lead, had grown somewhat irksome to him ; he
had squandered his patrimony, and his habitual
restlessness had not only led him to form the
inconsiderate connexion across the Kuban which
Ihave alluded to, but to join in some predatory
inroads into the neighbouring districts, — offences
venial in the good old times, but now no longer
tolerated, and which he had been compelled to
expiate by fines, averting, at the same time,
the wrath of the community by an oath, on the

POSITION OF THE WOLF. 43
Koran, of amendment. His conduct, we were
told, had been since then unimpeachable ; but the
inaction to which he was condemned preyed on
his spirits, and it was only on the eve of a battle
that they resumed their former buoyancy, and
partook even then, I fancied, a good deal of the
restlessness of despair. I remember on one
occasion his pressing me to settle some trifling
affair, for, " Insh'alla," added he, " I shall be
killed in to-morrow's engagement."
Mettle so undaunted as his was, in a national
crisis like the present, by no means without its
value ; as useful perhaps, in its way, as the re
forming zeal of his warlike denouncer, Mehmet
Hadjioli Effendi, the judge, whose rancour to
wards him I could perceive had been redoubled
from the time we proposed to visit him. Our
object in doing so, was to confirm him in his
good disposition, not to encourage him in the
cause he had renounced. We were afraid, how
ever, after what had occurred at Semez, it might
be misinterpreted ; and our curiosity, therefore,
as we approached the dwelling of the Wolf, was
not unmixed with anxiety.
The gorge in the mountains where the stream
of Tadjaguz takes its rise, at first deep, narrow,
and gloomy, opens gradually, after a succession of
beautiful windings, into the plain.

44 TADJAGUZ.
The declivities on either side as we advanced
were thickly covered with millet, the staple ar
ticle of food in the country, and as welcome in its
vivid verdure to the eye ofthe Circassian, as oats,
the chief of Scotia's food, to the North Briton.
Indeed, our conductors, by a very natural sort of
second sight, beheld it already smoking on the
platter, calling out " Pasta ! pasta !" the glee
with which they pointed to it being doubtless en
hanced by the consideration that it was in their
defiles comparatively safe, not, as in the plains,
exposed to the devastations of the Muscovite.
At length, as the stream and valley widened, we
came to the domain of Tougouse, which pre
sented, we were sorry to remark, notwithstand
ing its natural fertility, but a plentiful crop of
weeds — dock, hemlock, and thistle, in every va
riety ; neither were there any cattle to be seen on
his estate. His pursuits, it was evident, were
neither pastoral nor agricultural ; the flocks and
herds which had stocked these pastures in the
days of Calabat Oglou, the richest ougden in
Natu-koitch, and the hands of the sturdy hinds
that had cultivated these fields, had been long
since alienated by the prodigality of his heir.
We were yet at a considerable distance from
the grove that shrouded his residence, and de
filing along a lane, when a party of horsemen

TADJAGUZ. 45
rushing forward to meet us, showed that our ap
proach had not been unobserved. Few of the
houses of the chiefs are without an observatory
with a warden in it to notify the arrival of friend
or enemy. The troop that now presented itself
was composed of Deli-Kans, headed by the page
or Djerat of our host — a more jovial, hair-
brained, wilder-looking rout never followed the
hounds in Kilkenny or Kildare. They did not
stop when they had reached us, but, yelling and
discharging their pistols, dashed by at full speed ;
then reining up their horses, returned to escort
us at a stately pace to our konac. As we drew
near to it, another cavalier sallied out of the
grove, and making his horse perform sundry
evolutions and curvets, fired off his rifle by way
of salute. This was our old friend Hatukoi, who
seemed quite to have forgotten the indignity
which we had formerly put upon him, and ex
pressed, by a profusion of antics, his delight at
seeing us again; but though civil to him, we
thought it best not to give him too much encou
ragement. We had no wish to be persecuted for
presents by him as before.
On entering the plantation and riding up to
the gate of the konac, we found our host there
ready to receive us. He was dressed, without
tchekmen or tunik, in a plain white enteri or

46 VISIT TO TADJAGUZ.
doublet, setting off his noble figure to the greatest
advantage, and armed only with the cama or
two-edged dagger at his girdle. His demeanour
displayed nothing of the boisterous levity by
which it was usually distinguished, but, as became
him in the reception of his guests, was courteous
and dignified. But the circumstance most gra
tifying to us on this occasion was the presence
of a number of the most distinguished persons of
the province, who had been assembled to grace
our visit, and among whom we recognised not
only Selim Bey, prince of Wana, but also Hadji
Ismael Effendi, a judge, who, if inferior to
Hadjioli in political consideration, was undoubt
edly his superior in learning and piety. It was
obvious, therefore, that the ban of interdict
under which the latter would have placed Tou
gouse, was wholly disregarded by his country
men, and he had made this muster for the ex
press purpose of proving to us, that if he had
detractors and enemies, he did not want for
friends also to bear him in countenance. To
these, as we learned through our dragoman, he
intended making formal appeal against the un
generous attempt made to ruin him in our opi
nion, in which he was determined, cost what it
might, to re-establish himself; among other
means to which praiseworthy intent he was

^

VISIT TO TADJAGUZ. 47
preparing to set before us a suitable array of pre
sents. But we had arrived too late for the im
mediate execution of his design ; we accordingly
retired to our apartment, and after a comfortable
supper, stretched on our pallets, soon forgot the
adventures and anxieties of the day.
On issuing into the court next morning, we
found that preparations on a large scale had been
making for a rural holiday. An arbour, green
and garlanded, had been constructed as a canopy,
beneath which cushions and carpets had been
spread for us. A cool recess during the summer
heats, which are here excessive, is a no small
luxury, and the larger bower itself which sheltered
the hamlet, and evidently from its antiquity a
remnant of the primeval forest that had once
covered the whole valley, consisted of trees whose
breadth of shadow was now peculiarly delightful.
Over the tops of these, lofty as they were, one
gigantic oak rose proudly eminent; nor were
we disappointed on paying a visit to its trunk,
round which the linked embrace of ten men
scarcely sufficed to put a girdle. It is in the
bosom of these shadowy retreats that the Circas
sian is wont to " repose his wearied virtue ;" and
even to us, though our relish for it had not been
improved by previous hardship and peril, the
situation, fis we lay surrounded by listless groups

48 THE MINSTREL.
of warriors on the grass, was not without its
charm. The cooing of stock-doves, and the mur
mur ofthe Tadjaguz stealing on its way through
the adjacent groves to the Adheucum, only
added to the soft and dreamy tranquillity of the
scene. Among the guests on this occasion was a
young minstrel of some celebrity — not that he
possessed the talent of a composer, or the still
rarer one of improvisation, nor that he was
gifted with any extraordinary vocal powers which
the airs of Circassia, though beautifully plaintive,
yet, like those of all mountaineers, simple and
monotonous, do not demand — but that he could
sing or recite dirge and battle song with a pathos
and fire inferior only to those of genuine inspi
ration — accompanying it with the rude sort of
mandolin I have formerly described. He now
gave us the lament of Pshukoi Bey ; his voice
was subdued and sorrowful, and running at the
close of every line in breathless rapidity, like the
gush of anguish, almost on the same note. He
was answered in tones scarcely less impassioned
by the chorus of his comrades. These were the
wild-looking youths we had met on the road, but
their fierceness had yielded to the charms of
music ; and as they now encircled the minstrel
with their arms locked round each other's necks

LAMENT OF PSHUKOI BEY. 49
and joined in the lament of a fallen brother, the
group itself formed a picture as truly affecting as
any I had ever contemplated. Telim Bey,
Prince of Wana, who now sat beside us, had
been a near relation of the young hero whose
prowess and early death was celebrated. He at
at first joined faintly in the chorus, he was then
silent, and lastly, as tears began to flow, he turned
aside to conceal the emotion by which his noble
and expressive features were agitated.

LAMENT OF PSHUKOI BEY.
Oh brave his heart ! though few his years,
And generous too as brave ;
Not his the home for which he fought.
And which he died to save !• Ay-a-ri-ra.
Hark to the drum of general Zass !
See where his Cossacks come ;
Brave Pshukoi wields amidst their ranks
His sabre to their drum. Ay-a-ri-ra.
Fallen is his house for evermore,
For broken is its stay !
His sister weeps — nor home hath she.
Nor shelter from that day. Ay-a-ri-ra.
* The Circassians consider themselves under no obligation
to defend any part of the country but their own particular
district. VOL. II. D

60 LAMENT OF PSHUKOI BEY.
Her raven locks than, Leipsic • silk
More glossy black, — she tore,
And she smote her breast, — for her house's prop,
Brave Pshukoi, was no more. Ay-a-ri-ra.
To general Zass he rode amain,
Who fled — for life — away;
But he took his steed of the race of Tram,
His steed and trappings gay ! Ay-a-ri-ra.
Two horses on that fatal day
He fairly wearied out ;
But tired not his own mettle down,
His heart — it was so stout. Ay-a-ri-ra.
A wooer he went to that country !
But came back on his bier ;
His mother his lifeless face bedews
With many a briny tear. Ay-a-ri-ra.
Allah he thanked, she weeping said,
No plundering thief was he :
But died, his sabre in his hand,
For God and Adighee ! Ay-a-ri-ra.
* This allusion proves how far the trade, the emporium of which
was a Leipsic fair, had extended itself. In a similar spirit, 1 have
heard another song, where the charms of a brisk young beauty were
compared (a flattering compliment to its strength by the way) to
English gunpowder.

LAMENT OP PSHUKOI BEY. 51
Tbe women of his hamlet, too,
All tore their breasts and cried,
Alas ! the day, alas ! the hour,
That our defender died. Ay-a-ri-ra.
The women of that hamlet wept,
Their saviour they deplored ;
They and their babes they knew were saved,
When that he drew his sword, Ay-a-ri-ra.
His life he yielded — but his arms
Still deck him on his bier ; •
And the black rifle, at whose sound
The Moscoffs crouched with fear.

Ay-a-ri-ra.

His blood-red entari + in the fight
Did shine upon that day.
As in the darkest thunder-clouds,
The sun upon his way. Ay-a-ri-ra.
His black steed, wheeling like a hawk,
He through the battle rode ; —
His sleeve all reeking with the tide
That from his sabre flowed ! Ay-a-ri-ra.
• It is here considered very disgraceful to lose one's arms in bat
tle. He who returns without them is despised ever after.
t In general the Circassians, when taking the field, put on the
worst and coarsest attire they can find ; but many of their young
heroes, out of emulation, a spirit of bravado, or aspiring to the ho.
nours of martyrdom, render themselves conspicuous by wearing an
entari of the gayest colour.
D 2

52 LAMENT OF PSHUKOI BEY.
Dying, he said, " O take my steed
Unto my host's dear daughter,"
Her eyes to see 't shed tears of blood.
While others wept but water. Ay a-ri-ra.
A martyr died he, and the gates
Of Paradise, as he fell,
Did open wide to welcome him.
With saints for aye to dwell.* Ay-a-ri-ra.
I shall not enter into the details of the ban
quet prepared for us, and which, if surpassed by
others we had sat down to in the number of
dishes, yielded to none in respect to quality.
The Princess Guavcha, the celebrated daughter of
Indar Oglou, one of the two partners in the affec
tions of our host, now evinced her pre-eminence
as a pastry-cook, as she had before, in the making
of my tunic, established her fame as a semp
stress. In this manner the day had passed very plea
santly. There was one, however, who evidently had
viewed the whole proceedings with impatience,
and this was our host the Wolf. He was meditat
ing a grand coup, — he had resolved to make a
* I have in these rhymes endeavoured, though unsuccessfully
perhaps, to imitate the quaintness and simplicity of the old ballad
style, as best preserving the spirit ofthe original; though the metre
is altogether difficult, and rhyme unknown in it.

APOLOGY OF THE WOLF. 53
transfer to us of the whole of his worldly posses
sions, and by affording us, as be thought, this sub
stantial proof of his loyalty and integrity, to
obtain a signal triumph over his calumniators.
But these magnanimous resolves, like all secrets
in this country, whether relating to public or
private affairs, had prematurely transpired. We
were therefore in some measure prepared for
the scene which was to be enacted, and were
rather amused than astonished when the company
by whom we were surrounded, suddenly opened
their ranks and formed themselves into a vista,
at the end of which the superb white charger
of our host was discovered attached to a tree,
while his squire advanced towards us, bearing in
his arms a coat of chain armour, followed by
another of his retainers with a sabre.
In the background, among the trees, stood, in
an attitude of profound humility, a man and a
woman, whom we understood to be the household
slaves, the last out of more than a hundred left
him by his father, and whom Tougouse was about
to consign to us with the rest of his moveables.
His presents being thus marshalled before us, all
of a row as it were, he himself stepped forward in
person. He had screwed his physiognomy, natu
rally so funny and flexible, into a penitential gri
mace, rendered still more comic by a nervous twitch.

54 APOLOGY OF THE WOLF.
imparting almost perpetual motion to his beard
and mustachios. As he was but an indifferent
orator, and understood but few words of Turkish,
Selim Bey undertook to speak in his behalf; but
the pantomimic shrugs and gestures by which he
accompanied him, kneeling all the time upon our
carpet, were no less amusing than expressive, and
he now and then confirmed, sometimes rather
mal-a-propos, it will be seen, the speech of his
friend. This was as nearly as possible to the fol
lowing effect :
" Our companion here is but too well aware of
the pains which certain individuals have been
taking to disparage him in your opinion. He is
sensible that he *had enemies as well as friends in
this country. Indeed no brave and independent
man can be long without both the one and the
other, (Wallah gertchek dur — true, so help me
God ! exclaimed Tougouse.) What they may have
laid to his charge he does not know, nor for that
matter does he care much either. He will meet
his accusers beard to beard whenever they feel
disposed ; and though, between ourselves, Tou
gouse in some of his proceedings may have con
ducted himself no better than he should do;
(Wallah gertchek dur — true, so help me God !
again interposed the candid Tougouse ;) yet, for
all that, he may have behaved not much

APOLOGY OF THE WOLF. 55
worse than his neighbours. If the Bey Zades
were to investigate all the misdemeanours com
mitted here during the last forty years, (which
God forbid,) I should like to know whose hands
would be found perfectly immaculate. Then as to
his dealings with the Russians, which, although
he was completely deluded by them, the Kiafirs !
he cannot pretend to justify, has he not, by a
solemn oath on the Koran, renounced them all
in future, except where they would themselves be
the first to decline them in the field of battle, and
where he promises, Insh'allah ! to render an
account of them quite as good as can be furnished
by any of his accusers ? In the meanwhile, to
remove every doubt you may have with respect to
him from your minds, he here freely presents to
you everything of which he is at this moment
possessed ; so that when you shall have accepted
of his gifts, which he humbly entreats you will
not refuse, he will al-hamd-ullah, so please the
Lord, have nothing left him in the world but his
two wives, which, as a good Mussulman, you
know he cannot part with." — (Wallah gertchek
dur — true, so help me God ! responded the Wolf.^
As we had previously made up our minds not
to take advantage of our host's prodigality, we
declined, although applauding his good disposi-'
tion, to accept of anything but his coat of mail for

56 APOLOGY OF THE WOLF.
ourselves, and the sabre for our interpreter.
These, we had been assured, he could very easily
replace. Our acknowledgments to him were
also seasoned with some advice, which was taken
in very good part by him. He even offered, if we
chose, to renew in our presence the oath he had
formerly taken to abjure all connexion with the
Russians. That day and the next we remained at his
house, and he accompanied us in person on our
return to Semez.

HADJI ISMAEL EFFENDI. -67

CHAPTER III.

Visit to Hadji Ismael Effendi — AbdouUah the clerk — Hadji
Guz-Beg the Lion — Russian Colony in Circassia— Reconnoi
tring.
Before we left the valley of Tadjaguz, we ac
cepted the invitation of Hadji Ismael Effendi to
spend a day with him. We had, since our arrival
in the country, on more than one occasion, had
reason to admire the moderation of his conduct and
the modesty of his demeanour ; in which respects,
though without any pretensions as a politician, he
afforded a complete contrast to Hadjioli. As a
tribute of my regard for him, I had presented
him with a history of Turkey, lately published in
the Turkish language at Constantinople, and
which, books being scarce in Circassia, had been
an object of much solicitation and competition
D 5

58 ABDOULLAH THE CLERK.
among the learned. He had been not a little
elated with his prize, and assured me that he
was in the habit of reading a portion of it every
Friday to his congregation at the mosque. This
the reader may perhaps think a strange place for
the delivery of historical lectures, but the fact was,
that the annals in question, though professedly
relating to the Ottoman empire, not only em
braced the lives of Adam and all his posterity,
but were half of them occupied with what took
place before the creation, entering into most cir
cumstantial details with respect to the angels,
genii, &c., who flourished in those times, and all
of which Hadji Ismael found to be both instruc
tive and edifying to the Circassians.
For the invitation we received from him on
this occasion, we were perhaps as much indebted
to the young man who lived with him in the quality
of muezzin, or clerk, by name AbdouUah, a sort
of universal genius, who, having received his edu
cation at Anapa, had ever since the ejection of
the Turks from that fortress been condemned,
much against his will, to rusticate in the moun
tains, his only resource, in the absence of more
competent judges, being to astonish the natives
by the extent and variety of his accomplishments.
Not only an adept in the service of the mosque,
acting as imaum, muezzin, or sexton, as occasion

ABDOULLAH THE CLERK.

59

required, he was moreover an experienced bar
ber, and from his superior skill in gunnery had
been appointed topgi-bashee, or chief of the en
gineers, of Adheucom. It is true that the charge,
under existing circumstances, did not afford the
field. he could have wished to his abilities, the
artillery of that district consisting only of ^one
piece, which had been captured from the Rus
sians, and was now lying dismounted and buried
in the long grass, serving only when powder, of
which it consumed a prodigious quantity, could
be spared for an occasional feu de joie. The
aspiring youth had, on our first visit to Adheu
com, in various ways courted our notice; and,
among other things, I remembered his having
seized upon our banner and scampered away
with it to exhibit his grace as a bairactar. On
the present occasion he had been put upon his
mettle by the praises we had bestowed on the
culinary skill of the Princess Guavcha ; and
with the view of eclipsing her, he had proposed
to the Cadi Hadji Ismael, to divide with him the
expense of a banquet, in which his talents and
his taste would have abundant scope to display
' themselves. On repairing, therefore, to the place
where we were to be entertained, a spirit of emu
lation was visible to us in all the arrangements.
A rural pavilion, at least twice as large as that of

60 HADJI GUZ-BEG.
Tougouse, had been erected for us opposite to the
mosque, and when, a signal having been given,
the tables made their appearance rank and file,
it was at once evident that in point of numbers
this army of eatables would have the superiority
of at least two to one over that of Tougouse.
The column was headed by the Effendi himself,
red hot with hospitable ardour, while the inde
fatigable Abdullah brought up the rear, his
sleeves rolled up to his very shoulders, showing
that he had himself been art and part in the
messes that were to be set before us, and his
countenance radiant with the triumphs he antici
pated in their consumption.
We were sitting down to this banquet, when
pistol-shots in the neighbourhood announced the
arrival of some distinguished guest, and there
was a murmur of exultation among the crowd, as
Guz-beg ! Guz-beg ! was repeated simultaneously
by everybody present. Fully to appreciate the
power of these heroic monosyllables on the minds
of the Circassians, we must transport ourselves to
times far more warlike and adventurous than
those we live in,''— times of which the popular
idols were a Guy of Warwick, a Wallace, or a
Rolando. How otherwise can we do justice to
their enthusiasm, or to the merits of him whose
bare name had so vividly excited it? To cleave

HADJI GUZ-BEG. 61
a passage single-handed through a Russian bat
talion, to scatter like chaff a troop of Tcherna-
mortsies, to sweep away herds of cattle from the
Muscovite pastures, or to make prisoners of a
whole village, and march them home, men, wo
men, and children, to the music of bagpipe and
tabor, are exploits which few in the present day
would feel disposed to emulate ; and this for the
same reason, I presume, that as few are alive to
the glory which is their recompense, that of
being celebrated by all the minstrels on one side
of the Kuban, and to the still greater honour of
being execrated by all the inhabitants of the
other, — nay, held in such terror that their name,
like that of Guz-beg, should be a spell among the
beldames to scare their crying children with.
These are the trophies that make a hero in
the Caucasus, and he who shall have achieved
them may look for all the demonstrations of
favour, simple as they may be, which a proud
and grateful people can lavish on him. For him
shall there be feasting in hall and dancing on the
green ; him shall the maidens caress, and min
strels glorify : in short, like the lion-hearted
Hadjis, his life shall be a round of alternate
fighting and revelry. Of these pastimes, Guz-
beg, I must do him the justice to say, had a
decided predilection for the former ; fortunate,

62 HADJI GUZ-BEG.
therefore, to be born in a land where there sel
dom occurs a scarcity of either. Such; in fact,
was his eagerness for hard knocks, that, as we
were credibly informed, during his pilgrimage to
Mecca, (the only time he was put on short allow
ance,) he was, in order to keep up his spirits,
constrained to amuse himself in mock-fights,
tilts, ahd skirmishes, with his brother Hadjis, to
whom, however, they bore too striking a resem
blance to reality to yield by any means the same
degree of satisfaction. On his return from the
shrine of the prophet, he went to pay his homage
to Mehmet Ali Pacha at Cairo, and the reception
which their favourite there met with at the hands
of the politic old viceroy is still dwelt on with
pride by the Circassians. Dispensing with the
forms of state, he received the Hadji as one heroic
adventurer should receive another, seated him on
his own divan, clothed him with a caftan of ho
nour, and heard from his own lips the story of his
adventures. In conclusion, it is said, he made
him an offer of service, but this was firmly but
respectfully refused by the Hadji, who felt that
his roving habits had peculiarly unfitted him for
the trammels of Turkish civilisation. Bidding
adieu, therefore, to Egypt and its pacha, he has
tened to where his heart already was — banquet
ing with his friends on his beloved mountains,

HADJI GUZ-BEG. 63
or battling with the giaour on the banks of the
Kuban. I shall not tax the credulity of the reader by
recounting all the marvels recorded of the Had
ji's prowess, though fully believed (for what will
not enthusiasm believe ?) by those who recounted
them to us. But with all his renown, he had of
late, it was whispered to us, been accounted any
thing but a safe or prudent leader ; the conse
quence of which was, he was at present not very
successful in recruiting, and when he raised his
standard for a foray, the numbers that mustered
to it were not near so great as flocked to those of
Mansour or Shamiz. It might have surprised us,
perhaps, that though at no period of his career
remarkable for that essential attribute or mode
rator of valour called discretion, he should in his
old age, when it has a decided tendency to deve
lope itself, have taken leave of it altogether. But
there was a reason for this, independent of his
fiery temperament — grief at the untimely death
of an only son, embittered, perhaps, by the
thought 'that he had in some measure impelled
him to it; grief which disdained every milder
vent, found in the shock of battle, while goading
the old warrior to acts of fury and desperation,
its most terrible expression.
The bereavement I allude to happened to him

64 HADJI GUZ-BEG.
during the campaign of 1834, in which the Rus
sians, under Williamanoff, advancing into the
interior of ^the country, succeeded, after a series
of sanguinary conflicts, in erecting the fortress of
AbooH. It was on this occasion that the Hadji
first took his boy to the wars, and, both by pre
cept and example, showed him the way (with him
ever the shortest and most dangerous one) to
victory, bidding him sternly not to disgrace his
lineage. While hewing himself a passage one day through
the Russians, a rather nice undertaking, and one
which he himself described to me as shimshek, (a
flash of forked lightning,) whose success or failure
is instantaneous, his horse, pierced by a musket-
shot, threw him headlong, a lion among the hun
ters, in the thickest of them. Such the number
and fierceness of his assailants, that we were posi
tively assured he was fairly lifted from the ground
by the bayonets thrust into the rings of his
haubuk. Small hope of life, and less of rescue,
could he have had in this extremity. Yet, how
ever unexpected, that rescue came, and we may
conceive better than describe his emotion when,
in the youthful warrior who, breaking the ring of
death that encompassed him, had come to con
quer or perish by his side, he recognized his son.
Dear as it was dreadful, the occasion was chosen

HADJI GUZ-BEG. 65
by the stripling to prove he was not unworthy
of him.
In the mean time the report of their champion's
danger had spread like wildfire among the men
of Shapsook, and they prepared forthwith to
make a desperate effort for his deliverance ; the
charge of their cavalry, as it poured in a mass into
the plain, was irresistible. Breaking the ranks
of the Muscovite, they bore away in triumph
those whom they sought, Guz-Beg alive, his son a
corpse, from the midst of them.
The loss of his boy, whatever face his pride
might put upon it, was a severe blow to the old
Hadji, for he had been his only one ; and though
he had still seven daughters, he would have es
teemed them a ransom all too cheap for him who
died to rescue him. Indeed, this harem full of
spinsters, which other fathers would have coveted
as so much wealth, was but a standing jest with
him ; for his reverence for the sex in general,
like that of all those, I fear, to whom they have
been over-indulgent, was by no means great or
exemplary. Such were the accounts which I had at diffe
rent times collected with reference to Guz-Beg,
and the reader may imagine I felt considerably
excited in confronting him for the first time.
His appearance by no means disappointed me.

66 HADJI GUZ-BEG.
His frank and military bearing, accompanied by
a slight and not ungraceful roll in his carriage,
inspired others with the ease and confidence
which he felt himself. His arms were the bow,
quiver, and Damascus blade, and a shirt of steel
gleamed at his breast from beneath his tunic.
His dress was not rich, but nicely adjusted, and
very complete. His morocco shoes in particular
were well fitted to his small and delicate feet ;
for the Hadji had feet and hands which would
have excited the envy of a petit-maitre. But his
breadth of chest, compact and muscular frame,
though not exceeding the middle size, were
such as had evidently been cast in the most per
fect mould of strength and activity. It was in
his countenance, however, in the grim composure
of his mouth, and in the wild flash of his keen
grey eye, that, even without any previous com
ment from his countrymen, I should have read
the lion. He was an old but by no means a
toothless one, and though a beard of snowy
whiteness swept his breast, the high colour
of his cheek, his glance of fire, his elastic tread,
all bespoke him in the prime and vigour of his
existence. The Hadji having sat down to the banquet
with us, we became very good friends before we
parted again ; for whatever he might be by habit,

HADJI GUZ-BEG. 67
he was anything but ceremonious by nature — a
boon companion, and something of a wag withal.
His jokes, as far as I could understand, were none
of the most refined or witty ; but who could re
frain, when so renowned a warrior chose to be
facetious, no matter how dull the jest, from being
infinitely delighted with it ? We, for our parts.
joined heartily in the fun, though rather uproari
ous, and sometimes, as he slily pilfered tbe
choicest morsels from our trenchers, a little at
our own expense. The conversation after dinner
turned upon war, the only theme he cared for or
was conversant with.
It was with some surprise, and even concern,
that he learnt we had not been witnesses to a
single fight since we had come to Circassia ; an
omission which he proposed to remedy by taking
me to one out of hand. If I would accompany
him, he said, he would collect a war party, and
we would set out to Shapseen the very next day.
Dangerous as I knew it to be, I could not, after
feasting, decline the honour of fighting in com
pany with Guz-Beg, and accordingly accepted of
his invitation. The next morning he had left
Tedjagus before we had risen, and, agreeably to
promise, set about recruiting for our expedition.
We ourselves took leave the same day of our

68 HADJI GUZ-BEG.
kind host Hadji Ismael and his officious and
sprightly assistant, and, accompanied by the Wolf
and his followers, once more set out to Semez.
But to finish at present with the Hadji, whom we
were soon destined to lose sight of for a consi
derable time, I shall anticipate my narrative by
stating, that a day or two after we had reached
home he made his appearance, and announced to
us that he had failed in his attempt at a gather
ing, in consequence of everybody being employed
about the harvest. Whether this was the real
cause of his ill success, or that the men of Natu-
guortch had no great confidence in him as a
leader, or whether, as we strongly suspected, the
chiefs had again interfered to prevent my taking
the field in person, I can by no means be certain.
The latter supposition, however, is strongly
confirmed by the fact, that the Hadji, a few
days afterwards, determined, it appears, on some
onslaught or enterprise, having hastily col
lected a body of Deli-Kans in Shapsook, laid an
ambuscade in the neighbourhood of Shapseen,
for a Russian foraging party, which, to the amount
of a thousand, we were told, were either killed or
made prisoners.
We returned to Semez by a route different from
that by which we had come under the guidance of

RUSSIAN COLONY. 69
a respectable old Tacar, of the name of Shupash.
He had been the attaluk or foster-father of our
friend Tougouse, and I have already, in my enu
meration of the leading members of the national
council, had occasion to allude to his sterling
good qualities. His house was in the neighbour
hood of Anajja, and he had promised, if in our
way home we would spend the night there, to
procure us a near survey of the fortress, with the
military colony and detached forts that had been
erected for its protection. As this was the only
attempt at colonization which Russia had made
in Circassia, we were very curious to see it. The
result had been abortive ahd ridiculous in the
extreme. Three or four square miles of territory
had been in some measure secured by these
forts, and a few wretched peasants induced, by
the advantages held out to them in a ukase of the
Emperor, to emigrate thither with their families
from the south of Russia. With these, and others
who, to complete the number, had been dragged
forcibly from their homes, the colonists established
there had originally amounted to two thousand ;
but though assisted by the garrison of Anapa and
its independent forts, who, to the amount of
fifteen hundred men, were almost constantly
under arms, and though armed and disciplined
for their own defence, they found themselves

70 RUSSIAN COLONY.
exposed night and day to the fierce and incessant
persecution of the natives. The cattle they had
been provided with disappeared with unexampled
celerity, and they found they could not carry on the .
simplest operations ofagriculture, sowing or reap
ing, without interruption of the most disagreeable
nature on the part of the Circassians, the balls
from whose rifles would be singing about their
ears as they worked, or would occasionally rush
in among them, and, in spite of cannon and in
fantry, sweep away men, women, and children
in a whirlwind of cavalry.
Nor was this all ; they soon discovered, to their
cost, that the' promise of exemption from con
scription, which was the most tempting of all that
had been made to them in the ukase, was more
than the Emperor was disposed or could afford
to keep. One out of the two thousand had been
draughted for soldiers in the year 1836, and out
of the four hundred that remained, forty-five had
recently shown a fair pair of heels to their Arca
dia. It was by questioning these that we learnt
the particulars ; all of them, we found, preferred
being drawers of water and hewers of wood to
the Circassians, to the condition of colonists on
their own account at Anapa.
The house of Shupash was at the foot of the
hills which terminate the lower Caucasian range

SHUPASH THE TOCAR. 71
as they sink into the plain of Anapa. He had
already been burnt out of one habitation, but re
solutely kept his ground in this dangerous neigh
bourhood, scarcely at two leagues' distance from
the fortress. The Circassian picquets, however,
were far in advance, and the grove that sur
rounded the hamlet was guarded by fierce and
vigilant house-dogs. This was the first, but not
the only occasion by a great many, that we par
took of the hospitality of Shupash, and in no
other konac did we hang up our arms with
greater pleasure, assured as we were, by atten
tions outweighing a thousand professions, of the
sincere good-will of our host. Many wasthehearth,
many the sheltered hamlet in these mountains,
familiar to us as our home, but none did we
approach with more satisfaction and certainty of
welcome, than that which sent up its smoke over
the chesnut grove at Tchowallos, and from which,
as often as we drew near, the hearty old fellow to
whom it belonged would issue forth with a cheer,
waving a green branch as he charged us in mimic
warfare. This, however, was not the only charm
this hamlet possessed. The cup of welcome there
was presented to us by a Hebe, the most beauti
ful we had seen in Circassia. She was very
young — a rose-bud still unopened, but promising,
both in symmetry of shape and feature, the per-

72 A RECONNAISSANCE.
fection of female loveliness; She was an orphan,
whose father, the son of our host, had been killed
by the Russians ; so she had devolved, with her
widowed parent, to the care of the warm-hearted
veteran. The next morning, mounted on his charger,
armed and equipped in the completest manner—
for he was farmer and warrior by turns — Shupash
was leading us on the way to Anapa. The ground
we traversed at first consisted of open meadow-
land and corn-fields, with here and there gardens
for fruit and vegetables. There were melons and
cucumbers in abundance. The greater part of
the plain of Anapa, though no longer inhabited
bythe Circassians, had not been entirely aban
doned by them. It was much too valuable and
fertile to be given up to the Russian colonists,
and they therefore continued to cultivate it, the
owners of the soil posting sentries on every side
of it by rotation. More than once we fell in with
them on our way. On every knoll of rising
ground there was a horseman, and others were
lurking among the bushes in the hollows, whom,
as often as we caught a glimpse of them, the cal
pac and hassirs proved to be friends. We now
came to ground of a more broken character, and
advanced more -cautiously, till at length, riding
though a coppice of stunted oaks, we obtained a

RECONNOITRING. 73
sight of a small round detached fort, situated on
the brow of a long low promontory, where it ter
minated abruptly in the plain. Behind this,
and completely screened by it from our view, was
the military colony.
Our party now divided itself. Mr. Bell, with
some others, rode towards the hills on the left,
while I proceeded with Shupash and the others
to reconnoitre. Immediately under the fort were
a number of soldiers making hay, while others
were keeping guard ; but the whole of them
having taken the alarm as we drew near, de
camped as quickly as they could, and soon after
I saw one of our party sweeping round the foot
of the hill on his charger in pursuit of them.
It being our intention to penetrate beyond the
fort and the rising ground that covered the colony,
it was necessary first to ascertain that there was
no infantry concealed behind it ; and for this pur
pose we dispersed, in order to find some eminence
which would command a view of it, and also, as
the men in the fort were already busy with their
guns, to divert the fire, which, by keeping in a
group, we were sure to draw down upon us. I
was myself riding along the edge of the ravine
that separated us from the ridge in question, when
four horsemen suddenly appeared on the top of
it, their figures distinctly relieved by the blue sky
VOL. II. E

74 RECONNOITRING.
beyond them. Concluding that they belonged to
our own party, I descended into the ravine with
the intention of joining them. The bottom of it,
fortunately, was marshy, and as I was with difli
culty picking my way through it, I was overtaken
by Nogai, the younger son of our host Shamiz,
who asked with apparent wonder where I was
going. On my informing him^ he led me back to
the brow of the ravine, and showed me my mis
take. The horsemen, I now saw, wore the high
Cossack cap, and not the Circassian calpac, and I
felt an awkward sensation, I confess, when I found
among what company I had been so nearly pre
cipitating myself.
But while I was congratulating myself on my
escape from this danger, a cannon ball, which
came whizzing over our heads from the fort,
warned us that we were by no means in safety
where we stood. Other shots were fired as often
as the stragglers of our party appeared within the
range of the guns, and Shupash, apprehending
that some mischief would befal us, collected us
together again. A short consultation was now
held, in which, while some proposed to make a
direct attack on the Russian picquet in front, the
majority, with Shupash at their head, decided it
would be more prudent to examine their position
by a detour, and discover if they were supported

RECONNOITRING. 75
in it by infantry in ambuscade, of which their
boldness in keeping their ground afforded a
strong presumption. We, therefore, proceeded
a few hundred yards to our own left, and from a
station overlooking them we satisfied ourselves
there were no troops between them and the
colony, which was at a distance of about half a
mile. We accordingly galloped on, as if with a
design of cutting off their retreat, and at the same
time a Deli-Kan, of our party, who had been
watching our motions from the ravine, no sooner
saw us advance, than dashing over the brow of
the eminence, he was the next moment sword in
hand among the Cossacks. Four of these to one
Circassian are odds which the latter seldom
decline, and in this instance, probably because
they saw how he was seconded, they took imme
diately to flight. One of them, however, he
seized, and had he not been too intent on plun
der, he would probably have made a prisoner of
him. As it was, the trooper slipped through his
hands with the loss of his carbine and cloak.
We had now a distinct view of the military
colony, extending some hundred yards in an
oblong shape. It was defended on every side by
a stockade and several pieces of artillery. The
inside was occupied by rows of huts in every
respect inferior to those of the Circassians, E 2

76 RECONNOITRING.
While I was engaged in this survey, the quick
and practised eye of our veteran leader had been
by no means idle, and when I proposed to ad
vance a little further he laughed, and pointed
towards the hills on our left, immediately over
Anapa. On looking in the direction indicated,
I must confess I was somewhat startled to see a
bodyof infantry, which, judging from the length
ened line of bayonets flashing in the sun, amounted
to not less than five hundred men, in full march,
and evidently making a circuit to intercept us, as
we had done with the Cossacks.
It appeared we had not much time to lose, if
we wished to secure our retreat ; but Shupash,
pleased that so small a reconnoitring party — for
there were not more than ten of us — should have
called forth so powerful a demonstration from the
garrison, was still disposed to amuse himself: —
danger was a thing, old as he was, he loved to
dally with. " Bismillah .'" he-cried, and drawing
his sabre and giving his horse the rein, he made
a feint of charging the enemy, apparently to see
if I would accompany him.
Finding I kept abreast with" him, he and the
whole party suddenly drew up, for the Russians
were almost within musket-shot of us. This, how
ever, was what they were accustomed to, and they
still took matters coolly. Every man dismounted

RECONNOITRING. 77
and looked at the girths of his horse ; then, all
being ready for a start, away we swept with a yell
over bush and brake towards the mountains.
Having parted with Shupash, I hastened, as it
was getting late, through the defiles leading to
Semez, where I was happy to find Mr. Bell, on
whose account I began to feel some anxiety, had
arrived before me.

78

CHAPTER IV.
Our unpleasant position — Suspicions of treachery — Arrival of a
Russian Corvette — Ambuscade — Russian plot against us—
Russian commercial projects to subjugate the Circassians — Visit
to Ali Bey.
Weeks, months, had elapsed, and we had now
reached the middle of August, without receiving
a word of intelligence from Constantinople, nor
had there, since our stay in the country, been any
arrivals from Asia Minor, or, as the Circassians
called it, " from over the way." Our position in
the mean while was far from enviable ; not only
had we to suffer the heart-sickness produced by
the delay of our own hopes, but also to support
the sinking spirits of our friends, whose eyes
were incessantly turned on us, as on the myste
rious arbiters of their fate.
The three months that we had been without

HOPES, FEARS, AND UNCERTAINTY. 79
news, an age almost to Englishmen, might, for
what we knew, have been prolific in events of
the first magnitude ; at any rate, the affair of the
Vixen, which Lord Palmerston had declared in
the House of Commons to involve a question of
peace or war, had doubtless by this time been
decided, — and that, we still flattered ourselves, in
a manner not less honourable to the country,
than just to the parties interested in it. In our
evening rides along the beach, or seated among the
ruins ofthe old castle of Soujouk, how often had we
unconsciously explored the waters of the Euxine
for a sail ! doomed to disappointment — though we
had scarcely ventured to hope. Vessel after
vessel would glide along the coast, but they were
not those we looked for ; all bore the hateful
ensign of the oppressor, and, instead of bringing
us the expected intelligence, were there, in fact,
to prevent its arrival.
Many of our good-natured neighbours, in the
mean while, had endeavoured to encourage us,
and to delude themselves. More than once
were we visited by some hoary-headed swain,
who had dreamt a dream, and felt assured we
should receive the most welcome tidings in the
course of the week. Those infallible sources of
information, the mutton bones, were referred to
every day, and fleets in full sail were seen ap-

80 HOPES, FEARS, AND UNCERTAINTY.
preaching the coast in the scapula or shoulder-
blades. Various other means of divination no
less simple than profound were resorted to, and
all of them promised very magnificently ; so con
vinced indeed were the authors of these prognos
tications that they would be realised, that they
demanded, as a matter of course, the backshish, or
gratification, it is customary to make to the
bearers of good news. At length rumours, which
seemed to have a better foundation, positively
announced the arrival of the British fleet in the
Black Sea, We were informed by travellers who
had come from the southern part of the coast,
that a Turkish vessel had just arrived there, and
that the passengers and crew had all declared
upon oath that they had seen our fleet anchored
in two divisions off Sinope and Samsoun. My
Greek servant, Demetri, whom the reader may
remember I had left in charge of my merchan
dise near Pchat, having heard the same reports,
rode over to Semez to communicate them to me,
and being at the same time of a speculative turn
of mind, he submitted to my approval a very inge
nious project he had formed in event of the fleet
coming to Circassia. Practically acquainted with
the tastes of our countrymen, he proposed to take
a house on the coast and lay in a stock of rackee
and oxen, and thus, by an arrangement " qui

DELUSIONS. 81
miscuit utile dulci," no less agreeable to them
than profitable to himself, providing them with
grog and beefsteaks.
To say the truth, Demetri was not the only
one amongst us in whom these reports, universally
believed by the Circassians, raised the most
chimerical expectations. Strangers to what had
taken place for the last three months, we looked
upon the arrival of a British fleet in the Black
Sea, as a glorious but not an extraordinary event ;
it seemed rather a very natural consequence of
the Vixen affair — a measure, moreover, which,
independently of its effect on Circassia, we knew
would be a deathblow to Russian ascendency in the
East. We may be excused, therefore, if we our
selves were somewhat too sanguine, and seriously
thought of addressing letters to the commander
of H. M. squadron in the Black Sea, giving him
such information as might prove useful to him,
provided his operations embraced any plan of
action on the tribes of the Caucasus.
But we were destined to be still more tanta
lized, and any doubt we might have entertained
appeared changed into certainty, when one
evening, as we were retiring to rest, Sheretluk,
the son of our host, and old Osman, my Djeraah,
rushed both together into the guest-house, bawl-
E 6

82 DISAPPOINTMENT.
ing as loud as they could, " Backshish ! back
shish! largess! largess! glorious news!" much
with the same clamour and impetuosity that the
hawkers of newspapers cry, " Second Edition of
the Courier." The intelligence they brought was
certainly beyond all price : they stated that Emir
Agha, a Turkish merchant, residing in our valley,
had just returned from Ghelinjik, where he had
the day before witnessed the arrival of a fleet of
twenty sail, all carrying a red flag. Could we for
a moment doubt what that red flag was ? Not the
Russian certainly, and of what nation beside could
it be but England ? Our own meteor flag waving
in triumph on that coast where it had been a
few months before so audaciously insulted.
Early the next morning we set out for the
heights that command the bay of Chelinjik. On
our way through the valley of Schirez, we stopped
at the house of Emir Agha, the merchant who
had brought the report, in order to inform our
selves more minutely with respect to it. It was
well we did so ; for, however mortified we might
feel at the result, we found it was useless going
any further. The red flag which we had hailed
with such enthusiasm proved to be nothing more
than a signal concerted between the Russian fleet
and army, in order to combine their operations.
A few days afterwards we received positive intel-

SUSPICIONS. 83
ligence, that, leaving a garrison in the fort which
had been completed at Pchat, they had advanced
simultaneously along the coast to the south.
The troops, after a week's hard fighting, succeeded
in forcing their way to Shapsine, about eight
miles fi-om Pchat, and there set about the con
struction of another fort. But the peculiar posi
tion we here occupied tended not only to render
us the dupes of illusions like these, but also to
expose us to frequent alarms and misgivings.
Many circumstances occurred to excite our sus
picions; the first time we fell in with evidences
of this nature, was during one of our rides along
the coast, where we used to repair almost every
afternoon, for the benefit of sea-bathing ; some
times to the pebbly beach in the bight of the bay,
where the land-locked waters had the appear
ance of a lake, and sometimes round the cape, to
the ruined castle that had formerly commanded
its entrance. This was itself an object of no little
interest. We could trace on every side of it the
trenches and parallels by which the Duke de
Richelieu had taken it from the Turks in 1811 ;
and we knew full well it had been the scene of
many a fray between the Turkish garrison and
the mountaineers, both before and after
wards. It was finally evacuated by the former
in 1820, and was then completely dismantled.

