CHAPTER XLVI.

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

* * * * *

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCC. FEBRUARY, 1849. VOL. LXV.

CONTENTS.

CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS, 129

THE CAXTONS. PART X., 147

STATISTICAL ACCOUNTS OF SCOTLAND, 162

THE POETRY OF SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART, 175

AMERICAN THOUGHTS ON EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONS, 190

DALMATIA AND MONTENEGRO, 202

MODERN BIOGRAPHY.--BEATTIE'S LIFE OF CAMPBELL, 219

THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR REFORMS, 235

THE COVENANTERS' NIGHT-HYMN. BY DELTA, 244

THE CARLISTS IN CATALONIA, 248

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET:

AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCC. FEBRUARY, 1849. VOL. LXV.

CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS.

_Der Kaukasus und das Land der Kosaken in den Jahren 1843 bis

1846._ Von MORITZ WAGNER. 2 vols. Dresden und Leipzig, 1848.

A handful of men, frugal, hardy, and valiant, successfully defending

their barren mountains and dearly-won independence against the

reiterated assaults of a mighty neighbour, offer, apart from

political considerations, a deeply interesting spectacle. When, upon

a map of the world's eastern hemisphere, we behold, not far from its

centre, on the confines of barbarism and civilisation, a spot, black

with mountains, and marked "Circassia;" when we contrast this petty

nook with the vast territory stretching from the Black Sea to the

Northern Ocean, from the Baltic to Behring's Straits, we admire and

wonder at the inflexible resolution and determined gallantry that

have so long borne up against the aggressive ambition, iron will,

and immense resources of a czar. Sixty millions against six hundred

thousand--a hundred to one, a whole squadron against a single

cavalier, a colossus opposed to a pigmy--these are the odds at

issue. It seems impossible that such a contest can long endure. Yet

it has lasted twenty years, and still the dwarf resists subjugation,

and contrives, at intervals, to inflict severe punishment upon his

gigantic adversary. There is something strangely exciting in the

contemplation of so brave a struggle. Its interest is far superior

to that of any of the "little wars" in which Europe, since 1815,

has evaporated her superabundant pugnacity. African raids and

Spanish skirmishes are pale affairs contrasted with the dashing

onslaughts of the intrepid Circassians. And, in other respects than

its heroism, this contest merits attention. As an important section

of the huge mountain-dyke, opposed by nature to the south-eastern

extension of the Russian empire, Circassia is not to be overlooked.

On the rugged peaks and in the deep valleys of the Caucasus, her

fearless warriors stand, the vedettes of southern Asia, a living

barrier to the forward flight of the double eagle.

Matters of pressing interest, nearer home, have diverted public

attention from the warlike Circassians, whose independent spirit and

unflinching bravery deserves better than even temporary oblivion.

Not in our day only have they distinguished themselves in freedom's

fight. Surrounded by powerful and encroaching potentates, their

history, for the last five hundred years, records constant struggles

against oppression. Often conquered, they never were fully subdued.

Their obscure chronicles are illumined by flashes of patriotism

and heroic courage. Early in the fifteenth century, they conquered

their freedom from the Georgian yoke. Then came long wars with the

Tartars, who could hardly, perhaps, be considered the aggressors,

the Circassians having overstepped their mountain limits, and spread

over the plains adjacent to the Sea of Azov. In 1555, the Russian

grand-duke, Ivan Vasilivitch, pressed forward to Tarki upon the

Caspian, where he placed a garrison. A Circassian tribe submitted

to him; he married the daughter of one of their princes, and

assisted them against the Tartars. But after a while the Russians

withdrew their succour; and the Circassians, driven back to the

river Kuban, their natural boundary to the north-west, paid tribute

to the Tartars, till the commencement of the eighteenth century,

when a decisive victory liberated them. Meanwhile Russia strode

steadily southwards, reached the Kuban in the west, whilst, in the

east, Tarki and Derbent fell, in 1722, into the hands of Peter

the Great. The fort of Swiatoi-Krest, built by the conqueror, was

soon afterwards retaken by a swarm of fanatical mountaineers from

the eastern Caucasus. It is now about seventy years since Russian

and Circassian first crossed swords in serious warfare. A fanatic

dervise, who called himself Sheikh Mansour, preached a religious war

against the Muscovites; but, although followed with enthusiasm, his

success was not great, and at last he was captured and sent prisoner

into the interior of Russia. With his fall the furious zeal of the

Caucasians subsided for a while. But the Turks, who viewed Circassia

as their main bulwark against the rapidly increasing power of their

dangerous northern neighbour, made friends of the mountaineers, and

stirred them up against Russia. The fortified town of Anapa, on the

north-west coast of Circassia, became the focus of the intercourse

between the Porte and its new allies. The creed of Mahomet was

actively propagated amongst the Circassians, whose relations with

Turkey grew more and more intimate, and in the year 1824 several

tribes took oath of allegiance to the sultan. In 1829, during the

war between Russia and Turkey, Anapa, which had more than once

changed hands in the course of previous contests, was taken by the

former power, to whom, by the treaty of Adrianople, its possession,

and that of the other Turkish posts on the same coast, was finally

conceded. Hence the chief claim of Russia upon Circassia--although

Circassia had never belonged to the Turks, nor been occupied by

them; and from that period dates the war that has elicited from

Russia so great a display of force against an apparently feeble, but

in reality formidable antagonist--an antagonist who has hitherto

baffled her best generals, and picked troops, and most skilful

strategists.

The tribes of the Caucasus may be comprehended, for the sake of

simplicity, under two denominations: the Tcherkesses or Circassians,

in the west, and the Tshetshens in the east. In loose newspaper

statements, and in the garbled reports of the war which remote

position, Russian jealousy, and the peculiarly inaccessible

character of the Caucasians, suffer to reach us, even this broad

distinction is frequently disregarded.[1] It is nevertheless

important, at least in a physiological point of view; and, even

as regards the resistance offered to Russia, there are differences

between the Eastern and the Western Caucasians. The military tactics

of both are much alike, but the character of the war varies. On

the banks of the Kuban, and on the Euxine shores, the strife has

never been so desperate, and so dangerous for the Russians, as

in Daghestan, Lesghistan, and the land of the Tshetshens. The

Abchasians, Mingrelians, and other Circassian tribes, dwelling on

the southern slopes of Caucasus, and on the margin of the Black Sea,

are of more peaceable and passive character than their brethren

to the North and East. The Tshetshens, by far the most warlike

and enterprising of the Caucasians, have had the ablest leaders,

and have at all times been stimulated by fierce religious zeal.

As far back as 1745, Russian missionaries were sent to the tribe

of the Osseti, who had relapsed from Christianity to the heathen

creed of their forefathers. Every Osset who presented himself at

the baptismal font received a silver cross and a new shirt. The

bait brought thousands of the mountaineers to the Russian priests,

who contented themselves with the outward and visible sign of

conversion. These propagandist attempts enraged the Mahomedan

tribes, and then it was that they thronged around Sheikh Mansour,

as they have done in our day (in 1830) around that strange fanatic

Chasi-Mollah, when in his turn he preached a holy war against the

Russian. In the latter year, General Paskewitch had just been

called away to Poland, and his successor, Baron Rosen, found all

Daghestan in an uproar. He immediately opened the campaign, but met

a strenuous resistance, and suffered heavy loss. The defence of the

village of Hermentschuk, held against him, in the year 1832, by

3000 Tshetshens, was an extraordinary example of heroism. When the

Russian infantry forced their way into the place with the bayonet, a

portion of the garrison shut themselves up in a fortified house, and

made it good against overwhelming numbers, singing passages from the

Koran amidst a storm of bombs and grapeshot. At last the building

took fire, and its undaunted defenders, the sacred verses still

upon their lips, found death in the flames. In an equally desperate

defence of the fortified village of Himri, Chasi-Mollah met his

death, falling in the very breach, bleeding from many wounds. The

chief who succeeded him was less venerated and less energetic,

and for a few years the Tshetshens remained tolerably quiet, but

without a thought of submission. Nevertheless the Russians flattered

themselves that the worst was past; that the death of the mad

dervish was an irreparable loss to the mountaineers. They were

mistaken. Out of his most ardent adherents Chasi-Mollah had formed a

sort of sacred band, whom he called Murides, gloomy fanatics, half

warriors, half priests. They composed his body-guard, were unwearied

in preaching up the fight for the Prophet's faith, and in battle

devoted themselves to death with a heroism that has never been

surpassed. From these, within a short time of their first leader's

death, Chamyl, the present renowned chief of the Tshetshens, soon

stood forth pre-eminent, and the Murides followed him to the field

with the same enthusiasm and valour they had shown under his

predecessor. He did not prove less worthy of guiding them; and the

Russians were compelled to confess, that it was easier for the

Tshetshens to find an able leader than for them to find a general

able to beat him. And victories over the restless and enterprising

Caucasians were of little profit, even when obtained. For the most

part, they only served to fill the Russian hospitals, and to procure

the officers those ribbons and distinctions they so greedily covet,

and which, in that service, are so liberally bestowed.[2] Thus,

in 1845, Count Woronzoff made a most daring expedition into the

heart of Daghestan. He found the villages empty and in flames,

lost three thousand men, amongst them many brave and valuable

officers, and marched back again, strewing the path with wounded,

for whom the means of transport (the horses of the Cossack cavalry)

were quite insufficient. With great difficulty, and protected by

a column that went out to meet them, the Russians regained their

lines, harassed to the last by the fierce Caucasians. This affair

was called a victory, and Count Woronzoff was made a prince. Two

more such victories would have reduced his expeditionary column to

a single battalion. Chamyl, who had cannonaded the Russians with

their own artillery, captured in former actions, possibly considered

himself equally entitled to triumph, as he slowly retreated, after

following up the foe nearly to the gates of their fortresses, into

the recesses of his native valleys.

