steamer which was opportunely descried. The signals were observed, and the steamer bore down. As she neared the Turkish vessel, a heartrending shriek arose from its deck. Those girls had left their homes without a tear, but intolerable to them was the idea of Russian service ;

Ἱστον εποιχομένην καὶ ἐμὸν λέχος ἀντιόωσαν.-Iliad, i. 31.

So strong was this feeling of national pride, and this loathing of everything Russian, that some terminated their existence with the dagger, while others leaped into the sea.

Where maidens die thus, men are not easily conquered. For a long series of years the bravery of the Caucasians has been put to the severest test by Russia. A more unequal contest there never was-an immense empire matched against disunited tribes of mountaineers. Unscrupulous in its means, Russia employed all the arts of seduction. Money and honours were lavished wherever was found an open hand or a treacherous heart. The effects were felt in the lowlands, where escape from the Russian sword is less available; individuals, and even tribes, openly or covertly, sundered themselves from their patriotic brethren. Hordes of assailants were year after year poured down on the Caucasus. Whole tribes of Cossacks were transplanted into the vicinity. The first officers of the army were entrusted with the command; and as the service proved repulsive, as well as deadly, the pay was augmented and favours were multiplied. Long bent on conquering the Caucasus, Russia had made herself mistress of Georgia and other trans-Caucasian lands. She also acquired the Crimea. By means of the Black Sea she commanded with her ships an immense line of the Caucasian sea-board. Having thus hemmed-in the mountaineers on nearly all sides, and possessing also two high roads through the country, one, and the chief one, across the mountains, the other along the shores of the Caspian, Russia at length resolved to close upon her destined prey.

The wars which led to the treaty of Adrianople, made in 1829 between the Czar and the Sultan, found the Caucasians engaged on the side of their co-religionists of the Sublime Porte. The diplomatic arrangements then entered into by the belligerents seemed to recognise the independence of the Caucasus, but were found to be expressed darkly enough to give some feasibility to a claim for sovereignty over it on the part of Russia. That claim was made. It was enforced by arms. But as yet it has not prevailed. The claim was wholly invalid. Avowedly it rests on the construction of words doubtful in their import. In our judgment those words may be so understood as to deny the alleged right of Russian sovereignty. Any way it is very certain that the consent

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of the Caucasians to the treaty was neither asked nor given. Caucasia had never been subjugated. It was independent, and as it wished to remain independent, it had a right to remain independent. The country belonged to its inhabitants, and any attempt to seize their lands and enslave the natives, was and is robbery and manstealing. A course of gross robbery and manstealing did the Czar enter upon, when he took measures for appropriating the country of the Caucasians. And noble was the patriotism which resisted the attempt; and sublime has been the heroism to which the resistance has given birth.

The nature of the contest is now before the reader's eyes. The question simply is on one side: the Caucasus for Caucasians? and on the other, the Caucasus yoked to the car of Russian despotism? Russia declared her will in this mountebank style.

'If you wish for peace you must admit a chief to be named by Russia. All the English who have come here are impostors not to be believed on oath. They wish to gain the country; but it is better to be under Russian than English rule. If you give up intercourse with England, France, and other countries, and become good Russian subjects, peace may be obtained. What is it you expect? Do you not know that if the heavens should fall, Russia has power enough to support them on her bayonets? The other countries are good mechanics, artificers, &c.; but power rests with Russia alone. No country has ever made war successfully against Russia; no nation is so strong as Russia; and if you wish peace you must believe that there are but two powers-God in heaven, and the emperor on earth.'

To this precious rant-this bombast heightened into blasphemy -the Caucasians calmly replied:

'As we are all united, we can undertake that no one shall set foot in your territory; and as the Circassians will not molest you in your provinces, we expect that you will raze your fortresses, and retire to the other side of the Kuban; and a treaty may be made that you will no longer do us injury, nor we you. You write too vauntingly when you say you will destroy this country; for in so speaking you arrogate to yourself the attributes of the Deity-the Creator.'

This mild language was followed by unsurpassed daring, hardihood, and endurance. Innumerable are the instances. One must suffice. A young man, after killing or wounding several Russians in a rencontre, was made prisoner and carried to Yekaterinodar. There he was questioned, and frankly told all the acts of hostility he had been concerned in of late, pointing out two of the soldiers he had wounded. He was threatened with death, fettered, and thrown into a dungeon. During the night he contrived to free himself from his irons, and to dig a hole through his prison wall, by which he got into the courtyard. This was surrounded by a wall and chevaux-de-frise, which he surmounted by grasping the points of iron in his hands, and thus making a footing, from which he leaped down upon the outer ground. Here he was encountered by two sentries. Snatching up a billet of wood that lay at hand, he felled one of the soldiers to the ground, and escaping from the other, ran towards the Kuban. On the way he was attacked by three Cossacks, whom he kept at bay with his billet, until reaching the river he plunged into it. His trials were not yet at an end, for some soldiers put off in a boat in pursuit of him; he dived and upset the boat. Thus freed from pursuers, he made for the shore. But on reaching it he found himself in a territory, the people of which had made terms with the Russians. Afraid of being captured, he set off forthwith, and in the state of almost complete nudity to which his scuffles had reduced him. After minor adventures and great privations he safely reached his home.