84 SUSPICIONS.
The rampart was now in ruins, and goats were
browsing in its grass-grown precincts. On the
northern side of it, separated from the sea by a
narrow strip of land, was a sheet of salt-water or
lagune, the resort of aquatic birds. The whole
had an air of deep solitude and abandonment.
We were therefore the more struck, perhaps, on
observing one evening, not far from the fortress,
a pile of sticks reared transversely on a hillock,
and on the same line with this telegraphic ar
rangement, another at the water's edge.
To add to their suspicious appearance, they were
placed at the opening of an unfrequented path
which we knew to undulate along the sides of the
hills, and lead through the thickets that covered
them, almost to the door of our habitation. By
this way a party of men might steal upon us by
night unobserved, which by the main road,
through the bottom of the valley, it would be im
possible to do. Here was abundant food for dis
quietude : these signals boded us no good, nor in
removing them could we dispel the ideas of
treachery, captivity, death, or more than death,
the gloom of Siberian banishment, which they
had excited in us. On revisiting the spot the
next day, we found the signals we had thrown
down erected precisely in the same places again.
We had now not the least doubt but that a train

RUSSIAN CORVETTE. 85
had been laid for surprising us, but how or where
it was to be set on foot still baffled our penetra
tion. Anapa was much too distant to dread any
attack from it ; and though the battlements of
Alexandriusky were just perceptible on the other
side of the gulf, we knew the garrison had abun
dance to do in providing for their own safety,
without dreaming for a moment of molesting us ;
the third and only means that remained for such
a purpose was the landing of an armed force
from a ship of war. A corvette, as I have already
said, had anchored in the bay about a fortnight
before, but sentinels were, according to custom,
immediately placed along the coast by the Cir
cassians, so that no attempt of that nature could
have been made without their perceiving it.
The corvette had disappeared a few days af
terwards. But in descending one morning into
the valley of Semez from Tchowallos, where we
had been paying a visit to Shupash, we were
alarmed to see the mysterious visiter again moor
ed in the harbour. The Circassians, however,
set their watch as before, and assured us we had
nothing to apprehend from it. Thus it shortly
became an object of indifference, and remained
so till an accident occurred that more than ever
roused our suspicions. One evening some shep
herds were tending their flocks at the sea-side.

86 RUSSIAN CORVETTE.
when a boat having been suddenly lowered and
manned from the corvette, it approached the spot
where they were standing : when within hail, a
Circassian interpreter, who was on board, showed
a flag of truce, and desired to speak with them.
To this the Circassians, having driven away their
sheep from the shore and got their rifles ready,
made no objection. The interpreter then made
a speech — a truly ingenuous and pathetic one —
the gist of it being that the crew of the corvette,
having tasted nothing but black bread for some
months past, had been seized, at the sight of the
sheep gazing upon the shore, with an irresistible
longing for mutton. They wished, therefore, to
make a friendly bargain for some of the sheep,
and to meet them henceforward only on a footing
of good fellowship, assuring them that they had
always entertained the sincerest regard for the
Circassians, and that it was much against their
will that they were employed to blockade their
coast. The Circassians, in reply, approved very much
of their candour, and equally admired, though in
an enemy, their philanthropic sentiments and
their taste for mutton chops. With respect to
the latter, however, as they had been able to
dispense with them so long, they could perhaps
wait a little longer, and control their appetites

AMBUSCADE.

87

till the next morning, when they would be pre
pared to treat with them on the matter. In the
course of the conversation some mention was
incidentally made of the Englishmen who re
sided in the valley, and the whole of the proceed
ing was such as to convince us there was some
design against ourselves concealed under them.
The chiefs and elders were also decidedly of opinion
that the application for sheep was a mere cloak
to treachery, and that the applicants therefore
should be treated no better than so many wolves
in sheep's clothing. A counterplot was accord
ingly laid for capturing the boat and its crew.
Early the next morning a sharp firing in the
bay announced the denouement of this affair. One
must have witnessed, to form a true idea of it, the
fierce alacrity with which the Circassians obey
the first signal -sounds of strife. In a country
where, according to the Turkish phrase, the very
mountains, trees, and rocks are at war with you ;
it is to be expected that the men will not be slow
to rise in its defence. I could see that even the
boys Sheretluk and Nogai, directly the summons
was wafted to us on the gale, required no other
prompter. Their weapons were snatched from
the walls, and they and the serfs all hurried to the
scene of action immediately. As I galloped myself
down to the beach, Icould see the whole valley was

88 AMBU'SCADE.
up and swarming towards the menaced point : bat
on reaching it I found the device for capturing
the boat had miscarried. The Russians, their
appetites apparently sharp-set for their mutton,
were stirring with the lark and punctual to their
appointment, while the Circassians, who had pre
pared a very different breakfast for them, waited
among the bushes. Three or four of the party
then advanced with some sheep to tempt the
boat's crew on shore, and three falling into the
snare had already landed, when something occur
red to excite their suspicions, and they retreated
quickly to their boat. The Circassians imme
diately opened their fire upon them, and sallied
from the hiding-places. Many of the men in
the boat were killed before it could regain the
vessel, whose cannon was directed without the
least effect upon the beach. After venting their
rage and disappointment in some furious broad
sides, our friends in the corvette set sail the same
day, and never up to that of my departure made
their appearance in the harbour again.
The conduct of the Circassians on this occasion
was such as we could not at first altogether ap
prove of ; but any scruples we might have felt on
that score were subsequently removed by Pshakoi
Bey, Prince of Zadoog, who, during a visit he
paid us, furnished us with information that left us

RUSSIAN PLOT AGAINST US. 89
no doubt of the intended treachery of the Rus
sians. A spy, who was escaping into Russia,
had been intercepted by the prince, and, having
been examined on oath, had confessed that he had
been bribed by the governor of Anapa to put upi
on the shore the signals, the object of which we
had so truly surmised. The captain of the cor
vette, however, had not ventured to land the
party that was destined to surprise us, and return
ing to consult with the governor of Anapa, they
had determined, before making the attempt, to
tamper with the Semezians. With what success
they did so, I have just recounted.
A question relative to a mercantile transaction
in which some Armenians were engaged, was about
this time referred to our judgment. Cheker
Oglou, the principal of the parties interested,
had obtained leave from the national council to
bring out of the fortress of Anapa, for sale, a
quantity of salt and other merchandise, under the
plea that the stock had been purchased before
the prohibition had been put on the trade. The
council, partly from an abstract sense of equity,
which, I believe, had always a powerful sway over
their decisions, and partly from its respect for a
few influential chiefs who protected these Arme
nians, had acceded to their petition. In so doing
they had acted against the advice of Mr. Bell,

90 AFFAIR OF THE ARMENIANS.
and I think contrary to strict justice and discre
tion, which would not have weighed the interests
of the community in the same scale as those of
individuals. The consequence was such as might
have been expected. All those who had suffered
by the interruption of the trade, (and in the
neighbourhood of Anapa there were many,) pro
tested loudly against the partiality which the
council had been guilty of, and there was even
some talk of plundering the property of the Ar
menians as it left the fortress.
But before I proceed any further with this
affair, it will be necessary, in order fully to com
prehend its bearing and importance, that the
reader should be aware of the extraordinary steps
which have been taken by Russia for the esta
blishment of commercial relations with Circassia,
and which she very justly, I believe, considers a
more effectual means of subverting their liberties
than war itself. Could she succeed in destroying
the trade with Turkey, which ministers not only
to the material wants, but also, by keeping up the
connexions with their co-religionists, to the moral
energies of the mountaineers ; and in substituting
her own, by which they would become dependent
upon her for articles of the first necessity, such
as salt, &c., she might reckon almost to a cer
tainty on their subjugation.

RUSSIAN COMMERCIAL PROJECTS. 91
The importance she attaches to this object has
been proved by the prodigious efforts she had
made for its accomplishment. For this she has
maintained for several years past an extensive
blockade of the coast ; for this she has lavished
blood and treasure for the erection of forts in
every creek and harbour of it ; measures which,
though they have hitherto signally failed, since
the Turkish traders constantly elude her cruisers
by sea, and are dragged on shore in spite of her
forts by land, yet demonstrate most powerfully
how much she has at heart the isolation of these
countries from all connexion but her own — how
anxious she is to cut^ off their commerce of the
Black Sea — and with it the hopes and sympa
thies that unite them to the Mussulmans of Tur
key, and to freemen all over the world. Her
plan in this respect is not unlike that which I
have seen adopted by the Circassians themselves,
in reference to some gigantic oak — the monarch
of the woods which for ages has set their puny
axes at defiance. By incision all round it into
the bark, or, as the woodsmen say, " by girdling
it," they arrest the circulation of the sap, and the
sources of vitality are destroyed. Wheii this in
genious process has been performed, though the
roots may take some time to moulder, the stem
and the branches will immediately decay.

92 ARMENIAN TRADERS.
The Circassians, in the mean time, have not
been deceived as to her object. The fortitude
they have displayed in resisting the tempta
tions of her commerce, is even greater than that
with which they have braved the horrors of her
warfare. The chief article of importation, and
one, as I have already observed, of first necessity
to them, is salt, and for this they actually pay to
the Turkish merchant ten times the price at
which they could obtain it from the Russians.
To enforce the prohibition of the Russian trade,
they have neither revenue officers nor customs
establishment of any sort. Its execution de
pends entirely on the feeling which prevails of
its necessity, and thus every man finds a check in
his neighbour, if not in his own conscience.
This remark applies to the community at large :
exceptions are of course to be found, and among
the Armenians, an avaricious race, whom the in
stinct of gain has scattered all over the Caucasus,
patriotic feelings are altogether out of the ques
tion. The only principle by which they are governed
in their commerce is, that which our political eco
nomists declare to be the only legitimate one — supe
rior cheapness. Alish Feris/i, buying and selling,
with them absorbs every other sentiment ; indeed,
they scarcely appear to have an idea beyond it.

ARMENIAN TRADERS. 93
Their very tombstones are decorated with the
emblems of their respective crafts, and in the
paintings which I have seen in their churches at
Constantinople, the rewards and punishments
which await them in the next world, are inva
riably borrowed from the trades they have fol
lowed in this. Profit and loss are the only
heaven and hell that Armenians can picture to
themselves. Their history is very instructive,
particularly so to the nation of " shopkeepers,"
an epithet, which, however undeserved at the
period it was applied, is becoming every day
more appropriate. Destitute of the elevated
sentiments, the higher social virtues, by which
alone a people can become great and powerful,
the Armenians have not only ceased to rank
among nations themselves, but are the bane of
all those who admit them to their bosom. It is
they who have so long furnished in Turkey the
class of saraffs or usurers, the parasites of power,
and thejackalls of oppression. By similar arts do
they thrive in Circassia. In the pacified or
neutral provinces ot the Kuban, in Zadoog,
Hatukoi, Kerkenai, and Demegoie, they live
apart in their own village, and carry on an
active trade with Russia, the profits of which are
no doubt considerably augmented by the political
intelligence they convey to her. But in the

94 ARETINE THE ARMENIAN.
belligerent provinces of Stratukoitch, Shapsook,
and the Abbosahks, the game they have to play
is more difficult and dangerous. In the midst of
a fine and vigilant population, whose suspicions
are easily roused and as promptly acted upon,
their only chance of safety is to attach themselves
to the influential chieftains, whose protection they
repay with a liberality which is a sufficient evi
dence of its corruptness. Through their agency,
Russia is informed of everything that takes place
in the country, and they are the instruments on
which she chiefly depends for carrying into effect
her commercial projects. The prohibition ofthe
Russian trade by the national council was a
severe blow to them, but though prevented from
pursuing it directly, the Armenians still found a
door open in the neutral provinces, and through
these indirect channels the treasonable traffic still
continued to circulate.
The most considerable of these merchants in
Natu-koitch, was Aretine, son of Balthazar, Ma-
rigny's agent, who was assassinated at Anapa, by
the celebrated Ip Chaoush.* This bloody episode
* This fanatic, to escape the consequence of his crime, took
refuge in the mountains, where, to say the truth, it was made but
light of, or rather looked upon as justifiable homicide. The
atttmpt of Marigny to open a trade with the Circassians at Anapa
under protection of the Pasha, (liberty to trade there having been

AFFAIR OF THE ARMENIANS. 95
in the narrative of Marigny had made a painful
impression upon me, and it was with some sur
prise, when Aretine was presented to me, that I
heard he was the son of Balthazar. I certainly
should not have thought, after what had occurred,
of meeting him in Circassia ; but an Armenian, as I
have before observed, allows no other considera
tion to interfere with his interest ; and while the
powerful protection of Mansour Bey assured his
personal safety, it was more than suspected that,
notwithstanding his father's example, he was him
self playing the same treacherous part. It may
appear singular, on the other hand, that the patrio
tic Mansour should patronise a traitor like Are
tine, — but patronage in the Caucasus is esteemed
the first of privileges, of which its possessors are
extorted by the Russians from the Turks,) had even, according to
the admission of the Chevalier himself, roused the indignation of
the residents to the highest pitch. He had failed in his repeated
endeavours to establish direct commercial relations on other parts
of the coast, (a circumstance proving, by the way, that till it suited
her purpose, Russia never recognised that coast as belonging to
Turkey,) and he at length obtained a firman, by means of which
he still trusted to force his obnoxious wares on the Circassians at
Anapa. After this, he had the simplicity to expect that he should
have been welcome there. He himself, however, appears narrowly
to have escaped the tragical fate that overtook Balthazar, his
Armenian broker, who, in promoting his views, had incurred a still
greater degree of odium, and in stabbing whom at his shop-door,
Ip Chaoush in some measure acted as the popular champion.

96 AFFAIR OF THE ARMENIANS.
ever proud and tenacious, not permitting even
the abuse of it to be called in question. They
seem to think with Davy, in Henry the Fourth,
that it is a hard case if an honest man may not
now and then protect a rogue who is his friend.
The patron of Cheker Oglou, the Armenian,
who had petitioned to withdraw his merchandise
from Anapa, was Keriak Ali Bey, and it was
chiefly through his influence in the council that
its sanction to that effect had been obtained. The
indulgence thus accorded him was viewed by those
who resided in the plain of Anapa in a very in
vidious light ; nor, as the time approached for the
withdrawal of the goods, did the discontent con
fine itself to murmurs.
It became evident the people were hatching
some mischief among them, and that the train of
wagons containing thep roperty of the Arme
nians would, on leaving the fortress, be in no
small jeopardy. We were ourselves privately
consulted on the propriety of fleecing them as
they came out, for it was presumed that as Mr.
Bell had been originally opposed to the admis
sion of the goods, we would also countenance the
pillage of them. It is needless to say, that these
strong measures met our decided disapprobation —
we saw that the authority ofthe national council,
however questionable the justice of its late decree.

VISIT TO ALI BEY. 97
was under all circumstances to be upheld. The
whole country would otherwise be involved in
anarchy. But our remonstrances seemed to have
been scarcely attended to, and there was good
reason to believe that the project had not been
abandoned. Our neighbour the Prince Bastu
Oglou Shimaf, ever the foremost in a scramble,
hid disappeared over night with some of his
prowling retainers, and it was easy to conceive on
what errand they had absented themselves. De
termined, if possible, to prevent an outrage where
in it appeared we should be seriously compro
mised, I arranged with Mr. Bell to proceed
myself to Sooka, in the vicinity of Anapa, and
there to take measures with Hadjioli, the judge,
and Keriah Oglou Ali Bey, for the safe convoy
ofthe merchandise, and to offer, as an unequivoca'^
proof of our sentiments, to accompany the escort
in person.
Early the next morning, in pursuance of this
determination, I set out with our host Shamiz
and old Osman, my djeraah, for Sooka. Our
road lay through a glen, the secret windings of
which I had more than once, in my walks with
Mr. Bell, endeavoured to penetrate, to the no
small annoyance, however, of one of the inhabi
tants, who had hinted to our host that we mighty
for what he knew, have been sent there as spies
VOL. II. F

98 LAKE OF ABRAUCH.
to betray his retreat, which had hitherto escaped
observation, to the Russians. Keri Oglou, though
he had warned us of these suspicions, now con
ducted us himself through this pass, which, after
following as usual the course of a brook for six
or seven miles, at length ascended the mountain
side. From the summit we beheld the valley of
Sooka, forming, as it swept down to the sea, a
grand aperture in the mountains. After crossing
it, we entered the glen of Batch ejik, well- wooded
and watered, and containing the residence ofour
friend, Mehmet Hadjioli. He was not at home
when we arrived, but we were ushered into his
guest-house, where, after waiting some time, as
he did not make his appearance, we proceeded
to the house of Ali Bey, about half an hour's dis
tance further.
On our way we discovered a party of rustics
mowing in a meadow : our host rode up to them,
and had entered into conversation before I per
ceived that his worship the judge was among
them working in his shirt and drawers with the
rest. He was assisted by his son and two la
bourers. We explained to him the object ofour
visit, and having obtained his promise to join us
at Ali Bey's, we rode on thither. Ali Bey's
house was situated on the banks of a lake called
Abrauch, resembling one of the smaller high-

ARMOURERS. 99
land lochs, and encompassed on every side by
hills, the wooded and winding shores of which
make it exceedingly picturesque. The Circas
sians have a tradition, that in former times there
stood a city there which was submerged with alj
its inhabitants, in punishment of their sins, by an
earthquake, leaving in its place this sheet of
water, more innocently peopled at present by the
fish beneath and the water fowl on its surface
The stir and strife of the doomed city, if such
had ever been, had yielded to the deepest soli
tude, to which the habitations of the Circassians
scarcely formed an exception, since as usual they
were either buried in thickets or folded in the
windings of a glen.
Ali Bey received us with much kindness, but
declined at first entering upon the business that
brought us there ; he deferred doing so till the
arrival of the judge. It was evidently a sore
subject with him. We also despatched a mes
senger for Mr. Bell, who I was anxious should
share with me the pleasure I derived from the
interesting scenery I had fallen upon.
In one of the tenements of this hamlet I
found a forgff. The smith was one of Ali Bey's
serfs, and was reputed to be a good workman.
The blacksmiths and silversmiths generally be-
F 2

100 OUR HOST ALI BEY.
long to the class of tocafs, or freemen, but they
are occasionally to be found among the serfs,
and who, when such is the case, share the profits
of their industry with their masters. A skilful
hand is considered a most valuable acquisition.
Arms of all sorts are manufactured by them —
guns, pistols, swords ; though for the most part
the armourers are merely employed in repairing
them. Steel is wrought here ' in great perfec
tion, and tastefully inlaid with both brass and
silver. Towards evening we were joined by Mr. Bell,
and before we sat down to our repast we took a
ride along the borders of the lake. At the further
extremity was a sylvan amphitheatre of gradual
ascent. Traversing this and climbing the ridge
beyond, we caught a glimpse of the sea, where
our conductor pointed significantly down a deep
chasm, forming a creek for its admission at the
bottom. There was just room for a vessel to be
towed there, which, though scarce at a league's
distance from Anapa, would have been quite
safe from observation. In returning by the same
road, we overtook a goatherd with his flock, from
which Ali Bey very unceremoniously appropri
ated a kid ; but whether he took it in virtue of
his signorial rights, or whether as a tribute which

KERIAK OGLOU ALI BEY. lOI
armed travellers are accustomed to exact when
ever they meet a flock on the road, I cannot pre
cisely state. The goatherd, however, gave it up
with a good grace, and Ali Bey, having tied its
legs together, threw it over his saddle-bow. A
truly original figure he cut as he rode before us
and a somewhat indifferent specimen of his order
Fancy a raw-boned giant en deshabille — for he
was showing us over his domains — in nothing
but entari and drawers, his toes stuck naked into
his stirrups, and his pony ridiculously out of pro
portion to the monster on its back; yet he
ambled away with an air of great complacency,
and bestowing occasional thumps on the poor
kid, which, by no means approving of its novel
position on the saddle-bow, kept up a lamen
table bleating all the way.
On reaching the house he handed it over to
one of the serfs, and ushered us to the open brow
of a cliff, projecting fi"om the woods and over
looking the lake. An arbour of branches and
reeds had been constructed there for us, and we
sat down to a good supper with the judge and
Keri Oglou. When the tables had been re
moved, our host, who had been doing the
honours, took his place beside us, and entered
into the subject of the Armenians and their pro
perty. The aggression they had been threatened

102 THREAT OF ALI BEY.
with was a direct blow at the pride, if not to the
interest of their patron, and he felt it accordingly.
His wrath was especially kindled against Shimaf,
whom he denounced as the prince of Psikaseys, or
freebooters, and whom he proposed to immolate
with as much ease and as little compunction as
he would a capon ; and as to the rest of his
neighbours who had evinced so little respect for
his khatir, i. e. held his honour so cheap, he would
be even with them also, for he would quit their
part of the country incontinently and retire to
Abassahk or Zadoog; or, rather than remain there,
into Russia itself, for there was more grace and
conscience even among the Giaours than was
left in that neighbourhood. This sort of threat
I have observed to be not uncommon in the
mouths of the influential chiefs and tamatas,
when they find themselves thwarted by their
neighbours. Their personal consideration always reflects
credit on the district where they reside, and in a
country "which lies all before them where to
choose," the facility with which they can remove
renders it the study of all to conciliate them. In
the case of Ali Bey, it may be questioned if his
withdrawal would have been regarded as a mis
fortune so serious as he wished us to believe ; at
least, the ironical manner in which it was alluded

judge's REJOINDER. 103
to by the judge inclined us to think so. Had
jioli had in the council strenuously opposed the
petition of the Armenians, though finally yield
ing to the majority ; and it was evident that he
now thought the virtuous indignation of Ali
Bey at the conduct of his neighbours would
prove eventually to be based on a sentiment no
more exalted than their own, viz. an inordinate
longing for salt — a condiment which he took
occasion to denounce as the root of all evil. So
luxurious and pampered, he declared, the appe
tites of the Circassians had become, that they
could not on the slightest provocation control
them ; and no sooner did they hear of a few
wagons of salt upon the road, than they at once
threw off ali restraint — father, mother, country
and religion, were forgotten for it ; yea, added
he, looking archly at his neighbour, rather than
eat their soup without it, they will part with such
an ornament to society as this.
After some further conversation, it was arranged
that the merchandise in question should remain
in the fortress till it could be transported in
safety, and that a special council should be held
for this purpose in the neighbourhood.
Other topics were then introduced, and the
conversational powers of our friends the judge
and Shamiz beguiled the moments pleasantly

104 CONVERSATION.
till bed-time. They had both of them spent
many years in Turkey, but their impressions with
respect to it were very different, and yet highly
characteristic of the individuals. Hajioli had
been educated in one of the Medreises or colleges
of Constantinople, and he had been dazzled in
his youth by the prospect of the riches, honoursj
and pleasures which the career of Ulema had held
out to him, and which he made no small merit
with his countrymen of having relinquished for
their sakes. He had still a hankering, however,
after the flesh-pots of Stamboul, and his mouth
watered with the bare imagination of pleasures
which to us appeared anything but delectable.
Not so the austere and high-souled Shamiz, who
in a very different spirit had enrolled himself as
a volunteer among the defenders of Islam. His
pure and chivalrous nature had been proof against
the seductions of the Turkish capital, and he
thanked heaven that his countrymen were yet
strangers to the vices which had blunted the
sabre ofthe Osmanlis, nor did he envy those who,
base-born in their own country, had been raised
to power and splendour in Turkey, for he had
seen them as often terminate their career by
violent and ignominious deaths. Better for
them, said he, had they still kept sheep on these
mountains. Sentiments like these may appear

CIRCASSIAN PHILOSOPHER. 105
trite enough ; but in the mouth of the patriarch
and warrior sage — who had sounded the depths
of glory, and returned with the fruits of his ex
perience to his native woods and pastures — they
were fraught with unusual weight and dignity.
They were in keeping, too, with the deep seclusion
of the woodland scenery, " the deserts inacces
sible," — inaccessible, that is, to the cares and
vanities of civilisation. At least this was the
feeling they had often inspired me with ; and
which, while listening to the calm and flowing
accents of that " old man eloquent," half drew
from me the vow to make there my abiding
dwelling-place. How deep, how vivid was the spell, which a land
blending so many features of beauty, and repose,
and romance, and mystery, at that moment cast
around me ! Seated with armed chieftains in a
summer-house, — graceful forms gliding with fur
tive steps in the adjacent shrubbery — the carol
of the shepherd boy on the distant hills — the
farmyard with its rural sights and sounds behind
us — and beneath, with unruffled surface, and its
legend of God's judgment, the solitary lake : the
latter, now reflecting the hues of the setting sun,
shone at our feet like a sheet of burnished gold ;
for though his orb had sunk behind the liills
wherein it was deeply set as a frame, the skies
F 5

106 REFLECTIONS.
were yet coloured by his beams, and gradually,
as these grew dim, the mirror below was darkened.
We then followed our host to the guest-house,
where couches were already prepared for the
night.

OUR WAY OF LIVING BECOMES IRKSOME. 107

CHAPTER V.
Announcement of our determination to leave the country — Visit to
the family of Zanu Oglou Zefir Bey — Djefs the hunchback.
We had returned to Semez and resumed our
previous way of life, which we began now, for we
had reached the end of August, to find irksome
from its dulness and monotony.
Our intention in coming to Circassia had cer
tainly not been to confine ourselves to a corner
of it. The reason we had remained so long in
the valley of Semez, was, that the chiefs had re
presented to us that the people were encouraged
by our presence, and pretended they would be
greatly benefited by our advice. But when we
discovered that they had no intention of taking
the field against the enemy, and that our counsels

108 CIRCULAR TO THE CHIEFS.
in other respects were slighted, we determined on
leaving them and pursuing our travels into the
interior. We had serious doubts, I must confess,
of our being permitted to do so. It was easy to
see that notwithstanding the show of respect and
deference to our wishes, we had hitherto been
almost entirely controlled in our movements. An
effort was therefore to be made for the assertion
of our liberty, and the success of our resolute
behaviour on the occasion of our visit to Tedjaguz
convinced us that bold and decided measures were
the best. Had we merely expressed a desire to
travel, we knew too well that, without openly
combating it, our friends would be at no loss fi)r
excuses and pretexts to detain us. We therefore
explicitly announced our determination in a
Turkish letter, which was written by our friend
Hafiz the merchant, and which our Georgian
interpreter took round for us to the principal
chiefs of the province. In this document, after
setting forth all we had done with the view of
assembling a council, and raising a war party, we
told them, that finding our endeavours fruitless)
and that our further stay could be of no benefit
to them, we had determined to proceed to the
seat of the war at Shapsan ; and if on arriving
there it appeared to us that our presence was
unnecessary, to prosecute our journey to Abbasak.

VISIT TO WESTAGOI. 109
The effect of this missive exceeded our most
sanguine expectations. The day after we had
despatched it, our guest-house and court-yard
were filled with anxious visiters from every part
of Natu-koitch; most of them with some pro
pitiatory offering, such as honey, butter, cakes,
or baksema, at their saddle-bows. All deprecated
our resolution of leaving them, and promised, if
we would stay, they would strictly attend to our
suggestions, and, as an earnest of their intentions,
they immediately agreed to summon a national
council for the discussion of the objects we had
pointed out to themi
Yielding at length to their entreaties, we con
sented to be present at this council, and a few
days afterwards we set out for Westagoi, the
place appointed for it.
Crossing the mountains at the pass of Tchow-
alos, we traversed the plain of Anapa, where
it is bounded by the hills at its northern ex
tremity, and then struck once more by a wooded
ascent into the latter. We reached the plains of
the Kuban the same evening, and took lodgings
for the night at the house of a Toraf. The place
assigned for the medjilis, or council, was that
where the Westagoi issues from the mountains
into the plain, through which its course to the
north-west might thenceforward be traced by a

110 ZANN OGLOU ZEFIR BEY.
long undulating line of foliage, now enriched by
the mellowing tints of autumn. We had been
invited to the house of Djefs, the Kambour, or
hunchback, a name renowned in border warfare
and we accepted the invitation the more readily,
that it was intimated we should find there the wife
and family of the celebrated Zann Oglou Zefir
Bey, the most illustrious individual of the coun
try, but who had been more than six years a wan
derer from it in the delusive hope of obtaining
foreign succour.
The Circassians, as I explained in the begin
ning of this work, appalled at the duration of
the war and the inexhaustible resources of their
enemy, had at length looked abroad for assistance.
To Zann Oglou was confided the task of invoking
it, and in taking from the chieftains and elders of
every province, stream, and district, between
Anapa and Caratchai, their seals and credentials
for his mission, he exacted from all of them on
his departure a solemn oath on the Koran, never
to lay down their arms in his absence, but to per
severe in the struggle till he should return in
triumph, or bid them despair of foreign sympathy.
Nobly have they redeemed their pledge. The
storm has in the mean time raged repeatedly in
their devoted valleys ; their houses have been
burnt, their property swept away, their bravest

ZANN OGLOU ZEFIR BEY.

Ill

slaughtered ; but to this day have they fought on;
still do they await the return of their delegate.
He also has been faithful to his trust. He has
in every accessible quarter appealed against the
oppressors of his country. It were a task of
melancholy interest to follow him step by step in
his pilgrimage, to the footstool of the Egyptian
ruler's throne at Cairo, to the antechambers of
the Turkish ministers at Stamboul, to his exile
at Bazarjik, everywhere opposing to the cold
ness, contumely, and cajolery, with which his ad
vances have been met, the singleness of purpose,
the ardour, and constancy of a patriot. The indi
viduals at whose hands he has experienced the
greatest kindness have been Englishmen whose
acquaintance he had made through the medium
of Mr. Urquhart, and who, if they have been un
able to promote his views, have at least soothed
him in his misfortunes, and ministered occasion
ally to his necessities. He on his part felt no
shame in accepting relief in the shape of pecu
niary presents; for his ideas on these matters
had been formed in Circassia, where he had
himself, after the primitive fashion of the country,
indulged in the greatest profusion. Indeed, his
former improvident habits had ill qualified him
to contend with the poverty he was doomed for
the first time to encounter at Constantinople.

112 ZANN OGLOU ZEFIR BEY.
There Le continued to languish in obscurity, yet
not without hope, till the autumn of 1836, when
an incident occurred, which rendered him the
object of a distinction still more disastrous to
him. The favourite amusement of the late Sultan
Mahmoud was archery. An amateur in the art
himself, he always distinguished excellence in
others. One morning, at the Og-meidan, where
he was accustomed to practise, there appeared
among the competitors for his favour a stranger,
meanly attired, but of noble bearing. If his ex
terior, like that of Ulysses among the suitors, at
first excited contempt, it was soon lost sight of
in his superior skill. He not only surpassed all
his rivals at the bow, but it was clear from his
handling of the weapon, that he had not always
wielded it in sport.
Sultan Mahmoud was delighted with the per
formance, and the interest he took in the archer
was by no means diminished when he heard the
story of the patriotic envoy. Certainly the snuff
box in brilliants he received, a customary present
to the ambassadors of foreign powers, was not
presented him merely for his manual powers at the
Og-meidan. Such, at least, was the opinion of
Mr. Bowtieneff, the Russian minister, who, on
being informed of this transaction, as he is of

ZANN OGLOU ZEFIR BEY. 113
every other at Constantinople, thought fit to re
sent it as an insult to the Russian emperor, and
insisted on the immediate expulsion of the Cir
cassian emissary from the Turkish capital. Fi
naUy, when there appeared to be some demur
upon the subject, he presented himself at the
Porte, and declared that either he or Zefir Bey
had to quit Constantinople forthwith.
The foriner was ordered to repair to Bazarjik, in
the neighbourhood of Adrianople, and Mr. Bow-
tieneffhad thus the satisfaction of making theSultan,
by whom he had been unadvisedly befriended,the in
strument of oppressing him. A pension, however,
vvas assigned him in his exile, and he still kept
up a correspondence with the friends he had
made at Constantinople, — a correspondence to
which there is reason to believe the English
government, if not directly concerned in, was
by no means a stranger. While there was the
remotest prospect of assistance from abroad, he
deemed it his duty to remain there. Messenger
after messenger had come to him from every part
of the Caucasus, to ascertain what progress had
been made in his negotiations, and to represent the
cruel calamities and privations to which his coun
trymen were in the mean time subjected. But
setting them an example of fortitude, he still
keeps them to their engagement ; and till he return

114 RUINS OF HIS HOUSE.
to them with the tidings that their prayers have
been definitively rejected, they are held by an
oath, which they dare not violate, never to sur
render to the Muscovite.
We had been conversing on this very subject when
we came, in the course of our ride, to a beautiful
spot of ground almost completely encircled in one
ofthe windings ofthe Westagoi. It was evident,
from the number of fruit-trees, there had formerly
been an orchard in that place, and we presently
came upon traces of a once-flourishing and ex
tensive homestead ; but the acacia and lime trees
that had heretofore sheltered its various tene
ments, waved now over blackened heaps of ashes.
All around was ruin and desolation ; the destroyer
had been there at his accustomed work, and the
simultaneous Wai ! Wai ! Wai ! that burst from
the Circassians as we paused to contemplate it,
found a sorrowful response in our own breasts
when we learnt whose residence it had formerly
been — that of Zann Oglou Zefir Bey. How often
had it echoed in other times to the sounds of re.
velry ! for here the chieftain, surrounded by four
hundred vassals, serfs, and dependents, had been
as renowned for his hospitality as he was formi
dable for his power. But, after his departure, his
household had been rapidly broken up and dis
persed, since whatever regard his retainers might

DJEFS THE HUNCHBACK. 115
feel for his consort, submission to one of her sex
was a thing most repugnant to their prejudices .
To complete her misery, her habitation had been
set fire to by the Russians, and she was now sub
sisting on the bounty of a neighbour, Djefs the
hunchback, who had given her and her daughters
an asylum in his house.
An hour's ride further on brought us to it, and
we were assisted to alight by the Cambour him
self He was a short, square-built man, being
almost as broad as he was long, with a hawk's
eye and beak, and, in short, displaying in his
person, deformed and diminutive as it was, the
muscular strength and keen animal spirits which
the predatory habits of threescore years on the
Circassian border had tended pre-eminently to
develope. He was reputed to be one ofthe surest
guides in a foray, every inch of the hostile terri
tory on the right bank of the Kuban being as
familiar to him as the left.
He was lively and polite in his manners, and
very assiduous in his attentions to us. In the
number and quality of his dishes he was sur
passed by nobody we had visited. In many
houses where we had been, there had evidently
been much scheming to lengthen out the array
of tables, and pastry precisely the same in com
position, though varying in the ingenious devices

116 FAMILY OF ZEFIR BEY.
into which it was moulded, had frequently figured
in four or five successive courses. But the credit
of our entertainment was not entirely due to our
host ; he was assisted in doing the honours of his
house by an old emigrant from Anapa, whose
Turkish education had initiated him in the mys
teries of a more refined gastronomy than could
be boasted of by the Circassians. He was also
remarkably civil to us : indeed, I had observed
that all the Anapolans, who since the occupation
of their native town by the Russians had been
dispersed about this neighbourhood, showed us
great good will, looking upon us, I suppose, as
the harbingers of a return to the good old times
when they lived in clover under their King of
Cocagne, the Pacha of Anapa.
The next morning we received a visit from the
daughters of Zefir Bey. The two little maidens
were dressed in the Turkish style, and very pret
tily behaved. After kissing our hands they
seated themselves, the elder on the couch of Mr.
Bell, and the younger on my own. Mr. Bell, to
amuse them, produced his musical snuff-box, and
they were made completely happy by some trin
kets we gave them. They were at an age when
it required little to make them so, unconscious,
poor things, though themselves involved in it, of
the ruin of their house ; being, in fact, rendered

FAMILY OF ZEFIR BEY. 117
orphans as much by the absence as they would
have been by the death of their father. To
satisfy the whole party, we gave scissors and
needles to their attendant, the daughter of our
host, who was, if anything, better dressed than
the children she accompanied, though the humi
lity of her demeanour showed the respect in
which she held them : the three together formed
a very interesting group. We had expected to
see the mother herself, but were disappointed ;
the reason of her not being visible was not
founded in etiquette, but, sad to relate, because
she had no raiment to appear before us with de
cency ! and this the wife ofthe gallant Zefir Bey,
the first noble in the country. Osman, whom we
sent with our respects to her, returned to us with
tears in his eyes, and drew a lamentable picture
of the misery in which he had found her, having
neither bedclothes nor counterpane, nor, in
short, any furniture in her cabin but a mat : still
a noble-looking creature, he said, and every inch
a princess, though in rags. We were not a little
shocked at this account, the more so that we had
ourselves, since our arrival, sent her some consi
derable supplies from our stock of merchandise.
We were informed, too, that many other persons
had been equally kind to her, but she also had
the mania of present-making, so common in this

118 FAMILY OF ZEFIR BEY.
country, and in this manner had squandered
away all she possessed. . Could we blame her, on
the other hand, for applying our gifts to purposes
the most congenial to her former habits, sensible
as we were that her distress was of a nature
which all we could bestow would do little to
alleviate ? In the paroxysms succeeding to her
long fits of abstraction, she would passionately
call on her absent husband ; we had conceived,
therefore, that the intelligence we could give her
with respect to Zefir Bey was the most soothing
cordial that could be offered her. Old Osman,
who being, like herself, of Tartar extraction, had
some degree of influence over her, had, by enlarg
ing on this topic, and by the prospects he indulged
in of better times, succeeded, he thought, in rais
ing her spirits ; but towards evening she relapsed
into her melancholy, and the sobbing and wailing
audible in our apartment the whole night proved
how hopeless the task of ministering " to a mind
diseased." Her sorrows, like wounds after a
vain attempt to stanch them, had gushed forth
afresh, and were flowing more profusely than
ever.

PATLU DIL. J 19

CHAPTER VI.
The plains of the Kuban — Vindication of the Circassians — Pro
vinces of Circassia — Discourse with Pshukoi Bey, Prince of
Zadoog — Exchange of presents.