[1] "Amongst the Caucasian tribes, the interest of Europe has

attached itself especially to the Circassians, because they are

regarded (in Urquhart's words) 'as the only people, from the

Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, ever ready to revenge an injury

and retort a menace proceeding from the Czar of the Muscovites.'

Urquhart's opinion, which is shared by the great majority of the

European public, is not quite correct, the Circassians not being

the only combatants against Russia. Indeed it so happens that,

for the last four years, they have kept tolerably quiet in their

mountains, contenting themselves with small forays into the Cossack

country on the Kuban; whilst the warlike Tshetshens in the eastern

Caucasus, their chief, Chamyl, at their head, have given the Russian

army much more to do. But, in the absence of official intelligence,

and of regular newspaper information concerning the events of the

war, people in Europe have got accustomed to admire and praise the

Circassians as the only defenders of Caucasian freedom against

Russian aggression; and even in St Petersburg the intelligent public

hold the famous Chamyl to be chief of the Circassians, with whom he

has nothing whatever to do."--_Der Kaukasus_, &c., vol. ii. p. 22-3.

[2] "It must be admitted that Russian officers are second to those

of no other nation, in thirst for distinction, and in honourable

ambition, to awaken and stimulate which, innumerable means are

employed. In no other army are the rewards for those officers

who distinguish themselves in the field of so many kinds, and so

lavishly dealt out. There are all manner of medals and marks for

good service--crosses and stars of Saints George, Stanislaus,

Vladimir, Andrew, Anna, and other holy personages; some with crowns,

some with diamonds, peculiar distinctions on the epaulets and

uniforms, &c. &c. I was once in a distinguished society, composed

almost entirely of officers of the army of the Caucasus. Not finding

very much amusement, I had the patience to count all the orders and

decorations in the room, and found that upon the breasts of the

thirty-five military guests, there glittered more than two hundred

stars, crosses, and medals; on some of the generals' coats were

more orders than buttons. As it usually happens, the desire for

these distinctions increases with their possession. The Russian who

has obtained a medal leaves no stone unturned to get a knight's

cross, and when the cross is at his button-hole, he is ravenous

for the glittering star, and ready to make any sacrifice to obtain

it."--_Der Kaukasus_, &c., vol. ii. p. 98.

The interior of Circassia is still an unknown land. The

investigations of Messrs Bell, Longworth, Stewart, and others,

who of late years have visited and written about the country,

were confined to small districts, and cramped by the jealousy of

the natives. Mr Bell, who made the longest residence, was treated

more like a prisoner than a guest. Other foreigners find a worse

reception still. Even the Poles, who desert from the Russian army,

are made slaves of by the Circassians, and so severely treated

that they are often glad to return to their colours, and endure

the flogging that there awaits them. The only European who, having

penetrated into the interior, has again seen his own country, is

the Russian Baron Turnau, an aide-de-camp of General Gurko; but

the circumstances of his abode in Circassia were too painful and

peculiar to allow opportunity for observation. They are well told by

Dr Wagner.

"By the Emperor's command, Russian officers acquainted with

the language are sent, from time to time, as spies into

Circassia,[3]--partly to make topographical surveys of

districts previously unknown; partly to ascertain the numbers,

mode of life, and disposition of those tribes with whom no

intercourse is kept up. These missions are extremely dangerous,

and seldom succeed. Shortly before my arrival at Terek, four

Russian staff-officers were sent as spies to various parts of

Lesghistan. They assumed the Caucasian garb, and were attended

by natives in Russian pay. Only one of them ever returned;

the three others were recognised and murdered. Baron Turnau

prepared himself long beforehand for his dangerous mission.

He gave his complexion a brownish tint, and to his beard the

form affected by the aborigines. He also tried to learn the

language of the Ubiches, but, finding the harsh pronunciation

of certain words quite unattainable, he agreed with his guide

to pass for deaf and dumb during his stay in the country.

In this guise he set out upon his perilous journey, and for

several days wandered undetected from tribe to tribe. But one

of the _works_ (nobles) under whose roof he passed a night,

conceived suspicions, and threatened the guide, who betrayed his

employer's secret. The baron was kept prisoner, and the Ubiches

demanded a cap-full of silver for his ransom from the Russian

commandant of Fort Ardler. When this officer declared himself

ready to pay, they increased their demand to a bushel of silver

rubles. The commandant referred the matter to Baron Rosen, then

commander-in-chief of the army of the Caucasus; the baron

reported it to St Petersburg, and the Emperor consented to pay

the heavy ransom. But Rosen represented it to him as more for

the Russian interest to leave Turnau for a while in the hands of

the Ubiches; for, in the first place, the payment of so large a

sum was a bad precedent, likely to encourage the mountaineers to

renew the extortion, instead of contenting themselves, as they

previously had done, with a few hundred rubles; and, secondly,

as a prisoner, Baron Turnau would perhaps have opportunities of

gathering valuable information concerning a country and people

of whom little or nothing was known. The unfortunate young

officer was cruelly sacrificed to these considerations, and

passed a long winter in terrible captivity, tortured by frost

and hunger, compelled, as a slave, to the severest labour, and

often greatly ill-treated. Several attempts at flight failed;

and at last the chief, in whose hands he was, confined him in a

cage half-buried in the ground, and withal so narrow that its

inmate could neither stand upright nor lie at length."

[3] The reference in this instance is more particularly to the

land of the Ubiches and Tchigetes, two tribes that abide south of

Circassia Proper, and whose language differs from those of the

Circassians and Abchasians, their neighbours to the north and south.

The general medium of conversation amongst the various Caucasian

tribes is the Turkish-Tartar dialect, current amongst most of the

dwellers on the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas.

Thus immured, a prey to painful maladies, his clothes rotting on

his emaciated limbs, the unhappy man moaned through his long and

sleepless nights, and gave up hope of rescue. No tender-hearted

Circassian maiden brought to him, as to the hero of Pushkin's

well-known Caucasian poem, deliverance and love. Such luck had been

that of more than one Russian captive; but poor Turnau, in his

state of filth and squalor, was no very seductive object. He might

have pined away his life in his cage, before Baron Rosen, or his

paternal majesty the Czar, had recalled his fate to mind, but for

an injury done by his merciless master to one of his domestics, who

vowed revenge. Watching his opportunity, this servant, one day that

the rest of the household were absent, murdered his lord, released

the prisoner, tied him with thongs upon his saddle, upon which the

baron, covered with sores and exhausted by illness, was unable to

support himself, and galloped with him towards the frontier. In one

day they rode eighty _versts_, (about fifty-four English miles,)

outstripped pursuers, and reached Fort Ardler. The accounts given

by Baron Turnau of the land of his captivity could be but slight:

he had seen little beyond his place of confinement. What he did

relate was not very encouraging to Russian invasion. He depicted

the country as one mass of rock and precipice, partially clothed

with vast tracts of aboriginal forest, broken by deep ravines and

mountain torrents, and surmounted by the huge ice-clad pinnacles of

the loftiest Caucasian ridge. The villages, some of which nestle in

the deep recesses of the woods, whilst others are perched upon steep

crags and on the brink of giddy precipices, are universally of most

difficult access.

Dr Wagner, whose extremely amusing book forms the text of this

article, has never been in Circassia, although he gives us more

information about it, of the sort we want, than any traveller in

that singular land whose writings have come under our notice.

His wanderings were under Russian guidance and escort. During

them, he skirted the hostile territory on more than one side;

occasionally setting a foot across the border, to the alarm of

his Cossacks, whose dread by day and dreams by night were of

Circassian ambuscades; he has lingered at the base of Caucasus, and

has traversed its ranges--without, however, deeming it necessary

to penetrate into those remote valleys, where foreigners find

dubious welcome, and whence they are not always sure of exit. He

has mixed much with Circassians, if he has not actually dwelt in

their villages. It were tedious and unnecessary to detail his

exact itinerary. He has not printed his entire journal--according

to the lazy and egotistical practice of many travellers--but has

taken the trouble to condense it. The essence is full of variety,

anecdote and adventure, and gives a clear insight into the nature

of the war. Professedly a man of science, an antiquary and a

naturalist, Dr Wagner has evidently a secret hankering after matters

military. He loves the sound of the drum, and willingly directs

his scientific researches to countries where he is likely to smell

powder. We had heard of him in the Atlas mountains, and at the

siege of Constantina, before we met him risking his neck along the

banks of the Kuban, and across the wild steppes of the Caucasus.