A consecutive outline of the Russian war in the Caucasus cannot be given, for want of materials. The materials which exist are of two kinds, either official military reports, or narratives published by eye-witnesses. The last are necessarily defective, the former are withheld. Even detailed maps of the country existing in the Russian bureaux are denied to the public. The Czar puts forth only that which suits his own purposes, and he has done his utmost to prevent Europe from thinking that he had any great difficulty in one corner of his vast dominions. While, however, we are not in a condition to write a complete sketch of the Caucasian war, we possess abundance of facts for depicting some of its scenes, and may give an outline of the last few years.

The earliest method of warfare pursued by the Russians was the establishment of petty fortresses in favourable spots. This was their course in the period from 1835 to 1837, when by this means they endeavoured to subdue the whole Circassian coast of the Black Sea. They built there eight forts, of which the smallest contained 800 and the largest 1500 men, but met with such opposition, that at one point alone, namely, the mouth of the Tuab, they, though supported by eleven ships of war, lost not fewer than 8000 warriors. This resource, attempted throughout the Caucasus wherever opportunity offered, proved of small avail, though very costly. While within the walls, the soldier was comparatively safe, for the Caucasians had no guns of large bore; but the moment he showed himself beyond, he was the mark of the almost unfailing Circassian rifle. Points of land here and there might be occupied, but the country could not be conquered by such From time to time, indeed, a combined attack might be made from these fortresses; but to what purpose? What is gained

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by ravaging a poor country? What is gained by pursuing an enemy who flies before you, hiding in his mountain retreats, until you are involved in the heart of the land, when he falls on you, weary, disappointed, on the point of returning from your fruitless errand, and in the thickets of a wood, or in a narrow pass, where he brings you down by rifle or sword, almost at his pleasure? Such, in a few words, is the substance of very numerous attempts made by the Russians, and defeated by the brave mountaineers.* The failure of previous operations induced the emperor himself to visit Caucasia, in October, 1837. From the results of that visit great things were expected. Of course the imperial master did all he could to make the trouble he took productive. Abuses were corrected; generals were changed; the army was raised to 40,000 men. But the war prospered none the more. Again the forces were augmented. Men of the highest skill and prowess were placed at their head. Before others, General Sass was remarkable -a man of huge stature, ceaseless activity, with a tiger's heart, and an arm of iron. Not content with commanding, he threw himself into the thickest of the fight, hewing down opponents like oxen under the butcher's sledge. What was the issue? He erected a few new forts; he maintained the occupied ground at a great cost of life and property. He brought ruin and death on many Caucasian homesteads. In 1839 and 1840 he transported from their homes, and placed where he thought fit, many thousands of Armenian families, designed to act as spies, and promote Russian interests. Nevertheless the war went on precisely as before. Parts of the country were ravaged. Forts were lost and won. Russian troops fell into ambush and perished. Caucasian villages were burnt down. The Caucasian rifle inflicted terrible revenge. The summer passed in hostilities, in which the invader was by far the greater sufferer, and the winter came with the wear and tear of its long, dreary, intolerable monotony-a monotony relieved only by storm and tempest, and the ceaseless crack of the deadly musket.

During the last-mentioned year, one became conspicuous in the war, who united in himself the character of priest, prophet, and chief, and has given a new turn to the current of events, and earned for himself an imperishable name. This distinguished personage bears the name of Shamyl. Born in the year 1797, of Tartar blood, and in a family of ordinary condition, as well as in an obscure province, Darghestan, lying on the south-east of the Caucasus, along the Caspian, Shamyl gave at first no signs of the

extraordinary distinction which he has recently gained in fighting against the foes of his country. Of a quiet and retired disposition, he was naturally given to solitude. His frame was small and weak, and he endeavoured to strengthen it by severe bodily exercise. Ambitious even in boyhood, he could not endure being surpassed by his associates, and if another gained the prize in running or shooting, his countenance fell, he withdrew from the public eye, and weeks sometimes passed ere he was to be again seen. His retreat was a spot, bare as if burnt with fire, which lay above his native village, Himry, in the bosom of lofty and jagged rocks, forming the broadest contrast to the verdure and richness of the plain below. The spot was fabled to be visited by unearthly beings, whose coming was announced by flames that suddenly burst from the mountain. In that place, which made the blood of the brave Caucasian run cold as he passed it after dark, Shamyl was wont to tarry deep into the night, indulging in thoughts which he could scarcely distinguish from dreams. Those thoughts turned on the condition of his country. The tendency to reflection was nursed in the young man by his teacher, Shelal Eddin, under whose guidance he studied Arabic and philosophy. In the latter Shamyl found a resource whence he drew the elements of a new religion. That resource was Sufism.* Some acquaintance with that system is necessary in order to understand the resistance made to Russia in the Caucasus. Without that knowledge you see the display of rude strength and personal bravery, but you remain ignorant of the moral principle which supplies the impulse, and, which is not less important, forms the link that binds together and unites as one man the previously disjointed and scattered forces of the Caucasians.

According to the doctrine of the Sufis, man has four stages to reach in order to rise to celestial blessedness. As your knowledge and sanctity grow, so you pass upwards from one degree of excellence and happiness to another. The first step is set by those who follow the outer law of the faithful (Sharyat), and observe its injunctions respecting prayers, fasts, pilgrimages, almsgiving, self-purifications, the love of truth, honour. You reach the second stage, which is a step in the way of perfection (Tarykal), when, in contrast to externalities, you diligently and reverently worship God in the depth of your heart. When this adoration becomes so habitual and so deep as to carry you by wrapt meditation and intimate communion with nature into the essence of things, so as to give you extatic intuition of what is heavenly, then you have ascended to the third stage, which bears the name of truth (Hakykal). In the fourth and last stage of knowledge (Maarifal), this