The next day had been fixed on for the
or council, and there was already a great con
course of persons in the neighbourhood, but a
severe indisposition prevented my attending it.
Mr. Bell, accompanied by his dragoman, was
present ; but though many speeches were made,
and there was an abundance of tatlu dil, sweet
tongue, or fine speeches, exchanged, Mansour
having been very eloquent in the praise of Sha
miz, and Shamiz having praised Mansour, and
both of them having joined in bepraising us, the
only result of the council had been, as far as I
could understand, procrastination, on the double

120 PLAINS OF THE KUBAN.
plea that the people were still occupied with
their harvests, and that it would be premature to
adopt any decisive measures till the intelligence
they expected daily from Constantinople had
arrived. They had promised, at all events, to
hold another council in a fortnight : in the mean
while, they exhorted us to keep up our spirits
and were themselves at great pains to devise
jeimbeusts, or pastimes, for us. The subject, I
was told, was gravely debated in council; and
some of their suggestions, I confess, appeared to
me more considerate than delicate. But one of
their plans, which was that we should take a
ramble with some of the principal chiefs towards
the Kuban, we embraced very willingly, and
started accordingly the next day in a northerly
direction. A diary of our excursion over the plains of the
Kuban would be uninteresting. Our progress
was slow, for we only rode four or five hours in
the course of a day, and the exercise we took
scarce sufficed for the digestion of the good
things with which we were, in spite of ourselves,
surfeited night and morning. This was by far
the most arduous achievement of the expedition ;
for, in addition to this regular repletion, we had
a great deal of feasting extraordinary to undergo,
it happening to be harvest time, which is every-

PLAINS OF THE KUBAN. 121
where a period of merry-making. It is the cus
tom for every one, when his corn or millet is
ready for cutting, to call in his neighbours, who
make quick work of it for him, he feasting them
abundantly the while ih return : so that, wher
ever we came, we were compelled to partake of
the good cheer, and there was no escape from it,
since the revellers no sooner perceived us, than
they despatched a party to make prisoners of
us, and we had no alternative but to sit down,
with what appetites we might, to piles of beef,
mutton, cakes, and poultry, and to quaff the
capacious bowls of boza that were offered us.
Indeed, but for the timely assistance of my red-
nosed squire Osman, who never refused an extra
pull at the boza on my account, I should have
been not a little distressed. As it was, both Mr.
Bell and myself had good reason to envy the
digestive powers of our rustic friends, the " dura
messorum ilia," who experienced no sort of in
convenience in this way. Though the people
here are habitually and by choice abstemious, I
have ever found them to do ample justice to the
good cheer that is set before them. On taking
leave of these reapers, they would go through a
ceremony, which struck me as pleasing, though
somewhat theatrical. They would all, men and
women, seize their implements of husbandry, and
VOL. II. G

122 PLAINS OP THE KUBAN.
as we defiled by them, firing our rifles by way of
farewell, proceed with their work, singing in
chorus, and keeping time and step with their
feet and sickles.
The lowlands between the mountains and Ku
ban can scarcely be called level ; yet, though a
good deal broken, they have an open and cham
paign aspect.
As we approached the river, it appeared to
fall more and more out of cultivation. Haras
and herds of cattle might be seen in this danger
ous neighbourhood, but there were no enclosures.
Still the land was in many places covered with
dwarf oaks, and innumerable shrubs attested its
fertility. We came at length to a rising ground
that commanded a near view of the Kuban : we
were at a distance of two to three miles from
it, and could plainly distinguish its peculiarities.
It is to be traced, as it sweeps to the south-west,
by a verdant border of trees on either bank, and
beyond this, by a deep fringe of reeds, in some
places more than two miles in breadth. It is
indebted for this latter accessory to the annual
floods consequent on the thaw; and when the
stream is fi-ozen over in the winter, or when
fordable during the autumnal drought, being no
longer fed from the mountains, this forest of
reeds becomes a vast receptacle for lurking bands

PLAINS OF THE KUBAN. 123
of marauders, who sally from it in the night to
plunder the nearest farms and villages.
The chain of forts, which have been carried
along the right bank of the Kuban, affords no
security against small parties like these. They
easily slip between them, and it is only when the
Circassians pass openly in shoals for a foray,
that the net extended for them is at all available.
These forts, ranged as far as the eye could
follow along the opposite heights, made certainly
a formidable show. We could also distinguish a
large fortress — I have forgotten the name they
gave it — in the distance. This, together with
the towers we saw, was in the long strip of land,
or delta, formed by the two mouths of the Ku
ban. The garrisons, we were told, consisted
chiefly of Cossacks, who, when an inroad is made,
after killing and wounding as many of the in
vaders as they can by the cross fire of the castles,
give the alarm along the border, and assemble in
force to intercept them and their spoil on their
return. But expeditions on a scale like this are
of rare occurrence, and undertaken as much with
a view to devastation as plunder, and in order to
retaliate for the ravages committed by the Rus
sian armies in their territory. The favourite
mode of carrying on tbe war is in flying parties,
seldom exceeding fifty warriors, and advancing
g2

124 PLAINS OF THE KUBAN.
and retreating with a celerity that baffles alike
precaution or pursuit. Mansour himself had
lately headed one of these incursions, and had
returned with a large drove of cattle and several
horses. One of the latter, which had evidently
belonged to a Russian officer, I remembered
having been pointed out to me with great glee
by the boy Sheretluk, who had formed one of
the party, and in the division of the spoil had
been awarded for his share a fourth part of the
charger in question, which was to be sold for the
benefit of all it might concern.
I must confess that what I now beheld as to
the measures taken for the security of the border
seemed strongly to confirm all I had previously
heard of the predatory habits of the Circassians,
and which had been urged by the Russians in
justification of their exterminating warfare. Forci
bly struck with this idea, I at once appealed to
.Mansour, who was riding by my side, as to the
justice of these charges. The chieftain neither
felt nor affected surprise at my question. It was
one for which, like Roderic Dhu in the romance,
he was seemingly well prepared. He only shook
his head, and smiled grimly as he answered,
" My beard is not yet white, still do I remember
the day when, instead of yonder castles, there was
nothing on the opposite bank but the huts of the

VINDICATION OF THE CIRCASSIANS. 125
Nogais — a people whose customs and religion
were in unison with our own — with whom we
could trade, associate, and war, it might be, all on
a neighbourly footing, as we would do among
ourselves ; but these the Muscof chased from
their rightful homes, driving some of them across
the Kuban, where they found refuge among
ourselves, and the rest to the devil or Krim
Tartary. In their place they established these
Cossacks — giaours like themselves — and whose
way of life is to us an abomination. Between
them and ourselves of course there can be small
sympathy, and God knows we have ever held
them cheap as enemies. Nor, indeed, in former
times, had we much more respect for the Muscof
their master. Times, however, are changed, and
we are not so blind but that we can clearly per
ceive that their power and resources have been
mightily multiplied — that they have cannon,
horse, and infantry, countless as the leaves at
midsummer — and we are therefore very well dis
posed, would they leave us to ourselves, to remain
at peace with them. It is true that, while they
continue to wage war on us, we will do our best
to requite them — we are not women or bond
slaves, to be trampled on with impunity. When
they say, therefore, (liars as they are,) that we
will not remain at peace with them, it must be

126 FARM ON THE KUBAN.
with a view of justifying their own barbarity.
What should prevent us from so doing, more than
the provinces of Zadoog, Kerkenai, Attukor,
Damegoi, and Makoish, all of which, though
living on their frontier like ourselves, giving no
hostages, and admitting no Russians among them,
have nevertheless, on the faith of treaties, been at
peace with them for the last seven years ?"
These arguments of Mansour I believe to be
as unanswerable as the facts he adduced are
incontrovertible. The cruel measure adopted
against the Nogai Tartars took place in 1792,
during the reign of Catherine II. It is not less
true, that if the pacification of the belligerent
provinces were all that was aimed at by Russia,
it might easily be effected on the conditions she
has accorded to those enumerated by Mansour.
Before I left the country, however, the motives
for prosecuting this unrighteous war became suf
ficiently palpable, being, like the rest of her
policy, purely aggressive ; for in the course of the
same year she was the first to violate the conven
tion she had made with the Kuban provinces, for
no other reason that I am aware of than that it
no longer suited her purpose to observe it.
We passed that night at a farm situated in a
wood close to the Kuban, and we were reminded
by more than one circumstance of the vicinity of
an enemy.

RUSSIAN PRISONERS. 127
We were under the necessity, of sleeping on
mats, for there were neither coverlids nor furni
ture of any sort in the house, as the inmates
were unwilling, in the event of a night attack,
which was always to be apprehended, to be
encumbered with them in their flight. In the
farmyard, too, we met many signs of the insta
bility of everything upon the border. Among
the live stock were many curious specimens,
which, however much they might tend to im
prove the breed there, had evidently not been
reared in Circassia. There were also many
uncouth-looking bipeds, who, it was equally
clear, had not been born on that side of the
Kuban — some of them fugitives, and others
transferred thither by force, all of them, however,
apparently well satisfied with their change of
masters. As we were desirous of clearly ascer
taining this point, our host, at our particular
request, said -he would make a trial for us. Hav
ing summoned one of them to our presence, he
told him that as an exchange of prisoners would
shortly take place, he had some thoughts of send
ing him back to his countrymen. The bare idea
of such a calamity seemed at first to deprive him
of his senses, after which, falling at his master's
feet, he implored him not to send him back to
Russia : " Rather than do so," he said, " use me

128 CIRCASSIAN SERFS.
as your dog — beat me, tie me up, and give me
your bones to pick."
It was some time before his master could suc
ceed in pacifying and persuading him that he had
spoken in jest ; and when he had done so, the
ecstasies into which the poor wretch fell — his
capering, shouting, and ridiculous antics — were,
in the eyes of the Circassians, whose manners are
invariably sedate and dignified, at least as dis
gusting as his previous terror. The exhibition,
however, was highly useful. It assuredly served
to strengthen their dislike for institutions under
which such miserable yahoos are formed and op
pressed. Indeed the general experience they
have had of Russian prisoners and deserters has
in every way tended to confirm their abhorrence
of the government which would reduce them to
the same level.
It is true, nevertheless, that there is a species
of serfage in the Caucasus, but existing under
conditions so mild and favourable to its members,
that it can hardly be held in the same light herfe
as elsewhere. Lands, tenements, and cattle are
allotted to them, and they retain one half of the
produce of these estates. They can also, when
they please, demand to be transferred to other
masters, and purchase, when they have the means,
their own liberty. This class, it is probable.

PROVINCES OF CIRCASSIA. 129
originally consisted of prisoners of war, made in
the contests between the tribes and provinces.
But there - are circumstances which, whatever
honorary distinctions of class may exist between
man and man, tend to establish a real equality
among them. All are clothed, fed, and housed
in the same manner ; and, what is still more
important, are on a par as to mental acquire
ments. In the labours of the field, the dangers
of war, or the festivity of the guest-house, even
the noble, though his rank be marked by certain
ceremonious observances, is the constant associate
ofthe serf; and the independent spirit that ani
mates the one exists, I believe, in a scarcely less
degree in the other.
From the Kuban we returned hastily to Semez,
where our presence was required in consequence
of the arrival of Pshukoi Bey, Prince of Zadoog,
who had left his own province to visit us. But
that the reader may better appreciate the cha
racter and position of an individual alike dis
tinguished for his personal qualities and political
consideration, it will be necessary to convey to
him some idea of the province of Zadoog itself,
accompanied by a cursory glance at the whole of
the divisions, territorial as well as political, of
Circassia. The different provinces of Circassia,
after a few months' residence there had made me
G 5

130 PROVINCES OF CIRCASSIA.
acquainted with their various political relations,
presented themselves to me under three grand
and distinct aspects or divisions. Under the first
of these may be classed those continually at war
with Russia, comprising the whole of the coast
from Sokoumkale to Anapa, of which the south
ern part is called Abbassa, and the northern
included in the province of Natu-koitch — the
remaining part of the latter province occupying
the north-western angle of the country between
the mountains and the Kuban — and to the east
of this the province of Shapsook, extending also
from the Kuban over a great part of the moun
tains, though not to the sea-coast. The popula
tions of these districts amount, as nearly as I
could ascertain, to 300,000, and furnish out of this
number at least 50,000 well-armed and well-
mounted warriors. The next division includes all
the lowland and neutral provinces on the Kuban
and its tributary, the Laba. Its united popula
tion is, I believe, as great as that of the belligerent
districts. The causes and consequences of their
neutrality I shall enter into presently. The third
division is the great province of Abbassak, a
mountainous region, placed in the centre of the
others, and whose population, amounting to about
400,000, though avowedly hostile to Russia, are
rarely, from their position, brought into collision

PROVINCES OF CIRCASSIA. 131
with her troops. From the above estimates it
will be seen I rate the population of the whole
of independent Circassia at about lp^000,000, out
of which we may compute the adult males capable
of bearing arms at 150,000, All speak the same
language, at least with provincial differences in
dialect as slight as are to be found in any other
country of the world ; and whatever variety may
originally have existed in the races, it has, by fusion,
been long since obliterated. The castes, however,
of Pshi, Vork, and Thlo-koftles, have been kept
free from all intermixture.
To this enumeration of the Circassian provinces
I might have added a fourth division, consisting
of great and little Kabarda, situated on the
Kuban and the Terek. These, however, are no
longer perfectly independent, and, though retain
ing their arms, give hostages to Russia, and allow
a free passage to her troops through their ter
ritory. To revert to the neutral provinces on the
Kuban and Laba, their distinguishing feature is,
that they occupy the plains between these streams
and the mountains. The consequence of that
position is, that the inhabitants having no defiles
or impregnable positions like those of Shap
sook and Natu-koitch to retreat upon, but living,
under their princes and pshas, in extensive vii-

132 NEUTRAL PROVINCES.
lages on the plains, with the highlanders of
Abbassak in their rear, they have been pecu
liarly obnoxious to the hostility of Russia, and,
after a long and sanguinary struggle, compelled
to make peace, and remain neutral in the war
which she still prosecuted against their neigh
bours. These concessions on their part at first
greatly excited the indignation of the latter, who,
to punish them, attacked and plundered their
territory on all sides, and thus, in their own de
fence, they were for some time obliged to make
common cause with the Russians, to whom such
a consummation could not fail to give peculiar
satisfaction. The Circassians, however, became
soon aware of this mistake, and subsequently ac
quiesced in the neutrality of their brethren, all
whose sympathies, if allowed fair play, they knew
would be enlisted in their favour, since it was
easy to foresee, that if they were subjugated, the
neutrality observed by those provinces in the in
terior would by no means preserve their neck
from the yoke. These anticipations were fully
confirmed by the result, for the progress of the
struggle was thenceforward watched by the neu
trals with an interest commensurate with their
own stake in it, while from the first they eagerly
participated in the hopes that were entertained
of England's intervention, desiring no better

PSHUKOI BEY. 133
than to be included in a general scheme of paci
fication under her auspices. What had since
been accomplished to this end by the national
emissary, Sefir Bey — the communication said to
have come from Lord Ponsonby — and, lastly, the
bodily presence of two Englishmen in Circassia,
had served more and more to inflame the spirit
of resistance already kindled there, and which it
now required little more to fan into open hos
tility. Of these provinces, the most contiguous to the
part of the country where we resided was Zadoog,
being not only bounded like the rest to the south
by the mountains of Abbassak, but by Shapsook,
with which it is conterminous to the west. With
the chief personage, or prince of Zadoog, Pshukoi
Bey, we had been in correspondence almost from
our first coming, having sent him by a secret
messenger, at the instance of Keri Oglou, some
trifling presents. He had been represented to us
as a brave and patriotic prince, compelled by cir
cumstances to temporise and keep on terms with
the Russians, living almost under the cannon of
Ekaterinodar, but exerting himself at the same
time to promote the interests of his struggling
compatriots, by conveying to them, as occasion
served, the most valuable information respecting

134 PSHUKOI BEY.
the movements of the enemy. He was known
even to have joined in person the forays of the
people of Shapsook, masked, as had formerly
been the custom of Circassian princes, in certain
periodical saturnalia.* These escapades had more
than once involved him in difficulties with the
Russians, by whom he had been seized and con
fined several months at Ekaterinodar ; but he
continued, on the whole, to keep up appearances
with them, pretending to favour their commercial
projects and political intrigues. Desirous of in
forming himself, by a personal interview, of our
real objects in visiting Circassia, he had obtained
permission of General Zass to repair to Natu
koitch, under promise of communicating to him
all he should learn on the subject ; for the Rus
sians were persuaded, at least as strongly as the
Circassians themselves, that we were emissaries
of the British government, and viewed our resi
dence in the country with no little anxiety.
It was evident to us, from the note of prepara
tion by which he was heralded, that the visit of
Pshukoi was considered an event of some mag
nitude. There were gatherings to greet him
• Pshukoi Bey died before 1 left Circassia ; I should otherwise
have not spoken so explicitly on matters that might have compro
mised him.

PSHUKOI BEY. 135
wherever he came, and by the time he had
reached our konac, the tail or cavalcade he had col
lected behind him in his progress was such as could
scarcely be contained in our glen. He was pre
ceded into our apartment by a crowd of the most
distinguished individuals of the province, who
ranged themselves with great solemnity at the
further end of it. He was then ushered into our
presence by our host, and having resigned his
weapons, consisting of bow, quiver, &c., to his
squire, aud exchanged salutations with the most
bland and measured courtesy, he took his seat on
a mat and cushion, which had been prepared for
him on the right of Mr. Bell. A couch is a
luxury in which no Circassian, however high his
rank, indulges in the daytime, though offered in
variably to us as strangers. The icy stillness
demanded on a first interview by our dignity,
and broken only by some occasional compliments,
gave us leisure for a scrutiny which proved on
the whole highly favourable to our guest.
Though his manners and dress were strictly
national, there was about his appearance less of
the fierce rusticity that characterises the people
of the mountains — a milder and more civilised
look, which, to go into detail, was owing partly
to the shawl wreathed over the shaggy calpack,
and the absence on his chin of the grim appur-

136 DISCOURSE OF PSHUKOI.
tenance that shaded the faces of the rest. Like
Indar Oglou, he wore only a slight moustache,
and his handsome and regular features bespoke
him politic as he was valiant. In short, he was
a true type of the Circassian cavalier : one which
I had been frequently assured by the natives
themselves is nowhere to be found in perfection
at present but on the plains of the Kuban. He
was distinguished by the lordly air acquired only
by long habits of the authority which the progress
of democracy in the mountains has tended in
great measure to banish from them. He had a
numerous suite of squires and pages, who ap
proached him with great deference ; and he was
also attended by a functionary, whom I had not
observed in the train of any other prince — a scribe
or secretary, wearing a huge turban on his head,
and writing apparatus instead of a dagger at his
girdle. He was esteemed a man of great erudi
tion and a famous linguist, being familiar, in ad
dition to his oriental lore, with the Russian
language. In the evening, when the numerous cortege of
the prince had dispersed for the night in the
neighbouring hamlets, he took the opportunity
of unbosoming himself to us, speaking in the
most unreserved manner of the difficulties of his
position, suspected as he was by his countrymen.

DISCOURSE OF PSHUKOI. 137
on the one hand, — menaced and coerced by the
Russians, on the other. Of the ulterior views of
the latter, embracing nothing less than the con
quest of the whole country, nobody, he assured
us, could be better convinced than himself. He
knew it to be the interest of the people of his
province to join heart and hand with those of
Shapsook and Natu-koitch in arresting the pro
gress of the invader. But exposed as it was to
his inroads, they had no alternative but to re
main quiet spectators of the cruel warfare carried
on against their neighbours. Could they, how
ever, be assured of a retreat, in case of need,
among the mountains of Abbassak, they would at
once subscribe to the league, and never consent
to a peace with the Russians, unless every tribe
and province of Circassia were included in it.
He was not without hopes, in the mean while,
that an arrangement securing them an asylum
might be concluded with the people of Ab
bassak ; and such a convention, he added, he
had no doubt would be greatly facilitated, if we
ourselves would visit that province, and use the
same influence there as we had exerted with the
people of these districts, and which, as regarded
the healing of feuds and dissensions, he knew to
have been most salutary. On the great benefit
we had conferred upon Circassia by our visit, and

138 DISCOURSE OF PSHUKOI.
the encouragement the people had everywhere
derived from it, he expatiated at great length.
" Whether," said he, " as is reported, you have
been specially commissioned by your government,
or, as yourselves assert, have come here as volun
teers and friends to the cause, or what foundation
my countrymen may have for their hopes in
England's intervention, I do not, I confess, dis
tinctly understand ; what I do know is, that at
present this forms their only chance of salvation,
and that to omit any means of obtaining it would
be unpardonable negligence on our part.
" What we have hitherto done towards it is no
thing ; we should send ambassadors not only to
Stamboul, but to London. This was the course
adopted by the Mamelukes when the French in
vaded Egypt. Two of them took ship and sailed
directly to England, and, by their energetic re
presentations, at once obtained assistance. This
is what we should do now ; how can we expect-suc-
cour if we do not seek it ? ' the breast is not given
to the babe that cries not for it.' So convinced,
indeed, am I of the necessity of this mission,
that I will, if necessary, undertake it myself,
alleging to the Russians, as a pretext for my ab
sence, a visit to my relatives at Constantinople."
This discourse of Pshukoi, and all we subse
quently heard from him, tended to convince us of

OUR REPLY. 139
his good sense and patriotism. As regarded our
selves and our supposed connexion with our
government, we begged him once for all to be
lieve, that whatever interest we might take in
their affairs, it was simply as private individuals ;
any influence we possessed with them as such, we
would willingly exert for the public good ; and we
desired no better than to set out immediately to
Abbassak, for the furtherance of the objects he
had recommended, but unfortunately it did not
entirely depend upon ourselves where we should
go ; and from whatever cause it might have
arisen, suspicion or jealousy, it was evident our
liberty had been greatly restricted ever since our
arrival. Pshukoi at once declared such conduct
on the part of his countrymen to be absurd and
unjustifiable, and promised to read them a lec
ture on the subject before his departure.
That evening the prince not only supped, but,
agreeably to the custom of illustrious persons,
when they meet here, slept under the same roof
with us. He had no sooner betaken himself to
bed, than his secretary, who had been on thorns to
have some private confabulation with us, came
and seated himself near the couch of Mr. Bell.
He was a great linguist, as I have remarked ;
and although the hour was very late, he declared
he would add English to the stock of his acquire-

140 DEPARTURE OF PSHUKOI.
ments that very night. It was more than I, for
my part, would engage to teach him, but Mr.
Bell good-naturedly undertook to give him some,
insight into our literature, and they had already
got far into the alphabet before I fell asleep.
Our levee the next morning was, as usual
thronged at a very early hour, and prevented the
renewal of any confidential conversation with
Pshukoi; but he took our host Shamiz aside, and
had a long talk with him under the trees outside,
repeating all he had said to us the day before, and
expostulating with him on the invidious conduct
and illiberal spirit of the people of Natu-koitch,
by whom we were kept absolutely doing nothing
in their province, when our presence might be
productive of so much good elsewhere. His
observations seemed, on. the whole, to have made
some impression, as they were afterwards reported
to us by our host himself.
Before he took leave of us, which was after
dinner, we each of us made Pshukoi a present,
Mr, Bell giving him an English double-barrelled
fowling-piece, and I a Turkish bow. Having
made us his acknowledgments, he rose and very
quietly pulled off his great coat, begging that
Mr. Bell would accept of it as a souvenir ; and
then turning to me and apologising for having
nothing better to offer, handed over his em-

EXCHANGE OP PRESENTS. 141
broidercd leggings or continuations. His tunic,
though of coarse country frieze, ^ was richly
trimmed with silver-lace, and might be of the
- value of ten pounds. Mr. Bell . gave his own,
which was also a good one, in exchange for it ;
though according to strict etiquette, as it was
afterwards laid down to me by my squire Osman,
Pshukoi ought not to have accepted of it, but to
have taken the very worst coat he could find on
the backs of our household, and to have left Mr.
Bell's in its place. I must at the same time
observe, that Osman's own coat would in that
case have stood a fair chance of promotion ; still
what he said as to the custom of the country was
correct. When a prince pays a visit fi-om one
province to another, he is expected to go very
gaily attired and return in the garb of a pauper.
The moment of departure being arrived,
Pshukoi resumed his arms and advanced to take
leave of us. His emotion, I could see, was deep
as it was unaffected, and any latent suspicion
arising from his mysterious conduct and equivo
cal position, was at once dispelled from our
minds when, throwing aside his habitual reserve,
he clasped each of us fervently, as the friends of
Circassia, to his heart.
When he was gone, we found time to look at a
letter which had been privately delivered to us by

142 LETTER FROM ATTUKOI.
Selim Bey, who had come in Pshukoi's suite.
It had been addressed to us in the Turkish
language by the chiefs -and judges of Attukoi,
the province of the Kuban to the east of Zadoogj*
and they Vehemently besought in' it the protection
of our government.

WE RESUME OUR TRAVELS. 143

CHAPTER VII.
Good news — Salt springs — Delays and disappointments — Skirmish
ing with the Russians — Mehmet Zazi Oglou — Preparations at
Djouga — Nadir Bey, the Englishman.
We were now in the middle of September, the
harvest was over, and a fortnight had elapsed
since the national council had been adjourned to
Adheucum . We accordingly set out for that rendez
vous, and having baited for the night at Asmuck,
in the mountains, we pursued our way the next
morning through a succession of romantic de
files, which, although no longer in their vernal
dress, but in the more gorgeous one of autumn,
I at once recognised as those I had threaded
with so much delight on my first arrival.
At the house where we were quartered that
day, we at length received news of a satisfactory

144 GOOD NEWS FROM OVER THE WAY.
nature, relative to some vessels said lately to have
come from Turkey, and with respect to which
there had been the most contradictory reports.
The man who conveyed us this intelligence,
aware of its value to us, and turning our curiosity
to the best account, sold it to our dragoman for
three pieces of merchandise, deliverable upon its
subsequent confirmation. It was to the effect,
that Mehmet Zazi Oglou, one of the most con
siderable chiefs on the coast, had arrived from
Constantinople with despatches for us, and that
he was accompanied by an Englishman, a very
great personage indeed — not the King of Eng
land himself, but his brother, with a prodigious
quantity of arms and ammunition.
We at once perceived there was a prodigious
quantity of nonsense in all this ; yet, if not quite
so much elated by it as our friends, we sincerely
rejoiced at the near prospect we at length had of
some certain information from Constantinople.
The medjilis, or council, which had been convened,
was again, this time at least, for unobjectionable
reasons, prorogued, though it assembled the next
day at the sacred grove of Adheucum. The subject
that absorbed all the attention of the elders was
the arrivals on the coast, whither it was deter
mined forthwith to depute some influential
member of the council. The choice fell on

SALT SPRINGS. 145
Shamiz, and it was agreed that my Greek ser
vant Demetri should accompany him, in order to
bring us our despatches. Having made these
arrangements, the council was dissolved in the
usual manner by the armed orator on horseback.
From the animated volubility of his address, and
the exultation with which it was responded to by
the assembly, it was clear they imagined them
selves on the eve of some great event. We had,
however, a melancholy presentiment they were
deceiving themselves. We were, at the conclu
sion of his address, warmly eulogised by the
speaker, who exhorted us, to be of good cheer
till the return of Shamiz. Our old acquaintance
Attukor Bey then formally invited us, before the
council, to spend the interval at his house, and,
though we had not forgotten his former mean
ness, we accepted the invitation. The entertain
ment we received there was, as before, of superior
style, while his importunity afforded us at least as
much amusement as disgust.
We also spent a night at the house of his bro
ther, whose character was fully as noble as his
was contemptible, and who had purposely re
frained from visiting us, that his motives might
not be misconstrued. We at length returned to
Semez by the plain of Anapa. On the way we
were shown some salt springs, which Mr. Bell in
VOL. II. H

146 LAST INTERVIEW WITH PSHUKOI.
particular was anxious to see, in order to ascer
tain if salt, which, on account of the blockade, is
so great a desideratum here, might not be ob
tained from them by evaporation. Such as we
saw, though certainly saline, were very slfghtly
impregnated; therefore valuable only inasmuch
as they indicated the probable presence of
salt beneath, which, with the necessary tools,
might possibly be excavated. While we were
examining one of these springs, we were advised
of the approach of a numerous party of horse
men, and we immediately mounted and advanced
to meet them. It turned out to be Pshukoi Bey,
escorted by a large body of the chiefs of Natu
koitch, on his return to his own province.
The customary firing and skirmishing was
kept up as we drew near each other ; but when
at length we came to a halt, we had some diffi
culty in recognising our guest of a few days
before, so much, as regarded his outer man, was
he altered for the worse. The tunic of Mr. Bell,
in which he was dressed when he left us, had been
replaced, after heaven knows how many interme
diate changes for the worse, by one whose " looped
and windowed raggedness " left nothing further,
even in Osman's opinion, to wish for. JEn revanche,
he was followed by a string of at least thirty led
horses, presents from his friends. As he again

PLAIN OF ANAPA. 147
desired to converse with us in private, our fol
lowers on either side withdrew to some distance,
leaving us alone with him, and Selim Bey for
interpreter. He then inquired anxiously if we
had received any intelligence ; and when we had
told him what we knew, begged we would keep
him from time to time informed of all that passed.
He also repeated his advice that we should go to
Abbassak, to promote by our councils a confede
ration between its inhabitants and those of the
Kuban provinces. Having earnestly, and at
some length, impressed these things on our
minds, he once more embraced and finally parted
from us.
Our route, as I said before, lay over the plain
of Anapa. We found there, not far from the
hills to the south, a large slab of white marble,
richly carved with flowers in relievo. It was
several feet high, and, though sunk perpendicu
larly in the ground, had been originally, it
seemed, part of the frieze or architrave of a
building, of which, however, there was not the
slightest vestige besides in the neighbourhood.
After gazing on this object for some time, and
vainly speculating how it could have come in
that desert spot, we rode on at a brisker pace,
for night was falling around us, over the plain.
The beaten track we were pursuing was that by
h2

148 RETURN OF SHAMIZ.
which the Russians pass from the island of
Tamaan to Anapa. This, though it keeps as near
to the coast and as clear of the hills as possible,
is, at the best, a very insecure thoroughfare for
them ; and the strong convoys of infantry or Cos
sacks that come by it, trust rather to despatch
than to their prowess for a safe passage: the
Tcherkess,* making good his name, too often
successfully disputes it with them. Thus, if they
have made a solitude of this part of the country,
they can scarcely call it peace. The Circassians
no longer inhabit, but lord it there as much as
ever, and our party now defiled along the Rus
sian road leisurely and two abreast, their arms
gleaming in the moonlight, the measured tramp
of their horses, with the wild melody of their
war-song, breaking fearlessly the stillness of the
surrounding waste.
We reached the house of Shupash, at Tcho-
walloz, at a late hour, and the next morning
regained our abode at Semez. It was a week
since Shamiz had set out for the south with
Demetri, and we calculated another week would
elapse before their return, to which, I must con
fess, we looked forward with some impatience,
tantalized as we were every day by fresh rumours
• Tcherkess, which is a Tartar word, means literally one who
intercepts the road of another.

DELAYS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS. 149
with respect to the illustrious stranger who had
arrived on the coast.
At length, on the evening of the seventh day,
we were overjoyed to see the old Ouzden and my
Greek come trotting up the glen, and made sure
that we should be at length relieved from our
suspense. What was our mortification, then, to
learn they had been no further than Pchat, where
they had met a brother of Zazi Oglou, the chief
tain who had brought our despatches from Con
stantinople, and who was the Konac Bey of the
Englishman we had heard so much of. The
latter was still at Ouwya, where he had origin
ally landed, and it was true, they stated, had
brought with him several chests of gunpowder.
Our despatches, they added, would be delivered to
us by Zazi Oglou in person ; but when we were to
expect him or them was by no means certain,
nor indeed, in the opinion of our friends, was
that a point of the least importance. Their cool
ness in this respect was most provoking. Of that
which we call business, or of despatch, which is
its soul, they seem to have no idea whatever ;
and after all, perhaps, considering the nature of
their administration, or rather absence of all ad
ministration, we ought not to feel surprised at it.
The services of all employed in it being gratui
tous, punctuality and despatch are out of the

150 DELAYS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.
question; for though religion, patriotism, and
public spirit, are powerful influences, and fre
quently induce the greatest sacrifices, they are
not those which usually prompt to immediate
exertion, or busy themselves with detail. More
vulgar incentives are required to cause men to
bestir themselves, or, to use a homely adage
peculiarly applicable to this country, " to make
the mare to go."
Of this I am now an almost literal illustration ;
for having expressed my intention of proceeding
myself to the south, and desired the escort of
some chieftain on the way, almost everybody at
first declared his horse to be out of condition ;
but upon backing my request with a backshich
of some pieces of merchandise, every horse re
covered his legs as if by miracle, and I had a
cavalier at my orders immediately. I took, there
fore, for my companion Ali Bey, the sturdy Co
lossus of the lake ; and bidding farewell for the
time to Mr. Bell, we made the best of our way
to the south. We were attended each of us by
our squires ; mine on this occasion was Kutchuk,
the son of Osman, my regular Djeraah. He was
a cunning and impudent varjet, and, though smart
and useful in his way, a bad substitute for his
father. It is not my intention to dwell very minutely

BENIGHTED TRAVELLERS. 151
on this journey, but- to confine myself to the
principal incidents. After a wearisome ride the
first day through deep and shadowy defiles, we
discovered at nightfall that we had lost our way.
A short consultation took place among my com
panions with respect to the bearings presented
by the stars and the tops of the surrounding
hills, and we then pushed on through the woods
in pitch darkness, hustling ever and anon against
the trees, scrambling up one precipice and plung
ing down another. Our horses, gifted with simi
lar powers of vision and surefootedness, made
their way like cats, and at length, after slipjiing
rather than walking down the side of a hill appa
rently all but perpendicular, and which I shud
dered the next morning to look at, they deposited
us safely in the midst of a considerable hamlet at
the bottom. We were immediately assailed by
a fierce troop of shepherd and house dogs, bark
ing and leaping upon our horses. Dark as it
was, however, I soon discovered where we were,
and the sound of a waterfall hard by us, and pre
sently the shrill voice of my Greek left me no
doubt that we were in the house where I had
left my merchandise. Our horses were too
fatigued to go on the next day, which was lost
in hiring others. On the following morning we
pursued our journey, taking, as we issued from

162 SKIRMISHING.
the hamlet, a less break-neck path than that by
which we had come.
We travelled by the road recently constructed
by the Russians as far as Pchat, whence it took
us four hours to reach Shapseen, a distance
which, judging from the traces of their encamp
ments, the Russians had performed in just as
many days. Yet the route was comparatively
easy, lying for the most part through spacious
and open valleys, and presenting only one point
where a successful stand could be made, and
which, indeed, as was evident from the shattered
condition of the trees, had not been overlooked
by the inhabitants. As we drew near Shapseen,
where the Russians, though they had completed
their fort, were still encamped, the loud crash
attending the discharge of grape-shot — a sound
now grown familiar to me — was borne heavily
every now and then on the breeze, awaking the
echoes of the hills on either side of us. We
came soon afterwards on the scene of conflict. A
column of Russians about two thousand strong
had that morning left their entrenchments on a
foraging excursion. At a league's distance from
them they had come to a large meadow, and while
part of the soldiers were employed in cutting the
grass, their tirailleurs had been thrown forward
among the trees and bushes to protect them.

SKIRMISlflNG. 153
The ground, though somewhat broken, and here
and there slightly wooded, afforded little advan
tage to the Abbassian marksmen, who, neverthe
less hovered about the enemy in every direction,
crouching in their leafy coverts, and singling out
their victims with the most deadly precision.
The place from which the fire had been most
sustained and effective, was a deserted farm
house, which the Russians, having previously
scoured the gardens with repeated volleys of
grape and musketry, found it necessary to at
tack and set fire to. The flames were yet curling
round the black and broken roof-tree as we rode
up to it. Otherwise, the spot that had just before
been so fiercely contested, wore the air of a deep
and romantic solitude common to the whole
landscape, for it was now completely abandoned
by the combatants on both sides.
The Russian column might still be partially
seen in the distance, retreating with its team of
wagons, which carried, together with the fodder
they had cut, their killed and wounded. As to
the Circassians, we had already met on our way
large straggling troops of them dispersing after
their day's work in the adjacent hamlets. They
appeared in general more fatigued than excited,
for the Russian army having been now upwards
of six weeks at Shapseen, they had been engaged
H 5

164 SHAPSEEN.
in constant skirmishes with it. The latter had
at first displayed much more daring, venturing
even into some of the defiles; but the severe
check which they had received from the Hadji
Gus-beg, and to which I have before alluded, had
taught them great caution, Gus-beg himself was
no longer at Shapseen, having retired soon after
his brilliant exploit there. Indeed he seldom
remained long in one place, blazing about the
country like a meteor, or paladin of old. The ondy
chief of note here now was Basten Oglou Shimaf,
our neighbour of Semez, The people of the dis
trict had been left almost entirely to their own
resources, amounting to about five hundred rifles,
A little further on we came to the place, a sort
of natural alcove in the woods, where Shimaf was
bivouacked with some cavaliers from Abbassak,
He had been, he told me, to visit our countryman
who had newly arrived on the coast at Ouwya ;
but he could give me no satisfactory particulars
with respect to him. He believed, however, though
a very great personage, he was not the king of
England's brother, but the son of the English
Capitan Pasha. Shimaf and his comrades hav
ing agreed to join my escort, we proceeded in a
body to Djouga.
It was not more than a fortnight that William
anoff, having completed the fortress at Shapseen,

DJOUGA. 155
had threatened to march upon Djouga, which
is about sixteen miles distance to the south ; but
he had since hesitated to fulfil his threat, and as
we now advanced along the road, if road it might
be called where there was nothing but an intri
cate bridle-way among the crags and forests, I
could not but tacitly approve of his delay. It
was, in short, a path altogether impracticable for
artillery, and this arm he could not possibly dis
pense with in his Circassian compaigns. In one
place near Djouga, cresting a wooded eminence
for about a quarter of a mile, was a double ram
part composed of immense stones flat and up
right, in which nature had so well counterfeited
art, as to impose on the natives the belief of its
being Geneviz, that is, the remains of an old
Genoese castle. But on close inspection it turned
out to be only the projecting pieces of a vertical
stratification of schistus. We at length descend
ed through a gradual shelving valley, opening to
the sea, in a beautifully wooded cave. This was
separated by a tongue of land from Djouga, and
we here discovered a young warrior wrapped in
his cloak, and reposing by a watch-fire. He was
a tall handsome stripling, and proved to be one
of the Zazi Oglous, of which family there are ,
five brothers : he had been stationed here to give
the alarm if the Russians, from whom an attack

156 THE Z.AZI OGLOUS.
was hourly apprehended, should put to sea. The
promontory by which it was screened precluded
the possibility of a look-out from Djouga : but
from this cove the whole of the coast to the north
was visible as far as Pchat.
Advancing over the pebbly beach, we -turned
the point and reached the bay of Djouga. I at
once appreciated the advantages which concur
to render it all but impregnable, and which serve
here instead of regular fortifications. The grove
of stately trees, or kodosh, dedicated to the rites
of their ancient religion, and extending its ranks
over the whole front of the bay, presents a cur
tain at least as impenetrable as that of a Rus
sian fort, and distributes a fire not less destruc
tive from the rifles which lurk behind every tree.
Nor is the valley behind, should their defences
be carried, at all inviting to the invader, being
regularly walled in and commanded by the hills
on every side, and forming altogether, when gar
risoned by the retainers of the Zazi Oglou, a re
treat into which few, with hostile intentions, would
be ill-advised enough to intrude. But it is not
on his own people alone that the chieftain depends
for its protection. The hardy mountaineers of
Abbassak, with whom he is in league, are close
behind, and at his beck whenever he has occa
sion for them.