He has travelled much in the East, and prepared himself for his

Caucasian trip by a long stay in Turkey and in Southern Russia.

Well introduced, he derived from distinguished Russian generals,

intelligent civilians, and Circassian chiefs, particulars of the war

more authentic than are to be obtained either from St Petersburg

bulletins, or from the ordinary trans-Caucasian correspondents of

German and other newspapers, many of whom are in the pay of Russia.

His African reminiscences proved of great value. The officers of the

army of Caucasus take the strongest interest in the contest between

French and Arabs, finding in it, doubtless, points of similitude

with the war in which they themselves are engaged. Amongst these

officers he met, besides Russians and Germans, several naturalised

Poles and Frenchmen, Flemings and Spaniards, who gave in exchange

for his tales of razzias and Bedouins, details of Circassian warfare

which he highly prized, as likely to be more impartial than the

accounts afforded by the native Russians. His own journey to the

Caucasus took place in 1843; but a subsequent correspondence with

well-informed friends, on both sides the Caucasian range, enabled

him to bring down his sketch of the struggle to the year 1846.

Many English writers on Circassia have been accused of an undue

preference for the mountaineers, of exaggerating their good

qualities, and of elevating them by invidious contrasts with the

Russians. There is no ground for suspecting a German of such

partiality; and Dr Wagner, whilst lauding the heroic valour and

independent spirit of the Circassians--qualities which Russian

authors have themselves admitted and extolled--does not forget

to do justice to his Muscovite and Cossack friends, to whom he

devotes a considerable portion of his book, many of his details

concerning them being extremely novel and curious. He carefully

studied both Cossacks and Circassians, living amongst the former

and meeting thousands of the latter, who go and come freely upon

Russian territory. At Ekaterinodar, the capital of the Tchernamortsy

Cossacks, the Friday's market swarmed with Circassians. In Turkey,

and elsewhere, Dr Wagner had met many individuals of that nation,

but this was the first time he beheld them in crowds. He describes

them as very handsome men, with black beards, aquiline noses, and

flashing black eyes. He was struck with their lofty mien, and

attributes it to their mental energy, and to a consciousness of

physical strength and beauty.

"This superiority of the pure Circassian blood does not belie

itself under Russian discipline, any more than it does in

Mahometan lands, where, as Mamelukes in Cairo, and as pashas in

Stamboul, the sons of Caucasus have ever played a prominent and

distinguished part. The Turk, who by certain imposing qualities

awes all other Orientals, tacitly recognises the superiority of

the Circassian _ousden_, or noble. The Emperor Nicholas, who

preserves so rigid a discipline in the various corps of his

vast army, shows himself extraordinarily considerate towards

the Circassian squadrons of his guard. Persons well versed

in the military chronicles of St Petersburg relate many a

characteristic trait, proving the bold stubborn spirit of these

Caucasian men to be still unbroken, and showing how it more

than once has so imposed upon the emperor, and even upon the

grand-duke Michael, reputed the strictest disciplinarian in

Russia, that they have shut their eyes even to open mutiny. At a

review, where the Caucasian cavalry formally refused obedience,

the emperor contented himself with sending a courteous reproof

by General Benkendorf. Beside the coarse common Russians, the

Circassian looks like an eagle amidst a flock of bustards. Even

capital crimes are not visited upon Circassians with the same

severity as upon the other subjects of the emperor. A Circassian

who had struck his dagger into the heart of a hackney-coachman

at St Petersburg, in requital of an insolent overcharge, was

merely sent back to the Caucasus. For a like offence a Russian

might reckon upon the knout, and upon banishment for life to the

Siberian mines.

"Amongst the Circassians at Ekaterinodar, a _work_, or noble,

of the Shapsookian tribe, was particularly remarkable for his

beauty and dignity. None of the picturesque figures of Arabs

and Moors furnished me by my African recollections, could bear

comparison with this Caucasian eagle. I afterwards saw, in

Mingrelia, a more ideal mould of feature, resembling the antique

Apollo type: but there the expression was too effeminate; the

heroic head of the dweller on the Kuban pleased me better. I

stood a good while before the Shapsookian, as if fettered to the

ground, so extraordinary was the effect of his striking beauty.

What a study, I thought, for a German painter, who would in vain

seek such models in Rome; or for a Vernet, whose Arabian groups

prove the great power of his pencil! The Arabs, rather priestly

than knightly in their aspect, produce far less effect upon

the large Algerine pictures at Versailles than the Circassian

warrior would do in a battle-piece by such masters as Vernet or

Peter Hess. The Shapsook chief at Ekaterinodar seemed conscious

of his magnificent appearance. With proud mien, and that light

half-gliding gait observable in most Caucasians, he sauntered

amongst the groups of Cossacks upon the market-place, casting

glances of profoundest scorn upon their clumsy sheepskin-wrapped

figures. His slender form and small foot, the grace and elegance

of his person and carriage, the richness of his costume and

beauty of his weapons, contrasted most advantageously with

the muscular but somewhat thickset figures, and with the ugly

woolly winter dress of the Tchernamortsies. By help of a Cossack

I made his acquaintance, and got into conversation. His name

was Chora-Beg, and he dwelt at a hamlet thirty versts south of

Ekaterinodar."

Chora-Beg wondered greatly that his new acquaintance was neither

Russian nor English. He had heard vaguely that there was a third

Christian nation, which, under Sultan Bunapart, had made war upon

the Padisha of the Russians, but he had no notion of such a people

as the Germans. He greatly admired Dr Wagner's rifle, but rather

doubted its carrying farther than a smooth bore, and allowed free

inspection of his own arms, consisting of pistols and dagger, and of

the famous _shaska_--a long heavy cavalry sabre, slightly curved,

with hilt of silver and ivory. At the doctor's request he drew this

weapon from the scabbard, and cut twice or thrice at the empty air,

his dark eyes flashing as he did so. "How many Russians has that

sabre sent to their account?" asked the inquisitive Doctor. The

Circassian's intelligent countenance assumed an expression hard to

interpret, but in which his interlocutor thought he distinguished a

gleam of scorn, and a shade of suspicion. "It was long," he replied,

"since his tribe had taken the field against the Russians. Since

the deaf general (Sass) had left the land of the Cossacks, peace

had reigned between Muscovite and Shapsookian. Individuals of his

tribe had certainly been known to join bands from the mountains, and

to cross the Kuban with arms in hand." And as Chora-Beg spoke, the

expression of his proud eye belied his pacific pretensions.

The general Sass above-named commanded for several years on

the line of the Kuban, and is the only Russian general who has

understood the mountain warfare, and proved himself a match for

the Circassians at their own game of ambuscades and surprises. His

tactics were those of the Spanish guerilla leaders. Lavish in his

payment of spies, he was always accurately informed of the musters

and projects of the Circassians; whilst he kept his own plans so

secret, that his personal staff often knew nothing of an intended

expedition until the call to "boot and saddle" sounded. His raids

were accomplished, under guidance of his well-paid scouts, with

such rapidity and local knowledge that the mountaineers rarely had

time to assemble in force, pursue the retiring column, and revenge

their burnt vilages and ravished cattle. But one day the report

spread on the lines of the Kuban that the general was dangerously

ill; shortly afterwards it became known that the physicians had

given him up; and finally his death was announced, and bewailed by

the whole army of the Caucasus. The consternation of the Cossacks,

accustomed, under his command, to victory and rich booty, was as

great as the exultation of the mountaineers. Hundreds of these

visited the Russian territory, to witness the interment of their

dreaded foe. A magnificent coffin, with the general's cocked hat

and decorations laid upon it, was deposited in the earth amidst

the mournful sounds of minute guns and muffled drums. With joyful

hearts the Circassians returned to their mountains, to tell what

they had seen, and to congratulate each other at the prospect of

tranquillity for themselves, and safety to their flocks and herds.