MEHMET ZAZI OGLOU. 157
Mehmet, who had been on a voyage to Turkey,
and had been accompanied on his return by an
Englishman, having left his protege in the care
of Ali Bey, his second brother, at Ouwya, had, on
hearing of its being in danger, flown to the de
fence of his stronghold. This was not the first
time that it had been threatened with an attack
from the Russians, or that he had had to prepare
for them. They had paid him a visit there at his
special invitation three years before. The cir
cumstances attending it were equally curious and
characteristic. The Zazi Oglou family, though belonging to
the class of Ouzdens, and indirectly connected
with the tribe of Chipakow, had, under the direc
tion of Mehmet, engaged extensively in commer
cial pursuits, consisting chiefly in the exportation
of women for the harems of Turkey. But although
this had been held derogatory to their rank, and
they had in consequence of it fallen considerably
in public estimation, their power in their own val
ley had nevertheless kept pace with their wealth,
which, like that of the Indar Oglous at Pchat,
had been excited chiefly for the purposes of mo
nopoly ; nor had it become in other respects op
pressive, since all who felt it so were at liberty to
remove from the sphere of its influence. Meh
met I discovered to be an odd compound of the

168 MEHMET IN THE CRIMEA.
noble and the trader, artful as he was haughty.
Nobody, during his voyages to Constantinople, for
he always accompanied his wares thither in per
son, could sink his dignity, or recollect it so well
when it suited his purpose, as Mehmet. As an
instance of this, I may adduce the circumstance
of my meeting him in a steamer on the Bospho-
rus subsequently to my quitting Circassia, when
I found it difficult to identify the warrior chief
whom I had seen rallying his clansmen on his
native hills, with the fawning fellow who then
begged my influence with the English captain
to obtain him a free passage to Trebisonde, pro
mising to give no trouble, but to creep into any
hole or cupboard that might be allotted to him.
It was in one of these trips that Mehmet had
the misfortune to be captured by a Russian
cruiser : his ship and cargo were confiscated, and
he was himself detained prisoner in the Crimea —
circumstances involving losses and interruption
in business equally vexatious to the assiduous
trader. But fortune had not yet completely de
serted him, and by one of the freaks she occa
sionally indulges in, raised for him a deliverer in
the person of the Russian governor, by inspiring
that sagacious functionary with the project of
converting the chieftain he had caught into an
instrument of his political designs, in the same

MEHMET IN THE CRIMEA. 159
manner as wild animals, it is well known, may
not only be tamed themselves, but. trained to in
veigle others.
Mehmet was accordingly summoned to his
presence, and much rhetoric was resorted to in
order to prove to him the folly his countrymen
were guilty of in contending with Russia in war,
and the great advantages they might derive from
commercial relations with her — rhetoric to which
Mehmet, apparently a weaker logician, was at
length fain to surrender at discretion ; nor did he
stop even there, but with the zeal of a convert to
these ideas, and the schemes arising from them,
pointed out facilities for their realization which
even the Count had not reckoned upon, showing
most satisfactorily that, for this purpose, his own
port of Djouga was the most favourably situated
of any on the coast. The Count, enchanted at
these hopeful dispositions, proposed there and
then to set his prisoner at liberty, that he
might without further delay co-operate with him
in the execution of projects of such paramount
importance. He also promised, that when ap
prized of everything being in readiness for its
reception, he would fit out an expedition for
that place. But Mehmet, though it was natural
to suppose he would have jumped at the offer,
made, nevertheless, some demur about it, express-

160 MEHMET AT DJOUGA.
ing to the Count his fears that the arguments
he had used, powerful as they undoubtedly were,
would not prove as satisfactory to his country
men as they had been to himself. Others, he
thought, would be necessary — arguments of a
different stamp, which the loss he had lately
sustained from the confiscation of his property,
had now put it out of his power to employ with
them. These difficulties, however, having been sur
mounted by the liberality of Count Woronzow,
Mehmet was liberated as soon as possible at
Ekaterinodar. No sooner had, he returned to
his native valley of Djouga, where all were as
delighted to see him as he was to see himself
there, than he summoned the Memleket to a
council, and, to the infinite amusement of the
greybeards of which it was composed, laid before
it the ingenious rigmarole of Count Woronzow,
suppressing at the same time all mention of the
peculiar arguments he had himself suggested.
He then told them that the Muscof might cer
tainly be ere long expected at Djouga, and that
they should lose no time in preparing for him ;
and in order that nothing should be omitted on
their part, which might add to the warmth of
his reception, he recommended that the lads of
Abbassak (not forgetting to bring their rifles

PREPARATIONS AT DJOUGA. 161
with them) should be invited to the festival ;
and that in the mean while they should take
good care " to keep their own powder dry."
Many months had elapsed, but no tidings had
been received by Count Woronzow from his friend
Mehmet ; and, wearied at length of waiting, he
despatched a powerful expedition to Djouga, for
the purpose either of reminding him of his en
gagement, or punishing him for the breach of it.
But the Zazi Oglous and their followers were on
the alert, and by their numbers, swelled by strong
reinforcements from Abbassak, they kept the in
vaders gallantly at bay for upwards of a week,
till the latter, unable to maintain themselves
longer in the valley, retreated to their ships, and
set sail, " infectS. re " to the Crimea.
On our arrival at his head-quarters, which was
behind the sacred grove in front of the bay, we
found Mehmet and his brother busied in their
preparations against another attack from the in
vaders. Among other means of defence, they
prided themselves chiefly on some heavy pieces of
Turkish ordnance, which I was convinced, how
ever, they would be unable to make use of.
I was received very politely, notwithstanding
the bustle in which I found him, by Mehmet, but
was much mortified to learn that he had left my

162 NADIR BEY THE ENGLISHMAN.
despatches, with the rest of his effects, at Ouwya.
The Englishman who had accompanied him from
Samsoun, and whom he called Nadir Bey, was at
the same place. My curiosity with respect to him,
Mehmet either could not or would not gratify any
further. Whatever falsehoods he might have told
on the subject to his countrymen, it was of no use,
he candidly admitted, attempting to deceive me. I
discovered, however, that the individual, whoever
he might be, had been placed since his arrival
in no agreeable predicament. The part of the
coast where he had been compelled to land by
the close pursuit of the Russian cruisers, was
notorious for the lawless character of its inha
bitants. They had at first, it appeared, been with
difficulty restrained from laying hands on his
property, consisting in great measure of lead and
gunpowder, which he had brought with him to
distribute as he should think proper among the
chiefs ; but on which the people of Ouwya, not
wishing it to go any further, had put an embargo.
Messengershaving in consequencebeen despatched
in every direction by the Zazi Oglous, an impo
sing force had collected from Abbassak and
the south, as far as Soukoum, to defeat these ne
farious designs. In the midst of these annoy
ances. Nadir Bey had also been suffering under a

NADIR BEY THE ENGLISHMAN. 163
severe attack of ague. I felt anxious, therefore,
to join him as soon as possible, and assist, as far a&
lay in my power, in extricating him from his
difficulties.

164 THE RUSSIANS RAISE THEIR CAMP.

CHAPTER VIII.
Retreat of the Russians — Gathering of the Circassians — Attempts
of the Russians to intercept Nadir Bey — Bad news — Our Pro
clamation.
Early the next morning, the scouts who had
been stationed on the hills brought the welcome
intelligence that the Russian army had raised
its camp at Shapseen, and was in full retreat to
Pchat. Mehmet had himself hastened to the
summit of the nearest mountain, and satisfied
himself with his telescope of the truth of the
report. Relieved, therefore, from all apprehen
sions of an advance or descent upon Djouga,
for that year at least, he intimated his intention
of joining us a few days afterwards at Ouwya.
We ourselves set forward the next morning on
a journey which it took us three days more to

ROAD ON THE COAST. 165
complete, and which proved for the most part
anything but agreeable. The road was confined
to a scanty strip of beach between the cliffs and the
sea. The stones, shingle, and seaweed, with which
it4f as paved, made it a sad penance for our unshod
horses to travel by, while huge fragments of rock
rendered it in some places wholly impassable. I
was in some measure consoled in this toilsome
journey by the reflection that there was no inland
thoroughfare for a Russian army to advance by.
Occasionally, too, we came to a cleft in the craggy
wall, serving as an outlet to the mountain torrent,
and affording a transient glimpse of the fairy
landscape within. Wherever, also, the grateful
spring of fresh water gushed through the rocks,
the fountain and bowl, rude as they were, indi
cated that Islamism (compromised, it is true, by
Pagan rites) had extended its sway over the land
of our pilgrimage.
We passed on our journey two very consider
able bays, Shapsooka and Taopsa, in both of which
the Russians have since erected castles. The
former was scarcely at a mile and a half's distance
from Djouga; and, in consequence of the superior
facility it presented for an attack, was occupied in
preference to that place. At Taopsa, about fifty
miles further south, we found two Turkish vessels
which had been dragged on shore there. They

166 RUSSIAN OPERATIONS ON THE COAST.
had not been completely screened, however, and
had been detected a few days before by a Russian
frigate and steamer, which, without venturing to
disembark their men, had cannonaded them from
the sea. Some damage had been done to tkeir
rigging, but the hulls had been very slightly in
jured, yet the valley was everywhere ploughed up
in front by the shot. It was by one of these
vessels that Sheriff Agha, the Turkish merchant
who had proposed to accompany me from Sinope,
had at length mustered courage to transport him
self. I found him at the house where I was to
lodge for the night, cracking his jokes in a ring
of Circassians, among whom he was a general
favourite He was as fat and as merry as ever,
having quite recovered from the fi-ight and
fatigues of his voyage, and apparently forgetting
the perils he would have to encounter on his
return. During our journey along the sea-side, we had
frequently seen Russian cruisers in the distance,
and as we were advancing the next day, a steamer
with a frigate in tow approached us almost within
cannon range ofthe shore. They were the same
that had endeavoured to destroy the ships at
Taopsa, and had no doubt been on a similar
errand to the south. Their proximity to us
was rather alarming ; for, shut in between the

OUWYA. 167
cliffs and the sea, there seemed no retreat should
they open their fire upon us. Before they came
up, however, we reached a fissure in the rocks
which I had not observed, and into this our party
ensconced themselves. While waiting there till
the Russians had passed, my attendant, Kutchup,
pointed out to me a very curious passage, the
entrance of which was covered with creeping
and wild shrubs. It had been artificially cut in
the rock, and ascending upwards by stairs, had
served, I was told, as a secret outlet to a castle
whose ruins might be seen on the mountain
above. I felt desirous of exploring it, but the
noxious reptiles and mephitic air it doubtless con
tained, deterred me from attempting it.
As we approached to Ouwya, the sea was
no longer repelled by the cliffs, but the hills
gradually receding, left between them and the
beach a broad and smiling margin of meadow land,
over which were scattered clumps of fruit trees,
bearing, in addition to their own burdens of plums,
peach, or chesnut, rich clusters of the wild grape.
Indeed their appearance, matted, and towering
under this heap of borrowed fruit and foliage, had
a singular and not unpleasing effect. This grape,
though small, is of a -sweet and pleasant flavour,
and the Abbasians make wine from it. Such as I
drank was of a sour, thin quality, but I have been

168 GATHERING OF THE CIRCASSIANS.
told that very good may be had further south.
In Natu-koitch, and the plains of the Kuban,
the vine, and indeed every other species of fruit
tree, are almost barren ; but the soil, in compen
sation, is of the richest quality, while in Abba'sia
it is stony and comparatively sterile. I nowhere
met the large flocks and herds which I had been
accustomed to see in the north, and not only
the cattle, but the men and horses, seemed to be
of a stunted and inferior breed.
As we passed through the plain of Ouwya, I
could judge, from the multitudes collected there,
of the stir and sensation produced in the country
by the arrival of an Englishman. We had
already had evidence of this upon the road, which
was also crowded with wayfarers of every descrip
tion, bound to the same place as ourselves.
Here the chieftain on his barb, in shirt of mail,
and girt with bow and quiver, on his left hand
his squire, and behind him his page — there troops
of Deli-Kans or wild bloods, making the green
wood ring with their frolics as they passed, —
here the stately effendi, with the turban and
flowing benish of the Turkish civilian — there, on
his ambling palfrey, the venerable tamata, duly
attended " with that which should accompany old
age, honour, love, — obedience, troops of friends,"
all hastening to welcome the friendly stranger

NADIR BEY. 169
who brought them present aid, and future hope
against the Muscovite. Nor was I without my
share in the general excitement, yielding more
than once to the flattering illusion that our
government, being about to follow up the ener
getic language held by Lord Palmerston on the
subject ofthe Vixen, by measures not less decided,
had despatched the individual whose presence I
was now seeking as a precursor to them. Who
ever he might be, I felt eager to hail as a brother
one who, setting the piratical blockade of Russia
at defiance, had thrown himself fearlessly among
the heroic defenders of the Caucasus.
Such were the feelings with which I wended my
way among the crowds assembled on the plain of
Ouwya, to a house enveloped in vine-clad rocks
and trees at the entrance of a glen. Seated in
groups about the courtyard were the chiefs com
posing the guard of honour ; through these, dis
pensing with the formal announcement which
they appeared to consider necessary, I made my
way to the guest-house, and presented myself
suddenly before my countryman, who was some
what startled to hear himself accosted^by a stran
ger in the garb of Circassia. The interest I felt
on my part was not unmingled with concern,
when in the corner of the cabin, stretched on a
miserable pallet — for, on account of the plague or
VOL. II. I

170 NADIR BEY.
Russians, the' furniture had been removed to the
mountains — I saw an English gentleman dread
fully reduced by the effects of fever. His delicate
appearance contrasted strangely with that of the
rugged mountaineers who surrounded him, and
who, however kind their intentions, make but in
different nurses ; for they have an opinion, which
I have always found them to act upon, that the
more crowd and bustle there is in a sick room,
the better for the patient.* Nadir Bey — for this
was the nom de guerre adopted by the new comer —
was not (what I supposed he might be) an agent
of the British government. He was a volunteer
in the cause, a gentleman of fortune who had
not even the excuse of a younger brother for
seeking adventures, being impelled thereto solely
by the genuine spirit of chivalry, which so few
in this age of cold calculation can even appreciate,
and of which Burke has so feelingly lamented
the decline ; never certainfy has it found a more
honourable field of enterprise than Circassia.
He had, with a view of taking a passage to
that country, come to the coast of Asia Minor,
but found it would first be necessary to engage,
• Among themselves, they assemble in the apartment of a
sick or wounded man all the girls of the neighbourhood, who
endeavour, by constant singing and dancing, to prevent them from
sleeping. A .lingular mode this of treating fever.

NADIR BEY. 171
among the Cucanians who frequent the sea-ports
there, a chief to serve him in the quality of guide
and protector. He there fell in with Mehmet
Zazi Oglou, who was also in quest of a passage
for himself and his merchandise, — the difficulty
he experienced in obtaining it, arising from
altogether a different cause, viz. his reluctance to
pay for it. An arrangement was therefore soon
concluded, Mehmet making the most splendid
promises of protection, and enlarging upon his
ability to serve Nadir Bey in Circassia, and the
latter engaging to transport, him and his mer
chandise free of all expense. Aware also of the
scarcity of am.munition where he was going, he
purchased all that he could find in the neighbour
ing towns, amounting to sixteen large chests of
powder and lead. This he thought of placing,
on his arrival, at the disposal of a chieftain who
should second him at the head of his retainers in
some enterprise or expedition, such as the storm
ing of a fort, or an incursion into the Russian
territory. He had not the least idea of the in
dependence which prevails in Circassia, where,
since the decline of the Pshees, the chiefs have so
little real power, and where every man is at
liberty to take the field or remain at home as he
chooses, having for the most part a decided ob
jection to fighting for anybody's interest or
I 2

172 MEHMEt's PECULIARITIES.
amusement but his own. Mehmet, aware, as he
undoubtedly was, that, except for- the defence of
his valley, he could not command the military
service even of his own serfs, took care not to en
lighten him on these matters, so that he was
completely misled as to the extent of his pro
tector's power; though the conduct of the latter
during the voyage, short as it was, displayed
some peculiarities which in a chieftain so distin
guished seemed somewhat extraordinary. Find
ing that Nadir had a watch, his anxiety to be
duly informed of the time of day, and indeed of
the night too, was so great, that the former, whose
watch was thus day and night in requisition,
could think of no expedient to be rid of this
annoyance but to give it him. The arrangement,
I need hardly say, proved highly satisfactory to
Mehmet. Then he had some very singular notions with
respect to property — not that, like some of his
countrymen, he was apt to mistake the boun
daries of meum and tuum, but that, on the con
trary, the distinction he drew between them,
though decidedly in his own favour, was as
marked as possible. For instance, when during
their voyage they were held closely in chase by
the Russian cruisers, he recommended that, in
order to lighten the vessel. Nadir's powder should

PURSUIT AND ESCAPE. 173
be thrown into the sea, forgetting apparently,
while he logically demonstrated how trifling tbe
loss when compared with the object in view,
that he had a much larger stock of merchandise
on board, which he was at liberty to dispose of
as he pleased. When reminded of it, moreover,
he seemed to think it would by no means answer
the same purpose, and that no possible advan
tage could result from the sacrifice of his pro
perty. So much for Mehmet's peculiarities.
The pursuit of the Russian cruisers was not
quite so entertaining. They had, I was informed,
three of these upon them together, all combining
their endeavours to intercept them ; and it was
only by dint of much manceuvring and the most
persevering efforts at the oar, in which Nadir
set a steady example to the crew, that they suc
ceeded in giving them the slip. One of the
enemy's ships had got completely between them
and the coast ; they contrived, nevertheless, to
run their vessel ashore, where the lads of Ouwya,
who had been on the look-out, entering fiercely
by their shouts and gestures into the vicissitudes
and excitement of the chase, instantly surrounded
and transported her from the water to the centre
of their valley.
But Nadir found that his anxieties were by
no means at an end when he landed at Ouwya ;

174 DIFFICULTIES AT OUWYA.
his exertions at the oar had brought on an inter
mittent fever, and his alarm and disgust had
been excited by the rapacity of the inhabitants-
The district, as I have intimated already, had a bad
character ; and Mehmet Zazi Oglou had confessed
it was the last place, could he have helped it,
he would have put into. The inhabitants were
notorious depredators by land and wreckers on
shore, and, in short, disposed to consider as a
waif almost everything that came into their
hands. Mehmet therefore, foreseeing what would
happen, had lost no time in despatching emis
saries all over the country to summon the chiefs
and tamatas to a council, so that the people of
Ouwya, outnumbered and overawed, were com
pelled to submit to its decisions. Those, how
ever, with respect to the ammunition, were not
such as Nadir exactly approved of ; for they had,
without consulting him on the subject, deter
mined on an equitable distribution among the
different provinces ; while he, on the other hand,
wished to retain the disposal of it himself But
while they were engaged in these discussions, other
claimants unexpectedly presented themselves.
The steamer, with a frigate in tow, which we
ourselves had subsequently observed at sea, stood
suddenly — the men all at quarters, and the
decks crowded with troops — into the bay of

ATTEMPTS OF THE RUSSIANS. 175
Ouwya. Information had, it seemed, been con
veyed to Sokoum Kale by the baffled cruisers
of the Turkish ship which had been hauled on
shore there ; and the intelligence having been
confirmed, and accompanied with an exaggerated
report of the powder it had brought, by his spies.
General Rosen had despatched the steamer and
its consort to burn or capture it. But on arriv
ing in the bay, they hesitated to execute their
orders ; for the formidable muster and deter
mined attitude of the Circassians indicated a
stout resistance and a doubtful issue. Their
rangers lined the woods, and their horsemen
swept the plain in every direction ; and when at
length Nadir Bey, having heard how matters
stood, hurried, in spite of his fever, to the beach,
smiling and waving his hand to his friends as
he passed, the fierce and enthusiastic cheers that
greeted him from every side of the bay were
such as finally determined the Russians to
abandon their attempt. But, though foiled in
that, they were still bent on mischief. A few
miles further up the coast to the north-west was
another Turkish vessel, which they had almost
reached before the Circassians, who had assem
bled at Ouwya, suspected their intentions. No
sooner were they aware of them than their
cavalry dashed at full gallop along the shore to

176 DIFFERENCES WITH THE COUNCIL.
overtake the steamer. There was for some time,
I was told, a well-contested race between them.
Steam, however, with the start it had obtained,
outstripped on this occasion the Abbasian courser.
The Russians succeeded in landing their men
and setting fire to the ship. The Circassians
had only the poor satisfaction of killing twenty
of them in their retreat.
The differences existing between Nadir and
the council were not confined to the subject of
his powder. Having made up their minds that he
must be an English ambassador, they would
listen to no disclaimer he made to the contrary.
His obstinacy on this point only served to irri
tate them, and they ended by telling him in plain
terms, that if not an English ambassador, he
must be a Russian spy. In this disagreeable
dilemma I found him when I arrived at Ouwya,
and we immediately laid our heads together to
find out what was best to be done under it.
We were assisted in our deliberations by Meh
met, who came the day after his brother, Ali
Bey, who, if inferior to him in intelligence, sur
passed him, as he did every other mortal I have
met, in bulk and stature. Also among those who,
under existing circumstances, were necessarily
admitted to Nadir's confidence, were the indivi
duals of his own suite — a rather motley train,

HADJI PAULO. 177
picked up promiscuously in his travels. There
was, in the first place, his dragoman, a Tartar or
Polish renegade — a mongrel, or cross of the
European and Asiatic, a sort of nondescript not
uncommon in the Levant. He had served as
interpreter to some of our most celebrated ori
entalists, but had chiefly spent his time in ram
bling all over the East, from Moscow to Mecca
from the Ganges to the Bosphorus.
He was, according to his own confession, a
consummate knave and hypocrite, but maintained
that no man, who was not both one and the
other, could make his way in tbe East. When
detected and reproved by Nadir for lying, he
would retort in German (for that was his favour
ite vehicle) that he knew nothing of the Ori-
entalicher politique. The better, therefore, to
mystify the Easterns, he had adopted the style
of Hadji, to which, indeed, having thrice per
formed the pilgrimage with European travellers
in disguise, he was amply entitled. He could
when he chose, sustain the character with great
effect, performing the ablutions, chanting the
namaz, and executing its pious evolutions with a
most imperturbable gravity. But alas ! Natu-
ram expellas furcR, tamen usque recurret." The
Hadji had, like his father before him, been
originally a tumbler, nor could he help, when
i5

178 HADJI PAULO.
in his cups, which, had he behaved with decorum,
might have been overlooked, giving the Cir
cassians, as Hamlet says, " a taste of his quality."
Those, therefore, who had been previously
edified by his devotion, were not a little scan
dalized to see the holy man performing summer
sets, or standing on his head. But the Hadji's
great delight seemed to be getting into scrapes ;
his aliment was hot water, and he was never
happy when out of it. In short, his adventures,
had they been published, would, I believe, have
thrown Morier's hero into the shade. In justice
to him, after this sketch, I should not omit his
good qualities: he was certainly susceptible of
attachment, and faithful where attached; his
bravery, too, particularly when there was any
thing to be got by it, was undoubted. His death,
which occurred a year afterwards, was truly cha
racteristic. He had joined the Circassians in an
attack upon a Russian frigate which had been
stranded almost under the guns of Sootcha. She
promised a rich booty, and the Hadji was one of
the foremost to overhaul her. In his eagerness
to do so, he was struck, as he advanced, by a
cannon-ball. Finding his hour was come, he made a merit
of necessity, and resolved to meet it like a hero,
telling the Circassians that he regretted not to

OMAR THE SECRETARY. 179
die in the cause of their independence and the
Din Islam (their holy religion.) They, on their
side, appear to have believed him, for tbey
buried him, as if he had fallen in the odour of
sanctity, with all the pomp and ceremony ob
served at the funerals of their most illustrious
chieftains. The minstrels also made ballads
about him, ending, as usual, in his canonisation
as a martyr.
Another individual who had accompanied Nadir
from Trebisonde was Omar, his Turkish secre
tary, an ingenuous youth, rather fat and foolish,
who, unlike the Hadji, trusted less to his wits
than to Providence for advancement, of which,
having been suddenly raised from the post of a
Yazaji, clerk or supercargo of a Turkish trader,
to that of Kiatib, or secretary of state, he now
concluded himself to be in a fair way. His con
sequential looks, not less than his bran-new suit
of the Nizam or Osmanli regulation dress, plainly
bespoke one who thinks " full surely his great
ness is a ripening." Nadir had also, in addition to
his Turkish servants, a strapping Pole, whom he
had ransomed, poor fellow! from slavery. To satisfy
the cupidity of his former master, the Turk who
commanded the ship in which he had come, he
had paid for him eight hundred piastres, or eight

180 BAD NEWS.
pounds, an exorbitant price for a private, since
even a Russian officer may be had for half the
sum. In the council held by Nadir among his friends,
a great diversity of opinion prevailed. His posi
tion was one of considerable embarrassment,
arising chiefly from the political character which,
do what he could to reject it, the Circassians per
sisted in investing him with. If his dislike to it,
under all circumstances, was strong, it was by no
means lessened by the political intelligence he
had to communicate, and which, to my unspeak
able chagrin and dismay, I found was fully borne
out by my letters. The most afflicting part of it
was the death of William IV. I knew that in
him Circassia had lost her best fi-iend ; one who
sincerely resolved to stem the tide of Russian
aggrandisement — would never have consented to
the sacrifice of the most important bulwark op
posed to it — and who had, moreover, a generous
sympathy for a nation of freemen bravely strug
gling against a foreign yoke. The disgraceful
termination of the Vixen affair, the flimsy and
fallacious grounds on which it had been aban
doned, the probable tergiversation, and the dis
avowal of what had hitherto been done for the
Circassians, I considered in great measure as the

PROCLAMATION. 181
consequences of the fatal calamity that had de
prived England of the most truly English of her
kings. All these unwelcome news were to be broken
to the Circassians, an invidious task for the
bearer of them ; yet, as they were now congre
gated in anxious multitudes from every part of
the country, it was one which could not be well
deferred. There was short time for deliberation.
The next morning had been appointed for a
grand medjilis or council ; so we hastened to
draw up a proclamation to them. We began by
informing them of the death of the king of
England, and deploring his loss as the most un
toward event that could have happened for their
cause. We assured them, however, that they
had still many friends in Europe, who would not
relax their efforts in their behalf. We explained
to them all that had been done to arouse atten
tion and sympathy by their benefactor Daoud
Bey, Mr. Urquhart ; while the arrival of Nadir
Bey, who was wholly unconnected' with him,
with a supply of ammunition, however inconsi
derable, was itself a proof of the growing interest
felt by Englishmen in their welfare. But their
friends, as I was authorised to assure them by my
letters, were preparing to send them out assist
ance on a much larger scale. We exhorted them.

182 CONSULTATION.
in the mean while, to persevere in the defence
of their native land, and, above all, to be united
among themselves. With respect to the Vixen
affair, we purposely suppressed all allusion, con
vinced that the less we said on a subject so dis
creditable to our government, the better for all
parties. This address having been put into the most
highflown Turkish we could muster by Omar,
Nadir's secretary, we consulted Mehmet Zazi
Oglou about its promulgation. He candidly
owned to us it was not at all to his liking — it was
not strong enough— he was for invigorating it
forthwith by a copious infusion of lies. The Hadji
was also of opinion it would be none the worse
for a slight tinge of the Orientalicher politique.
But Nadir would not listen to them, repelling,
above all, the style of an ambassador, which they
wished to invest him with, and declaring, once
for all, that he had come there on nobody's ac
count but his own. " In this case," rejoined
Mehmet, " you cannot deny that you are an
ambassador on your own account." Nadir ad
mitted that he could not, and thus the matter
was settled to the satisfaction of everybody. We
consented, also, to some trifling alterations in the
style, and a few additional flowers of rhetoric,.
which did not trespass too much on the truth.

CONSULTATION. 183
Omar himself by no means objected to these
emendations, as they gave him an opportunity
of inflicting upon us his lucubrations, of which he
was very fond, at least twenty times.

184 MEDJILIS OR ASSEMBLY.

CHAPTER IX.

Important meeting of the Circassians — Our conference with the
Medjilis or Council — Disposal of the gunpowder — Composition
of feuds — Circassian marriages.

The next morning I accompanied Nadir Bey to
the council. , He was dressed in a gay yeomanry
uniform of scarlet, with green and gold facings —
a novelty which produced a no slight sensation
in the country. There was a vast assemblage of
people on the plain of Ouwya, larger, indeed,
than any I had seen since the great meeting at
Adheucum, but it was, on the whole, I thought,
less civilised and respectable. It is true, we had,
from Abbassak, and every district ofthe sea-coast,
chiefs, elders, and magistrates, in number fully
sufficient to control by their presence the more
intractable and fiery portion of the community.

MEDJILIS OR COUNCIL. 185
Yet were there many of the latter, whom, judg
ing from their looks, it would, but for this
tranquillising influence, have not been so agree
able to deal with ; for, not to mention the repro
bates of Ouwya, there were a crowd of strangers,
speaking a language but little understood by the
Circassians themselves, and whom they scarcely
looked upon as their countrymen. Among these
were some who had descended from the Alpine
retreats of the snowy mountains behind Soukoum
Kale — men wild as the regions they inhabited,
and, like the beasts they rode, a small and uncouth,
though a hardy and active race. They were
dark- featured, with projecting jaws and black
and grizzly beards. Their costume, though not
materially different from that of the rest, was in
general much poorer, and the tunic, unconfined
by a neat selvidge, and much less a trimming of
silver lace, hung mostly in tatters about the
wearer. It was easy to perceive that the habits of these
gentry were somewhat roving and predatory.
In passing near a glade where the Deli-Kans
were at their romps, and where their emulation
prompted them as usual to the display of their
personal prowess and agility, a trick or two was
played off by some of the strangers, which, if not
already known to the congenial spirits of Ouwya,

186 MEDJILIS OR COUNCIL.
must have greatly excited their envy and admi
ration. A horseman at full gallop would snatch
up an infant from the ground, muffle it in his
cloak, and scamper away with a despatch and
dexterity that were truly edifying.
The impressions, however, of a rather unfa
vourable nature, produced by these observations,
were entirely dissipated, and gave way to others
of pride and enthusaism, as we contemplated
the mighty gathering of the freemen of Circassia,
now scattered from the sea to the mountains all
over the plain of Ouwya — the troops of wild
horsemen scouring it in every direction — the
groups of pedestrians leaning on their staves —
the council-rings sedately seated at the foot of
every spreading tree — it was altogether a grand
and soul-stirring spectacle, yet one which would
have affected us still more profoundly, could we
have appreciated (which we were then far from
doing) the spirit that animated this assembly.
Bnt we did justice neither to the motives that
had drawn these children of the wilderness from
its remotest recesses, nor to the dignity of our
own position, which, it is true, was not that of the
ambassadors of any potentate or government on
earth, but the representatives of the civilised part
of it; in whose presence these simple people had
come vojuntarily forward to abjure the customs

MEDJILIS OR COUNCIL. 187
and habits which, albeit those of their forefathers,
they were at length aware excluded them from
the pale of that civilisation. We had at this
time, I repeat, — though we were told that all
present had sworn to renounce their feuds, and to
abstain from future rapine and violence, — but a
very imperfect notion of these things : and it was
only at a subsequent period, when presiding at
the administration of the national oath at Shap
sook, that we began fully to comprehend the
grand social reform now in operation throughout
the Caucasus.
It will be my task, and no very easy one, con
sidering its complication, to unravel the nature
and progress of this reform hereafter. I now
allude to it, that the reader may perceive how
little at the time we understood our relative po
sition, and how trivial the objects by which we
were actuated, when compared with those that
were fermenting in the minds and hearts of the
Circassians. He will see also why we found it
so difficult to understand each other, and why,
mezzotermine, we at length came to adopting the
character of ambassadors on our own account,
which appeared so ridiculous to us, but was, on
the contrary, so satisfactory to them. The mis
understanding was entirely about words ; what
they wanted was not ambassadors, but witnesses —

188 MEDJILIS OR COUNCIL.
witnesses from the civilised world, whom they
sought to propitiate by a solemn abjuration of
the usages that were obnoxious to it.
When we had taken our seats on the cushions
and carpets spread for us under a tree in the
centre of the plain, the people formed a large
circle around us, the interior of it being occupied
by the most distinguished of them, who were
spokesmen on the occasion.
I recognised there one of the judges, and a
young warrior chief, who had been among the
delegates from Abbassak, at the great council
of Ahheucum. There was also present Hassan
Bey of Khissa, the elder brother of the celebrated
Hafouz Pacha, the Turkish visir. He had two
other brothers besides, high in the Turkish ser
vice, Bahri Pacha and Ali Bey. Still the
family was plebeian ; and though these connexions
had given him wealth, and no little weight on
the part of the coast where he resided, they could
not ennoble him : the poorest Ouzden in the
country would have disdained an alliance with
him. But the man who is most looked up to
hereabouts, is Hadji Suleiman Bey — I presume
for his general worth, since for any of the three
attributes which are said to entitle a man to con
sideration here, " the sweet tongue, the sharp
sword, or forty tables," I am not aware that he is

MEDJILIS OR COUNCIL. 189
pre-eminently distinguished. These were the
individuals with vvhom our conference was prin
cipally held.
In answer to their inquiries for our credentials
or firmans, we presented them with Omar's
elegant effusion in Turkish, and which, having
been read aloud and with much emphasis to the
meeting, were received by it with a general mur
mur of applause; but Hassan Bey, who seemed to
pique himself on his talents as a diplomatist, then
inquired if we had brought them nothing but
our own proclamation ; whereupon Mehmet
Zazi Oglou, interfering in our behalf, demanded
in his turn what more he could expect from am
bassadors on their own account. This rejoinder
was decisive ; but Hassan, who was decidedly the
leader ofthe oppositon,and appeared to make ithis
especial business to cavil and to raise difficulties,
next inquired if it was not the intention of one of
us to remain in the south. It was not fair, he
said, that all the ambassadors should be kept in
the north : they had quite as good a right, he con
ceived, to an ambassador there as anywhere else :
he therefore begged that if Nadir was determined
on leaving them, at any rate I would rfcmain
in his place. Such an arrangement not at all
meeting my views, I flatly refused, my consent to
it, and told Hassan somewhat bluntly that he might

190 MEDJILIS OR COUNCIL.
give us what names he pleased ; we were our own
masters, and would go where we pleased ; and
that it did not suit my purpose at present to
remain there.
In this resolution I was seconded by Keriack
Oglou Ali Bey, who, having accompanied me
from the north with strict orders from the mem
leket there to see me safely back again, and per
ceiving that it was my own wish to return, now
protested warmly against any constraint being
put upon my actions. The motion of Hassan was
therefore overruled, and the rest of the colloquy
was conducted between us in the most amicable
spirit. The impression mutually produced was
highly favourable ; a result, however, to which
Nadir could not help thinking his scarlet coat
with green and gold facings had materially con
tributed. To wind up the business of the day in
the usual manner, a horse — the rostrum of the
Circassian forum — having been led into the
midst of the assembly, was mounted by Hadji
Suleiman Bey, who began, from " ridge of steed,"
a very rambling discourse to the multitude. His
sole qualification was the lungs of a Stent or, since
he was well prompted by the bystanders of all
parties, which I suppose must have made his
speech rather inconsistent. The principal topic
was the reform in their own habits which I have

DISPOSAL OF THE GUNPOWDER. 191
above alluded to. In the mean time the dignity
and decorum which characterised the demeanour
of an assembly at once warlike and popular —
every man standing in an attitude of respect, with
his whip hanging from his folded hands — were
really exemplary. We retired from it well satis
fied, on the whole, with the result of the pro
ceedings. The only point that gave us umbrage, and on
which they would make no concession, was the
disposal of the gunpowder. Nadir very justly
thought it a hardship that he was not allowed to
burn it against the enemy in what way he pleased.
On returning to the house, therefore, he consulted
Mehmet Zazi Oglou, as to the possibility and
propriety of reserving some part of it for their
own use, and it was finally decided between them,
that four cases out of the sixteen — two for the
chieftain and two for Nadir — should be smuggled
away among the merchandise of the former, and
that twelve only should be abandoned to the
Memleket. At night, when left to ourselves in the guest
house, we proceeded to secrete four of the cases,
Nadir laughing very heartily at the idea of steal
ing his own property.
The next day the twelve cases were duly
delivered to the deputation who applied for them ;

192 SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS.
but though they said nothing about the de
ficiency in the number, it had not escaped
observation. The lads of Ouwya in particular, who
had counted them when landed, were very indig
nant at the fraud which they conceived had
been practised on them ; and the measures they
took to show their sense of it were strong as
they were summary. Their way of proceeding,
however, was what in England we should call
strictly constitutional. Acting apparently upon
the doctrine thatwe could do no wrong ourselves,
they determined to visit their grievances on the
persons of those whom they looked upon as our
responsible advisers ; and the first person selected
to be made an example of to all evil counsellors,
was the ill-starred Omar. Little did he think
that the honour of being admitted to our secret
councils would involve him in such jeopardy.
His head had been fairly turned by the recent
success of his proclamation, and when issuing
that morning on a visit to the vessel — his fez
cavalierly cocked, his writing apparatus ostenta
tiously stuck in his girdle before, and his silver-
mounted pistol behind — I could not help remark
ing to Nadir, on what capital terms he stood
with himself.
Scarce half an hour afterwards, while we were
seated at a game of chess, a man in his shirt and

OMAR FLEECED. 193
drawers, and those in no very seemly condition,
rushed suddenly into the guest-house. Then,
standing in the middle of it, the better apparently
to display the pickle he was in, all that the un
fortunate secretary (for it was Omar himself who
stood before us, and horror and indignation had
well-nigh deprived him of utterance,) could for
some time articulate was, " Kul oldum ;" — he was
pulverized — he was reduced to cinders — in other
words, a ruined man. At length, when he had
found breath to answer us, we learnt that as he
was crossing the stream at the bottom of the val
ley, a party of Deli-kans, who, it appears, had
been lying in waitj pounced suddenly upon him,
and before he could ejaculate Ma ! Sha ! Allah !
plucked and made the scarecrow, or bipes implu-
mis, of him we now beheld. They had fleeced
hira of his arms and paraphernalia from top to toe ;
and the distress of the poor fellow, as he enume
rated the separate articles that had well-nigh
composed his all in the way of property, was
really pathetic. We felt ourselves very angry at
this outrage, and, sending for Zazi Oglou, in
formed him we looked upon it as a personal insult,
and that nothing remained for us but to stand to
our arms, and at once to ascertain who were our
friends and who our enemies in the country.
VOL. II. K

194 COMPOSITION OF FEUDS.
Mehmet, evidently much disconcerted, left us
without saying a word.
In a few minutes we were informed that a de
putation of the chiefs and elders desired to con
fer with us in the courtyard. We accordingly
repaired thither, purposely parading our side-
arms. On taking our seats, the deepest concern
was visible on every countenance, but before they
could offer any explanation, we gave vent to our
indignation in the strongest terms we could think
of. Nor did these lose much in tlie translation
of Nadir Hadji, to whose fertile genius, under
the provocation we had received, we allowed
free scope. He began by taunting them with the
recent reformation they had talked of, and asked
them if they intended the outrage they had per
petrated that day as a sample of it ; and he
finished by telling them, that unless there really
was some amendment in their conduct towards us,
the Beyzadis would withdraw from the country
altogether ; — " and then," said he, shaking his
head with great solemnity, " I should like to
know what will become of you all ?" In reply,
the Cadi from Abbassak, who spoke for the rest,
humbly, though not without dignity, deprecated
our displeasure. The things that had been plun
dered would be immediately restored to us, and

SETTLING A DISPUTE. 195
he entreated us to believe that they had not been
taken for plunder's sake, but from mistaken mo
tives ; in consideration of which, he hoped we
would pardon the misguided men who had been
guilty of this act of violence. With this hand
some apology, and the restitution of Omar's
effects, terminated this unpleasant and rather
alarming affair.
The congress having been broken up, and the
multitude withdrawn to their several homes, I
felt anxious to rejoin Mr. Bell, but we were
detained a few days longer by the affairs of
Mehmet Zazi Oglou at Ouwya. He was one out of
the many who, in pursuance of the oath they had
taken, were then occupied in the adjustment of
their feuds. Some of these were very ancient and
inveterate. That which Mehmet had to settle
was at least of twenty years' standing, and pre
sented an accumulation of mutual wrong that
greatly complicated its arrangement. Nobody,
however, could beat him at a bargain, and the
number of oxen he drove away as the price of
reconciliation was certainly not less than he was
entitled to.
Before Nadir took his departure from Ouwya,
the old Ouzden, with whom he had been quar
tered since his arrival, was desirous that he should
become a besleme, or foster-son of his family,
K 2

196

CIRCASSIAN MARRIAGES.

The ceremony, au rigueur, required that the ma
tron should present the breast to the adopted as to
one of her own children, but this part of it was
dispensed with in the adoption of Nadir, who was
merely introduced into the harem, and invited to
salute the women as one of the family.
He thus acquired (not to reckon the whole
tribe of Kutsuk, of which he likewise became a
member) a great number of blood relations ; and
the brothers and sisters, to whom it was incum
bent on him, as the richest among them, to make
presents, proved to be much more numerous than
he had previously any conception of His eldest
brother was a tall, handsome youth, whom I had
seen in the north, where he had eloped some
months before with the daughter of Hadjioli.
Elopement, as the reader is probably aware, forms
the principal feature in the Circassian marriage
ceremony, but is not necessarily a pretence or fic
tion — it often occurs in reality. In either case,
the purchase-money must, at the risk of a feud,
be paid to the parents or his bride by the groom
or his tribe, and thus a reconciliation, as it proved
to be in the present instance, is almost the inva
riable consequence; and thus, notwithstanding
the apparent degradation of the sex as objects of
traffic, love-matches are perhaps more common
here than in any other part of the world. Even

CIRCASSIAN MARRIAGES. 197
when the fugitives have not the means of liqui
dating the claims of the parents, these escapades
are not uncommon ; but in that case they abscond
into Russia, where, like all other outlaws and
runaways, they are always well received, being
styled the guests of the Emperor, and otherwise
hospitably treated and provided for. Considera
tions of morality seldom interfere with Russian
policy.

198 STORMING CASTLES.

CHAPTER X.
Nadir Bey's warlike projects — Arrangements — Circassian com
merce — Silver Mines — Pagan rites existing among the Cir
cassians.
We left Ouwya towards the end of September.
My feelings, in turning once more to the north,
and brooding over the annihilation of all our
hopes, were widely, different from those with
which I had come — different, too, to those which
now animated my companion Nadir, who was oc
cupied almost exclusively with projects of storm
ing castles. These he lost no opportunity of
pressing upon the Circassians, who, on their side,
seemed to entertain them with ardour, and fully
to enter into his views. He proposed, on some
dark and stormy night, to advance on one of
these forts, scale the walls, overpower the senti-

ARRANGEMENTS. 199
nels, and surround the barracks and guard-house,
before the garrison could muster and stand to
their arms. He had well matured his plan in all
its details, and though the failure of similar pro
posals on my part made me less sanguine as to
its adoption, I co-operated with him cordially in
promoting it, pledging myself, if necessary, to
head the assault with him, in order to inspire
confidence. These schemes, at any rate, served
to divert my thoughts from the subjects by
which they were at this moment too painfully
depressed. We arrived at Djouga on the third day of our
departure from Ouwya, and remained there for
some days. Nadir had another attack of inter
mittent fever, but he put a check to it imme
diately by a seasonable dose of quinine. We had
also several arrangements to conclude here.
Nadir was desirous of limiting his stay in Cir
cassia to three or four months ; and in order, at
the end ofthat time, to ensure himself a passage,
which, in the uncertainty of the communications
during the winter, and imprisoned as we were by
the Russian blockade, would be otherwise very
precarious, he deterinined to despatch his drago
man the Hadji to Constantinople, with instruc
tions to purchase a small Turkish vessel, together
with a cargo of salt and merchandise sufficient to

200 CIRCASSIAN COMMERCE.
cover the expenses he might incur in the interim.
It was settled also that Omar, whose ambition to
.shine as his Circassian secretary had been evi
dently damped by his late discomfiture at Ouwya,
should accompany the Hadji as supercargo.
As Nadir at the same time was obliging enough
to offer me his vessel for the transport of any
merchandise I was desirous of shipping hither, I
resolved to send to Turkey my Greek servant,
Demetri, with the produce which I had obtained
in exchange for such of my first cargo as had
been bartered, amounting to about a fifth of the
whole, and consisting of wax, fox-skins, and
butter. The remainder we had almost entirely
disposed of in presents and for our expenses;
our style of living having been anything but
economical. But in this respect I had scarcely
an alternative. The commercial experiment I
had been desirous of making was, after all, as the
reader knows, but a secondary object with me ;
and I soon discovered that the pursuits of a mer
chant were incompatible with the character of a
Ibey or gentleman, to support which it was ne
cessary my conduct should be beylike or gentle
manly, i. e. liberal almost to extravagance. The
merchants, though by no means despised, are not
the sort of persons who possess influence in their
councils, nor do they look for greater wisdom

CIRCASSIAN COMMERCE, 201
from the venders of aladjas, than from those
" whose talk is of bullocks." Still, had I chosen
to confine my attention to it, the speculation
would have proved a very lucrative one. The
Circassians no doubt preferred that I should
make presents of my merchandise, but I was at
liberty to dispose of it in barter if I pleased.
This is a peculiarity in their character at once
indicative of liberality and intelligence. Pre
sents, as I have before observed, are what all are
proud to make — none ashamed to ask for or re
ceive : all at the same time are alive to the dis
tinction conveyed in the words of Shakspeare,
" I will give double the sum to any well deserv
ing friend ; but, in the matter of a right, will
cavil for the ninth part of a hair."
Nobody who has been witness to a bargain
here, can doubt the great aptitude of the people
for commerce ; and if they have not already be
come a commercial nation, it has been owing to
causes altogether independent of their disposi
tion, and in some measure, I think, to customs
which are inimical to the accumulation of capi
tal ; but chiefly to the neighbourhood of nations
possessing in an equal degree with themselves
the raw produce they have to offer in exchange;
they have in consequence been reduced to the
necessity of selling their children — a pretty con-
K 5

202 CIRCASSIAN COMMERCE.
elusive proof, if there can be one, of their decided
propensity to trade, this branch of it being in
reality a sacrifice of part of their population for
the convenience and comfort of the rest.
All articles of cotton manufacture, which are
become indispensable to them, are exported
from Turkey. I have elsewhere remarked
that these cotton goods hold the place of cur
rency here, and so many top or pieces are equi
valent to so many pounds sterling or piastres 5
and we found not only that the price of other
commodities, but the wages of our servants, were
regulated by them. It must be admitted they
fi)rm a standard more fluctuating than that of
money, being much more subject to deterioration,
in which the Turks, who manufacture this cir
culating medium for them, always find their ac
count. The consequence has been, that the
quality of these goods has suffered so much, the
only objects having been to preserve the length
and breadth necessary to the piece, that I have
seen them, in some instances, no better in tex
ture and consistency than a sieve. The Cir
cassians, on the other hand, are not easily im
posed upon. The nominal price, therefore, or
the number of pieces to be given for their com
modities, has been augmented in exact propor
tion to the falling off in the quality of the former.

CIRCASSIAN COMMERCE. 203
I have been much amused also to see tbe close in
spection they undergo. It is but justice, however,
to our friends to say, that they are as faithful to
a bargain when concluded, as they are wary in
its negotiation. When they have once joined
their hands, which is the form of contract, tbe
engagement is as sacred as a bond could make it
elsewhere. The merchants generally deposit their goods
in the house of some chieftain, who, together with
his tribe, becomes responsible for their safety.
If they wish to press the sale, they despatch
itinerant agents all over the mountains ; but if
in no haste to realize, they deem it more pru
dent to allow their customer to seek them out,
which they invariably do from the most distant
quarters. As to the opening to British commerce, and
the extension of which it would be hereafter sus
ceptible in the Caucasus, I am decidedly of opi
nion, that if government would raise tbe piratical
blockade of Russia, it would present a very fair
field for enterprise. Our cotton manufactures,
which might easily be adapted to the market,
would at once supersede the very inferior articles
of Turkey. Lead and gunpowder (English gun
powder is already held there in great estima
tion) would_ find a ready and extensive sale;

204 CIRCASSIAN COMMERCE.
but the article the shipment of which would
prove most lucrative, is salt.
From the very small tonnage of the Turkish
ships at present employed in that trade, the
transport constitutes an undue proportion ofthe
price ; and this the superior size of our vessels,
admitting of large cargoes, would very consider
ably diminish. The exorbitant profit to be made
at present in consequence ofthe blockade, and of
which some idea may be formed from the voyage
of the Vixen, which, but for its capture, would
have realized five or six hundred per cent., forms,
it is true, no criterion of what it might be under
ordinary circumstances ; there can be ilo doubt,
however, that the supply of salt to these coun
tries would, with the facilities we possess, be a
considerable and advantageous accession to our
shipping trade. A point on which a merchant
would perhaps feel less confidence, is the nature
of the returns ; but T do not apprehend the dif
ficulty would be so great as may be imagined.
Certainly, he could not purchase slaves, but in
vestments might easily be made in wax, honey,
butter, hides, sheep and goats, wool, fox-skins,
grain of every description, and boxwood — arti
cles of which there is already a superfluity for
home consumption, and which may be had so
cheap that they are exported, to a small extent.

CIRCASSIAN COMMERCE.

205

to Turkey itself There is every reason to sup
pose that the supply of these things would in
crease with the demand, if we take into consider
ation that at least two- thirds of the soil are either
uncleared or uncultivated. This is a fact which I
was for some time at a loss to reconcile with its
^arge population — larger indeed for a rural one
than any I had previously met with. I did not
reflect at first that it was exclusively rural, and
that the produce of its labour was merely for its
own use, and not for that of towns and cities,
of which there are none whatever, or for expor
tation. During our sojourn as guests of the Zazi
Oglous at Djouga, Mehmet visited us early one
morning with a bag in his hand, from which he
produced, with an air of great mystery, some
large lumps of ore which he declared to be sil
ver, but which we were rather inclined to believe
were tin-stone. Abundance of it, he assured us,
was to be had in the place where he obtained
his specimens ; but he flatly, or rather scorn
fully, refused to acquaint us where this was. He
was not singular in this respect ; the remark
made by Klaproth as to the caution of the
people in this particular we found to be perfectly
correct. There seemed to be a general con
spiracy among them to conceal from us the

206 PAGAN RITES.
locality of these mines, to which, though they
made no secret of their existence, they always
declined to conduct us. They have an idea, that
were strangers to become fully acquainted with
them, they would present an additional induce
ment for the conquest of their country. Their
jealousy is not unfounded ; nor have they for
gotten that the first expedition undertaken by
Russia into the Caucasus was with a view of ex
ploring and appropriating these mines.
The fourth day after our arrival, we perceived
a great concourse of people of both sexes in the
sacred grove at the bottom of the bay. The
sounds of music and revelry issuing all day long
from the precincts of the antique wood greatly
excited our curiosity, the more so that we had
received no invitation to be present, and we did
not wish to intrude. Nadir's interpreter, how
ever, the Hadji, who, particularly when there
were fun and feasting in the wind, was troubled
with no such scruples, was a spectator, and that
by no means an idle one, of the festivities. From
him we ascertained the reason that we had not
been invited. The people had assembled to cele
brate a heathen holiday, and as the stricter Ma
hometans never attended these festivals, it had
been presumed, a fortiori, that we also would re
fuse to countenance them. We were much

PAGAN RITES. 207
amused by the Hadji's description of the pro
ceedings. The wooden representative of the
deity Seoseres, consisting of a post, with a stick
placed crosswise towards the top, had been
planted in the centre of the grove, and the lads
and lasses had danced about it in a ring. The
oldest of the patriarchs present, who officiated as
priest, had then come forward and delivered a
thanksgiving for the success of the harvest.
Offerings, in the shape of bread, honey, and tri
angular cheesecakes, and, lastly, an ample bowl
of boza, were duly presented to the idol ; but he
showing no stomach for them, they were handed
to his votaries, who had apparently much keener
appetites. To crown the whole, a bull was led to the
foot of the wooden deity, and there sacrificed)
having his throat cut with a cama. The carcass
was taken away, roasted, and afterwards distri
buted to the multitude, that they might eat and
be merry. This, in fact, seemed to be the prin
cipal object that had brought them together ;
and till Islamism can furnish an apology for
feasting and. good fellowship as satisfactory, it
seems improbable that the joyous old pagan rites
will be hastily abandoned.

208 RUSSIAN FORT.

CHAPTER XI.

Retreat of the Russian army — Nadir Bey's reception at Semez —
Opening of a tumulus — We take leave ofthe Semezians.
We left Djouga on the 1st of October, and
arrived at Shapsine by the route I had taken
in coming. All the castle-capturing enthu
siasm of my companion was aroused at the
sight of the newly-erected fort. We got a near
view of it from the spur of a hill that sinks
abruptly into the valley a few hundred yards
distant from it, and from whence it might be
shelled or cannonaded with the greatest facility.
The place had an appearance of solitude, having
been abandoned by the array a fortnight before.
Russians as they were, I could not help pitying
the prospects of the unfortunate garrison, con-

reconnoitre SHAPSINE. 209
demned to a dreary confinement for at least
six months, during which all communication
with their countrymen would be cut off both by
land and sea. In the mean while, the fort gave
no more alarm to the Circassians than, to borrow
a simile of their own, one of the huge old tumuli
mouldering in the depths of their forests. It is
true, the appearance at any time of armed men
in the neighbourhood (as we could ourselves per
ceive from the bustle on the ramparts) was cal
culated to rouse them from their lethargy. The
wall of the fort was about fifteen feet high,
embattled, surmounted with heavy ordnance, and
flanked with bastions.
The chiefs, who saw nothing new or attractive
in a Russian fort, hurried us away as soon as
they could to our konak for the night, which vms
about three railes further on ; but Nadir, intent
on his enterprise, and by no means satisfied with
this hasty view of the fort, had made up his mind
to reconnoitre it more closely the next morning.
Early in the gray of it, before anybody was
stirring, our horses were saddled, and accompa
nied only by Kutchuk, Nadir's attendant, we
retraced our steps along the green and wooded
banks of the Shapsine. Tower and battlement
were gradually unfolding themselves in the rising
sun, when, alighting at a short distance from the

210 VISIT OF NICHOLAS TO GHELENDJIK.
fort, we crept from bush to bush till we had
come within musket-shot of the walls, and could
distinguish the features of the sentinels on duty.
Having completed our survey, we regained our
konak at a gallop. The dew was yet on the
grass when we reached it ; but the chiefs, who
had assembled in our absence, were evidently
discomposed at our morning's ride. They had a
decided objection to our moving about without
an escort ; and they hinted that such early visits
to a Russian fortress might be misinterpreted by
the people.
It was for this reason, probably, that they
made a circuit through the woods to avoid the
fortress of Pchad. We put up on the night of
the 2nd of October at a house in the valley of
Hyder Bey, which, as I have before remarked, is
separated by a precipitous mountain barrier from
Ghelendjik, where we learnt the emperor Nicho
las had already arrived by a steamer on the same
day. We had the honour of being lodged
scarcely at three miles' distance from hira. It
seemed he had at length determined to pay his
Circassian provinces a visit. His curiosity, how
ever, was satisfied with a very superficial survey
of them — a sort of bird's-eye glance, or rather
fox's peep, from Anapa and Ghelendjik.
Every precaution had been taken to render the

VISIT OF NICHOLAS TO GHELENDJIK. 211
experiment safe. The army, leaving behind its
cattle and provisions, with some hundred dead,
whose bones (in some instances unburied) we had
seen bleaching on the way, had come thither by
forced marches to protect his imperial person.
The whole of the heights above us, occupied by a
strong cordon, were bristling with bayonets, in
order that the observations which he was about
to make might not be disagreeably interrupted,
but be taken with the composure and indifferency
of mind which Locke declares to be indispen
sable for arriving at a sound conclusion. But
fate had ordained it otherwise. A fearful con
flagration broke out that very night, which was
a stormy one, at Ghelendjik ; so that even this
favoured spot was found, like the rest of Cir
cassia, too hot for him. After making sundry
fine speeches to his poor devils of soldiers, the
whole of whose magazines and provisions had
been devoured by the fire, he set out the next
dsiy in the steamer for Redout Kale, on his way
to Tiflis.
Ghelendjik was the principal depot for the sup
ply of the army, and the whole of their stock
for a year had consequently been consumed.
The only buildings which, being constructed of
stone, escaped, were the powder magazine and a
church. The numerous deserters whom we in-

212 RETREAT OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY.
terrogated on the subject, (for a great raany, not
withstanding the eraperor's presence, had pro
fited by the confusion of that night to run away,)
agreed in declaring that General Williamanoff
and his staff had themselves set fire to the ma
gazines, in order that the emperor on seeing them
raight not detect their wholesale fraud and spo
liation. Nicholas, who although reducing thou
sands to misery every day of his life, is one of the
most sentimental tyrants upon record, repeatedly
exclaimed during the fire to his soldiers, " My
children, this misfortune is all my own" — an asser
tion which his children, seeing they were to be
starved, and not he, might very reasonably doubt.
Two days afterwards the army, now exposed to
the horrors of famine, which they had been sent
to inflict by the agency of the same element on
the Circassians, made the best of their way,
closely escorted, as usual, by the rifles of the lat
ter, to the Kuban.
The timely retreat of the Russians, which had
taken place much earlier than they had antici
pated, had put all the world in a good humour.
It had been generally reported, and believed, that
after the construction of their fort at Shapsine,
they would have closed the campaign in the
usual way, by the devastation of the plains of the
Kuban. But the destruction of their magazines

TRAITORS AT AZIPS. 213
at Ghelendjik had interveiied,mo st providentially
for the Circassians, whom, on our arrival at
Semez, We found in the best spirits, and, notwith- ,
standing the indifferent news we brought them,
more friendly to us than ever. We then expe
rienced how much accident has to do with popu
larity, and that if to be blamed unjustly be the
'' hard condition twin-born with greatness," to be
applauded with as little reason is as decidedly
another. Scarcely a week before, as I learnt
from Mr. Bell, the impending horrors of Russian
warfare, and the failure of their expectations from
abroad, had operated considerably to our preju
dice ; so much so, indeed, that the emissaries of
Russia (for it is not surprising that, in the ab
sence of all administration or police, she should
be able to bribe many individuals to do her work
for her,) had begun openly to inculcate the ne
cessity of making peace, and to persuade the
Abbassaks to refuse the Englishmen access into
the interior ofthe country.
These machinations, however, found few abet
tors, and no sooner had they "reached the ears of
our old host Shamiz, than he forthwith saddled his
horse and rode over to Mansour Bey at Sebebsi,
to consult with him as to the means of counter
acting them. Both the chieftains were of opinion
that the conspiracy should be stifled in its birth ;

214 nadir's RECEPTION AT SEMEZ.
they hastened, therefore, to the stream of Azips in
Shapsook, the head-quarters of the traitors, and
summoned a council on the spot. Five of them
having been summarily tried and convicted be
fore it, their houses were burnt to the ground,
their property confiscated, and themselves and
families sold into slavery. Three out of the five
afterwards effected their escape into Russia.
These measures may appear (especially among a
free people) somewhat harsh and arbitrary : cer
tainly none but the most influential chieftains
would have ventured upon them, aware as they
must have been of their responsibility to the
tribes of the offenders, as well as the community
at large; but the guilt of the parties was manifest;
and even the tribes, tenacious as they usually are
of the jirivilege of punishing their own merabers,
abandoned them in this instance to their fate.
Shamiz, on his return, which was a few days
after our arrival, received Nadir in the most cor
dial manner. Visiters also poured in from every
part of the province, both to pay their respects
to the new comer, and to inquire after the news.
Such as we had to communicate were anything
but encouraging ; but, instead of repining at
thera, they on their part endeavoured to console
us, expressing their confidence of our receiv
ing satisfactory intelligence from Zefir Bey, in

PROJECTS, &C. 215
answer to the despatches they had sent by Nogai
Ismael. Mr. Bell had also, in the letters from
his friends, received promises of assistance through
private channels, to which, sensible as we were
what iraportant results might be obtained here
from the most trifling resources, we were by no
means indifferent. Nadir, on the other hand, was
still bent on signalizing himself by the capture of
a fort, and did not fail to discuss the matter with
every chieftain who presented himself at his
levee. All of them, though warmly approving of
his plans, referred him to Hand Oglou Mansour
Bey, without whose participation they declared
nothing of importance could be undertaken in
Natu-koitch. The old warrior, however, was lying bedridden
in consequence of the ulcer I have before alluded
to in one of his feet, which had been half frozen
away during an incursion into Russia, about
twenty winters before, and which it had since
baffled the skill of the Circassian leeches to heal.
Fortunately Nadir had brought with hira a medi
cine chest, provided with which he now proposed
to repair to the house of Mansour at Sebebsi, with
a view of setting as soon as possible upon his
legs a champion so indispensable to the success
of his enterprise. It had been determined, more
over, to profit by the cessation of hostilities, and

216 PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER.
to summon to a council, for the discussion of the
national interests, all the chiefs and elders of the
belligerent provinces. But the same dilatory
spirit that had displayed itself in every public
transaction since our arrival, now detained us for
three weeks longer in the valley of Semez.
Still the time was not wholly lost. Mr. Bell
and myself were engaged in preparing our letters,
which the departure of our servants for Turkey
presented a good opportunity of despatching — an
opportunity which, few ships venturing across the
Black sea at this stormy season, we knew would
not recur for some raonths to corae. Having,
raoreover, made up our minds to winter in Cir
cassia, we had to get ready our winter garments,
consisting of sheepskin doublets worn with the
wool inwards under the tunic, the hood or stout
frieze capuchin covering the kalpac and shoulders,
and, finally, the cloak of thick brown felt. No
warrior undertakes a journey or campaign at this
season of the year unprovided with these articles,
and we had already experienced in the bleak and
cutting blasts of November a foretaste of the
weather we were to expect a little later. Nadir
also, in addition to his other cares, was engaged
in providing shoes for his horse, for it was only
after a diligent search and much lecturing that a
blacksmith could be found to make them.

OPENING OF A TUMULUS. 217
Our time was partly employed in another oc
cupation, in which we had been invited to co
operate by the people of Semez, In the midst
of the forest, at the bottom of the valley, and ap
parently almost coeval with it, buried in swamps,
underwood, and rank vegetation, was a rude and
enormous tumulus or cairn. It was difficult
to conjecture, unless hurled there by a race of
giants, how the ponderous stones, of which it
was composed, had been collected together, for
the inhabitants declared there were none of a
similar nature in the neighbourhood. An attempt
had been made at some former period to exca
vate this monument. Several stones had been
detached from the top, and it had been honey
combed all over by spades and pickaxes ; but, ac
cording to a tradition existing on the subject, those
who were engaged in the task had been suddenly
assailed by the goblin guardians of the treasure,
and, blasted by the view, the heads of the whole
party had whisked about, like so many weather
cocks, on their shoulders.
Since the period of this catastrophe, which few
were old enough to remember, the Semezians had
not repeated the experiment, but contented them
selves with boasting of the treasure, which, though
under such questionable custody, was contained
VOL. II. L

218 OPENING OF A TUMULUS.
in their valley. Their hopes of appropriating it
were now all at once revived.
In Mr. Bell, or Yacoub Bey, as they called him,
they fancied they had found an ally, under whose
auspices the fiends might be successfully defied.
His botanical and geological researches had, it is
true, been viewed by theni at first with alarm and
suspicion, but the cures he had effected by bleed
ing and medicine, though deemed no less pretur-
natural, had taught them to think that the powers
who aided him were at all events beneficent.
The circumstance also which had raised his
reputation, and made him in their opinion more
than a match for the evil one, was his announce
ment of a lunar eclipse, which he had foretold by
the aid of an almanac, but of which (the eclipse,
and not the almanac) he had pretty generally
the credit of being himself the author. They
proposed to him, therefore, that he should attend
in person the excavation of the monument in the
character of exorcist or conjuror.
Having obtained his consent, the whole neigh
bourhood, armed with spades, hatchets, and levers,
repaired on the day appointed to the scene of
operations. It proved one of no small interest.
The weather being raw and cold, they had kindled
large fires, whose blaze, as it rose at intervals.

OPENING OF A TUMULUS. 219
threw an unwonted light into the recesses of the
old forest, the silence of which was also broken by
the jarring sounds of their implements in the
prosecution of their work. The mingled awe and
eagerness with which the workmen set about it,
heaving and rolling away the raassive stones, and
excavating the earth beneath, coramunicated it
self quickly to the spectators, who readily relieved
such as were fatigued. For three successive days
the task was continued with unabated ardour,
and on the third, at a considerable depth beneath
the surface ofthe ground, they came to a rude sar
cophagus or trough, about six feet by three, built
completely of stones. But it was found to contain
nothing but a few fragments of terra cotta. Thus,
arrived at the place where the treasure was not,
terminated their labour and their search, neither
of that nor the goblins who guarded it could any
trace be discovered ; unless, as was suspected, the
former had by some infernal process been trans
muted into the pieces of pot aforesaid, and the de
mons themselves had, in the redoubted presence of
Yacoub,found refuge in the bodies of certain ground
squirrels, a nest of which had been turned up in a
half torpid state in the course ofthe excavation.
The time of our departure from Semez being
now at hand, the inhabitants, who seemed
always loath to let us go, invited us to a
L 2

220 WE TAKE LEAVE OF THE SEMEZIANS.
farewell feast in the centre of the valley. They
there appointed us an escort, with instructions not
to lose sight of us in our travels. When we had
mounted our horses to leave them, one of their
elders came forward, and addressed us in behalf
of the assembly : he said, " that now they were
about to lose us, though he trusted only for a
time, they felt more than ever oppressed by the
sense of the obligations we had conferred upon
them and their country at large, and which they
were conscious of having done so little to requite ;
but on our return to them they hoped the arrange
ments they proposed to make would prove more
satisfactory." It was aib, a disgrace to their valley, that we
should have been at any expense for the support
of our establishment, but the memleket, they pro
mised, would in future relieve us from every
charge by voluntary contributions. In reply, we
made them suitable acknowledgments, declining
at the same time the offer of contributions which
would be incompatible with the independence
which it was not less our interest than desire to
maintain among them. No further allusion was
made to the presents which, as I have related,
they appeared at the commencement of our resi
dence at Semez to expect from us; and giving
thera full credit for the disinterestedness of their

INFLUENCE OF THE CHIEFS. 221
present professions, we took good care to say no
thing on the subject ourselves.
Some of them, indeed, as we made them our
salam, looked rather blank and chopfallen, as if
something had been forgotten, or there had been
some mistake in the matter. We rode away,
however, resolved, as his grace the Duke of Wel
lington once expressed himself, that there should
be no raistake about it.
Our host Shamiz did not accompany us on this
expedition, but remained at home on the plea of
domestic affairs. The truth was, that he had
himself been in Shapsook a few days before, and
had failed in his attempts to asserable either a
war party or a council. The pride of the old
Ouzden had been ranch hurt by this failure, for
the inference to be drawn from it was anything
but corroborative of his influence. Influence de
pending so little on adventitious circumstances,
and so ranch on personal qualities, exercised in a
field so open, and resolving itself into elements
as simple as those which establish the superiority
of a schoolboy over his playfellows, is necessa
rily a thing of very precarious tenure ; nor will a
prudent chief, aware that its existence admits of
no other proof than its exercise, rashly put it to
the test. Mansour, for instance, though all
declared his influence to be unbounded, knew

222 ONGASOFF THE FREEDMAN.
perfectly well what limits to prescribe to it, nor
would he, like Shapiiz, have summoned a council,
unless he had felt sure the summons would be
obeyed. In the mean time, the latter, nettled, as
I have said, at the slight he had received in the
rejection of his counsels, remained at home, appa
rently to show his sense of this indignity.
In his place, however, he appointed to accom
pany us, his son Cheretlook, a youth of fifteen,'
and, as a sort of deputy mentor, his squire and
freedman Ongasoff. This was a middle-aged
person, much m the confidence of his superior,
who, having brought him up from childhood, had
manumitted him since our arrival. " Like mas
ter like man," is a proverb peculiarly apposite all
over the East, and it was thought that Ongasoff,
always jogging in the wake of Shamiz, must, of
necessity, have imbibed a portion of his wisdom;
but I am inclined to think, that that of the squire
was like his coat, but of a second-hand descrip
tion ; for we, who were to have the benefit of it
in our travels, soon found that when separated
from the source of his wisdom. Sir Oracle was
dumb. The only indication he gave of it, an
equivocal one it must be confessed, was his un
disguised contempt for that of other people. The
air of pity with which he would listen to us, with
out condescending to remove his pipe from his

ONGASOFF THE FREEDMAN. 223
mouth to reply, was really provoking — at least
Nadir began soon to doubt if it entitled him to
the hundred piastres, which, having been, at the
recommendation of Shamiz, admitted into his
suite, he received from him monthly. But from
whomever he received his pay, it was clear, from
the trips on which he would every now and then
absent himself to Semez,in whose service he consi
dered hiraself to be. These visits were, no doubt,
intended to keep Shamiz duly informed of our
transactions with the other chieftains, in all of
which the wily old Ouzden, though affecting to
keep aloof from public affairs, took an undi
minished interest.
Our whole plan of campaign had been settled
before we set out. If the council which was
talked of proved only another device to detain
us, and if Nadir's project for the capture of a fort
should miscarry, it was our intention to leave
these provinces, and penetrate without further
delay into Abbassak. But the sequel showed we
had, as usual, reckoned without our host. In the
mean time. Nadir was very sanguine as to the
success of his enterprise, and he had made up his
mind to promise the chieftains, as an inducement
for their co-operation, to bear the charges of an
embassy to England on his return thither.

224 DEPARTURE FROM SEMEZ.

CHAPTER XII.

Visit to Mansour — Treatment of his wound — Our popularity —
War and Romance— Kaplan the Tiger.

In high spirits, and at the head of a numerous
cavalcade, we left the valley of Semez, October
28. The autumnal gales which had been raging
for some tirae past, had yielded to weather bright
and balmy as that of June. The hills, however,
stripped of their foliage, had a bare and bleak
appearance, and the habitations that had nestled
among them in the summer, were now -every
where exposed to view.
We spent that night at the house of our friend
Shupash, and the next at the cottage of a Tocav,
still nearer to the fortress of Anapa. The people
thereabouts were, notwithstanding the retreat of

PARTISAN WARFARE. 2-25
the Russian army, engaged in petty hostilities
with the garrison, a sort of partisan warfare
much more to their taste ; an exchange of civili
ties, as it were, which had of late grown very
aniraated ; the Russians leavins the fortress
every other night on house-burning and sheep-
lifting expeditions, and the Circassians retaliat
ing with corapound interest on the unfortunate
colonists. Both Nadir and myself would fain
have joined in the sport, but business more ur
gent hurried us away from this interesting neigh
bourhood, and the next evening we were quar
tered in the house of Karabour Djefs, the
renowned hunchback at Westagoi. Here again
we had abundant matter for excitement. Our
host, as daring a moss-trooper as any in Circassia,
painted the ^ pleasures of a tramp by moonlight
over the Kuban in the most tempting colours,
and when this was followed by a promise on the
part of the narrator, that if we would accom
pany him, we should ourselves have as pretty a
foray as a man could desire the very next day.
Nadir at once took him at his word, and pro
posed to place himself, without further delay, under
guidance so unexceptionable. But the kambour
then recollecting that we were the musafirs of
the memleket, (guests of the country,) shrank, on
second thoughts, from the responsibility of taking
L 5

226 THE ARMENIANS.
US over the Kuban without the sanction of the
council. This was not the first time that the
greatness which had been thrust upon us had
interfered with our personal liberty, and Nadir, in
particular, was disposed to shake off its trammels.
Our only chance of escaping from them was to
attach ourselves to some chieftain of sufficient
weight not to shun the responsibility so discreetly
declined by Djefs.
If there were anybody in possession of such
authority, we knew it must be Mansour : to him,
therefore, we determined to address ourselves,
and despatched a messenger to his house, an
nouncing our intention of visiting him. We re
ceived for answer an invitation for the next day :
for that night he begged we would repose our
selves at the house of the merchant Aretine, who
dwelt a short distance higher up the stream of the
Sebebsi than himself. This was the wealthy Ar
menian I have before adverted to; and a word
from his patron, had there been no other motive
for, it, would have been sufficient to ensure us the
best treatment at his hands. But the fact was,
that in all the Armenian houses where we were
quartered during our travels, though I believe
little indebted to their hospitality for it, we fared
very sumptuously. Their own position was too
equivocal, and they lay under too general a sus-

DWELLING OF MANSOUR. 227
picion of disaffection, not to pretend the greatest
consideration for the guests of the country.
On arriving the next day at the modest dwell
ing of Mansour, we could discover nothing in
dicative either of wealth or power in its possessor.
Unremunerated for the time and attention he
devoted to public affairs, his patrimony had gra
dually decayed rather than flourished in his
hands, and all that remained of it was a herd
of brood mares allowed to roam at large over the
plains of the Kuban. Notwithstanding the fre
quent expeditions he headed into the enemy's
territory, he derived little or no advantage from
them, refusing, for the most part, from motives at
least as prudential as they were disinterested,
to share in the spoil that resulted from them.
His countrymen, on the other hand, took good
care that he should not starve in consequence of
his moderation, and the farm of their Cincinna-
tus was restocked from time to time by their
voluntary supplies of cattle. As many as fifty
sheep together had been given to him by his
friend Arslan Gheri in our presence.
But if the residence ofthe chieftain presented
no appeara,nce of opulence or splendour, the evi
dences that it afforded of his influence were pal
pable as they were interesting to us. So great
indeed was the concourse of visiters who flocked

228 INTERVIEW WITH MANSOUR.
to it, of venerable elders who came to consult him
on the public weal, or of Deli-Kans eager for
some adventure or foray, that the neighbouring
trees scarce sufficed for the horses, or the walls
of his guest-house for the weapons that were at
tached to them.
We passed through this crowd to the apart
ment prepared for us, and we were there pre
sently waited upon by our host in person. He
had just risen from his bed, and supported his
steps with a crutch ; but his demeanour, in spite
of the pain he underwent, was cheerful and polite ;
and Nadir, who now saw him for the first time,
was not less charmed by his urbanity than im
pressed with the manliness and candour of his
disposition. They were certainly calculated to
banish all reserve at a first interview, and we in
timated our wish, when the guest-house should be
cleared of other visiters for the evening, to have
some confidential conversation with him. The
last person to leave the room, and who seemed
designedly to linger there, was Aretine.
Mansour, at length losing patience, told him,
somewhat sternly, he had our permission to with
draw. Relieved, as we thought, of his company,
we were beginning our conference, when we were
informed by our attendants, that the Armenian
was lying fast asleep under the eaves ofthe guest-

INTERVIEW WITH MANSOUR. 229
house. This was literally playing the eaves
dropper with us ; a hint was accordingly con
veyed to him, that he would do well to finish his
nap out of ear-shot. We then resumed our dis
course. The subject on which we chiefly dwelt was our
anomalous position in these provinces, and the
impossibility we experienced of making his coun
trymen understand who we really were. Thus
we saw ourselves at one time the subjects of the
most absurd suspicions, and at another of homage,
almost as irksome to us. All that we desired, was
the liberty of disposing of ourselves and our time
as we thought fit. Mansour, in reply, expressed
his sincere regret at the annoyance we com
plained of — which, however, was to be attributed
to the ignorance, and not to the ill-will of his
countrymen. Their judgment had been much
perplexed by their own difficulties ; and, unaccus
tomed to the presence of Europeans, they could
not help deceiving themselves as to the objects
of our visit. They could not see, what was ob
vious enough to him, that there must be a begin
ning to all international relations, and that they
were under great obligations to individuals who,
having no personal interest in the country, as he
expressed hiraself, neither father nor raother
there, had encountered so raany hardships to visit

2-30 INTERVIEW WITH MANSOUR.
them ; others, he doubted not, would follow, and
when, by this means, friendship had been ce
mented between the English and the Circassians,
they might reasonably look for the most beneficial
consequences. There was so much good sense and feeling in
these observations of Mansour, that Nadir at once
communicated his intention of taking with him,
on his return to England, an embassy composed
of the representatives of their different provin
ces — a measure, which, if adopted by them, he
conceived would greatly facilitate the establish
ment of the relations he considered so desirable.
To give 6clat to such a mission, he added, the
best thing they could do in the mean while was
to undertake some decisive operation against the
enemy, and he thereupon unfolded to him his
plan for the capture of a fort. Mansour, who
listened with evident satisfaction to both these
proposals, then expressed his regret that the state
of his foot would not permit him to take the
field immediately ; but a few days he trusted
would enable him to attend to the execution of
this enterprise in person. The interval, he added,
might be profitably employed by us in concili
ating the favour of the people, — an indispensable
step for all who aspired to be their leaders. " My
countrymen," he said, " are a sturdy and stiff-

TREATMENT OF MANSOUr's WOUND. 231
necked generation, who care not for the frowns of
any prince or pacha in existence, whereas, tatlu
dil, fair words, will, I have ever found, go a great
way with them. This, between ourselves, is the
secret of my own popularity."
He then intimated to us that it was a general
complaint among the Tocavs, or comraoners, that
we had neglected them for the nobles. This
statement we knew to be perfectly correct, but
we were aware, at the same tirae, that the odiura
of our exclusive habits had been visited less
upon us than on the nobles themselves; and par
ticularly on our friends the Chippa Kows, who, it
was insinuated, had monopolized our persons to
make a similar monopoly of our presents.
But our first care was the recovery of Mansour.
His rautilated foot, which, by the way, he at first
felt some repugnance to expose to them, was duly
inspected by Nadir and Mr. Bell. The ulcer had
remained open upwards of twenty years, and had
evidently been badly treated. Such as it was,
however, they did not despair of curing it, and
the change for the better operated in a few days
seemed to Mansour himself almost miraculous.
Yellow basilicon and corrosive sublimate performed
wonders, which verses from the Koran, blazoned
in all the colours of the rainbow, and swallowed
with great perseverance for twenty years, had

232 RECRUITING.
failed to effect before. Nor had the efforts ofthe
Russian doctors at Anapa, in which fortress
Mansour had lingered several months in hopes
of obtaining a cure, been more effectual. This
was during the good old times when Russia, with
even-handed justice, dealt blows and douceurs at
the same moraent, and while carrying on a war
of extermination on one frontier, opened the
gates of Anapa to Circassian comraerce on the
other. On the pernicious tendency of this com
merce, and the way it was providentially put a
stop to, I have spoken at length in another place.
With respect to the Russian doctors, as we had
much weightier reasons to see the first warrior in
Circassia in fighting order than they could have
had, this essay of our medical skill was probably
on that account more successful.
The ensuing fortnight was spent within a day's
ride of Sebebsi, our attention during that time
divided between the cure of Mansour's foot and
the execution of the plan he had suggested to us
for captivating the affections of the commons, — a
task of some difficulty, and requiring scarcely less
lact than a canvass for electioneering purposes in
England. To engage followers for an enterprise
here, it is necessary to begin by enlisting their
confidence and good-will. In this indispensable
preliminary. Nadir was specially aided by three

TOCAVS OR COMMONERS. 233
individuals, who had been recommended to him
by Mansour as familiars of his own, and all, as
he assured him, good men and true, who knew
everything and everybody in the country, and
could materially promote his views. At any rate,
it was pretty certain, I apprehended, he could,
under such auspices, do little in opposition to
those of Mansour. One of these was Djefs, the
hunchback, with whom the reader is already
acquainted. Another was an individual whose
name, but not whose obliging disposition, I have
forgotten, and who offered to be our purveyor in
more ways than I Care to particularise. The
third, and most respectable, was Hassan, a Tocav,
much esteemed by those of his own class, though
disliked by the nobles, to whom he affected a
saucy roughness, and yielded reluctantly the
marks of deference universally paid them by
others. He was consequently involved in fre
quent squabbles, and some ofthe retorts raadelo
him in our presence were certainly none of the
most courteous, though less directed against
his personal character, which as a warrior and
patriot was unexceptionable, than against his
tribe, .which was poor and insignificant.
It was while frequenting the houses of the
Tocavs that the bickerings and heart-burnings
which had arisen between them and the Ouz-

234 TOCAVS OR COMMONERS.
dens, were most perceptible to us. In one in
stance, I had given a small case of fine English
gunpowder to be divided between two individuals
of our suite, one of whom I had forgotten, or was
not aware, was a noble, and the other a com
moner. The former, I was told by our drago
man, had haughtily relinquished the whole to
the latter, disdaining to share it with him. The
powder which had been offered is what few here,
be they noble or plebeian, could not but feel
thankful for ; but dignity, it appears, is a thing to
be prized even before fine English gunpowder.
Of the Tocavs in general we have every reason
to speak in commendation. Their hospitality, if
not so refined, was at least as hearty as that of
the Ouzdens, and certainly more disinterested;
since to them we presented ourselves compara
tively empty-handed. Hospitality, in fact, though
a national virtue, can be scarcely reckoned a
merit in individuals, since all claim its exercise
as a right, and it were little less than sacrilege
to withhold it. In the whole course of my re
sidence, I encountered but a single exception to
this rule, and as such, I think it worth recording.
We had alighted one evening, after the fatigues
of a long ride, in the yard of a substantial farm
house, which had been fixed upon, we were told,
as our konak for the night ; but our host, a surly

A CHURLISH HOST. 235
old knave, instead of bestirring himself and his
household to light a fire and spread couches for
us in the guest-house, stood, contrary to custom,
stock-still at the door of the harem, casting sun
dry indignant glances at our followers, as they
defiled at some length into the courtyard, and
muttering something which appeared not very
complimentary to us, and which, having insisted
on a translation, I was told reflected on the num
bers of our train, the filling of whose bellies he
seemed, on a moderate computation, to reckon
would be as expensive to him as a funeral or
wedding-feast. Not liking the mode or measure
of his hospitality, we reraounted our horses, and
prepared to seek a better reception elsewhere.
But the Gaffer, who had not anticipated this
retrograde movement, and who saw he would be
eternally disgraced if he permitted it, made a
rush at the gate to cut off our retreat : so great,
indeed, was his anxiety to prevent it, that he
narrowly escaped being trampled on by our horses,
whose bridles he would not relinquish, protesting
loudly that what he had said was in jest, and
taking everybody to witness if he was not the
most facetious old fellow in all the Natu-koitch,
and if anybody heeded a button what he said.
As all of them seemed to agree with him in this
last proposition, we were gradually mollified, and

236 MODEST MERIT IN A TOCAV.
suffered ourselves, partly by force and partly by
persuasion, to be reconducted to the guest-house.
The treatment we subsequently experienced, to
gether with the pressing invitation we received
from our host to consider his house henceforward
as our home, went a great way to convince us
that he was in earnest then, whatever he might
have been in our first reception.
So far, in general, from meeting with coldness
in this respect, we found the people in our pro
gress to vie with each other in throwing open
their doors to us. Among others who aspired to
the honour, for such they esteeraed it, of enter
taining us, was one, whose conduct, forming as it
does a fair contrast to that above detailed, I may
be excused for annexing to it. This was a timid
little man, of weak and puny frame, such as
among a warlike people is ill calculated to ob
tain consideration or respect. We had for some
time observed him following, but ever at a re
spectful distance, in our suite : at length, without
venturing on a direct invitation, he intimated to
our dragoman the pride he would feel at receiving
us under his roof. Thanking him for his proffered
hospitality, we embraced it without hesitation,
and were ranch diverted, while at his house, with
the extreme delight, checked in some measure by
a feeling of awe, which our condescension in con-

OUR POPULARITY. 237
suming his good cheer visibly imparted to him.
Emboldened by the encouragement we gave, he
grew more communicative, and gradually opened
his heart to us.
" My father," he said, " was a man esteemed
and cherished by the whole country, for he was
ofthe mightiest ; his valour prevailed in the field,
and his voice in the council. Such a lion, in short,
was he, and so poor a creature am I, that I blush
almost to mention him. It is only in discharging
the duties of hospitality, and in doing the honours
of his house to guests like yourselves, that I feel
I am worthily replacing him, and not unworthily
employing the patrimony he has bequeathed to
me. It is then, also, that I am not ashamed to
dwell upon his memory."
In short, our friends the Tocavs improved
greatly on acquaintance, while our popularity, as
Mansour had foretold, increased in a like ratio
amongst them. Mr. Bell, in particular, by his
active benevolence and attentions to the sick,
was justly entitled to their gratitude. In a place
where, though there might be some small skill in
surgery, and wounds were treated with a certain
degree of success, the medical resources of the
people were confined to the knowledge of a few
simples, a small medicine chest and a volume of
Buchan proved real treasures in his hand. Many

238 OUR POPULARITY.
who had despaired of a remedy, and groaned for
years under what they considered incurable dis
ease, were by these means restored to health.
His fame and his practice augmented daily, and
the house where we lodged had every morning
the appearance of a dispensary. Nadir, also,
soon made his way with the Deli-Kans, among
whom he was well qualified to shine, by his pro
ficiency in field sports, A crack shot with the
rifle, he more than once bore away the prize at
their shooting-matches, and though harder pushed
at their races, at which their skill in dodging and
winding on horseback seemed to give them the ad
vantage, he had therein also resources of his own,
and showed he had not ridden steeple-chases for
nothing. I shall not forget their surprise and
glee, when, in his first essay, being closely pressed
by his pursuers, who thought they had driven
him into a corner, he left them suddenly at fault
by clearing the high fence before him.
Leaping, which was before only practised from
necessity, became, after Nadir had set the fashion,
quite in vogue as an amusement ; and for some
time afterwards the Deli-Kans, we could see, were
putting their nags at the fences all over Natu
koitch. This superiority, instead of exciting envy,
was admired by all in a manly spirit of fair play ;
indeed, the praises that were bestowed on it

vows OF FRIENDSHIP. 239
sounded soraetimes rather suspiciously from their
extravagance ; and in the number of those who
applied to be retained among his immediate
satellites, were some whose motives might, per
haps, be called in question. One raan, as was
duly reported to him by his servant Kutchuk,
declared there was an indescribable something in
his face which had completely fascinated him ;
and, in short, nothing would serve his turn but
to bind hiraself to him by the solemn vow of
friendship and fidelity, which, like the Deli-Kans
of the heroic ages, such as Damon and Pythias,
&c., those of Circassia are to this day accustoraed
under such circurastances to exchange with each
other. Nadir, though he saw nothing in the
round unraeaning face and snub nose of this
romantic swain, who was, raoreover, turned of
fifty, to produce a corresponding sensation on his
part, consented nevertheless, out of curiosity, to
humour hira. Accordingly, at night, when all
other visiters had retired, for it seeraed the cere-
raony demanded secrecy, the fellow was intro
duced into the guest-house, and, after a great
deal of amusing mummery and grimace, he gave
him, by way of finale, as we thought, an affec
tionate squeeze of the hand : but Kutchuk, who
acted as interpreter, and took a somewhat suspi
cious degree of interest in the ceremony, now

240 WAR AND ROMANCE.
intimated that, to ratify it, it was incumbent on
him, who was the wealthier of the two, to make a
suitable donation to the other. But with this
stipulation Nadir begged to be excused from
complying, and declared rather unceremoniously
to his Achates, that " he would see him hanged
first ;" so that the latter, his feelings apparently
much hurt at the refusal, made a precipitate
retreat, nor did we see anything more of him
from that day forward.
Thus it was clear, that if Nadir wanted a hero,
this at least was " not the true one." Such dis
appointments will, I believe, be often experienced
by those who travel in search of the romantic;
though, certainly, if anywhere to be met with, it
must be sought in a state of society resembling
that on the Circassian border, for it is amid the
elements of strife and danger prevailing there
that the spirit of adventure is fostered and kept
alive in the highest possible degree. On the
other hand, we found the population neither
fierce nor licentious ; if such propensities were
indulged in, it must have been on the Russian
side of the Kuban, for nowhere are the decencies
and charities of life practised more religiously
than within these ranch calumniated borders.
Nor is this surprising ; the bonds of social exist
ence will be drawn the more closely in proper-

WAR AND ADVENTURE.