But upon the second night after Sass's funeral, a strong Russian

column crossed the Kuban, and the dead general suddenly appeared

at the head of his trusty lancers, who greeted with wild hurrahs

their leader's resurrection. Several large _auls_ (villages) whose

inhabitants were sound asleep, unsuspicious of surprise, were

destroyed, vast droves of cattle were carried off, and a host of

prisoners made. This ingenious and successful stratagem is still

cited with admiration on the banks of the Kuban. Notwithstanding

his able generalship, Sass was removed from his command when in

full career of success. All his military services could not shield

him from the consequences of St Petersburg intrigues and trumped-up

accusations. None of his successors have equalled him. General

Willaminoff was a man of big words rather than of great deeds. In

his bombastic and blasphemous proclamation of the 28th May 1837, he

informed the Circassians that "If the heavens should fall, Russia

could prop them with her bayonets;" following up this startling

assertion with the declaration that "there are but two powers in

existence--God in heaven, and the emperor upon earth!"[4] The

Circassians laughed at this rhodomontade, and returned a firm and

becoming answer. There were but few of them, they said--but, with

God's blessing, they would hold their own, and fight to the very

last man: and to prove themselves as good as their word, they soon

afterwards made fierce assaults upon the line of forts built by the

Russians upon the shores of the Black Sea. In 1840 four of these

were taken, but the triumph cost the victors so much blood as to

disgust them for some time with attacking stone walls, behind which

the Russians, perhaps the best defensive combatants in the world,

fight like lions. Indeed, the Circassians would hardly have proved

victorious, had not the garrisons been enfeebled by disease. During

the five winter months, the rations of the troops employed upon

this service are usually salt, and the consequences are scurvy and

fever. Informed by Polish deserters of the bad condition of the

garrisons, the Circassians held a great council in the mountains,

and it was decided to take the forts with the sabre, without

firing a shot. It is an old Caucasian custom, that, upon suchlike

perilous undertakings, a chosen band of enthusiastic warrors devote

themselves to death, binding themselves by a solemn oath not to

turn their backs upon the enemy. Ever in the van, their example

gives courage to the timid; and their friends are bound in honour

to revenge their death. With these fanatics have the Circassian and

Tshetshen chiefs achieved their greatest victories over the Russians.

[4] Longworth's _Circassia_, vol. i. p. 1589.

When it was decided to attack the forts, several hundred

Shapsookians, including gray-haired old men and youths of tender

age, swore to conquer or to die. They kept their word. At the fort

of Michailoff, which made the most obstinate defence, the ditch was

filled with their corpses. The conduct of the garrison was truly

heroic. Of five hundred men, only one third were fit for duty;

the others were in hospital, or on the sick-list. But no sooner

did the Circassian war-cry rend the air than the sufferers forgot

their pains; the fever-stricken left their beds, and crawled to

the walls. Their commandant called upon them to shed their last

drop of blood for their emperor; their old _papa_ exhorted them, as

Christians, to fight to the death against the unbelieving horde. But

numbers prevailed: after a valiant defence, the Russians retreated,

fighting, to the innermost enclosures of the fortress. Their chief

demanded a volunteer to blow up the fort when farther resistance

should become impossible. A soldier stepped forward, took a lighted

match, and entered the powder magazine. The last defences were

stormed, the Circassians shouted victory. Then came the explosion.

Most of the buildings were overthrown, and hundreds of maimed

carcases scattered in all directions. Eleven Russians escaped with

life, were dragged off to the mountains, and subsequently ransomed,

and from them the details of this bloody fight were obtained.

The capture of these forts spread discouragement and consternation

in the ranks of the Russian army. The emperor was furious, and

General Rajewski, then commander-in-chief on the Circassian

frontier, was superseded. This officer, who at the tender age of

twelve was present with his father at the battle of Borodino, and

who has since distinguished himself in the Turkish and Persian

wars, was reputed an able general, but was reproached with sleeping

too much, and with being too fond of botany. His enemies went

so far as to accuse him of making military expeditions into the

mountains, with the sole view of adding rare Caucasian plants to his

_herbarium_, and of procuring seeds for his garden. General Aurep,

who succeeded him, undertook little beyond reconnoissances, always

attended with very heavy loss; and the Circassians remained upon the

defensive until the year 1843, when the example of the Tshetshens,

who about that time obtained signal advantages over the Russians,

roused the martial ardour of the chivalrous Circassians, and spurred

them to fresh hostilities. But the war at the western extremity of

Caucasus never assumed the importance of that in Daghestan and the

country of the Tshetshens.

From the straits of Zabache to the frontier of Guria, the Russians

possess seventeen _Kreposts_, or fortified posts, only a few of

which deserve the name of regular fortresses, or could resist a

regular army provided with artillery. To mountaineers, however,

whose sole weapons are shaska and musket, even earthen parapets

and shallow ditches are serious obstacles when well manned and

resolutely defended. The object of erecting this line of forts was

to cut off the communication by sea between Turkey and the Caucasian

tribes. It was thought that, when the import of arms and munitions

of war from Turkey was thus checked, the independent mountain

tribes would soon be subjugated. The hope was not realised, and the

expensive maintenance of 15,000 to 20,000 men in the fortresses of

the Black Sea has but little improved the position of the Russians

in the Caucasus. The Caucasians have never lacked arms, and with

money they can always get powder, even from the Cossacks of the

Kuban. In another respect, however, these forts have done them

much harm, and thence it arises that, since their erection, and

the cession of Anapa to Russia, the war has assumed so bitter a

character. So long as Anapa was Turkish, the export of slaves, and

the import of powder, found no hindrance. The needy Circassian

noble, whose rude mountains supply him but sparingly with daily

bread, obtained, by the sale of slaves, means of satisfying his

warlike and ostentatious tastes--of procuring rich clothes, costly

weapons, and ammunition for war and for the chase. In a moral point

of view, all slave traffic is of course odious and reprehensible,

but that of Circassia differed from other commerce of the kind,

in so far that all parties were benefited by, and consenting to,

the contract. The Turks obtained from Caucasus handsomer and

healthier wives than those born in the harem; and the Circassian

beauties were delighted to exchange the poverty and toil of their

father's mountain huts for the luxurious _farniente_ of the

seraglio, of whose wonders and delights their ears were regaled,

from childhood upwards, with the most glowing descriptions. The

trade, although greatly impeded and very hazardous, still goes on.

Small Turkish craft creep up to the coast, cautiously evading the

Russian cruisers, enter creeks and inlets, and are dragged by the

Circassians high and dry upon the beach, there to remain till the

negotiation for their live cargo is completed, an operation that

generally takes a few weeks. The women sold are the daughters of

serfs and freedmen: rarely does a _work_ consent to dispose of

his sister or daughter, although the case does sometimes occur.

But, whilst the sale goes on, the slave-ships are anything but

secure. It is a small matter to have escaped the Russian frigates

and steamers. Each of the Kreposts possesses a little squadron of

row-boats, manned with Cossacks, who pull along the coast in search

of Turkish vessels. If they detect one, they land in the night, and

endeavour to set fire to it, before the mountaineers can come to

the assistance of the crew. The Turks, who live in profound terror

of these Cossack coast-guards, resort to every possible expedient

to escape their observation; often covering their vessels with dry

leaves and boughs, and tying fir branches to the masts, that the

scouts may take them for trees. If they are captured at sea by the

cruisers, the crew are sent to hard labour in Siberia, and the

Circassian girls are married to Cossacks, or divided as handmaidens

amongst the Russian staff officers. From thirty to forty slaves

compose the usual cargo of each of these vessels, which are so

small that the poor creatures are packed almost like herrings in

a barrel. But they patiently endure the misery of the voyage, in

anticipation of the honeyed existence of the harem. It is calculated

that one vessel out of six is taken or lost. In the winter of

1843-4, eight-and-twenty ships left the coast of Asia Minor for that

of Caucasia. Twenty-three safely returned, three were burned by the

Russians, and two swallowed by the waves.

A Turkish captain at Sinope told Dr Wagner the following interesting

anecdote, illustrating Circassian hatred of the Russians:--"A

few years ago a slave-ship sprang a leak out at sea, just as a

Russian steamer passed in the distance. The Turkish slave-dealer,

who preferred even the chill blasts of Siberia to a grave in deep

water, made signals of distress, and the steamer came up in time

to rescue the ship and its living cargo from destruction. But so

deeply is hatred of Russia implanted in every Circassian heart, that

the spirit of the girls revolted at the thought of becoming the

helpmates of gray-coated soldiers, instead of sharing the sumptuous

couch of a Turkish pasha. They had bid adieu to their native

mountains with little emotion, but as the Russian ship approached

they set up terrible and despairing screams. Some sprang headlong

into the sea; others drove their knives into their hearts:--to

these heroines death was preferable to the bridal-bed of a detested

Muscovite. The survivors were taken to Anapa, and married to

Cossacks, or given to officers as servants." Nearly every Austrian

or Turkish steamboat that makes, in the winter months, the voyage

from Trebizond to Constantinople, has a number of Circassian girls

on board. Dr Wagner made the passage in an Austrian steamer with

several dozens of these willing slaves, chiefly mere children,

twelve or thirteen years old, with interesting countenances and

dark wild eyes, but very pale and thin--with the exception of

two, who were some years older, far better dressed, and carefully

veiled. To this favoured pair the slave-dealer paid particular

attention, and frequently brought them coffee. Dr Wagner got into

conversation with this man, who was richly dressed in furs and

silks, and who, despite his vile profession, had the manners of

a gentleman. The two coffee-drinkers were daughters of noblemen,

he said, with fine rosy cheeks, and in better condition than the

others, consequently worth more money at Constantinople. For the

handsomest he hoped to obtain 30,000 piastres, and for the other

20,000--about £250 and £170. The herd of young creatures he spoke of

with contempt, and should think himself lucky to get 2000 piastres

for them all round. He further informed the doctor that, although

the slave-trade was more dangerous and difficult since the Russian

occupation of the Caucasian coast, it was also far more profitable.

Formerly, when Greek and Armenian women were brought in crowds to

the Constantinople market, the most beautiful Circassians were

not worth more than 10,000 piastres; but now a rosy, well-fed,

fifteen-year-old slave is hardly to be had under 40,000 piastres.

The Tshetshen successes, already referred to as having at the close

of 1842 stirred into flame and action, by the force of example,

the smouldering but still ardent embers of Circassian hatred to

Russia, are described with remarkable spirit by Dr Wagner, in the

chapter entitled "Caucasian War-Scenes,"--episodes taken down by him

from the lips of eye-witnesses, and of sharers in the sanguinary

conflicts described. This graphic chapter at once familiarises the

reader with the Caucasian war, with which he thenceforward feels

as well acquainted as with our wars in India, the French contest

in Africa, or with any other series of combats, of whose nature

and progress minute information has been regularly received. The

first event described is the storming of Aculcho, in the summer

of 1839. It is always a great point with guerilla generals, and

with leaders of mountain warfare, to have a centre of operations--a

strong post, whither they can retreat after a reverse, with the

confidence that the enemy will hesitate before attacking them there.

In Spain, Cabrera had Morella, the Count d'Espagne had Berga, the

Navarrese viewed Estella as their citadel. In the eastern Caucasus,

Chasi-Mollah had Himri, and preferred falling in its defence to

abandoning his stronghold; his successor, Chamyl, who surpasses him

in talent for war and organisation, established his headquarters

at Aculcho, a sort of eagle's nest on the river Koisu, whither his

escorts brought him intelligence of each movement of Russian troops,

and whence he swooped, like the bird whose eyrie he occupied, upon

the convoys traversing the steppe of the Terek. Here he planned

expeditions and surprises, and kept a store of arms and ammunition;

and this fort General Grabbe, who commanded in 1839 the Russian

forces in eastern Caucasus, and who was always a strong advocate

of the offensive system, obtained permission from St Petersburg to

attack. General Golowin, commander-in-chief of the whole army of

the Caucasus, and then resident at Teflis, approved the enterprise,

whose ultimate results cost both generals their command. The taking

of Aculcho itself was of little moment; there was no intention of

placing a Russian garrison there; but the double end to be obtained

was to capture Chamyl, and to intimidate the Tshetshens, by proving

to them that no part of their mountains, however difficult of access

and bravely defended, was beyond the reach of Russian valour and

resources. Their submission, at least nominal and temporary, was the

result hoped for.

Nature has done much for the fortification of Aculcho. Imagine

a hill of sand-stone, nearly surrounded by a loop of the river

Koisu--a miniature peninsula, in short, connected with the continent

by a narrow neck of land--provided with three natural terraces,

accessible only by a small rocky path, whose entrance is fortified

and defended by 500 resolute Tshetshen warriors. A few artificial

parapets and intrenchments, some stone huts, and several excavations

in the sand rock, where the besieged found shelter from shot and

shell, complete the picture of the place before which Grabbe and his

column sat down. At first they hoped to reduce it by artillery, and

bombs and congreve rockets were poured upon the fortress, destroying

huts and parapets, but doing little harm to the Tshetshens, who lay

close as conies in their burrows, and watched their opportunity to

send well-aimed bullets into the Russian camp. From time to time,

one of the fanatical Murides, of whom the garrison was chiefly

composed, impatient that the foe delayed an assault, rushed headlong

down from the rock, his shaska in his right hand, his pistol in his

left, his dagger between his teeth; causing a momentary panic among

the Cossacks, who were prepared for the whistling of bullets, but

not for the sudden appearance of a foaming demon armed _cap-à-pie_,

who generally, before they could use their bayonets, avenged in

advance his own certain death by the slaughter of several of his

foes, whilst his comrades on the rock applauded and rejoiced at

the heroic self-sacrifice. The first attempt to storm was costly

to the besiegers. Of fifteen hundred men who ascended the narrow

path, only a hundred and fifty survived. The Tshetshens maintained

such a well-directed platoon fire, that not a Russian set foot on

the second terrace. The foremost men, mown down by the bullets

of the besieged, fell back upon their comrades, and precipitated

them from the rock. General Grabbe, undismayed by his heavy loss,

ordered a second and a third assault; the three cost two thousand

men, but the lower and middle terraces were taken. The defence

of the upper one was desperate, and the Russians might have been

compelled to turn the siege into a blockade, but for the imprudence

of some of the garrison, who, anxious to ascertain the proceedings

of the enemy's engineers--then hard at work at a mine under the

hill--ventured too far from their defences, and were attacked by a

Russian battalion. The Tshetshens fled; but, swift of foot though

they were, the most active of the Russians attained the topmost

terrace with them. A hand-to-hand fight ensued, more battalions

came up, and Aculcho was taken. The victors, furious at their

losses, and at the long resistance opposed to them, (this was the

22d August,) raged like tigers amongst the unfortunate little band

of mountaineers; some Tshetshen women, who took up arms at this

last extremity, were slaughtered with their husbands. At last the

bloody work was apparently at an end, and search ensued amongst the

dead for the body of Chamyl. It was nowhere to be found. At last

the discovery was made that a few of the garrison had taken refuge

in holes in the side of the rock, looking over the river. No path

led to these cavities; the only way to get at them was to lower

men by ropes from the crag above. In this manner the surviving

Tshetshens were attacked; quarter was neither asked nor given.

The hole in which Chamyl himself was hidden held out the longest.

Escape seemed, however, impossible; the rock was surrounded; the

banks of the river were lined with soldiers; Grabbe's main object

was the capture of Chamyl. At this critical moment the handful of

Tshetshens still alive gave an example of heroic devotion. They knew

that their leader's death would be a heavy loss to their country,

and they resolved to sacrifice themselves to save him. With a few

beams and planks, that chanced to be in the cave, they constructed

a sort of raft. This they launched upon the Koisu, and floated with

it down the stream, amidst a storm of Russian lead. The Russian

general doubted not that Chamyl was on the raft, and ordered every

exertion to kill or take him. Whilst the Cossacks spurred their

horses into the river, and the infantry hurried along the bank,

following the raft, a man sprang out of the hole into the Koisu,

swam vigorously across the stream, landed at an unguarded spot, and

gained the mountains unhurt. This man was Chamyl, who alone escaped

with life from the bloody rock of Aculcho. His deliverance passed

for miraculous amongst the enthusiastic mountaineers, with whom

his influence, from that day forward, increased tenfold. Grabbe

was furious; Chamyl's head was worth more than the heads of all

the garrison: three thousand Russians had been sacrificed for the

possession of a crag not worth the keeping.

After the fall of Aculcho, Chamyl's head-quarters were at the

village of Dargo, in the mountain region south of the Russian fort

of Girselaul, and thence he carried on the war with great vigour,

surprising fortified posts, cutting off convoys, and sweeping the

plain with his horsemen. Generals Grabbe and Golowin could not

agree about the mode of operations. The former was for taking

the offensive; the latter advocated the defensive and blockade

system. Grabbe went to St Petersburg to plead in person for his

plan, obtained a favourable hearing, and the emperor sent Prince

Tchernicheff, the minister at war, to visit both flanks of the

Caucasus. Before the prince reached the left wing of the line

of operations, Grabbe resolved to surprise him with a brilliant

achievement; and on the 29th May 1842, he marched from Girselaul

with thirteen battalions, a small escort of mounted Cossacks, and a

train of mountain artillery, to attack Dargo. The route was through

forests, and along paths tangled with wild flowers and creeping

plants, through which the heavy Russian infantry, encumbered with

eight days' rations and sixty rounds of ball-cartridge, made but

slow and painful progress. The first day's march was accomplished

without fighting; only here and there the slender active form of

a mountaineer was descried, as he peered between the trees at the

long column of bayonets, and vanished as soon as he was observed.

After midnight the dance began. The troops had eaten their rations,

and were comfortably bivouacked, when they were assailed by a sharp

fire from an invisible foe, to which they replied in the direction

of the flashes. This skirmishing lasted all night; few were killed

on either side, but the whole Russian division were deprived of

sleep, and wearied for the next day's march. At daybreak the enemy

retired; but at noon, when passing through a forest defile, the

column was again assailed, and soon the horses, and a few light

carts accompanying it, were insufficient to convey the wounded.

The staff urged the general to retrace his steps, but Grabbe was

bent on welcoming Tchernicheff with a triumphant bulletin. Another

sleepless bivouac--another fagging day, more skirmishing. At last,

when within sight of the fortified village of Dargo, the loss of

the column was so heavy, and its situation so critical, that a

retreat was ordered. The daring and fury of the Tshetshens now knew

no bounds; they assailed the troops sabre in hand, captured baggage

and wounded, and at night prowled round the camp, like wolves round

a dying soldier. On the 1st June, the fight recommenced. The valour

displayed by the mountaineers was admitted by the Russians to be

extraordinary, as was also their skill in wielding the terrible

shaska. They made a fierce attack on the centre of the column--cut

down the artillery-men and captured six guns. The Russians, who

throughout the whole of this trying expedition did their duty

as good and brave soldiers, were furious at the loss of their

artillery, and by a desperate charge retook five pieces, the sixth

being relinquished only because its carriage was broken. Upon the

last day of the retreat, Chamyl came up with his horsemen. Had he

been able to get these together two days sooner, it is doubtful

whether any portion of the column would have escaped. As it was,

the Russians lost nearly two thousand men; the weary and dispirited

survivors re-entering Girselaul with downcast mien. Preparations

had been made to celebrate their triumph, and, to add to their

general's mortification, Tchernicheff was awaiting their arrival. On

the prince's return to St Petersburg, both Grabbe and Golowin were

removed from their commands.