241

tion as they are threatened with a common danger
from without.
It is only when at war with another that
the sentiment of patriotism in a nation is dis
played in its full force ; and war, however much
it may be the fashion to deny it, and however
frightful when, to promote the colossal scheme of
insensate ambition, it wields the combined re
sources of science and civilisation, and wades in
wholesale massacre, — is, undoubtedly, while con
fined to certain limits, and prosecuted in a chi
valrous spirit, the parent of the noblest virtues.
If developement of the human character, national
and individual, be the great end of our being,
then is war, whose aim is glory, not so great a
curse, nor peace, whose pursuits are much more
interested and raaterial, so great a blessing, as
they are generally pronounced to be. It raay be
objected, I ara well aware, that plunder is the
great incentive to Circassian warfare ; such I
know to be the generally received opinion with
respect to it, founded, of course, on what has
been gathered from partial statements with re
spect to the habits of the nation at a former
period, for at present I believe there exists no
doubt that the war they wage is purely defensive
or retaliatory. But without entering now into
the causes, hereditary and religious, which I have
VOL. II. M

242 KAPLAN THE TIGER.
already adverted to, and which, had both parties
been admitted to a hearing, would, I believe, so
far as the Circassians are concerned, have formed
ample justification for these border hostilities, I
may add, that long and attentive observation of
the national character would lead me to question
if at any time the love of spoil prevailed with the
nation at large over that of glory, and if the
former be not prized less for its intrinsic value
than as a trophy ofthe latter.
But to return to our narrative ; though the
interesting and interested youth last alluded to
had disappointed the expectations of Nadir, it
would have been extraordinary if, among a people
whose chief characteristic is an ardent love of en
terprise, there had not been more kindred spirits
to be found. Such was Kaplan the Tiger, a
young noble in whose every lineament, and in
the quiet dignity of whose dark and glowing
features, romance had breathed all the spirit
which the genius of a Salvator or a Radcliffe
alone could do justice to. With him Nadir,
though congeniality of temperament rendered
tbe vows of friendship superfluous, was sworn
brother immediately ; nor had they been an hour
together, ere they were holding unreserved com
munion as to their future plans ; Kaplan declaring
our friend to be an ousta, or proficient in the

KUBAN GUIDES. 243
science of taking castles, and the latter not less
delighted at the promise of adventures and
achievements which awaited them without num
ber on the other side of the Kuban.
The house of the young chieftain where we
had taken our lodging for the night was, from
its position, in some measure associated with
these subjects, — looking from its wooded nook on
the hillside over the boundless prospect of the
Russian steppes, as the fisherman's hut commands
the view of the ocean, and presents to his eye the
scene of his past toils and escapes, together with
the field of future exertion. Kaplan was the
most famous of the Kuban guides, one of whom
is to be found at the mouth of each of its tribu
tary streams, and whose occupation is esteemed
highly honourable, involving as it does great
personal risk and responsibility ; since not only
have they to keep their countrymen duly in
formed of the movements of the enemy on the
frontier, but, after penetrating beyond it for the
purpose of reconnoitring, to lead the way in
every expedition.
It was at this very season that the guides were
most actively employed ; for the time was ap
proaching when the frost would chain up the
river, which had served as a moat of defence . to
the otherwise defenceless Khernamortsies, and,
M 2

244 KUBAN GUIDES.
permit of forays on a more extensive scale. They
had, in the mean while, either singly or at the
head of small guerilla parties, swam or forded
the Kuban at various points, scattering wild
dismay through the adjacent provinces. Two
regiments that had retired to Stavropol were, in
consequence of these alarms, ordered back to
Ekatorinadar. We had also, though remaining ourselves in
Circassia, ocular demonstration, singular as it
may seem, of the panic then prevailing in Russia.
Nadir, should these pages meet his eye, will
doubtless recollect the night when, in company
with Kaplan, we reconnoitred the fortress of
Aboon, and frightened so cruelly from their pro
priety the unfortunate garrison, part of which (to
the no small amuseraent of the Circassians, who
hold Russians and pigs, as equally unclean, in
the same abomination) made a desperate sally to
save the swine which were feeding outside the
gates, while the rest cannonaded us furiously
from the walls. Night had overtaken us on our
way horae, after this reconnoissance, between
Aboon and the Kuban; but the darkness, which
had been unrelieved except by the moon in her
first quarter shedding a feeble light behind the
broken ridge of the lesser chain of the Caucasus
that lay black in midnight shadow below, was

CONFLAGRATION OF THE REEDS. 245
suddenly dispelled by the light of a confiagration
in front of us ; while other fires, breaking out
almost simultaneously to the right and left, lit
up with an effect, grand as it was ghastly, the
vast and dreary confines of the Muscovite.
These phenomena, startling as they were to
us, occasioned no surprise to the Circassians, who
told us they were precautions taken against sur
prise by the Russians. They were endeavouring,
it seemed, to burn the reeds which served their
enemies for ambush on the further bank of the
Kuban; but these precautions the latter now
laughed to scorn, for they knew they could be
only very partially successful, exclaiming, by way
of comment on thera, " Let them quake, the
Kiafirs ! 'tis their turn to tremble now."

246 INTERNAL REFORMS.

CHAPTER XIII.

Internal reforms among the Circassians— The National Oath — We
leave the Kuban— Advance of the Yebers — Guz-Beg again —
Nocturnal alarm.
Various were the hopes and fears that now agi
tated the minds of all who dwelt in the vicjinity of
the Kuban. On the one side was a peasantry ex
posed to the reprisals which their government had
provoked, but could not protect them against ; on
the other an armed population, full of ardour and
enterprise, eager to wipe off the scores of the pre
ceding year, and waiting but the customary signal
of their chiefs to be up and over the border to a
man. But those on whom it thus depended to
let loose their devastating fury, and who would
have been warranted in so doing both by justice
and policy, (since they equally demanded that

INTERNAL REFORMS. 247
the Russians should be visited in turn with a por
tion at least of the calamities they had so unspar
ingly inflicted,) were at this juncture influenced
by considerations, the moderation and magnani
mity of which, though unappreciated by their
enemies, must obtain them the sympathy of all
who are not utter strangers to these sentiments.
How remarkable that those whom the Russians
should stigmatise as barbarians, should be the
first to feel the barbarity of this exterminating
warfare ; and, instead of attacking their enemies
at disadvantage, employ the respite afforded by
the temporary retreat of their armies in the
reform of internal abuses ! These ameliorations
they had been taught to consider as conditions on
which assistance might be eventually obtained
from England.
With a noble confidence, therefore, in tho
justice of their cause, inspiring them, on the one
hand, with a proud contempt of their gigantic
adversary, and, on the other, with a sanguine
belief, which no discouragement could utterly
extinguish, that neither England nor the Porte
would ultimately abandon them, they now re
solutely applied themselves to a measure which,
in propitiating the latter, would, they declared,
be of more avail to them than the capture of
twenty forts, or any warlike expedition against

248 INTERNAL REFOR.MS.
the foriner. The act they now contemplated em
braced, among other objects, a solemn vindication
of their national character, which had been stu
diously misrepresented and vilified.
It had been the view and policy of Russia, not
only to sever the ties which had connected the
Circassians with their Mussulman brethren, by
investing that country with their armies and
fleets, but to cut them off from the sympathies of
the whole world, by invariably representing them
as lawless hordes of barbarians. Nothing, how
ever, could be more unfair than such statements ;
for though it must be admitted that the laws and
institutes acknowledged by these mountaineers
did not formerly interdict acts of spoliation be
tween members of different tribes and provinces,
yet the observances which they did prescribe,
and which certainly sufficed for the general se
curity of life and property, were perhaps more
tenaciously adhered to than the laws are in any
other country. I have heard of no instance of
breach of faith when once plighted; and as to
their respect for treaties, Russia herself must be a
reluctant witness in their favour, and blush at
the contrast afforded to it by its own perfidy.
All, then, that was wanting, was the abandon
ment of usages which gave their enemies any
colour for excluding them from the pale of civi-

THE NATIONAL OATH. 249
lisation. The means by which so desirable a
consummation was to be effected, was the ad
ministration of the national oath.
To explain the full power of the oath over the
Circassians, which will, doubtless, appear marvel
lous to such as are strangers to their customs, I
cannot do better than adopt their own definition
or personification of it, there being about as much
truth in the metaphors they employ as in any
I ever heard. Nothing, indeed, could more
widely differ than the tone of affected regret, but
real exultation, with which they acknowledged
there was neither king nor government in the
country, than the emphatic sincerity of that with
which they have as often assured us that their
king was their oath. It is, in fact, the monarch —
the only one — whose sway (morally and meta
phorically speaking) had been submitted to, from
time imraemorial, in every part of the Caucasus.
His seal it is that confers validity on every com
pact, social or political. He is the mighty arbiter in
all differences — the sole lawgiver, whose authority
enforces what his sanction has confirmed. All,
of whatever sex or condition, are his vassals.
Woe to the perjured wretch who shall betray his
allegiance ! A blight shall fall on him and all
connected with him ; his kindred perish like a
tainted flock; his children, till he confess and
M 5

250

THE NATIONAL OATH.

expiate the sacrilege, shall drop from him like
mildewed ears, or withered branches from the
stem ; himself, if permitted to linger a while as
an example, shall live a broken, conscience
stricken raan, a burthen to the earth and its
elements, an outcast and object of abhorrence to
all aj'ound him.
It will be readily believed, that the existence
of so formidable a means of control has not
escaped the missionaries and professors of Islam
ism, who have been labouring at the conversion
of these provinces for the last sixty years ; and
that, instead of attempting to subvert, they have
availed themselves of it as their most powerful
auxiliary. Discarding the forms of ancient super
stition, they have, to continue our metaphor, in
vested the majesty of the oath with the more
solemn insignia of the Koran ; and arming them
selves in turn with its terrors, wield thera suc
cessfully in their warfare with usages which,
though tolerated, and in some measure demanded
by the civil institutions of the country, are alto
gether at variance with the Mahometan law.
To renounce practices such as rapine and vio
lence, the only means, as I have elsewhere ex
plained, by which, in default of others, the tribes
could obtain mutual redress, and which inferred,
therefore, per se, no degree of moral turpitude.

THE NATIONAL OATH. 251
was a sacrifice few could be induced to subscribe
to. A compromise was therefore entered into, by
which it was understood that only those who had
specifically abjured these offences were to be ex
communicated by their commission — with the
proviso, however, that the oath, when it was
taken, should operate not only as a security for
their future good behaviour, but also retrospec
tively compelling them to the restitution of plun
dered property, and to the payment of a fine as
an acknowledgment for each offence.
There was, of course, under these circum
stances, a general reluctance to take it ; and the
struggle between the more rigid Mussulmans and
the party of the recusants, who far exceed them
in number, had been carried on with great per
tinacity, though with indifferent success on the
side of the forraer, for nearly half a century. The
means adopted to enforce it were in accordance
with the primitive manners of the nation. A
nuraber of influential chiefs or elders, forraing
themselves into a body, would proceed on horse
back, with a cadi or magistrate at their head, to
the various streams and hamlets, and having
sumraoned a council at each of these places,
endeavour to prevail on their inhabitants to take
the oath. Occasionally, when they could not be

252 THE NATIONAL OATH.
persuaded by fair means, rougher arguments were
resorted to, and the disputants would take to
cudgelling each other. But this sort of alterca
tion was seldora attended with fatal results ;
and to characterise it raore fully as a strife-
among brethren, it was humorously called by
thera " the war of the whips." Such had been
the anomalous state of these provinces while
they preserved their connexion with Turkey,
and before Anapa had been finally surrendered
to the Russians ; and up to this time, though its
dissemination was jealously promoted by the
pachas of that fortress, (one of whom, Hassan
Pacha, headed a party of Yebers, as those who
administered it were styled in person,) the oath
had made little progress.
Not so, however, after the withdrawal of
Turkey's protection, which the reforming party
did not fail to represent as the immediate conse
quence of their contumacy. For it followed that
their only chance of recovering it, together with
the raore powerful assistance of England, was a
spontaneous submission to the obligations they
had hitherto so stubbornly refused to incur.
But that which chiefly confirmed them in this
humiliating view of their position, and the salu
tary reaction resulting from it, was an event

THE NATIONAL OATH. 253
which occurred in the sumraer of 1834, an epoch
destined to be ever memorable in the annals of
these countries.
It was then that Mr. Urquhart, the first
Englishman who had visited them, landing
among them in the hour of need like a " deus ex
machina" from the cutter " Turquoise," in ad
dressing the assembled multitude on the plains of
Anapa, told them that as an indispensable con
dition of countenance and support from England,
which he promised them his best endeavours to
obtain, they should begin by renouncing the
feuds, and the predatory habits which had been
the consequence of them, between the various
tribes and provinces, and that while Russia per
sisted in making war upon them, they should on
no account sanction the commerce which had
been opened with them, as a bait no doubt, and
wdth the most sinister intentions. The effect of
these exhortations was raost powerful and in
stantaneous— raore so, perhaps, than he who made
them could have anticipated, or has since been
aware of. The seed thus scattered with a hasty
hand, has produced a harvest of beneficial
consequences, for extent, and rapidity of growth,
unexampled in history. The commerce with
Anapa, which had already inundated the country
with spies and Russian agents, was summarily

264 THE NATIONAL OATH.
suppressed; all intercourse with the Russians
was prohibited under the severest penalties.
But not only were these precautions taken
against danger frora without, but, as a pledge
of their desire to establish the good order that
had been recorainended to them, they deter
mined to impose the oath on the whole popula
tion. It was accordingly adrainistered to every adult
in Natu-koitch, and the elders had succeeded in
imposing it as far as Azips, the fifth district of
Shapsook eastward, when, either from the resist
ance of the inhabitants, which threatened a civil
war if they persisted, or the sudden invasion of
the Russians, their progress had been there
interrupted. The effect of the oath, and the con
trast afforded, during the last few years, between
the sworn and the unsworn districts, was almost
miraculous, the former being as remarkable for
the unanimity and good order which prevailed in
them, as the latter were for their misrule, and
reckless communication with the Russians,
through the neutral province of Zadoog.
The Russian government, aware of the expedi
ency of cultivating these dispositions, and finding
the door closed to her commerce in one direction,
had accordingly attempted to open it in another,
and recently established a mart on the further

THE YEBER EXPEDITION. 265
bank of the Kuban, opposite the embouchure of
the stream of Ashtook, under the auspices of a
renegade Circassian, on whora had been conferred
the rank of colonel in its service. A Russian
party had during the last raonth been clandes
tinely formed in Shapsook; and though, as I
have related, the ringleaders of the faction had
been summarily dealt with by Mansour and Sha
miz, the contamination, with the demoralisation
which was said to keep pace with it, had spread
too far in the community to be eradicated by any
means but one — the infallible reraedy for all dis
orders — the ranch dreaded ordeal ofthe oath.
It was with some surprise that we heard the
design, now positively announced to us by Hadji
oli Effendi, of inarching on the contumacious dis
trict of Azips. The worthy judge, while we
seemed to have a warlike expedition in view,
had been by no means the foremost of our party :
war was not his element, unless it might be the
war of the whips, in which, not less than that of
words, he was a match for any man, and to which
sort of strife, as we were now proceeding, he
bravely headed our band as its Coryphaeus.
Sometimes, also, he had to bring up the rear as
its whipper-in ; for many of them, particularly
the Deli-Kans, not relishing this change in our
destination, showed a disposition to desert. The

256 WE LEAVE THE KUBAN.
task of setting their own house in order was not
nearly so much to their taste as that of rummag
ing that of their enemy.
For our part, as we began more fully to com
prehend the importance of the pacific crusade on
which we were bound, and to the success of
which, as Englishraen and friends to the country,
we could so materially contribute by our pre
sence ; we did not hesitate to lend the judge
the whole weight of our influence ; still it was not
without considerable regret, and many a lingering
look behind at the Kuban, that Nadir bade adieu
to his brave companions, and the projects they
had formed together on its banks. He w-as
destined, however, to fall into still greater terap-
tation. The day after we had parted from the
Tiger, whom should we meet pacing raajestically
over the plain of Adheucum but the old lion
Hadji Guz-Beg ; he was attended by his squire
and a page, leading a spare charger. After the
customary salutations, which were performed on
foot, we remounted our horses and rode on toge
ther. It was not every day that we fell in with
such a hero as the Hadji, and the least we could
do was to have a carouse with him, for which pur
pose stood very opportunely at hand the house of
our old acquaintance Attukoi, where we knew
from experience we should always Jje heartily

CAROUSE WITH GUZ-BEG. 257
welcome — for a consideration. I should have men
tioned that the ingenious gentleman last spoken
of had been hanging about us for some time in
the pleasing expectation of some profitable trans
action with Nadir, whose wealth and munifi
cence had attracted him, in the way of presents.
This time, however, he did not trust entirely for
success to the appliances of his table : the extent
of his expectations was proved by the magnitude
of his bait, and a horse of some value which he
made over to hira, with ranch fuss and galiraatias,
turned out a highly lucrative speculation. Hav
ing established a claim by his gift, his importu
nity thenceforward knew no bounds, and the only
means by which Nadir could escape from it, after
presenting him in the mean while with twice the
worth of his horse, was to restore it to him.
The banquet he provided us consisted, as usual,
of the fat of a land flowing with railk and
honey, washed down by endless bowls of boza
and backsima. Leaving the other guests to drench
themselves ad libitum with the forraer, we joined
the Hadji, whose challenge we could not courte
ously decline, in copious libations of the latter.
It was a potent sort of mead, which, though not
so unpalatable, was much more intoxicating.
But whatever its strength, he was determined,
apparently, to try it against that of our heads, an

268 RETREAT OF HADJIOLI.
experiment in which, probably because they had
been seasoned by much stronger potations than
he or his friends were accustomed to, he was
fairly worsted by us.
The innovation produced by the good liquor
began soon to display itself in the various frolics
and extravagances which usually mark the pro
gressive triumph of the jolly god in Circassia.
At each successive bumper, which, to his ludicrous
dismay, he found it more difficult to grapple with,
he, in token of fair play, after draining it to the
bottom, reversed his goblet, and then, to give
vent to the feelings by which he was overpowered,
he fired his pistol through the roof of the guest
house. The last feat seemed to delight every
body but our worthy host, whose attempt at
laughter, as he eyed the damage sustained by his
rafters, the parlour splendours of his guest-house,
was the most woful that can be imagined. Many
were disposed to follow the Hadji's example, but
he summarily protested against it, declaring the
Hadji to be a privileged person. The vanquished
hero, thus caught in his own toils, was eventually
conducted to bed amid the roars of the company.
The judge, who, contrary to custom, had been a
dry-lipped spectator of the revel, now rose and
summoned us hastily to horse ; he had been by no
means pleased at our rencontre with the Hadji, in

RETREAT OF HADJIOLI. 259
whom he beheld a rival no less able than dis
posed to weaken his party of Fefters, by draughting
them into a troop for a warlike expedition under
his own banner. Nor were his apprehensions alto
gether unfounded. The Hadji had had several
private consultations withNadir,and, though dis
approving of his plan of a night attack, as op
posed to the usages of the Circassians, who are
personally under no obligation of military service,
and whose chief incentive is emulation, while
combating in the sight of their countrymen, had
on his side suggested more than one enterprise,
the execution of which would have necessarily
made bim a truant from the Yeber expedition of
Hadjioli. The latter, therefore, taking advan
tage of the raoraentary confusion of the eneray,
determined, like a prudent general, to draw off
his forces ; but an old soldier like the Hadji was
not so easily imposed upon. Information, it
seemed, had been conveyed to him of our move
ments; and we had scarcely proceeded a quarter of
a mile on our way, when at a turning of the road
we were briskly assailed by a body of dismounted
Deli-Kans, armed each of them as when Birnam
wood marched upon Dunsinane, with a branch
of a tree. With these weapons they threw them
selves pell-mell, and screaming like so many
fiends, among our horses ; but this was not all, for

260 ADVANCE OF THE YEBERS.
while pressed thus vigorously in front, we were
menaced at the same time by alarms in our rear,
where the Hadji himself, breaking through a
fence, appeared pistol and sword in hand at the
head of another party. But there was not much
about the lion to inspire terror just then, for he
had not had time to gird up his loins since the
rfecent revel, and staggering in his gait, and dis-
brdered in his dress, he had much less the port of
a Mars than a Silenus at that moment. We had
little difficulty, therefore, in escaping from his
clutches; the less so, perhaps, that he had himself
no serious intention of detaining us, but merely
wished to prove to us it was not so easy to steal a
march upon hira.
From the Adheucum we advanced towards
the Aboon, where, on a plain near the confines of
the two provinces there was that day a great
crowd of people assembled, it appeared, to cele
brate the funeral feast of some person of distinc
tion. The judge had taken us there in hopes,
araong such a raultitude, of recruiting the ranks
of our party, which, for the object he had in view,
was certainly deficient both in numbers and in
fluence ; but he met with no great encouragement.
The oath was not popular in these parts; and
though we were personally received with the
usual marks of deference, ushered by the stewards

ADVANCE OF THE YEBERS. 261
to the most distinguished places, and treate(^ to
the primiticB of the feast, Hadjioli succeede4 in
making few proselytes. There were many, it was
evident, who, far from assisting to impose the
oath on others, had decided objections to taking
it themselves ; and, ready as they raight be to
swear hostility to the Russians, had no idea of
relinquishing their private feuds. We w^re
ourselves witnesses on that very day to an in
cident which proved the deterraination with
which they were still prosecuted. A man, pass
ing at full gallop a group of pedestrians on the
plain, deliberately fired his pistol at one of them,
who instantly fell down wounded in the leg. It
had been the object of the assailant to maim, and
not to kill his victim ; thus discharging with a
shot the balance of some unsettled account be
tween their tribes. Our body of Yebers, there
fore, though composed in great measure of highly
respectable Tamatas or elders, yet, for the under
taking we were embarked in, a comparative
handful, advanced boldly to administer the ob
noxious oath to a refractory district consisting of
upwards of 10,000 inhabitants. We were met on
the threshold of their province, it is true, as
we crossed the Aboon, by several of the leading
men of Shapsook, among whom was Slez Oglou
Nazwa ; but all these worthies, disposed as they

262

DISAPPOINTMENTS.

might be to second our views, yet, better ac
quainted with the resistance to be expected, grew
every day more lukewarm and irresolute.
Their only answer to the arguments and ex
hortations addressed to them by Hadjioli, was
an allusion to the insignificance of our party, or
a demand why Shamiz or Mansour had not ac
companied it. The name of the latter in parti
cular was evidently a tower of strength, which it
was most ominous to the success of our expedi
tion to lack. After passing, therefore, on our way,
the streams of Bogondour, Shebig, andWhoff, at
each of which the judge had assembled a council
ring, and harangued it "from morn till dew-y eve''
to very little purpose, we found the numbers of
our train, instead of being augmented, very con
siderably thinned by desertion. The indignation
of Hadjioli at the apathy and backwardness of
the Shapsookians now scarcely knew any bounds.
The success of the undertaking we were engaged
in, he had, on personal as well as public grounds,
very much at heart ; for not to mention the fines
levied for past offences by those Vho administered
the oath, and of which he was hiraself entitled to
a lion's share, its iraraediate tendency, by a more
rigid enforcement of the laws of Islamisra, was to
extend his authority as its chief judge in Circas
sia. Long and loudly did he inveigh against the

ANGER OF THE JUDGE. 263
turbulence of his countrymen, whom he declared
to have no stomach for anything but fighting — a
propensity, which forgetting apparently how use
ful it was under existing circumstances, or think
ing, perhaps, that swearing would fully answer
the same purpose, he held in the greatest abhor
rence. The grudge he bore against all martialists and
lads of mettle had before displayed itself in his
hostility to Tougouse, whose reformation he had
treated with the most scornful incredulity ; and it
was with a degree of malicious triumph, which
he was at no pains to disguise, that he now in
formed us of the report which was current with
regard to our minion, as he termed him. He
had been at some of his wild pranks again, it
was said, having made free with some cattle
belonging to the people of Zadoog. But there
were others who warmly defended Tougouse in
his absence, and declared that, if he had stolen
the beasts, he could no doubt show good and
sufficient cause for the robbery. It was certain
that the judge was disposed to show him little
favour, and it was hard to say whether he dis
liked him or Hadgi Guz-Beg the most.
He was deceived, however, in thinking that he
had entirely rid himself of the latter. The even
ing of our arrival at Whoff, while we were

264 GUZ-BEG AGAIN.
reposing ourselves at the blazing hearth of our
house, our attention was suddenly drawn to a
brisk discharge of fire-arms, with its usual accom
paniment of yells, in the immediate neighbour
hood of the house. The alarm which such a
tumult at an hour so unseasonable was calculated
to create, was removed by the assurances of the
company, who said it could be nothing but a
marriage, it being customary, when the bride
groom elopes with his lady, to get up a sham
fight on the occasion. But this surmise proved
also incorrect, and further conjectures were cut
short by the Hadji in person, who, it seems, had
taken this obstreperous way of announcing him
self, and who now, throwing open the door,
marched raerrily at the head of his satellites into
the apartraent. He had not yet given up his
design of an expedition, and was doggedly bent
on recruiting his array, as he called it, at the ex
pense of the judge's.
He had this time brought with him a singular
but powerful coadjutor in a blind old minstrel,
the most famous in Circassia, and one whose per
suasions were of raore avail in the raising of men,
than the eloquence of any Sergeant Kite in Chris
tendom. An amateur in the art of minstrelsy,
the Hadji was a liberal patron to its professors ;
and judging of the general effect of their strains

RECRUITING DEVICES OF GUZ-BEG. 265
from that which they produced on himself, their
praises in fact being the breath of his nostrils, he
was for the most part, when engaged in raising a
war-party, attended by his favourite troubadour,
who, together with his fiddle, was transported from
place to place on the crupper of his attendant's
steed. As I have already given my readers a
specimen of Circassian minstrelsy, I shall not
attempt a version of the song we now heard.
Suffice it to say, it breathed,as usual, considerable
pathos and spirit, blended sometimes with quaint
humour and sarcasm. Most of these effusions
were extemporaneous, and contained allusions to
ourselves and other people present : but the best
criterion of their merit was the impression they
made upon the audience, whose chorus, at the
close of every verse which he recited, rather than
sang, in a quiet earnest tone, grew louder and
more enthusiastic, while the minstrel himself, his
wrinkled and faded countenance flushed and
upturned, and his sightless eyeballs " in a fine
frenzy rolling," sate like one completely rapt
and inspired in the midst of them. We gave
him, when he had concluded, for our share of
encouragement, a piece of merchandise, for which
we had, in the bargain, a promise of being im
mortalized in a song composed to our especial
honour. But neither the strains of this Timo-
VOL. II. N

266 ILL SUCCESS AND DESPONDENCY.
theus, nor those of the Hadji himself, who, seiz
ing the fiddle, sang the joys of martyrdom with
a zest that was almost irresistible, could shake
our resolution, or seduce us from the more useful
expedition in which we were already embarked.
The utmost he could do was to prevail on Nadir
to accompany him the next morning to a wedding.
The judge, on his arrival, finding the latter gone,
flew into a violent passion; nor did he recover
his temper till the return of the supposed deserter
in the evening.
Everything, in fact, in this stage of our pro
ceedings, prognosticated a failure. We had
reached the stream of Ant Kur, the next but one
to that of Azips, to which the nearer we drew,
the more sensible we became of the resistance we
had to expect. This had hitherto been of a pas
sive character, the people, for the most part,
keeping sullenly aloof from us ; but we were now
told of threats of violence, which some individuals
of the district in question, made desperate by the
prospect ofthe oath, had been known to utter against
us. We were also disheartened in some measure by
the now but ill-concealed reluctance of many to en
tertain us ; and never since our arrival in Cir
cassia had we, to my thinking, experienced so
cold a welcome as that with which we were re
ceived at a solitary farm on the Ant Kur. This

NOCTURNAL ALARM. 267
reception was, however, in keeping with the
cheerless looks of the place itself; homestead and
brook being strewed with the wrecks of their dis
mantled grove, and rendered still more dismal by
the early scowl of a December's evening.
It was in leaving us there for the night, and
announcing to us that, unless matters took an
entirely different turn, we should have to re
treat on the morrow upon Natu-koitch, that the
judge, with some erabarrassraent, recommended
us not to lay aside our arms, but to keep them at
least within reach of us.
It may appear strange, perhaps, that deeming
this warning necessary, he did not provide us
with a guard ; but this would have been an un
pardonable insult to our host, who was alone
answerable for our safety. However this might
be, what we had heard was not calculated to
act as an opiate, and it was late before sleep
had taken entire possession of our cabin. The
first who yielded to its influence was Mr. Bell;
Nadir and myself, reclined on our beds, and con
versing by the huge red logs of our half-extin
guished fire, on subjects which, when distant
from home, are peculiarly interesting to English
men, had protracted our vigils much beyond
the usual hour, when we were all at once alarmed
by the sound of footsteps and the whispering of
N 2

268 NOCTURAL ALARM.
voices under the eaves of the guest-house. These
had scarcely ceased, when a noise was heard at
the door, which it was evident some one was
attempting on the outside ; but it was firmly se
cured by a large wooden pin, and resisted the
efforts made to force it open. We in the mean
while prepared ourselves to give the best recep
tion we could to our unseasonable visiters.
As the most essential ijrecaution. Nadir hastened
to put out the remains of the fire, the light of
which, if it should come to an exchange of shots
with the assailants outside, would give them a
decided advantage over us. We then waited .the
sequel of the adventure in silence, which for
some moments was as undisturbed without as
within. It was at length interrupted by the
blows of a hatchet, evidently employed in cut
ting wood from the adjacent copse. Our next
suspicion, therefore, a still more alarming one,
was, that it was the intention of our besiegers to
set fire to our lodging, and murder us while in
the act of escaping from it. But, after listening
in deep suspense for some tirae, we were gradu
ally reassured, and silence and darkness produc
ing their usual effects, we were soon soundly
asleep.

EXPLANATION. 269

CHAPTER XIV.
Explanation of our nocturnal disturbance^Better prospects —
Shahin-Gheri — Battle of the Whips — the Rhamazan — Winter
quarters at Shahin-Gheri's.
It was broad daylight when I was suddenly
roused from my slumbers by the jovial accents,
mixed with the loud laughter, of a voice that was
'amiliar to me, and the next moment, ere well
awake, found myself in the powerful hug of the
friendly Wolf. The mystery of the preceding
night was now fully explained. Tougouse, in re
turning from the province of Zadoog, whence he
and his companions were then driving home a
rich reprisal of horn cattle, had been informed
of our advance into Shapsook, and had, imme
diately on receiving the intelligence, sought out
our konac.

270 EXPLANATION.
Arriving there at midnight, he had, in his im
patience to see us, endeavoured to obtain instant
admission, but not succeeding in his attempt, he
and his companions had cut themselves some
wood, struck a light, and bivouacked round the
fire till morning. Hence the nocturnal noises
and our alarra. An explanation which proved
still more satisfactory, and which the judge
himself could not impugn, related to the incur
sion into Zadoog. Far frora incurring censure,
Tougouse, it seems, deserved the thanks of the
whole population of Natu-koitch, whose collective
wrongs he had taken upon himself to redress.
Two Armenian merchants of that province having
been plundered by the Zadoogians, he had, to
make sure of an indemnity, distrained some
of their cattle ; so that, instead of breaking
the law, he had shown a praiseworthy alacrity
in enforcing it, having at the same time the
unalloyed satisfaction of sweeping off a whole
herd of oxen and buffaloes, with justice on his
side and a safe conscience.
He volunteered also, in proof of his zeal, to
join us in our march upon Azips ; and Hadjioli
himself, aware of the assistance so tall a fellow
might be to him in the war of the whips, in which,
by-the-bye, he had before distinguished himself,
was fain to accept his services. He was the

BETTER PROSPECTS. 271
more disposedto reconciliation, perhaps, that our
enterprise, I mean that of the Yebers, seemed
unexpectedly on the eve of triumph. The clouds
that but the day before had lowered so ominously
upon it were suddenly dispersed, all difficulties
had vanished, and we had from that time, with
the exception of a few squalls at Azips, fair wea
ther and plain sailing.
All the elders and judges in council now dis
covered both zeal and unanimity in promoting
our views. A messenger arrived the same morn
ing from Mansour Bey at Sebebzi, enjoining us on
no account to relax our efforts, the success of
which he had so much at heart; that, rather than
they should miscarry, he would have himself,
notwithstanding the state of his foot, and dero
gatory as it might prove to him as a warrior,
transported to the scene of controversy, like a
woman in an araba. But the circumstance
which of all others wrought this sudden change
in our prospects, and in the dispositions of the
Shapsookians, was the timely and effective co-ope
ration of a chieftain who, though we had hitherto
seen nothing of him, had been, we were told, since
the expulsion of the Abbates, by far the most in
fluential noble in the province. ^
His name was Shahin-Gheri, of the tribe of
Nemery. The reason he had not visited us, was

272 SHAHIN-GHERI.
simply that he was at feud with our host Shamiz,
and consequently embroiled with the whole tribe
of Chippakow, by various members of which we
had, since our arrival, been more or less sur
rounded. The feud in question was of domestic origin.
Shahin-Gheri had taken to wife a sister of Shamiz,
a dame, it would seem, of a somewhat fickle and
shrewish disposition, who, after some years coha
bitation with her husband, had, on repairing to
her brother's house on pretence of a visit, obsti
nately refused to return to him. After some
ineffectual remonstrances, Shahin-Gheri formally
demanded the restitution of his spouse, or the
price he had originally paid for her. But he of
Chippakow, declining to coerce his sister, or to
refund what he had received for her, and which,
according to his version of the story, was little or
nothing, Shahin-Gheri, who, it was intimated to
her, was not the man to " carry coals" for the
pleasure of any other, be he who he might, in
Circassia, proceeded, after the custom in such
cases, to do himself justice. He had forthwith,
by way of a practical hint to his brother-in-law,
waylaid one of his serfs, stripped him of his
arms, and as much of his clothing as he could
decently dispense with, and sent him home, in this
priraitive state, with his compliments to his master

SHAHIN-GHERI. 273
This outrage of course amounted to a declaration
of war, not only between the principals in this
affair, but also between the respectives tribes of
Nemery and Chippakow. If Shamiz had not
sought immediate satisfaction for this affront, if
years even had left it unredressed, this was by
no means viewed, by those who best knew the
old Ouzden, as a proof that he had forgotten it.
Such were the causes which involving Shahin-
Gheri in a mortal feud with the whole of the
Chippakows, had long excluded him from the
national council in which the influence of that
tribe predominated. To a high-spirited and am
bitious chieftain like him, this proscription must
have been peculiarly galling. Now, therefore,
that a band of Yebers, under the auspices of the
illustrious strangers, from whose society, though
he had heard so much of them, he had hitherto been
banished, were holding their deliberations in his
immediate neighbourhood, he determined, at any
sacrifice of his personal resentments, to lend his
aid to an enterprise, the success of which, he was
aware, he could at this critical moment ensure by
his countenance. The steps he adopted in pur
suance of these generous resolves were, as befitted
them, equally frank and straightforward. Riding
up to the council-ring, where the Yebers were en
gaged in earnest discussion, he, to the astonish-
n6

274 SHAHIN-GHERI.
ment of the circle, dismounted in the midst of
them. The number of the Chippakows present
was three, — the judge Hajioli, the freedman
Ongasoff, and the boy Chenetlook.
The conduct of these individuals, all bound,
when they met him, to take summary vengeance
on the enemy of their tribe, was different as it
was characteristic. The judge, engaged at that
very moment in a task which had for its object
the suppression of strife and bloodshed, felt natu
rally averse to violence even in the prosecution
of a rightful feud; but it was no easy matter to
reconcile his duty as a Mussulman cadi with that
of a true meraber of the tribe of Chippakow.
By way of compromise, therefore, he resolutely
turned hishead another way, and then, as if sum
moned by urgent business to the other side of
the hedge, absconded as nimbly as he could.
The behaviour of Ongasoff was, though from
different motives, not less circumspect. The
freedman, besides that he was not of a sanguinary
disposition, felt the rein of more than one pru
dential consideration, — he had other things in
keeping than his master's honour, and knew to a
nicety the number of horned cattle then grazing
on his master's pastures. Two hundred of them,
he was aware, would be the amount of blood in
demnity, and so large a hole in the live stock.