Against this same Tshetshen fortress of Dargo, Count Woronzoff's

expedition (already referred to) was made, in July 1845. A capital

account of the affair is given in a letter from a Russian officer

engaged, printed in Dr Wagner's book. Dargo had become an important

place. Chamyl had established large stores there, and had built

a mosque, to which came pilgrims from the remotest villages of

Daghestan and Lesghistan, partly to pray, partly to see the dreaded

chief--equally renowned as warrior and priest--and to give him

information concerning the state of the country, and the movements

of the Russians. Less vigorously opposed than Grabbe, and his

measures better taken, Woronzoff reached Dargo with moderate loss.

"The village," says the Russian officer: "was situated on the slope

of a mountain, at the brink of a ravine, and consisted of sixty

to seventy small stone-houses, and of a few larger buildings,

where the stones were joined with mortar, instead of being merely

superimposed, as is usually the case in Caucasian dwellings. One

of these buildings had several irregular towers, of some apparent

antiquity. When we approached, a thick smoke burst from them. Chamyl

had ordered everything to be set on fire that could not be carried

away. One must confess that, in this fierce determination of the

enemy to refuse submission--to defend, foot by foot, the territory

of his forefathers, and to leave to the Russians no other trophies

than ashes and smoking ruins--there is a certain wild grandeur which

extorts admiration, even though the hostile chief be no better

than a fanatical barbarian." This reminds us of the words of the

Circassian chief Mansour:--"When Turkey and England abandon us," he

said, to Bell of the 'Vixen,'--"when all our powers of resistance

are exhausted, we will burn our houses,and our goods, strangle our

wives and our children, and retreat to our highest rocks, there to

die, fighting to the very last man." "The greatest difficulty,"

said General Neidhardt to Dr Wagner, who was a frequent visitor

at the house of that distinguished officer, "with which we have

to contend, is the unappeasable, deep-rooted, ineradicable hatred

cherished by all the mountaineers against the Russians. For this

we know no cure; every form of severity and of kindness has been

tried in turn, with equal ill-success." Valour and patriotism are

nearly the only good qualities the Caucasians can boast. They are

cruel, and for the most part faithless, especially the Tshetshens,

and Dr Wagner warns us against crediting the exaggerated accounts

frequently given of their many virtues. The Circassians are said

to respect their plighted word, but there are many exceptions.

General Neidhardt told Dr Wagner an anecdote of a Circassian, who

presented himself before the commandant of one of the Black Sea

fortresses, and offered to communicate most important intelligence,

on condition of a certain reward. The reward was promised. Then

said the Circassian,--"To-morrow after sunset, your fort will be

assailed by thousands of my countrymen." The informer was retained,

whilst Cossacks and riflemen were sent out, and it proved that he

had spoken the truth. The enemy, finding the garrison on their

guard, retired after a short skirmish. The Circassian received his

recompense, which he took without a word of thanks, and left the

fortress. Without the walls, he met an unarmed soldier; hatred of

the Russians, and thirst of blood, again got the ascendency: he shot

the soldier dead, and scampered off to the mountains.

Chamyl did not long remain indebted to the Russians for their visit

to Dargo. His reputation of sanctity and valour enabled him to unite

under his orders many tribes habitually hostile to each other, and

which previously had fought each "on its own hook." Of these tribes

he formed a powerful league; and in May 1846 he burst into Cabardia

at the head of twenty thousand mountaineers, four thousand of whom

were horsemen. Formidable though this force was, the venture was one

of extreme temerity. He left behind him a double line of Russian

camps and forts, and two rivers, then at the flood, and difficult

to pass. With an undisciplined and heterogeneous army, without

artillery or regular commissariat, this daring chief threw himself

into a flat country, unfavourable to guerilla warfare; slipping

through the Russian posts, marching more than four hundred miles,

and utterly disregarding the danger he was in from a well-equipped

army of upwards of seventy thousand men, to say nothing of the

numerous military population of the Cossack settlements on the

Terek and Sundscha, and of the fact that the Cabardians, long

submissive to Russia, were more likely to arm in defence of their

rulers than to favour the mountaineers. Shepherds and dwellers in

the plain, and far less warlike than the other Circassian tribes,

they never were able to make head against the Russians; and had

remained indifferent to all the incentives of Tshetshen fanatics

and propagandists. For years past, Chamyl had threatened them with

a visit; but nevertheless, his sudden appearance greatly surprised

and confounded both them and the Russian general, who had just

concentrated all his movable columns, with a view to an expedition,

relying overmuch upon his lines of forts and blockhouses. The

Tshetshen raid was more daring, and at least as successful, as

Abd-el-Kader's celebrated foray in the Metidja, in the year 1839.

Chamyl addressed to the Cabardians a thundering proclamation, full

of quotations from the Koran, and denouncing vengeance on them if

they did not flock to the banner of the Prophet. The unlucky keepers

of sheep found themselves between the devil and the deep sea. From

terror rather than sympathy, a large number of villages declared

for Chamyl, whose wild hordes burned and plundered the property of

all who adhered to the Russians; leaving, like a swarm of locusts,

desolation in their track. When the Cossacks began to gather, and

the Russian generals to manœuvre, Chamyl, who knew he could not

contend in the plain with disciplined and superior forces, and whose

retreat by the road he came was already cut off, traversed Great and

Little Cabardia, burning and destroying as he went; dashed through

the Cossack colonies to the south of Ekaterinograd, and regained

his mountains in safety--dragging with him booty, prisoners, and

Cabardian recruits. These latter, who had joined through fear of

Chamyl, remained with him through fear of the Russians. By this

foray, whose apparent great rashness was justified by its complete

success, Chamyl enriched his people, strengthened his army, and

greatly weakened the confidence of the tribes of the plain in the

efficacy of Russian protection. As usual, in cases of disaster, the

Russians kept the affair as quiet as they could; but the truth could

not be concealed from those most concerned, and murmurs of dismay

ran along the exposed line fringing the Muscovite and Circassian

territories.

The Russian army of the Caucasus reckoned, in 1843, about eighty

thousand men, exclusive of thirty-five thousand who had little to

do with the war, but were more especially employed in watching the

extensive line of Turkish and Persian frontier, and in endeavouring

to exclude contraband goods and Asiatic epidemics. But the severe

fighting that occurred in 1842 and 1843, showed the necessity

of an increase of force. Subsequent events have not admitted of

a reduction in the Caucasian establishment; and we are probably

very near the mark, in estimating the troops occupying the various

forts and camps on the Black Sea, and the lines of the rivers,

(Terek, Kuban, Koisu, &c.,) at about one hundred thousand men--not

at all too many to guard so extensive a line, against so active

and enterprising a foe. The Russian ranks are constantly thinned

by destructive fevers, which, in bad years, have been known to

carry off as much as a sixth of the Caucasian army. At a review

at Vladikawkas, Dr Wagner was struck by the powerful build of the

Russian foot-soldiers--broad-shouldered, broad-faced Slavonians,

with enormous mustaches, drilled to automatical perfection. In point

of bone and limb, every man of them was a grenadier. In a bayonet

charge, such infantry are formidable opponents. Ségur mentions that,

on the battle-field of Borodino, the nation of the stripped bodies

was easily known--the muscle and size of the Russians contrasting

with the slighter frames of French and Germans. "You may kill the

Russians, but you will hardly make them run," was a saying of

Frederick the Great; and certainly Seidlitz, who scattered the

French so briskly at Rossbach, had to sweat blood before he overcame

the Russians at Zorndorf. Those survivors of Napoleon's famous Guard

who fought in the drawn battle of Eylau, will bear witness to the

stubborn resistance and bull-dog qualities of the Muscovite. But

the grenadier stature, and the immobility under fire--admirable

qualities on a plain, and against regular troops--avail little in

the Caucasus. The burly Russian pants and perspires up the hills,

which the light-footed chamois-like Circassians and Tshetshens

ascend at a run. The mountaineers understand their advantages,

and decline standing still in the plain to be charged by a line

of bayonets. They dance round the heavy Russian, who, with his

well-stuffed knapsack and long greatcoat, can barely turn on his

heel fast enough to face them. They catch him out skirmishing, and

slaughter him in detail. "One might suppose," said a foreigner in

the Russian service to Dr Wagner, "that the musket and bayonet of

the Russian soldier would be too much, in single combat, for the

sabre and dagger of the Tshetshen. The contrary is the case. Amongst

the dead, slain in hand-to-hand encounter, there are usually a third

more Russians than Caucasians. Strange to say, too, the Russian

soldier, who in the serried ranks of his battalion meets death with

wonderful firmness, and who has shown the utmost valour in contests

with European, Turkish, and Persian armies, often betrays timidity

in the Caucasian war, and retreats from the outposts to the column,

in spite of the heavy punishment he thereby incurs. I myself was

exposed, during the murderous fight near Ischkeri (Dargo,) in 1842,

to considerable danger, because, having gone to the assistance of a

skirmisher, who was sharply engaged with a Tshetshen, the skirmisher

ran, leaving me to fight it out alone." This shyness of Russian

soldiers in single fight and irregular warfare, is not inexplicable.

They have no chance of promotion, no honourable stimulus: food and

brandy, discipline and dread of the lash, convert them from serfs

into soldiers. As bits of a machine, they are admirable when united,

but asunder they are mere screws and bolts. Fanatic zeal, bitter

hatred, and thirst of blood, animate the Caucasian, who, trained to

arms from his boyhood, and ignorant of drill, relies only upon his

keen shaska, and upon the Prophet's protection.

Presuming Dr Wagner's statement of Russian rations to be correct,

it is a puzzle how the soldier preserves the condition of his thews

and sinews. The daily allowance consists of three pounds of bread,

black as a coal; a water-soup, in which three pounds of bacon are

cut up for every two hundred and fifty men; a ration of _wodka_,

or bad brandy, and once a-week a small piece of meat. The pay is

nine rubles a-year, (about one-third of a penny _per diem_,) out of

which the unfortunate private has to purchase his stock, cap, soap,

blacking, salt, &c., &c. Any surplus he is allowed to expend upon

his amusement. "Our soldiers are obliged to steal a little," said a

German officer in the Russian service to Dr Wagner; "their pay will

not purchase soap and blacking; and if their shirts are not clean,

and their shoes polished, the stick is their portion." "Stealing a

little," in one way or other, is no uncommon practice in Russia,

even amongst more highly placed personages than the soldiers.

Officials of all kinds, both civil and military, particularly those

of the middle and lower ranks, are prone to peculation. Dr Wagner

was deafened with the complaints that from all sides met his ear.

"Ah! if the emperor knew it!" was the usual cry. The subjects of

Nicholas have strong faith in his justice. It is well remembered

in the Caucasus, especially by the army, how one day, at Teflis,

the emperor, upon parade, in full view of mob and soldiers, tore,

with his own hand, the golden insignia of a general's rank from the

coat of Prince Dadian, denounced to him as enriching himself at his

men's expense. For several years afterwards, the prince carried the

musket, and wore the coarse gray coat of a private sentinel. The

officers pitied him, although his condemnation was just. "_Il faut

profiter d'une bonne place_," is their current maxim. The soldiers

rejoiced; but in secret; for such rejoicings are not always safe.

A sentence often recoils unpleasantly upon the accuser. Dr Wagner

gives sundry examples. A major in Sewastopol fell in love with a

sergeant's wife; and as she disregarded his addresses, he persecuted

her and her husband at every opportunity. In despair, the sergeant

at last complained to the general commanding. He was listened to;

an investigation ensued; the major was superseded; and from his

successor the sergeant received five hundred lashes, under pretence

of his having left his regiment without permission when he went to

lodge his charge. Corporal punishment, of frequent application, at

the mere caprice of their superiors, to Russian serfs and soldiers,

is inflicted with sticks or rods, the knout being reserved for

very grave offences, such as murder, rebellion, &c., and preceding

banishment to Siberia, should the sufferer survive. Dr Wagner's

description of this dreadful punishment is horribly vivid. Few

criminals are sentenced to more than twenty-five lashes, and less

than twenty often kill. Running the gauntlet through three thousand

men is the usual punishment of deserters; and this would usually be

a sentence of death but for the compassion of the officers, who hint

to their companies to strike lightly. If the sufferer faints, and

is declared by the surgeon unable to receive all his punishment, he

gets the remainder at some future time. "Take him down" is a phrase

unknown in the Russian service, until the offender has received the

last lash of his sentence.

Severity is doubtless necessary in an army composed like that of

Russia. Two-thirds of the soldiers are serfs, whose masters, being

allowed to send what men they please--so long as they make up their

quota--naturally contribute the greatest scamps and idlers upon

their estates. The army in Russia is what the galleys are in France,

and the hulks in England--a punishment for an infinity of offences.

An official embezzles funds--to the army with him; a Jew is caught

smuggling--off with him to the ranks; a Tartar cattle-stealer, a

vagrant gipsy, an Armenian trader convicted of fraud, a Petersburg

coachman who has run over a pedestrian--all food for powder--gray

coats and bayonets for them all. Jews abound in the Russian army,

being subjected to a severe conscription in Poland and southern

Russia. They submit with exemplary patience to the hardships of the

service, and to the taunts of their Russian comrades. Poles are of

course numerous in the ranks, but they are less enduring than the

Israelite, and often desert to the Circassians, who make them work

as servants, or sell them as slaves to the Turks. No race are too

unmilitary in their nature to be ground into soldiers by the mill

of Russian discipline. Besides Jews, gipsies and Armenians figure

on the muster-roll. It must have been a queer day for the ragged

Zingaro, when the Russian sergeant first stepped into his smoky

tent, bade him clip his elf locks, wash his grimy countenance, and

follow to the field. For him the pomp of war had no seductions; he

would far rather have stuck to his den and vermin, and to his meal

of roast rats and hedgehogs. But military discipline works miracles.

The slouching filthy vagabond of yesterday now stands erect as if

he had swallowed his ramrod, his shoes a brilliant jet, his buttons

sparkling in the sun--a soldier from toe to top-knot.

The right bank of the Kuban, from the Sea of Azov to the mouth

of the Laba, (a tributary of the former stream,) is peopled with

Tchernamortsy Cossacks, who furnish ten regiments, each of a

thousand horsemen, for the defence of their lands and families.

These cavalry carry a musket, slung on the back, and a long

red lance: their dress is a sheepskin jacket, except on state

occasions, when they sport uniform. They are much less feared by

the Circassians than are the Cossacks of the Line, who wear the

Circassian dress, carry sabres instead of lances, and are more

valiant, active and skilful, than their Tchernamortsy neighbours.

The Cossacks of the Caucasian Line dwell on the banks of the Kuban

and Terek, form a military colony of about fifty thousand souls,

and keep six thousand horsemen ready for the field. There is a

mixture of Circassian blood in their veins, and they are first-rate

fighting men. Their villages are exposed to frequent attacks from

the mountaineers; but when these are not exceedingly rapid in

collecting their booty, and effecting their retreat, the Cossacks

assemble, and a desperate fight ensues. When the combatants are

numerically matched, the equality of arms, horses, and skill renders

the issue very doubtful. The Tchernamortsies and Don Cossacks are

less able to cope with the Circassians. In a _mêlée_ their lances

are inferior to the shaska. The rival claims of lance and sabre

have often been discussed; many trials of their respective merits

have been made in English, French, and German riding-schools; and

much ink has been shed on the subject. Unquestionably the lance has

done good service, and in certain circumstances is a terrible arm.

"At the battle of Dresden," Marshal Marmont tells us, "the Austrian

infantry were repeatedly assailed by the French cuirassiers,

whom they as often beat back, although the rain prevented their

firing, and the bayonet was their sole defence. But fifty lancers

of Latour-Maubourg's escort at once broke their ranks." Had the

cuirassiers had lances, their first charge, Marmont plausibly enough

asserts, would have sufficed. This leads to another question, often

mooted--whether the lance be properly a light or a heavy cavalry

weapon. When used to break infantry, weight of man and horse might

be an advantage; but in pursuit, where--especially in rugged and

mountainous countries--the lance is found particularly useful, the

preference is obviously for the swift steed and light cavalier.

In the irregular cavalry combats on the Caucasian line, the sabre

carries the day. Unless the Don Cossack's first lance-thrust settles

his adversary, (which is rarely the case,) the next instant the

adroit Circassian is within his guard, and then the betting is ten

to one on Caucasus. Moreover, the Don Cossacks, brought from afar to

wage a perilous and profitless war, are unwilling combatants. They

find blows more plentiful than booty, and approve themselves arrant

thieves and shy fighters. Relieved every two or three years, they

have scarcely time to get broken in to the peculiar mode of warfare.

The Cossacks of the Line are the flower of the hundred thousand wild

warriors scattered over the steppes of Southern Russia, and ready,

at one man's word, to vault into the saddle. Their gallant feats

are numerous. In 1843, during Dr Wagner's visit, three thousand

Circassians dashed across the Kuban, near the fortified village of

Ustlaba. A dense fog hid them from the Russian vedettes. Suddenly

fifty Cossacks of the Line, the escort of a gun, found themselves

face to face with the mountaineers. The mist was so thick that the

horses' heads almost touched before either party perceived the

other. Flight was impossible, but the Cossacks fought like fiends.