SHAHIN-GHERI. 275
the inevitable consequence of that, be it ever so
small, he should perforate with his rifle in the
body of Shahin-Gheri. Troubled apparently by
these reflections, he fumbled with his piece in a
manner that, for a Circassian who is trained to
draw it with peculiar alertness from its felt
covering, was singularly awkward and dilatory.
Not so, however, Chenetlook.
In Shahin-Gheri, the single-hearted lad saw but
the enemy of his father and his tribe ; his weapon
was out, and levelled at him in a trice, and but
for the prompt interference of a bystander who
wrested it frora his hands, he would in the pa
ternal quarrel have brought down his paternal
uncle with as little remorse as a wild duck or a
Russian. But the latter, intimating by voice and
gesture that his intentions were pacific, proposed
that the judge himself should fix the compen
sation due from him for the spoliation of his
slave to Shamiz, and that without reference to
the provocation he had received, and which he
promised to overlook. These difficulties removed,
Shahin-Gheri was next, amidst the praises and
jubilee of the whole company, introduced to us
as one who desired by all means in his power to
promote the administration of the oath, or any
measure we might recommend for the public
advantage. On these subjects, as if to indemnify

276 ARRIVAL AT HAPPLE.
himself for past restraint, he launched forth at
great length, and with much volubility expressed
the most unbounded devotion to us personally; nor
could we but feel flattered, and in some degree
moved, at the deep mortification he said he had
experienced in beiag so long debarred access tons,
or at the abortive attempts he had made, under
taking long journeys, and hovering about us conti
nually at Pchad and Adheucum to obtain an
interview, — attempts which had been constantly
defeated by the jealous vigilance of the Chippa
kows. In short, the zeal and earnestness of our
new adherent were such as, notwithstanding his
mean figure, hatchet face, and ungraceful address,
to prepossess us completely in his favour ; he was
one of those persons in whom restless energy of
character supplies all personal deficiencies, and
eminently qualifies for a leader of the populace.
No sooner had he openly espoused our cause,
than his example operated as a charm upon the
whole district. Our affairs from that moment
went on swimmingly ; — and when we advanced
the day after to the next stream, that on which he
himself resided, the Happle, we must have had,
reckoning horse and foot, half the memleket at
our heels. At the konac in which we put up there,
we were received, much to our surprise, by a
salvo of artillery. The patriarch of the hamlet.

A ROYAL SALUTE. 277
who had flourished in it upwards of a century,
piqued himself on his skill as an engineer. His
hobby was a great gun that had been taken from
the Russians, and which, being now in his second
childhood, he was accustomed to ride with no
little complacency, founding on it many notable
projects for the demolition of the castle of Nico-
lai. His only difficulty, he told us, arose from
the great distance of that fort, and the impossi
bility of transporting his heavy piece of ordnance
to a position whence he could conveniently bat
ter it. Thus his time had been occupied in
marching and countermarching (his legs being
fortunately in more vigorous preservation than
his intellects) between the gun and the fortress —
though failing hitherto, as the fruit of his marches
and cogitations, to bring them an inch nearer to
each other. Had he known the facility with
which my Lords Durham and Palmerston had,
in order to make out a case for the seizure of the
Vixen, shifted the castle of Doha to Soujak Kale,
he would, perhaps, not have despaired of bring
ing the fortress to the gun, however difficult he
found it to convey the gun to the fortress.
It was a grand sight to see the old Trojan let
off his gun. This was a feat which the scarcity
of gunpowder rendered of very rare occurrence ;
and we, in whose honour the unwonted explosion

278 MARCH UPON AZlPS.
was to take place, were not a little surprised, on
cantering into the churchyard, to see him with
his household beat to quarters, capering with a
lighted match over the touch-hole. The affair,
I am happy to say, went off with great eclat, and
the report, considering the modicum of power
employed to produce it, was as loud as could be
expected. We left Happle the next day with
powerful reinforcements, but they did not accom
pany us all the way to Azips, being intended only
for a demonstration, which, in thus making their
sentiments known, would render further coercion
towards the refractory district unnecessary. We
were told also there were exceptions there to the
general profligacy ; and several secret partisans of
the oath, who, though hitherto silenced and inti
midated, only waited our arrival to declare them
selves. Our reception, however, though we encoun
tered no open opposition, proved anything but
flattering. We saw few people on the road, and
the countenances of such as we met looked
anxious and moody. The effect of the oath we
came to administer being to make them disgorge
much of their ill-gotten substance, it went sadly
against their stomachs. In the number of the
righteous, who certainly did not abound at Azips,
was a brave and independent Tokav of the name

MUSTAPHA THE TOCAV. 279
of Mustapha, who despising the intimidation re
sorted to by his neighbours, had boldly invited
us to his house; but our enemies, finding him proof
against their threats, had next had recourse to
calumny. So manifold and abominable were the
charges which in the extremity of their wrath
they had heaped upon us, that honest Mustapha
found himself, in receiving us, in a state of no
small perplexity. The manner in which he scru
tinized us, squatting himself vis-a-vis, and bend
ing on us a pair of piercing black eyes, was cer
tainly not the most civil in the world ; and when,
after some scrutiny, he would bounce up and leave
the apartment, and then return to take another
stare at us, we began to have serious doubts as
to the state of his intellects. On further acquaint
ance, and after we had conversed together for
some tirae through our dragoman, our opinion of
one another was mutually improved. We, on
our part, discovered him to be a fine intelligent
^fellow ; and he, as usually happens with men of
quick and ardent dispositions, finding he had lent
too ready an ear to our detractors, became from
that moment our warmest and most faithful ad
herent. Nor was it long ere he took an oppor
tunity of unequivocally displaying his sentiments.
The next morning the Yebers were confronted
with their opponents, who met them in formida-

280 BATTLE OP THE WHIPS.
ble array on the banks of the Azips. The most
respectable elders of that district had not hesi
tated to side with our party, and to declare them
selves for the oath ; but some of the graybeards,
and a great majority of the " wild bloods," still
obstinately set their faces against it. The latter,
confiding in their numbers, became at length, as
the debate proceeded, more and more insolent ;
their indignation was particularly directed against
ourselves, whom they looked upon as the prime
movers of all the mischief. Many declared that,
knowing the unfriendly purpose for which we had
come among them, it was an unneighbourly act
^for any who resided on that stream to harbour us ;
and one of these youthful orators, in the heat of
argument, so far forgot himself as to threaten
(in a coarse Turkish phrase peculiarly offensive
to Circassian ears) dishonour to the mothers of
all who should receive us into their houses. The
menace of this unlucky wight at once roused the
lion in our worthy host Mustapha, who, having '
already entertained us, seemed personally ob
noxious to the threat. He had at first, being a
man of few words, allowed Shahin-Gheri, Hadji
oli, and others, to try the effect of persuasion ;
but now, exclaiming that the whole troop of them
were kiafirs, renegades, and no true Mussul
mans, threw himself sabre in hand into the thickest

BATTLE OF THE WHIPS. 281
of thera. The consequence would certainly have
been serious, had he not been promptly disarmed
by his friends ; but though deadly weapons
might be excluded from the war of the whips,
there was no unlawful impediment to the iise of
an oaken cudgel, and with this, our friend Mus
tapha, having substituted it for his broadsword,
proceeded to lay about him with such vigour and
effect, that three of the nonjurors lay sprawling
in the mud of their own native streamlet in less
than so many seconds.
This onset proved a signal for a general en
gagement, in which the Yebers, owing probably
to the confidence inspired by a good cause, gained
a complete victory. Their adversaries, fairly
thumped into acquiescence, were fain to capitu
late, and, having assembled once more in council,
to reconsider the propriety of conforming to the
wishes of the Yebers. Nor, on second thoughts,
were they long in making up their minds in the
affirmative, for they were menaced with coercive
measures, by the people of Happle on the one side,
and on the other by those who, dwelling farther
eastward on the Yil, had not yet taken the oath, and
from whom, while the council was still hesitating,
a deputation arrived, a "Hallo ahead," as Nadir
described it, intimating not only their own readi
ness to take it, but the pleasure they would feel

282 TRIUMPH OF THE YEBERS.
in forcing it down the throats of all recusants,
and, if necessary, setting fire to their habitations.
These concurrent circumstances proved decisive ;
further resistance was abandoned, and the trium
phant Yebers proceeded, according to their own
phrase, to hang up the Koran, and to administer
the oath to every adult from the source to the
mouth of the Azips. So complete indeed was
the prostration of the opposite party, that when
we left the house of the doughty Mustapha,
we were next quartered, by way of bravado or
retributive justice, in that of the most malignant
among them, who was thus corapelled to
'¦ Produce his choicest cheer,
And hoard his curses till the coast was clear."
Such a kiafir, as the judge jocosely remarked,
might thank his stars he had been let off so
cheaply, and that we had not made an additional
demand for disk parasi, (a premium for the fi-ee
use of our teeth.) Among other irregularities,
our host, we were informed, had been much ad
dicted to horse-stealing, and we found, even in the
apartment where we lodged, a very suspicious
article — that is, a long lasso, or noose, of a modern
and ingenious construction, for snaring and catch
ing horses. He appeared, in the raean while, in
very low spirits, for he knew his turn would soon

THE RHAMAZAN. 283
come to take the oath, when he would not only
have to confess all his past delinquencies, but pay
handsomely for them in the way of penalties.
We had now reached the 29th of November,
which was the first day ofthe Rhamazan. To avoid
scandal, and at the same time to accommodate
our entertainers, who would otherwise have been
obliged to provide separate meals for us, we
determined to observe the fast with them. We
breakfasted, therefore, at sunset — dined at mid
night — got up to supper an hour before day
break — and then slept as long as we could into
the following day. The length of the day to
which the fasting is restricted, was then not
more than nine hours, so that this revolution in
our habits was of little consequence. It was
strongly objected to, however, by our two Polish
servants, who represented to us that, as good Ca
tholics, it went decidedly against their conscience,
to keep Mahometan fasts. We accordingly gave
orders, though they had not otherwise given any
particular proofs of their Christian spirit, unless it
were making it a plea for precedence over our
Moslem servants, that they should be provided
with food in the day-time. But there was still a
point upon which our conscientious followers
could not agree, and this was not as to fasting,
but feasting ; to which, one of them was of opi-

284 THE RHAMAZAN.
nion, there could be no orthodox objection at
any time ; and, to the great scandal of the other,
gorged himself day and night during the whole
Rhamazan. I mention this incident, trifling as it may ap
pear, to show, unless control be exercised on one
side or another, how difficult it is for people,
who are the mere creatures of their respective
habits and appetites, to live in harmony together.
Every difference of this sort is a point of colli
sion, and the reader may thence form some opinion
as to the practicability of establishing independent
bodies of Poles in the Caucasus.
As we understood it would take at least two or
three weeks to administer the oath to all the
inhabitants of this district, we accepted the in
vitation of Shahin- Gheri to pass the interval at
his- house. We retired, therefore, on the 3rd
of Deceraber, to the Happle, where he lived in
the best style of the country, and where he now
spared no pains to make us comfortable. The
chief appliances to this purpose, at this season of
the year, were an abundance of winter provision
for man and horse, a large stock of coverlids,
couches, &c. ; and, what was still more important,
a stack of firewood which, as it may be had in
any quantity for the cutting, is heaped with an
unsparing hand on the pile, that is kept blazing

WINTER QUARTERS AT SHAHIN-GHERl's. 286
night and day upon the hearth of the guest
house. These large fires were highly desirable
— for, not to mention the slightness of the build
ing itself, the door, which hospitality forbids our
host to close, remains open during the whole
day, even in the depth of winter. We were at
tended to our new quarters by our youthful
squire, Chenetlook. The freedman Ongasoff had
been despatched, by Shahin - Gheri, with the
, olive branch and terms of accoraraodation to
Shamiz at Semez. Chenetlook, in the mean
while, having for the present abandoned all idea
of shooting his uncle, did not hesitate to take up
his abode with hira, delighted, apparently, to re
new acquaintance with his son, a youth of his
own age and standing. The lads, as is custo
mary here, swore eternal friendship, and were
thenceforward inseparables — pursuing their sports
together during the day, and sleeping on the
same mat at night. They had, moreover, in the
course of a week, exchanged not only the vows
aforesaid, but, more majorum, almost every article
of their accoutrements and wearing apparel.
We were not the only guests at the house of
Shahin-Gheri. We found, temporarily esta
blished there, a Tocav from Natu-koitch, who
had offended against the laws by intermarrying

286 WINTER QUARTERS AT SHAHIN-GHERl's.
into his own tribe — that of Natquo. He had
eloped with his bride into this part of the coun
try, and was now living under the protection of
Shahin-Gheri.

MR. BELL RliTURNB TO NATU-KOITCH. 287

CHAPTER XV.
Administration ofthe Oath — Squabbles among the Yebers— Inac
tion of the Circassians — Their gathering for an inroad into the
Russian territory — The nocturnal march — The result.
The weather had now become exceedingly se
vere, the thermometer being at sixteen degrees
below zero Fahrenheit, and the whole landscape
swathed thickly in snow. We were left, not
withstanding our snug winter-quarters, by Mr.
Bell. He returned to Natu-koitch for the two
fold purpose of visiting Mansour, who had suf
fered a relapse since our departure, and of sum
moning a fresh force among the chiefs and
elders, in order to relieve the Yebers who had
come with us, and whose protracted absence
from their families at this season of the year
was attended with great inconvenience to them.

288 ADMINISTRATION OF THE OATH.
The administration of the oath to the people
of Azips occupied upwards of a month, in the
course of which Nadir and myself went fre
quently to witness the proceedings. Our re
ception on these occasions was kind and even
cordial ; the popular tide had now turned in our
favour. The raultitude, I believe, rarely trouble
themselves about consistency ; and it would cer
tainly have been invidious to inquire too nicely
what had become of those who opposed us so
fiercely a week before, since we should, in all
probability, have identified them with the very
persons who were now the foremost to welcome
us. The Circassians, I should add, are not a
vindictive race ; and this, as I have before ob
served, is in great measure owing to the nature
of their customs, which do not even exact blood
for blood, unless other compensation has been
withheld. The ceremony of taking the oath,
which was curious to us as spectators, had a
deep and thrilling interest for those who were
engaged in it. We perceived, on first attending
it, what was meant by hanging the Koran. Two
copies of that book were suspended by cords to
a wooden frame erected in the snow. It had, to
our eyes, much the look of a gibbet, but was re
garded with feelings of the profoundest veneration
by the superstitious multitude. Even those who

SQUABBLES AMONG THE YEBERS. ^°

were engaged at mark-firing in a neighbouring
field, cast ever and anon expressive glances at it ;
for on this siraple apparatus was enthroned the
tremendous majesty of the oath, and around it were
marshalled the chieftains, elders, and judges ofthe
land ; while, one by one, the humbled population of
that district presented themselves before it, and
having abjured all traffic and communication
with the Russians, all rapine and violence among
themselves, made a public confession of all their
former transgressions. These practices, as I
have before had occasion to observe, inferred of
themselves no degree of infamy, unless they had
been previously renounced by oath, so that there
was nothing very humiliating in the acknow
ledgment of thera. That which was felt raore
severely was the payraent of fines ; but, however
heavy their amount, none sought to evade them
by perjury ; and it was a truly affecting spectacle
to see the gray-headed warrior, whose scars pro
claimed him a stranger to fear of every other de
scription, thus powerfully agitated before the
dread volume of the Mussulman law, and de
positing his rifle, his bow, or his pistol, in proof
of his sincerity.
The disposal of all these fines and confiscations
proved a business of some difficulty ; for, after
they had grown into a goodly heap, they became
VOL. II. o

290 SQUABBLES AMONG THE YEBERS.
naturally the objects of cupidity and contention.
It was usual in such cases to distribute them
among the whole body of the Yebers, but in this
instance it appeared those of Shapsook had some
what greedily sought to appropriate them,
alleging that Hadjioli and his companions from
Natu-koitch were interlopers, who had no right
to enrich themselves at the expense of their pro
vince ; but the latter, declaring they were the
original promoters of the oath, and that without
their instrumentality it would never have been
set afoot, insisted on a fair and equitable division.
The debate on this subject waxed very warra, and
there was sorae danger that the whips which had
hitherto been wielded in the holy war against
the opponents of the oath would, for the sake of
a little inglorious pelf, be applied in " civil dud
geon" to the shoulders of its pious administrators.
They were prevented, however, from proceeding
to such disgraceful lengths by the seasonable for
bearance of Hadjioli, who, though apparently
waving his pretensions, determined to try what
could be done by stratagem. The Shapsookians
were the dupes, and we the unwitting instru
ments of his artifice.
The day after this discussion, with respect to
which we had been left wholly in the dark,
Hassan the Tocav, having received his cue from

SQUABBLES AMONG THE YEBERS. 291
him, appeared before us with a long face at
Happle ; and declaring there was no doing any
good with such incorrigible scum as the people
of Azips, who had again rebelled against the
oath, announced his intention of washing his
hands of the business, and withdrawing forth
with to Natu-koitch. This intelligence with
respect to the oath, which we had been previously
informed had been taken by three-fourths of the
refractory district, and would, as a matter of
course, meet with no opposition from the rest,
occasioned us great disappointment and surprise.
It was fully confirmed, however, by Hadjioli,
who next made his appearance, looking still
more disconsolate, and inveighing still more bit
terly against the nonjurors, whom he called all
the rogues, pimps, atheists, and other epithets,
which his proficiency in Turkish made him very
fluent in. The only chance of bringing them to
their senses, he said, would be for us to lecture
them ourselves, and he besought us to accompanjr
hira for that purpose to the Medjilis. We ac
cordingly, in compliance with his request, re
paired once more to Azips, and mustering all
my Turkish, I let loose on the assembly (having
been well loaded and primed by Hadjioli him
self) the thunders of my indignation, asking
them " how, after declining a test which no
o 2

292 SQUABBLES AMONG THE YEBERS.
honest man could object to, they could expect
sympathy or assistance from others?" Their
contumacy, I told them, would bring certain ruin
on themselves and on their country, for it would
alienate all their friends, whom, on our return to
Constantinople and to Europe, we should be
under the necessity of apprising of it. Sultan
Mahmoud himself, their religious chief, would,
on hearing of it, abandon them thenceforward to
their own devices.
This tirade, as the Shapsookians understood
little or no Turkish, was translated for their
benefit by Hadjioli. His version, however, as
was subsequently discovered, was a truly free
original one, being to the effect that unless the
elders of Shapsook raade a fair and impartial
distribution of the fines, allotting thera their due
share of horses, pistols, guns, &c., they would
assuredly incur the high displeasure of Sultan
Mahraoud and the Queen of England ; nay,
that each of the seven kings would feel personally
aggrieved at conduct so unhandsorae and rapa
cious. On hearing these denunciations, the
elders of Shapsook, who, good, easy men, fully
believed them to proceed from ourselves, at once
consented to a more equal distribution of the
exuviae ; and nothing thereafter occurred to in
terrupt the harmony of their proceedings till the

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 293
oath had been duly administered to the whole
district. In justice to our friends, whose character these
interested squabbles may tend to lower in the
opinion of my readers, I should state my belief
that the levying of fines formed no part of the
inducement for the administration of the oath.
Such penalties were prescribed both by custom
and analogy, which, however, in every other case
had also provided for the disposal of them. We
should not be surprised, therefore, if, under these
circumstances, a leaven of mercenary feeling be
trayed itself, or if those who bad been otherwise
gratuitously bestowing their time and attention
on public affairs should seek to be remunerated
frora this stock of unappropriated valuables.
We were, nevertheless, much disgusted when we
discovered the trick that had been played us by
Hadjioli. Other circumstances also which oc
curred after we had been joined by Mr. Bell, and
which had tended to aggravate our displeasure
against the judge, determined us to remain no
longer in the same neighbourhood, but to return
once more to Semez.
The reader will not have forgotten the liberal
offer which our companion Nadir had made to
the Circassians to defray the expenses of an em
bassy to London. It had, in the first instance.

294 AMBASSADORS TO ENGLAND.
been received with transports of gratitude. We
were a good deal surprised, therefore, as the time
approached for Nadir's departure, that there
should be some demur on the matter, and we at
tributed it to the manoeuvres of the judge ; but,
as we afterwards ascertained, we did him wrong
in these suspicions. Hadjioli, though a crafty
and coarse-minded man, had the interests of his
country sincerely at heart. The reason for the
hesitation that took place with respect to the
ambassadors was, that the whole country was
under an engagement to Sefir Bey — the one
they had already accredited — to employ no other
channel of negotiation without consulting him.
Though keenly alive to the advantages that
might result from the opening of direct relations
with the British government, they conceived
they were not at liberty to profit by thera till
they had communicated on the subject with their
ambassador at Adrianople. Their pertinacity on
this point was to us, at the time, perfectly inex
plicable. Nadir, however, had subsequently
every doubt removed, when, on his waj' to Eng
land, he visited Sefir Bey at Adrianople; and
that chieftain showed hira a letter addressed to
him at the epoch referred to, and demanding his
sanction to the proposed mission to London.
These facts are very remarkable, and of high im-

RETURN TO SEMEZ. 295
portance, inasmuch as they demonstrate tho
caution and scrupulous exactness they are dis
posed to observe in their diplomatic relations,
which in this instance they feared to stultify by
the employment of different representatives.
Foreign governments will be enabled to judge
from them of the degree of credit which such re
presentatives would deserve at their hands, and
of the respect which all engagements they
might contract with them are likely to be ob
served by the Circassians.
Having taken a last farewell of Shahin-Gheri
on the 6th January, we once more traversed the
plains of the Kuban, now presenting to the eye
one blank surface of dazzling whiteness ; but the
woods through which we passed, though traves
tied in the same manner, yet spangled, feathered,
and crystallised al! over by the frost, (a silver
forest, as it is called,) had a look of fantastic
splendour such as I had never before seen, as if
winter had been decking them after his own
fashion, in emulation of the spring. The cold,
however, was intense, nor could our sheep-skin
doublets altogether protect us from the piercing
sharpness of a wind, which had swept over all
the snows of all the Russias between us and the
north pole. We made but short stages, there
fore, and felt by no means sorry when, in the

296 FEMALE HOSPITALITY.
midst of the snowy desert, the ascending smoke
of a haralet indicated an oasis of warmth and
genial refreshment. Wherever this might be, or
whoever its proprietor, we hastened to it in the
certainty of an hospitable welcome.
At Bogundour, we had a host with whom we
had lodged on our way to Happle, and who ap
peared delighted to see us on our return. The
worthy man had three daughters, tall, fair, and
well-grown girls, with blue eyes and braided
tresses, who, at his special request, did their best
to entertain us. Their behaviour, to prove their
obedience no doubt, was most amiable, not to say
affectionate, each choosing a partner nothing
loath, and sparing neither smiles nor caresses to
make him happy. Yet was their demeanour
neither bold nor wanton, and I should be sorry
if anything I have written led the world to sup
pose that the morals of the sex in Circassia
(though, sapient reader, "by your smiling you
would seem to say so ") were not " altogether
correct." The favours which our less fortunate
swains find it so difficult even to steal, and which
are coramonly disputed with them pugnis et
unguibus, are here merely a tribute which the
warrior feels himself entitled to claim, and which
maiden simplicity scarce blushes to concede. I
for one am in honour bound to uphold their fair

INACTION OF THE CIRCASSIANS. 297
fame against all misconstruction ; and I ara sure
my companion Nadir will in the same quarrel
aay, Honi soit qui mal y pense, and do battle for
them like any knight of the garter.
Returned on the 19th January in safety to our
old quarters at Semez ; and another fortnight
having elapsed, unmarked by the occurrence of
anything of importance, circumstances which I
am about to relate recalled us once more to the
Kuban, I should have mentioned, that on re-
crossing upon our way home the different streams
which flow into that river, we found the whole
population in a state of great excitement, waiting
the accustomed signal of their chiefs for the pas
sage of it. The guides and scouts, who had been
to reconnoitre, had brought back the most favour
able accounts as to its practicability, whicb, they
all declared, it would be a tempting of Providence
to neglect. Having, moreover, penetr-ated beyond
the line of the Russian castles, they had found
things in the most inviting position for a foray.
The picture they drew of immense flocks and
herds, unguarded by any but their shepherds,
and flourishing villages undefended by any but
substantial boors, with their wives and children,
were such as to produce the liveliest impressions
on a Circassian imagination. All other business
and pursuits were in consequence laid aside, and
o 5

298 INACTION OF THE CIRCASSIANS.
even the hunters were neglecting their season,
till they knew whether their powder and shot
might not be raore profitaljly expended than in
shooting at elks, boars, and deer.
We were, therefore, earnestly entreated by all
the warriors we met, to use our influence with the
chiefs and elders not to defer the collection of a
large force for an inroad into Russia. On con
ferring, however, with them, we found Jljat, in
conformity with the policy they had adhered to
through the whole of the previous year, they
were deterinined not to be the aggressors, but to
confine themselves in future to defensive mea
sures. Their object, they said, was to convince
both friends and enemies of their pacific disposi
tions, and this they had chiefly been induced to
do by the official communication made to them
last spring by Lord Ponsonby through Sefir Bey.
In this document, to which I have before made
frequent allusion, they were recommended to
propose terms of peace to the Russian general,
and to promise to refrain frora all future viola
tion of the Russian territory, provided that he,
on his part, would withdraw his troops beyond
the Kuban. Acting in the spirit of these instruc
tions, and believing themselves, from the tenor
of them, to be virtually under the protection of
Great Britain, they had since, as an earnest of

INACTION OF THE CIRCASSIANS. 299
their desire to conform to them, almost wboll}'
abstained from active hostilities. In the mean
while, the dilemma into which we, as English
men and friends of their country, had been thrown
by these circurastances, was equally painful and
perplexing. Should the communication in ques
tion ultimately prove genuine, and to have been
authorised by the English government, the course
adopted by the Circassians would have been wise
and politic. Should it, however, have been spu
rious, they would of course have been grossly
abused, and turned out great sufferers from the
forbearance they had shown.
Now, although the information we had received
through public channels from England would
decidedly have led us to th6 latter conclusion,
yet would it have compromised us far too seri
ously to have cast discredit on a communication
coining under such sanction as the one in ques
tion, and thereby for a moment to have attributed
such miserable manoeuvres to Lord Ponsonby,
involving as they did (had they been unauthorised
by the British government) not only the utter
extinction of what remained of British influence
throughout the East, but the positive mischief of
having forwarded the progress of Russia, by para
lysing for a whole year, under false pretences,
the exertions of her most energetic opponents.

300 AGGRESSIONS OF THE RUSSIANS.
For these reasons, whether ill or well founded,
the chieftains had decided against any expedition
into Russia, much to the mortification of the
Deli-Kans, who, with a change of wind and a
dissolution of the ice of the Kuban, saw all their
prospects of glory and spoil dissolving for a year
to come.
About this time, however, some incidents oc
curred, which were calculated to rouse thera from
their inaction. Whether it was that the Circas
sians, meditating theras'elves no injury to the
Russians, and suspecting, therefore, no hostile
intentions on their part, had relaxed the vigi
lance with which they were wont to observe the
lines of Anapa, (a circumstance the latter must
soon have been aware of from the diminished
number of their watch-fires,) or whether from
new instructions issued by the merciful cabinet
of St, Petersburg, I cannot pretend to say ; but
the Russian garrison suddenly made a sally, and
attempted during the night to burn and plunder
the hamlets in the neighboiirhood. Their suc
cess, however, was very partial. After capturing
a few sheep and old women who were unable to
escape, they were compelled to make a precipi
tate retreat to Anapa. This outrage was fol
lowed, a few days afterwards, by one of a more
serious nature. At a few miles' distance, a Turk-

AGGRESSIONS OF THE RUSSIANS. 301
ish ship had been hauled on shore, to which the
Russians, having attacked it by surprise, and
simultaneously by land and sea, succeeded in
setting fire. The land-party, however, were most
severely handled on their return ; and if the
powder of the Circassians had not failed them,
not a man would have re-entered the gates of
Anapa. As it was, they left their wagons and
wounded, among whom was their commanding
officer, in the hands of the victors.
These successive provocations on the part of
the Russians were not without their natural effect
on the Circassians, as we ascertained the very
next day frora a visit of our stately friend Keriac
Oglou Ali Bey, who unexpectedly entered our
apartraent, armed to the teeth, in the full cos
tume of a Circassian warrior. After discussing
some indifferent matters, he briefly explained to
us the object of his mission. " We had hoped,"
he said, " that the Russians would have taken a
lesson from our raoderation ; but they have cora
pelled us to imitate their own barbarity. Man
sour Bey has sumraoned us to the Kuban, which,
Insh' Allah, if the ice be not gone, we will cross
the day after to-raorrow. If you wish to witness
our proceedings, you can accompany us; our
place of meeting is at Westagoi." Agreeably
to this invitation we set out, accompanied by

302 THE GATHERING.
a train of friends and dependents, for the place
indicated to us. Our party was joined by a party
of horsemen in the valley of Semez ; and the next
morning, in proceeding along the broad and
populous plain of Anapa, we could see every
haralet pouring forth its tribute of warriors to
swell the numbers of our band. Though a
southerly wind, which had prevailed for a few
days past, and now breathed almost a summer
temperature into the atmosphere, already prog-
no.sticated we were asserabling too late, it had no
visible effect on the gathering, in which our
interest deepened with the increasing stir and
bustle as we drew near its appointed rendezvous
Our style of advance was altogether different
from the listless and rambling character of our
former excursions ; pressing steadily forward,
like raen with sorae definite and iraportant object
in view, halting only to exchange a brief salute
with the leaders ofthe different parties who joined
us on our route, and then pursuing it in a body
with the same expedition as before. But it was
on reaching the heights that command the valley
of Westagoi that the scene opened upon us with
peculiar animation : with an effect I was in some
measure unprepared for, and which I shall not
easily forget — streaming down from all the de
clivities which enclosed that valley like a basin,

THE GATHERING. 303
troop after troop was seen emerging from the
thickets — winding down the steeps, and prancing-
over the plain — some with banners gaily flutter
ing in the breeze, and some moving in dense
column — all directing their course to where, in
the hollow of a hill which screened the place of
gathering from the plains of the Kuban, was
erected the standard of Mansour Bey.
It was evident that his summons, considering
it had been only issued two days, had been nobly
answered ; and it was with a glance of mingled
pride and satisfaction that the veteran met our
greeting. Not many days before, we had left
him bedridden with his wound ; but it seemed he
had no leisure to languish any longer, and, in the
excitement of the bustle we found him in, he ap
peared to have forgotten it altogether. In the
leaders, who, as their different bands drew up and
took their station in the valley, now gathered
round him from every side for instructions, we
recognised the friends whose hospitality we had
experienced in various parts of Natu-koitch.
There, on his powerful black charger, was the
broad-breasted champion, Arslan Gheri; there
Kaplan, the tiger ofthe Kuban ; there the fiery
Djanboulat, and the lively veteran Shupash ;
there also, vapouring and scampering about like
a frolicsome ape on horseback, was the Quixotic

304 THE GATHERING.
figure of the gallant Atukoi — strange as it may
appear, the animal wasnot deficient in bravery;
but bravest of them all, and now completely in
his glory, was our old favourite, the Wolf. Ever
and anon he would appear suddenly before us,
grinning, curveting, and quite beside himself
with delight, and then gallop off at a tangent to
the main body again.
There was evidently something in the wind ;
and we learnt, on inquiring, he was preparing
another surprise for us — a different one, however,
from that with which he had treated us on our
visit to Todjagouz. Apprehensive that the expe
dition, under the prudent auspices of Mansour,
would not afford scope for any extraordinary dis
play of valour, such as he now hoped to astonish
us by, he was himself getting up something by
way of episode to it, of a nature so hair-brained
and desperate, as should exceed our most sanguine
expectations. He had, for this purpose, we were
told, been making up a party of young fellows as
daring as himself, who promised to stand by him
in all his undertakings. But that they might
not forget their promise, which men under such
circumstances are apt to do, he had taken the
precaution to borrow and bring with him a pocket
edition of the Koran. Upon this he was now
occupied in privately administering an oath to
each of his companions.

THE HARANGUE. 305
The confusion, in the mean while, was not so
great, nor Mansour's duties as a general (llie
limits of which, like those of his authority, were
rather uncertain) so arduous, as, considering the
total absence of discipline and subordination in
the Circassian host, might have been expected.
The courtesy of the chiefs, and the habitual -
sedateness of the raen, preserved an order which,
in such a moment of excitement, was quite extra
ordinary. After the circle had been joined by the
principal chiefs, Mansour, according to the good
old Roman fashion, proceeded to address them
in a military harangue. Without pretending to
follow him word for word in it, it was easy to
understand its tenor. The contracted brow and
tones, at once plaintive and indignant, of the
speaker, told not less plainly of wrongs and
cruelties, (a long and dismal catalogue,) of burn
ings, bloodshed, and devastations, inflicted and
sustained, than the fiery vehemence by which it
was succeeded ; the kindling eye, clenched hand,
and dilated chest — of vengeance — prompt and
unsparing vengeance — to be wreaked for them.
In the passionate exhortation that ensued, we
could hear the names of tribes and individuals
now farailiar to us ; and it was clear that personal
and sectional, as well as national feelings, were
strongly appealed to, and that allusion was also

306 THE HARANGUE.
made more than once to ourselves. The dense
ring which, during the address, his hearers had
formed around us, and the outer circles of which
were composed of horsemen, presented a dark
throng of bearded and bonneted faces, all riveted
on the orator with the most earnest expression of
attention. But, however roused or agitated by
what they heard, they preserved their accustoraed
decorum, nor otherwise gave vent to their emo
tion than now and then by a deeply-muttered
" Amhi." Araong other things, as we were after
wards informed, he told them that he had been
visited by a venerable anchorite, who had left his
seclusion in the Caucasus, where he had devoted
himself to the duties of religion and the study of
astrology, to announce to him the certainty of
success, provided that his followers, neglecting
the usual objects of plunder, should confine them
selves to the capture of Russian cannon and ammu
nition — things, by-the-bye, which there needed no
holy hermit to convince Mansour would be very
useful to thera. He concluded by telling them
that they would, no doubt, seek to signalize their
valour before their English guests. He knew,
however, that these would be better pleased by
their obedience to the orders of their chiefs than
by any exhibition of rashness. This was, doubt
less, intended as a hint for Tougouse, on whom

NOMINATION OF A GENERAL. 307
nevertheless, though looking demure enough just
then, it seems to have had little effect. Then,
taking by the hand Keri Oglou Shamiz Bey, he
presented him to the host as a leader whose long
experience, tried valour, and discretion, entitled
him to their confidence in the approaching enter
prise. This compliment to the gray hairs of his bro
ther chieftain was politic as it was amiable. The
Circassians soon tire of authority in the hands of
the same individual; and Mansour, it seems,
was glad to shift the invidious burthelt to the
shoulders of Sharaiz, who, on his part, though
secretly gratified by it, yet affected, as he shrank
with downcast eyes within the folds of his mantle,
to be completely overwhelmed by so great an
honour. It was then settled that the infantry, which
amounted to a third of the whole force, and which
was destined to cover the retreat of the cavalry
on their return to the Kuban, should set forth
thither immediately, while the latter, to allow
as much tirae as possible for reinforcements to
come up, should bivouac the greater part of the
night on the neighbouring heath, but be in readi
ness to cross the river (which was about 15 miles
distant) at daybreak. All these arrangements
concluded. Nadir and I took leave of Mr. Bell,

308 PREPARATIONS.
who declined, on private grounds, to accompany
us any further. Though highly approving of this
expedition on principle, he had unsettled claims
on the Russian government which violating its
territory might comproraise. He, therefore,
parted from us, and repaired, in company with a
Circassian surgeon, (one of the raost skilful in the
country,) to a house not far from the Kuban, there
to await the result, and be at hand in case his as^
sistance might be required for the wounded, of
whom, from the warlike nature of the inroad, it
was to be feared the number would be consider
able. As for Nadir and rayself, our quarters that
night, with no other beds than our cloaks, were
the part of the raoor occupied by the cavaliers of
Semez, whora we found, on joining them, already
lighting their fires there.
Fresh horsemen continued to come in till
nightfall, and even afterwards ; it was evident,
fromthe increasing number of watch-fires kindling
in every direction, that we were being strongly
reinforced. At its greatest force the cavalry
asserabled there must have amounted to 5,000 ;
could they have been joined by the horsemen
from the coast, their number would have been
trebled. With the exception, moreover, of about
fifty who had come with Djanbolat from the
Aboon, it consisted exclusively of the men of

CIRCASSIAN BIVOUAC. 309
Natu-koitch. Those of Shapsook, it seems, had
deterrained on a separate expedition, and a report
which spread a general exultation araong our
array, reached us while encamped : — that, led on
by the old lion Hadji Guz-Beg, they had already
entered the Russian territory, and carried off a
rich booty from the towns and villages on their
own frontier. On visiting our friends at their
respective quarters, we found thera in high spirits,
listening to the songs of minstrels, and talking
over their old exploits. Wearied at length, we
rode back to our watch-fires, and endeavoured
to snatch a few moments of repose, which, how
ever, for my part, was no easy matter. This the
reader, I trust, will do me the justice to believe,
was less owing to apprehensions for my personal
safety, than conscientious scruples as to how far
I was justified as an Englishman to take a part
in the wild sort of warfare I was now enlisted in.
But my mind was gradually set at ease on this
score. In the first place, I felt that if war was ever
sanctified by a good cause, there could not be a
better or a nobler one than that of the Circas
sians ; and then, as regarded myself, if, in an expe
dition of this nature, I was destined to be a spec
tator of horrors that were in some measure insepa
rable from it, I knew that our presence, if pro-

310 THE NOCTURNAL MARCH.
ductive of any effect at all, must have that of
mitigating them. I knew the Circassians, more
over, too well, to apprehend any revolting ex
cesses on their part. I knew they never
slaughtered their enemies in cold blood, and that
violence to women was a practice the most
abhorrent to their usages. Composed by these
reflections, I was just falling asleep, when the
confused sound of voices, and the general commo
tion about us, indicated the time was come to
break up from our bivouac. It was two hours
after midnight when the Circassians began their
march, which, with the darkness of the night,
and the difficulties of the ground they had to
traverse, (consisting of bog, brier, and ravine, and,
in short, every variety of ground except terra
firma^ was, to my thinking, neither safe nor
pleasant. Having been exhorted, before we set
out, to stick to my own party and banner, I did
my best not to lose sight of them : however, as
they of Semez differed in appearance, particularly
in the dark, from no other Circassians, and as
our banner, " mocking the air with idle state,"
was neither more nor less than a pocket-hand
kerchief of no very ample dimensions, it was no
wonder that I was soon separated from them and
my countryman. On inquiry at different times,
as we went on, floundering and scrambling

THE NOCTURNAL MARCH. 311
through the broken ground I have described, I
found myself marching, one after another, with
the men of nearly all the districts of Natu-koitch.
Many of them were total strangers to me, and
some of thera I knew must be from the wilder
parts of the province. To a superstitious imagi
nation, the strange figures I was riding with, to
say nothing of the dark masses sweeping on
every side of us, would have been calculated,
perhaps, to excite serious misgivings. Each of
these was muffled in a thick capote, frora the top
of which protruded the rauzzle of his rifle, and
from the bottom (for it corapletely covered the
horse's crupper) dangled the tail, wliich all of
them, as they trooped on before me, switched to
and fro like hobgoblins. A pretty dance, too,
they led me that night, sometimes fighting our
way through almost impenetrable thickets, where
leafless branches banged and scratched me most
unmercifully, and sometimes immersed to the
breech as we toiled through a half-frozen bog.
We came at length to a halt in the midst of
what appeared to be a considerable hamlet.
There, yielding once more to my drowsiness, I
began to dose on my saddle, and my horse, who
was supperless, to help himself to the thatch of
a cottage by which he was standing. My recol
lections of what afterwards happened to me are

312 THE NOCTURNAL MARCH.
none of the most distinct. All I can remember
is being roused by a woman who issued from her
cabin to protest against the further demolition of
the roof— then perceiving with alarm that I had
been left behind by my companions — then bolting,
without staying further question, by the road I
supposed they raust have taken — then resigning
myself to the discretion of ray horse, who struck
across a country as wild, apparently, as that by
which we had hitherto raarched — being next
guided by some watch-fires glimmering in a
wood — finding myself by their light araong a
troop of warriors, crowded, raen and horses, in the
houses and courts of an extensive homestead,
without being at first able to make anything of
all this, except that the men were Circassians,
and the place somewhere near the Kuban — meet
ing at length with Nadir's black domestic, who
had been also in the darkness separated from his
master — being taken by him to some chiefs with
whom I was acquainted, and finally conducted by
them, as day began to break and the army once
more to muster, to the quarters of Mansour
and Shamiz. With the shades of night was
likewise dissipated the nocturnal confusion of
my ideas.
It was a glorious spectacle which met the eye
as the rising sun discovered our gallant little

PASSAGE OF THE KUBAN. 313
army once more assembling on an eminence
which immediately overlooks the Kuban — disco
vered also, what then seemed the dooraed and
devoted, country at their feet. But Providence
had ordained it otherwise. The storm which
threatened it was dispersed, and the proud hopes
of the Circassians as suddenly overcast by the in
telligence now brought in by the guides who had
been sent forward by Mansour to choose the
best place for the passage, and who declared
that, in consequence of the thaw, it could not
possibly take place. This information had the
effect of immediately disbanding the infantry,
and about a third of the cavalry ; but the remain
der could not be so easily prevailed upon to
relinquish an enterprise from which they had
promised themselves such glorious results.
Their leadei- having informed them that he
had sent on a party to see if bridges could not be
constructed over the broken ice, the main body,
now consisting of about three thousand horse,
advanced to ascertain this point themselves. After
skirting for some tirae the reeds which I have
elsewhere described as forming the peculiar fea
ture of this river, to both sides of which they
serve as a fringe about a mile and a half in depth,
they came to a narrow aperture in them, adrait-
ting about three horsemen abreast, through which
VOL, II. p

314 PASSAGE OF THE KUBAN,
they immediately dashed, the horses wading
almost up to the girths in mud and water.
I was among tbe first to reach the place on
the banks where some hasty attempts were being
made to construct bridges with interwoven
branches over the chasms occasioned by the
thaw on either side ofthe river. Foremost and
most indefatigable in this fatigue party was
Tougouse ; the bare idea of abandoning the enter
prise seemed almost to drive him crazy. Whom
also should I find there watching with impatience
the progress of the work, but my companion
Nadir, on whose account, not knowing what had
become of him, I had begun to feel very anxious.
The arrival of Mansour and the other chiefs, who
at length came up with the main body, and forth
with summoned a council of war on the banks,
effected no change or delay in the measures of
Tougouse and his comrades, who, to the number
of about three hundred, having completed their
arrangements, led their horses one by one over
the frail bridges and rotten ice into the Russian
territory. Araong the first to push forward, not
doubting we should be followed by the whole
army, were Nadir and myself ; but the army, we
soon discovered, had no such intentions, but, after
the passage of our detachment, remained sta
tionary on the left bank, waiting apparently to
see what we should do next.

THE FORLORN HOPE. 315
We then learnt (when it was too late to retreat
with honour, had we been disposed to do so)
that Mansour, Shamiz, and the rest ofthe chiefs,
had declared it would be madness to persist in
the expedition, since, if they succeeded in effect
ing the passage without any serious accident, it
was certain that when they should have to re
turn, laden with booty, and fighting their way
through the Russian ranks, it would be utterly
impossible to recross the stream. The chiefs, too,
had observed that the forts on the opposite
heights, built within cannon-shot of each other,
preserved an ominous silence, it being their wont
on these occasions to keep up a constant dis
charge of artillery for the purpose of intimida
tion. They argued from this, that, apprized by
their spies of the intended passage, large rein
forcements of troops had arrived during the night,
and would be posted beyond the reeds, for the
purpose of attacking them when they should be
entangled among them and the marshes. Upon
these grounds, which appeared altogether unan
swerable, the expedition was abandoned. But
that which had been pronounced impracticable
for the whole army, was now, it seems, about to
be attempted by a chivalrous handful of it, our
" most forlorn of hopes," led on by the magna
nimous Tougouse. A stranger to apprehension
p2

316

THE FORLORN HOPE.

of any sort, his only anxiety at this critical mo
raent was to eke out the scanty numbers of his
band by as many supplemental warriors as he
could possibly induce to follow him frora the op
posite side. For this purpose he might be seen
passing and repassing with great diligence, lead
ing in triumph those whom his eloquence had
enlisted, and, having seen them safe to our side
of the river, hastening back in quest of raore.
In this way the greater and lesser division of
the Circassian force stood gazing at each other
for upwards of an hour on each side of the
Kuban — the one, it seems, unwilling to retreat,
and the other to advance without their country
men. The minds of our party were at length
made up; and great was the sensation on the
opposite bank, (so great, indeed, that but for the
chiefs who guarded the bridge, there would have
been an instantaneous rush towards us,) when,
preparatory to their departure, each of our
cavaliers dismounted, and after a brief prayer,
offered with raised hands in silence, sprang to
his saddle again, and then drew up with the
rest in a body. At that moinent, just as we
were about to start, we were stopped by two
chieftains, by name Khattow and Djanboulat,
who had been deputed to Nadir and myself, by
the council, to conjure us, once for all, to return.

THE FORLORN HOPE. 317
as those we were accompanying would assuredly
be cut off to a man. Nadir answered for us both,
that be that as it might, we would stand or fall
with thera. Finding, therefore, we would not
go back with them, the two chiefs thought they
could not do better than go on with us.
Our troop now moved rapidly forward by a
pathway that ran in an oblique direction frora
the bank through the forest of reeds, which,
rising above our heads, obstructed the view on
every side of us. The deep tranquillity that
reigned there (the only sounds we could detect
being the sighing and rustling of these reeds as
they tossed to and fro in the wind) had, in the
mean while, anything but a tranquillising effect
upon us, as it gave every reason to suspect an
ambuscade, for which the nature of the ground
was peculiarly favourable. But our guides were
on the alert, and continued to lead the way with
no less caution than celerity. The whole band,
in short, seemed now impressed with the neces
sity of steady and simultaneous action ; and I was
surprised to see in what excellent order they ad
vanced, and how, when their leaders halted or
went on, which they would do every now and
then, as they encountered anything to excite their
suspicion, the compact and rolling mass was
brought suddenly to a stand, or rushed forward

318 THE FORLORN HOPE.
again, in obedience, as it were, to a single im
pulse. We came at length, after proceeding in this
way for more than two miles, to an abrupt turn
in the lane, where it struck off almost at a right
angle to the plain, and where we became all at
once aware of the nature and extent of the pre
parations which the Russians had made for our
reception. This passage we found was effectually
barricadoed, and completely enfiladed by a strong
battery, guarded by infantry and Cossacks at the
further end. To storm this battery by the long
and -narrow causeway in front was rushing on
certain destruction. Our party, therefore, came
to a full stop, and the chiefs, without dismount
ing, drew together to consult as to the course
they should take. Opinions were far fom una
nimous — sorae maintaining there was no alter
native but retreat — and others, with Tougouse
at their head, wondering what the deuce they
were stopping for.
" Have not you," said he, " come in search of
the enemy, whom you have sworp to fight, when
and wherever you should meet with hira ? Is he
not before you now ? What more would you
wish for ?" " Bismillah ! your oath ! your oath !
your oath !" was responded by a hundred voices ;
and further deliberation was cut short by Pakako,

THE FORLORN HOPE. 319
the bairactar, or standard-bearer of Adheu
cum. A gallant fellow was Pakako ! though by no
means an Adonis — ^and his native ugliness he
had, on the present occasion, sought to improve
still further, by turning inside out his long goat
skin kalpak, which, added to the excitement of
the moment, made his looks almost preterna-
turally ferocious. Waving his standard high
over his head, he broke with a scornful yell from
the council, and, followed helter-skelter by the
Deli-Kans, dashed up the avenue. Close at his
heels was my brave companion Nadir ; and not
far behind, being curious to see how the mad
career would terminate, was the writer of this
narrative. But ere they had proceeded half way,
the state of the road, which was heavy and deep
in mud, made it difficult for their horses to ad
vance, and gave leisure to Djanboulat to overtake
them. He was an umpire, whose known bravery
raised him above all suspicion. Never, pei'haps,
had he counselled retreat before, and his bold
countenance was suffused with a deep blush, as
he told them, if they could not make their way
through the reeds, they must return. " We will
try, however," he added ; and accorapanied by
Khattow, he plunged araong the reeds, where
he sank almost imraediately to the stirrups in the
bog.

320 THE FORLORN HOPE.
Every attempt, after the failure of this expe
riment, to advance any farther, was relinquished.
Our party was compelled reluctantly to retreat
and disperse with the main body on the opposite
bank.

RETURN TO SEMEZ. 321

CHAPTER XVL

Nadir Bey leaves Circassia — Mr. Bell proceeds to the south —
Capture of a Russian fort by the Circassians — Preparations for
my own departure from the country — Homeward bound — Re
turn to Constantinople.

From the Sth of February, the period of our re
turn to Semez, till the 24th of June, when I took
my departure from Circassia, there occurred few
events deserving of circumstantial detail. Ma,ny
of those, indeed, I have already recorded, may
appear useless, perhaps, as illustrative of the cha
racter and customs of the Circassians, tedious
as they are trivial. I shall hasten, therefore, to
a conclusion. On the 20th of February, our countryman
Nadir Bey parted from us, setting out, accom
panied by Shamiz, to Djanhote, a point of the
coast between Pchat and G^elenjik, where there
p5

322 DEPARTURE OF NADIR.
was then lying perdu a small Turkish vessel
about to sail for the coast of Asia Minor,
The impression he had left behind him in
Natu-koitch is highly honourable to himself
and his country. His gallantry and proficiency
in the exercises, martial and equestrian, that are
so much esteemed araong them, greatly endeared
him to the young folks of both sexes there. Not
having had the pleasure of meeting him since we
parted at Semez, I ara not aware what impression
he may retain with respect to the Circassians ;
yet I cannot but believe that his thoughts, amidst
the gaiety and splendour of European civilisation,
must sometimes revert to the romantic scenes
and primitive manners of those among whom he
sojourned in the shadows ofthe mighty Caucasus,
and that the record ofour wanderings there will,
to him at least, not be altogether devoid of in
terest. He set sail from Djanhote on the
8th of March, and we received shortly afterwards
a letter from hira, dated Trebisond, where he
ha,d arrived after a safe voyage of three days.
The Russian consul at that port had, in pur
suance of instructions from his governraent, in
sisted that the Pacha should severely punish the
captain of the vessel that had brought him over.
Ship and cargo were accordingly confiscated, and
the poor man was thrown into prison. Nadir had

DEPARTURE OF MR. BELL. 323
afterwards to indemnify him at his own expense.
He informed us also in his letter that the Em
peror Nicholas had had the audacity to give
orders that if any of us were taken we should be
hanged. The little respect he had shown for the
property of Englishmen rendered it probable
that their lives would be held as cheap by hiin ;
still we flattered ourselves that the people of
England, who through inadvertence had allowed
our ministers to sacrifice the former, would have
called him to a strict account for the latter.
In the mean while, we knew frora experience
that there was perhaps no place in the world
where we were safer frora his vengeance, where
his threats were likely to prove more impotent,
and the raachinations of his emissaries more
abortive, than in Circassia.
On the 24th of the sarae raonth, Mr. Bell pro
ceeded to the south, to take possession of some
merchandise which had been brought from
Turkey for us by Nadir's dragoman. He pur
posed returning to Semez in the course of a
month, but in consequence of a misunderstanding
with Shamiz, who accompanied him, he was
prevented frora doing as he had intended, and
we were not destined to meet again in Circassia.
The details of this unpleasant affair will pro
bably be given in the narrative of Mr. Bell — here

324 SUPERIORITY OF MR. BELL.
a few words of explanation will suffice. Shamiz,
it appears, had sought to assume a degree of
control over the movements of Mr. Bell, which
the latter refused to submit to. Irritated at this
resistance, he had then, in order to get him com
pletely in his power, and compel him to return with
him to Natu-koitch, denounced him to the chiefs
of Abbassa as a Russian emissary. Such charges,
among the Circassians themselves, are oftener
made than proved, and therefore, till proved, very
lightly treated. In this instance Shamiz, not
withstanding his great influence and habitual
presence of mind, was, when confronted with him
he had slandered, completely baffied by the
coolness and spirit with which his accusations
were raet. He found, in short, he had only
covered hiraself with disgrace ; and raade the best
of his way horae alone.
This was not the only occasion in which the
suaviter in modo etfortiter in re that distinguished
his deraeanour, established Mr. Bell's superiority
with the Circassians, to whose praise it raust be
said, that they could discrirainate and set a due
value upon the solid and sterling parts of charac
ter, and that the dignity, gentleness, and
longanimity evinced in his intercourse with them
eventually triumphed over all hostility, and
finally brought even the haughty Shamiz to a

ATTACK OF AGUE. 325
contrite acknowledgment of the wrong he had
done him.
On his return to Semez, on the 16th of April,
Shamiz, ashamed probably of his conduct in this
affair, endeavoured to conceal it from me, stating
that Mr. Bell had been detained by business, and
would rejoin us in the course of a few weeks. As
he had brought no letters, however, I had serious
misgivings as to the truth of this statement. It
was not till three weeks afterwards that I was
relieved from my suspense by a special messenger
who arrived with letters from my friend, detailing
all that had happened.
I was then labouring under a severe indisposi
tion from an ague, the malignity of which had
in the course of a month left rae totally destitute
of strength and spirits. I had at first struggled
against it as well as I could, subraitting rayself to
the treatraent (in default of better) of Circassian
leeches and nurses, whose prescriptions were
raanifold as they were fruitless. At the strong-
recommendation of my hostess, I had allowed
myself to be covered till I was almost suffocated,
together with a chafing-pan full of thyme, under
a blanket, but the only effect of the perspiration
that ensued was additional fever and debility.
The next who undertook to cure me was
Shamiz.

326 CAPTURE OP A FORT BY CIRCASSIANS,
The remedy he boasted was, though com
posed of simples, anything but a simple one. A
hundred different herbs, and neither more nor
less, for two of them alike would have spoiled
the charm, were to be carefully culled and burnt
under my nostrils in a platter. But though my
host was at the trouble of spending a whole day
in the collection and assortment of these grasses,
the holocaust, I am sorry to say, was wholly in
effectual. It had this advantage, however, over
the nostrum of my hostess, that, if attended with
no good, it did no harm either. The last to take
the field against my fever was a neighbour re
puted to possess great skill and wisdom, who
staked his head against a piece of merchandise
that he would expel it by a process full as inno
cent as that of Shamiz.
Having ascertained the precise period of the
fit, he ascended the highest hill in the neighbour
hood, and at that critical moment plucked a cer
tain flower that grew on the top of it. He was
astonished, on his return, to find that his charm
had not taken effect. This very probably arose
from my want of faith in his promises ; at any
rate, I claimed neither his forfeited head, nor he
my aladgas. Another reraedy which was recom
mended to me was to pass the night in the copse
hard by, under two large trees, which by their

CAPTURE OF A FORT BY CIRCASSIANS.

327

hidden virtue, I was told, would certainly put a
stop to the fever ; but though convinced it would
do so not only with respect to that, but aho
every other ill that flesh is heir to, 1 positively
refused to try it.
The medical resources of my friends being
fairly exhausted, and ray fever abated, I had no
alternative but to despatch a messenger four
hundred miles for quinine from the medicine
chest of Mr. Bell. A single dose of this sove
reign febrifuge restored me to health, if not to
strength, imraediately.
This was in the raonth of June ; but while I
was still stretched on ray back by the fever, the
warriors of Seraez, summoned to the field by those
of the plain of Anapa, had lent their assistance
to a very gallant achievement in that quarter ; —
having taken by assault the round detached fort
which had been built for the protection of the
military colony. The Russian garrison having
made a sortie in quest of plunder, the Circassians,
under the command of old Shupash, not satis
fied with repulsing them, divided their force and
assumed the offensive ; boldly advancing, in de
fiance of its guns, to the walls of the fort, they
scaled it, and either killed or made prisoners the
whole of its defenders. They themselves lost
twelve men, five of whom were inhabitants ofour

328 RENEWAL OF BLOCKADE.
valley. The wild lamentations of the women, an
swering to the Gaelic coronach over the slain,
came sadly to my ear at night as the artillery had
thundered in it during the day. After the ce
lebration of the Russian Easter, the war which,
except in this corner of the country, had been
entirely suspended for seven months, broke out
afresh. No longer in fear of the equinoctial
gales, the cruisers of the enemy once more guard
ed the coast, and towards the end of May the
inhabitants of Semez were suddenly thrown into
great alarm by the appearance of a fleet, con
sisting, with transports, of twenty-seven sail. For
three days that it anchored outside the bay, the
valley was a scene of the utmost confusion, those
nearest the coast being engaged in carrying off
their effects to places of security in the hills, while
the people of the neighbouring district were sum
raoned to their assistance, and councils and ga
therings took place in every direction. Unable,
in the mean while, to quit my couch, I was a
prey to the most gloomy forebodings; for not only
was I distressed by the public danger, but haunt
ed by the uncorafortable belief that I was myself
an object of suspicion to some of the Semezians.
These, I have every reason to think, were but few
in number, but in the hypochondriac state to which
I was reduced by disease, I was much agitated

SUSPICIONS, MISGIVINGS, &C. 329
by something I had overheard in a conversation
carried on in the courtyard of the guest-house ;
and from which the people of Semez, I began
to fear, might have taken it into their heads that
they had been betrayed by us, and that the
armaraent which threatened a descent upon their
valley had been fitted out in consequence of
the information we had furnished to the Russians
in the letters we had at differentt iraes despatched
since our arrival there. Such things I knew
had been before insinuated, and they were likely,
in the perturbation of men's minds, to find readier
credence then ever. Among other remarks which
the few words of Circassian I understood, ena
bled me, as I fancied, to catch, it was said, I ima
gined, that Mr. Bell had very opportunely ab
sconded, but that I was counterfeiting sickness in
order to impose upon them as to the share I had
had in bringing the Russians upon them. My
imperfect knowledge of the language, I repeat,
may have misled me. At any rate, I soon disco
vered the feelings of the people at large towards
me were anything but hostile. On the morning
of the fourth day, the fieet, to their great satis
faction, having sailed during the night, was no
longer visible. The expedition was intended for
the south, and Semez was unmolested till the
following year.

330 REASONS FOR LEAVING CIRCASSIA.
A few days afterwards, being recovered from
the fever, I announced to Shamiz my resolution
of leaving Circassia. It had been adopted on ma
ture deliberation. Upon personal and public
grounds, I conceived it to be my duty to retire from
a country where I apprehended my presence
could only encourage hopes which I had now no
expectation of seeing realized. My own, as the
reader is aware, had been sanguine enough in
coming to it; nor could the Circassians themselves
feel more cruel disappointment at the pusillani
mous conduct of our government than I did :
still I had no formal ground of coraplaint against
them. Encouragement I had undoubtedly re
ceived from an individual in office, though, from
the circumspection he had used, it could scarcely
be called official. I knew the government, un
der different circumstances, would have gladly
profited by my past exertions ; as things had
turned out, however, I saw I was not to expect
the least countenance, and that my labours had,
in this point of view, been all thrown away. This
was the more certain, as Lord Palmerston, in
his precipitation to back out of the affair, had
unblushingly disavowed the proceedings, and
basely sacrificed the interests .of his official sub^
ordinates; and this too, though clearly implicated
in them by the correspondence of his own secre-

REASONS FOR LEAVING CIRCASSIA. 331
tary. Should the reader have seen the extracts
that have been published from these letters, he
will doubtless recollect the passage in which the
under secretary, recomraending that competent
persons should be sent to Circassia, with the
view of awaking interest in the public mind by
descriptions, illustrations, &c., says it will be ne
cessary "faire fleche de tout bois."
It was some time after my return to Constan
tinople that I first saw this curious fragment,
and must confess I was a good deal struck with
it ; a new light broke upon nae, nor could I for a
moment resist the flattering conviction that I
had rayself been one of the favoured instruments
— one of the random shafts shot from Cupid's
quiver into the Caucasus. There, for anything
he knew or cared to the contrary, I might have
remained till doomsday, but there, were it only
to turn his own weapons against hira, I was de
termined to stop no longer. Yet, could my stay
have been of any benefit to the Circassians, no
personal consideration could have induced me to
leave them ; but I was sincerely convinced, for
the reasons I have already stated, it would have
been rather prejudicial than otherwise to them.
From themselves, I immediately perceived, on
conferring with the chiefs, that however reluctant

332 PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
to part with me, I had no sort of hindrance to
apprehend. They acknowledged that our conduct had been
open and honourable towards them, and if they
had been at any time deluded with respect to the
objects of our visit, they had to thank others
for it, since we had invariably represented our
selves to be not officially connected with our
government. Such being the case, we could not
of course be answerable for its acts, and had
doubtless been as much deceived as to its inten
tions as themselves. Indeed, the communica
tions made to them by Lord Ponsonby, through
Sefir Bey, afforded them such positive grounds
for expecting the intervention of England, that
they were far from despairing of it even then.
They implored me, therefore, to tarry with them
soihe time longer, as the spirits of the people
were greatly supported in the conflict by my pre
sence. The most earnest in his entreaties was
Shamiz, who declared, that whatever doubts he
might formerly have had with respect to us,
frora the deficiency of our credentials, he was
convinced of the deep obligation they were all of
them under to us. He then told me confiden
tially that his eyes had been chiefly opened on
this point by the Russians themselves, who,

PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE. 333
through a secret emissary, had offered him a
large bribe, — that is, to replenish his kalpac twice
with gold, if he would either betray me into their
hands, or raake away with me privately.
Many were the persuasions and promises by
which he and others strove to detain me ; but
though much affected by thera, and though my
heart bled within me at the prospect of the ca
lamities that so nearly threatened them, my
mind, I told them, was made up ; and since my
single arm could avail them nothing in their
struggle, I was determined to be no longer in
strumental in deceiving them as to expectations
which I considered to be wholly fallacious. Mr.
Bell, who had received assurances that something
would be done for them by his friends in Eng
land, was justified in remaining; ray duty, on
the other hand, as distinctly coraraanded rae to
leave thera.
My departure, therefore, being finally deter
mined upon, I had next to consider the means,
which were not so easy as raay perhaps be iraa-
gined. Every ship that had been stationed on
our part of the coast had taken flight on the
renewal of the blockade. There was one or two,
I was told, in the south ; but I very much
doubted if the jealousy of the people among
whom I then was would permit me to proceed

334 PREPARATIONS POR DEPARTURE.
there. While thus at a loss how to execute my
purpose, a Turkish vessel, by the most provi
dential chance in the world, was driven by the
enemy's cruisers to a part of the coast the very
nearest outside the bay of Semez to my own
habitation — that is, on the further side of the
exterior range of hills that separated it from the
sea. This ship had originally sailed from
Taopsa, but, being chased by a Russian corvette,
had put back to the coast and taken refuge at
Djanhote; from thence she had made another
unsuccessful attempt to get away, and was this
time, after passing through the Russian fleet in
a fog, compelled to run ashore almost under the
walls of Anapa. From this dangerous berth
she was soon dislodged by a Russian frigate sent
to burn or capture her. Favoured by a calm, she
contrived, with the assistance of her oars, to dis
tance her pursuers, who then endeavoured to
overtake her with their boats. She had suc
ceeded, however, in weathering a point consider
ably ahead of them ; and, by the time they had
turned, it was no longer to be seen, having, in
the interim, been hastily dragged on shore, and
so completely disguised by the nuraber of boughs
attached to her masts and rigging, as to present
only the appearance of a tree. In this trim
she was now waiting for a good north-wester, to

LEAVE-TAKING. 335
enable her to slip x through the blockading
squadron during the night. I was not long in
discovering the means of effecting my own es
cape which Providence had thus sent, as it were,
to my very door. One of the Raises (for, in de
fiance of the Turkish proverb, which says, too
many captains will sink a vessel — there were
three of them) waited upon me at my house,
and after we had arranged for my passage, I
crossed the hills myself, and concluded the bar
gain with his partners.
All that we now waited for was a fair wind,
and I employed the interval in taking leave of
my friends. The report having got abroad that
I was about to depart, a deputation from the
plains of the Kuban, headed by Kaplan and
Khattow, came to invite rae to a national council
at Adheucum, where they said I would have an
opportunity of conferring, for the last time, with
the memleket, and might formally bid them
farewell. Apprehensive, however, that should I
withdraw too far from the coast, the vessel, if
favoured by a wind, might sail without me, I
declined attending it in person, but delegated
Shamiz to convey my parting salutations and ac
knowledgments to the chiefs and elders. Such
of them as dwelt within a day's ride of the coast,
I visited. Then it was, while attended by

336 LEAVE-TAKING.
Osman, the faithful companion of all my rambles,
I wandered for the last time among the fields,
woods, and mountains of the fair province of
Natu-koitch, that I felt by how many ties, the
growth of a single twelvemonth, I was attached
to it. Once more I ascended the highest
peak that overlooks the plain of the Kuban —
once more I sat at each hospitable hearth, and
pledged the good man there in a farewell cup —
once more joined the simple revelry of the peo
ple at a solemn festival held on the downs be
tween Semez and the plains of Anapa — for the
last time assisted at the feast, the dance, and
the funeral games ; and then, with unaffected
regret on both sides, bade adieu to the menir
leket assembled there.
The last to interpret for me to his countrymen,
as he had been the first, was Hadjioli the judge.
In answer to ray address, he said, " So then you
are leaving us. Bey, for ever. You have been so
long amongst us, that we had begun to consider
you as one of ourselves ; but, happily for you,
you have a country to go to, where you raay live
in peace, and where there is yet no dread of the
Muscovite. We, alas ! have no other home to
fly to ; nor if we had, would we leave that of our
forefathers, in which we were born, which Allah
has given us, and which it is our duty to die for."

DEPARTURE. 337
A few days afterwards, the wind having come
round to the north, I hastened over the hills to
the sea-side, and found the crew ofour vessel pre
paring to avail themselves of it that evening.
In the course ofthe day, messengers were sent
to the highest points of the hills to ascertain
whether any of the enemy's cruisers were in sight.
Two of them had been seen in the morning, but
towards evening the coast was clear. An hour
before sunset, our vessel, divested of its leafy
covering, and, having been dragged with the aid
of rollers and pulleys to the beach, was once more
afloat. A great multitude had assembled to see
us go, and as soon as I had embarked, the ship,
amidst loud and prolonged cries, Circassian and
Turkish, Ogmaf, Ogmaf, Allaha Ismarladuk !
farewell, farewell, God protect you. we recom
mend you to God ! — got under weigh. She did
not, however, at first stand out directly to sea, but
ran a westerly course, till it was dark, towards
the Crimea. There was a reason for this. The
greater part of the Russian fleet was then in the
bay of Ghelenjik, and many an anxious look was cast
where, stretching far to the east, the promontory
of Djanhote lay black in the shades of evening,
like a broad screen between us and the Russians,
who, had they observed, would infallibly have
sent their steamer after us. But whatever un-
VOL. II. Q

338 HOMEWARD BOUND.
easiness such a neighbourhood might have caused
us under other circumstances, my thoughts at that
moment were otherwise engrossed, and all my at
tention directed to the part of the coast we had
left, on which the sun, now setting majestically
over the hills of Anapa, still shed his parting
bearas, and which was everywhere crowded with
our friends and well-wishers, raany of whom,
though their pious ejaculations were no longer
audible, I could see, by their uplifted hands,
were still offering up prayers for our safety. Nor
were my own at that instant poured forth less
fervently for theirs, or unmingled (as I called to
mind all the kindness I had experienced, their
worth, their bravery, and hospitality,) with in
voluntary imprecations on their heartless oppres
sors. I could see, methought, at the sarae time,
in these very virtues, (for I do not disbelieve in
a Providence,) a certain pledge that the degrading
yoke which they had hitherto so nobly repelled
could never be ultiraately imposed upon them ;
that Divine Ju.stice might employ the power of
Russia as a rod to chasten them, but would not
permit it to make slaves of those who, with all
their faults, still deserved to be independent.
Tyranny can never long prevail, or freedom be
for ever suppressed in the Caucasus ; the tide of
conquest raay for a while submerge its valleys.

HOMEWARD BOUND. 339
but the time will corae when, in spite of all the
forts that Russia can erect there, it raust recede
even from them. The ruins of these, like other
remains which serve but as flood-marks to attest
how far it has advanced under former invaders,
and prove that in some instances it was carried
even much further than at present, will by the
future generations of Circassia be viewed with
the same indifference, and ascribed, in the com
mon oblivion that attends them, to the distant
period of Genoese supremacy. Such were the
reflections inspired by the last view of Circassia,
from whose coasts, till darkness had veiled it from
them, I was unable to withdraw my eyes.
The wind blew freshly from the north-west
during the whole night, so that I fully expected
we should be out of all danger of pursuit the
next raorning ; what, then, was my mortification
on waking, to hear the boy announce from the
mast that there was a vessel in sight. Half
angry with the lad for what I still hoped to find
a mistake, I hastened up the rigging, and dis
covered we were followed by two ships instead
of one. We had nothing for it, therefore, but to
crowd every sail and run. We thus contrived
to lose sight of one of our pursuers in the course
of an hour, while the other, on' the contrary,
though we had set every stitch of canvass we
Q 2

340 HOMEWARD BOUND.
could find in the ship, seemed still to be gaining
on us. As a last resource, we threw out our
sweeps, and changed our course a few points to
windward. On perceiving this, the Russian hoisted out
his boats, but from the roughness of the sea their
attempts to overtake us proved unsuccessful, and
after a chase of eight hours we found ourselves
clear of our troublesome escort. Still our. crew
continued to ply their oars till evening, and the
wind having freshened during the night, the
mountains of Circassia were, the day after, no
longer visible. The weather, it was true, was
hazy, and towards noon the wind had so com
pletely fallen that we could make but little way.
What added to our anxiety was, a discovery
I made about this time, that our compass was
good for nothing, and subject to variations that
would have puzzled the ablest mariner in our
navy ; so that our position here in the midst of the
Euxine was not the most agreeable in the world.
There was a time, and some of my shipmates
could remember it, when we could have put into
no part of the shores that encompassed us on
every side like those of a lake, which we should
not have found friendly to us ; but now, so rapidly
had the power of Russia extended itself along
them, that we everywhere feared to meet an

HOMEWARD BOUND. 311
enemy, or, on the mist clearing away from the
sea, to discover ourselves close to some hostile
portion of the coast. Our position, therefore, I
repeat, was embarrassing, nor could the united
resources of our three captains do much to extri
cate us. Their authority over the crew, consist
ing of five men and a boy, was but slight, and
when we had got out of iraraediate danger, no in
ducement could prevail on the latter to work at
the sweeps. They stretched themselves lazily
about the deck, sleeping, smoking, or listening
to some religious yarn which one of their number
who was an Imaum and a good story-teller, retailed
by the hour together. He was a quiet, inoffen
sive man, with a thin ascetic look, which how
ever, when engaged in his narratives, grew very
animated. To some of these, though from their
discursive nature it was difficult to preserve the
thread of them, I listened with interest.
The hero of one of them was a certain Cadi
Oglou Islam, whose miracles of wisdom, prow
ess, and locomotion — galloping from country to
country, and everywhere circumventing and put
ting to flight large armies of infidels — greatly
diverted his auditors, who, nevertheless, I ob
served, would ever and anon, in the midst of
their glee, lift up the mainsail and take a furtive
glance around the horizon, to see if we were not

342 HOMEWARD BOUND.
followed by some of the cruisers of the Giaour.
We had, unhappily, no Cadi Oglou Islam to pro
tect us now. Islamism, it was clear, had long
since declined from the palmy state that produced
such champions.
We made but little progress that day, nor was
there any change in the weather on the following
one, during which we lay, in like manner, almost
completely becalmed. To add to our discomfort,
our stock of water was exhausted, the remaining
cask having turned putrid ; while the sailors, in
stead of betaking themselves to their oars, began
to amuse each other with dismal stories of what
had been suffered by the crews of other vessels
under similar privations. Towards evening, how
ever, they got a fright which made them bestir
tberaselves. A vessel was descried at no great
distance, and though it was probably only some
merchantman bound to the Crimea, they hastened
out of her way as quick as their oars could carry
them, and continued rowing even after it was
dark. About two hours before daybreak, I was
roused by my attendant Hassein, and found all
hands in the greatest alarm and confusion, some
of thera asserting that there was a ship advancing
on them. Nor were we long in doubt on the
subject. The object which had alarmed thera,
looming indistinctly to larboard, now came right

HOMEWARD BOUND. -343
athwart our course, at scarcely a cable's length
ahead of us. It was a large two-masted vessel,
and we were most fortunate in not coraing foul of
her. Our raen were much terrified, and redoubled
their efforts till daylight.
The morning dispelled all our apprehensions ,
the weather had cleared up, and the coast of
Asia Minor was scarcely at the distance of twenty
railes before us. I easily recognised the bold
and magnificent sweep of land that forms the
Gulf of Keresoum, from which I had sailed just
a year before.
Our crew, Turks as they were, could scarcely
contain their ecstasies at the sight ; and there was
soraething, I thought, approaching to the sublime
in the enthusiasm of the poor Imaum, as he hailed
his beloved Anatolia — the abode of saints — nay,
every stone of which he declared to be hamazlik,
or consecrated by the prayers of the faithful, who
had knelt on it. Our vessel put in to the nearest
point of the coast, and I took a boat the next
day to Trebisond, where I was received at the
British consulate with a kindness and hospitality
which such only as have been circumstanced as
I was, " after long wandering on a foreign strand,"
can duly estimate. After reposing myself for a
few days at Trebisond from the fatigues of the
voyage, I set out in the steamer for Constanti-

344 RETURN TO CONSTANTINOPLE.
nople, where I arrived on the SOth of June,
having been absent exactly thirteen months. I
should not omit to mention, that the day after
ray departure, the Russian consul at Trebisond
insisted that the vessel in which I had come
should be publicly burnt in the harbour. The
Pacha was ex officio compelled to be the instru
ment of this barbarous and vindictive decree, but
I afterwards contrived to obtain an indemnity for
the sufferers.

APPENDIX.

{From the Morning Post.)
Constantinople, May 28.
The recent arrival here of several Circassians
who were present and engaged in their late
glorious victories enables me to furnish you with
details, and to give you a more accurate idea of
their extent and consequences, which affect not
only Circassia and its central independence, but
the whole course of Russian policy in the East.
The ambitious schemes of Russia against Turkey
will have to be adjourned for this year at least —
for the important diversion that has taken place
in its favour in the Caucasus will occupy all the
force (amounting to eighty thousand men) she
had collected at Sebastopol, Odessa, &c., and has
already produced a decided change in the tone of
her diplomacy here, being apparently ready to

346 APPENDIX.
acquiesce in any arrangement that will leave her
at liberty to act against Circassia. It is now
eight or nine years ago that Russia, exhausted by
her fruitless campaigns in that country, embraced
the plan submitted to the cabinet of St. Peters-
burgh by General Williamanoff, of reducing it
gradually by intersecting it with forts of military
roads. These operations were commenced by
the erection of the fortresses of Aboon, Nicolai,
and Doha, or Alexandriusky, connected by a
military road extending for fifty railes between
the Kuban and the Black Sea, and intended to
isolate the north-western angle of the country —
an object which (I should state by the way) they
failed to effect from the first, since their garrisons,
instead of interrupting the coraraunications o^
the Circassians, were kept close prisoners in
their respective strongholds from the time they
were erected there. The next measure, whose
execution has now occupied four years, and
been attended with the most lavish expenditure
of money and human life, was the building, of
forts on every accessible quarter of the coast, it
having been found, especially since the affair of
the Vixen, the most essential step to put a stop
to all coraraunications with the inhabitants by
sea. For this purpose eight forts have been
built on the coast, in addition to Anapa and

APPENDIX. 347
Ghelenjik, and all these forts, both in the in
terior and on the coast, which it had been the
labour of eight years to erect, have, with one or
two exceptions, been destroyed in a raonth. The
first which was taken, the 15th of Monharera,
about three months ago, and which was defended
by a garrison of five hundred men, and fifteen
heavy pieces of ordinance, was at Ouwya, and
not Soutchka, as at first reported ; this was fol
lowed in a few days by the capture of Toaps,
and a week after by that of Shapsine, which fell
after an obstinate resistance, and cost the victors
three hundred and fifty men. The following
account of the affair was furnished me by an eye
witness : —
The Circassians, under the comraand of Man
sour Bey, Hadji Guz-Beg, the lion of Shapsook,
and Tougouse, the Wolf, had collected in the
neighbourhood of the fort to the araount of
7,000 men. It is situated almost on the beach,
in the centre of a valley, about a mile in width,
opening gradually as it descends to the sea, and
covered almost to the walls with forest and
underwood. It contained, at the time it was
taken, 2,600 Russians, including women and
children, for it had been the intention of the
government to place a colony there. The Cir
cassians, having invested it with a cordon on

348 APPENDIX.
every side, advanced stealthily upon it through
the wood during the night, each man having
laid aside his rifle, and armed only with his sabre
and cama (a broad two-edged dagger.) They
had thus crept almost under the wall, and sur
rounded the fort, without being perceived by the
sentinels, and waited there in breathless silence
till the Sabah-namaz, (morning prayer,) that is,
daybreak. The stillness was then suddenly
broken by the simultaneous shout that arose on
every side of " Allah ! Allah!" as the Deli-Kans
rushed to the assault and stormed the walls.
These were carried in a few minutes, though not
without severe loss, and the Russians retreated,
fighting desperately, on their houses and maga
zines. In the raidst of the bloody conflict that
ensued, the powder magazines exploded ; the
whole of the combatants crowded in its imme
diate neighbourhood, the assailants and the as
sailed, the women and children, were all involved
in carnage and destruction. The Circassians, ac
cording to their own account, lost three hundred
and fifty warriors, and there perished by sword
and fire at least two thousand Russians ; five
hundred fugitives were, in attempting to escape,
made prisoners by the cordon that had been
stationed about the fortress. Of still greater
importance was the fort of Aboon, in the interior

APPENDIX. 349
of the country, containing, with the colonists
included, a garrison of three thousand. The last
forts captured were Nicolai and Mazgah, to which
the Circassians, I ara informed, sent a flag of
truce, threatening them with the same fate as the
others, unless they surrendered at discretion.
The former, having refused to obey this sum
mons, was taken by assault, and the garrison put
to the sword ; that of the latter, composed of
five hundred men, laid down their arms. The
whole of the places taken have, with the ex
ception of Soobaslir, which is now garrisoned by
one thousand five hundred Circassians, been
razed to the ground.
The expedition which, on the receipt of this
intelligence, was imraediately fitted out at Se
bastopol, has not been landed on any part of the
coast of Circassia, but has proceeded to Georgia.
It is apprehended, probably, that tbe revolt
may spread into that province and the Cabardas.
The supreme council was yesterday engaged
in deliberation about the removal frora office of
Khosrew Pacha, the Grand Vizier, who is ac
cused of malversation in his office. In con
sideration of his length of services, and the con
fidence he formerly enjoyed with the Sultan,
many of the council are opposed to his public
disgrace and degradation.

350 APPENDIX.
There is a report that Mustapha Pacha,* who
had been appointed vice-admiral of the fieet at
Alexandria, has been poisoned there by Meh-
raet Ali.

As long as the Circassians cherished the
least hope of assistance from England — whose
diplomatic interference in their behalf they were
taught to believe would suffice to expel the Rus
sians from their territory — they deemed it super
fluous to attack their fortresses. But despairing
at length of foreign succour, they girded their
loins, and by a simultaneous effort swept away
almost every trace of them from their coast. The
yoke which Russia has been so many years
labouring to rivet, has been shattered to pieces in
a month. As the iraraediate fruits of their vic
tories, the Circassians retain upwards of two
hundred pieces of ordnance, with ammunition
sufficient to serve them, they declare, for ten
years to come ; and, what is of still greater im
portance, they are in high spirits; — " Tchok
Kieflendik" they say, and believe themselves to
be invincible. A powerful expedition, amount
ing to eighty thousand raen, has, according to
the last advices from Russia, been directed
* The Smyrna papers state that he died of the plague.

APPENDIX. 351
against them by the emperor, in order, as he
declares, to punish them for their atrocities. The
same insolent perversion of language was em
ployed by Charles the Bold of Burgundy to
wards the heroic Swiss in the fifteenth century,
and in later times by Napoleon towards the
Spanish patriots ; but they were themselves se
verely punished for their atrocities, which the
Ifitter lived most bitterly to repent, confessing
frequently it was the Spanish Ulcer that had de
stroyed him. The Circassian Ulcer seems des
tined to do the same for Nicholas.

THE END.

LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, ^AVOV STREET, STRAND.

8065