Forty-seven met a soldier's death; only three were captured,

and accompanied the cannon across the river, by which road the

Circassians at once retreated, having taken the brave detachment for

the advanced guard of a strong force.

The word Kasak, Kosak, or Kossack, variously interpreted by Klaproth

and other etymologists as robber, volunteer, daredevil, &c., conveys

to civilised ears rude and inelegant associations. Paris has not

yet forgotten the uncouth hordes, wrapped in sheepskins and overrun

with vermin, who, in the hour of her humiliation, startled her

streets, and made her dandies shriek for their smelling-bottles.

Not that Paris saw the worst of them. Some of the Uralian bears,

centaurs of the steppes, Calibans on horseback, were never allowed

to pass the Russian frontier. Their emperor appreciated their good

qualities, but left them at home. Since then, a change has occured.

Civilisation has made huge strides north-eastward. Near Fanagoria,

Dr Wagner passed a pleasant evening with a Cossack officer, a prime

fellow, with all unquenchable thirst for toddy, and an inexhaustible

store of information. He had made the campaigns against the French;

had evidently been bred a savage, or little better; but had

acquired, during his long military career, knowledge of the world

and a certain degree of polish. Amongst other interesting matters,

he gave a sketch of his grandfather, a bloodthirsty old warrior

and image-worshipper, the scourge of his Nogay neighbours, and a

great slayer of the Turk; who in 1812, at the mature age of ninety,

had responded to Czar Alexander's summons to fight for "faith and

fatherland," and had taken the field under Platoff, at the head of

thirteen sons and threescore grandsons. Whilst the Cossack major

told the history of the "Demon of the Steppes," as his ferocious

ancestor was called, his son, a gay lieutenant in the Cossacks of

the Guard, entered the apartment. This young gentleman, slender,

handsome, with well-cut uniform, graceful manners, and well-waxed

mustaches, declined the punch, "having got used at St Petersburg

to tea and champagne." He brought intelligence of promotions

and decorations, of high play at Tcherkask, (the capital of the

Don-Cossacks' country,) and of the establishment at Toganrog of

a French _restaurateur_, who retailed _Veuve Clicquot's_ genuine

champagne at four silver rubles a bottle. He was fascinated by

the French actresses at St Petersburg, and enthusiastic in praise

of Taglioni, then displaying her legs and graces in the Russian

metropolis. Dr Wagner left the symposium with a vivid impression of

the contrast between the bearded barbarian of 1812 and the dapper

guardsman of thirty years later; and with the full conviction that

the next Russian emperor who makes an inroad into civilised Europe,

will have no occasion to be ashamed of his Cossacks, even though his

route should lead him to the polite capital of the French republic.

THE CAXTONS.--PART X.

CHAPTER XLVI.

My uncle's conjecture as to the parentage of Francis Vivian seemed

to me a positive discovery. Nothing more likely than that this

wilful boy had formed some headstrong attachment which no father

would sanction, and so, thwarted and irritated, thrown himself on

the world. Such an explanation was the more agreeable to me, as it

cleared up all that had appeared more discreditable in the mystery

that surrounded Vivian. I could never bear to think that he had done

anything mean and criminal, however I might believe he had been rash

and faulty. It was natural that the unfriended wanderer should have

been thrown into a society, the equivocal character of which had

failed to revolt the audacity of an inquisitive mind and adventurous

temper; but it was natural, also, that the habits of gentle birth,

and that silent education which English gentlemen commonly receive

from their very cradle, should have preserved his honour, at least,

intact through all. Certainly the pride, the notions, the very

faults of the wellborn had remained in full force--why not the

better qualities, however smothered for the time? I felt thankful

for the thought that Vivian was returning to an element in which he

might repurify his mind,--refit himself for that sphere to which he

belonged;--thankful that we might yet meet, and our present half

intimacy mature, perhaps, into healthful friendship.

It was with such thoughts that I took up my hat the next morning

to seek Vivian, and judge if we had gained the right clue, when we

were startled by what was a rare sound at our door--the postman's

knock. My father was at the Museum; my mother in high conference, or

close preparation for our approaching departure, with Mrs Primmins;

Roland, I, and Blanche had the room to ourselves.

"The letter is not for me," said Pisistratus.

"Nor for me, I am sure," said the Captain, when the servant entered

and confuted him--for the letter was for him. He took it up

wonderingly and suspiciously, as Glumdalclitch took up Gulliver, or

as (if naturalists) we take up an unknown creature, that we are not

quite sure will not bite and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you,

Captain Roland! for you start and change colour--you suppress a cry

as you break the seal--you breathe hard as you read--and the letter

seems short--but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it

again and again. Then you fold it up--crumple it--thrust it into

your breast pocket--and look round like a man waking from a dream.

Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for

nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, but rather

of fear, agitation, bewilderment. Yet the eyes are bright, too, and

there is a smile on that iron lip.

My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily for his cane and

his hat, and then began buttoning his coat across his broad breast,

though the day was hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the

tropics.

"You are not going out, uncle?"

"Yes, yes."

"But are you strong enough yet? Let me go with you?"

"No, sir; no. Blanche, come here." He took the child in his arms,

surveyed her wistfully, and kissed her. "You have never given me

pain, Blanche: say, 'God bless and prosper you, father!'"

"God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!" said Blanche, putting

her little hands together, as if in prayer.

"There--that should bring me luck, Blanche," said the Captain,

gaily, and setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant,

and putting on his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly

forth; and I saw him, from the window, march along the streets as

cheerfully as if he had been besieging Badajoz.

"God prosper thee, too!" said I, involuntarily.

And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her prettiest way,

(and her pretty ways were many), "I wish you would come with us,

cousin Sisty, and help me to love papa. Poor papa! he wants us

both--he wants all the love we can give him!"

"That he does, my dear Blanche; and I think it a great mistake that

we don't all live together. Your papa ought not to go to that tower

of his, at the world's end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with

a garden full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the May--from May

to November;--to say nothing of a duck that is more sagacious than

any creature in the Fables I gave you the other day."

Blanche laughed and clapped her hands--"Oh, that would be so nice!

but,"--and she stopped gravely, and added, "but then, you see, there

would not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure that the tower

must love him very much, for he loves it dearly."

It was my turn to laugh now. "I see how it is, you little witch,"

said I; "you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls!

With all my heart, so far as I am concerned."

"Sisty," said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity on her face, "do

you know what I've been thinking?"

"Not I, miss--what?--something very deep, I can see--very horrible,

indeed, I fear, you look so serious."

"Why, I've been thinking," continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle,

and without the least bit of a blush--"I've been thinking that

I'll be your little wife; and then, of course, we shall all live

together."

Blanche did not blush, but I did. "Ask me that ten years hence,

if you dare, you impudent little thing; and now, run away to Mrs

Primmins, and tell her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say

good-morning."

But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity seemed exceedingly

hurt at my mode of taking her alarming proposition, for she retired

into a corner pouting, and sate down with great majesty. So there

I left her, and went my way to Vivian. He was out; but, seeing

books on his table, and having nothing to do, I resolved to wait

for his return. I had enough of my father in me to turn at once to

the books for company; and, by the side of some graver works which

I had recommended, I found certain novels in French, that Vivian

had got from a circulating library. I had a curiosity to read

these--for, except the old classic novels of France, this mighty

branch of its popular literature was then new to me. I soon got

interested, but what an interest!--the interest that a nightmare

might excite, if one caught it out of one's sleep, and set to work

to examine it. By the side of what dazzling shrewdness, what deep

knowledge of those holes and corners in the human system, of which

Goethe must have spoken when he said somewhere--(if I recollect

right, and don't misquote him, which I'll not answer for)--"There

is something in every man's heart which, if we could know, would

make us hate him,"--by the side of all this, and of much more that

showed prodigious boldness and energy of intellect, what strange

exaggeration--what mock nobility of sentiment--what inconceivable

perversion of reasoning--what damnable demoralisation! I hate the

cant of charging works of fiction with the accusation--often unjust

and shallow--that they interest us in vice, or palliate crime,

because the author truly shows what virtues may entangle themselves

with vices; or commands our compassion, and awes our pride, by

teaching us how men deceive and bewitch themselves into guilt. Such

painting belongs to the dark truth of all tragedy, from Sophocles to

Shakspeare. No; this is not what shocked me in those books--it was

not the interesting me in vice, for I felt no interest in it at all;

it was the insisting that vice is something uncommonly noble--it

was the portrait of some coldblooded adultress, whom the author or

authoress chooses to call _pauvre Ange!_ (poor angel!);--it was some

scoundrel who dupes, cheats, and murders under cover of a duel, in

which he is a second St George; who does not instruct us by showing

through what metaphysical process he became a scoundrel, but who

is continually forced upon us as a very favourable specimen of

mankind;--it was the view of society altogether, painted in colours

so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw

down a deluge;--it was the hatred, carefully instilled, of the

poor against the rich--it was the war breathed between class and

class--it was that envy of all superiorities, which loves to show

itself by allowing virtue only to a blouse, and asserting that a

man must be a rogue if he belong to that rank of society in which,

from the very gifts of education, from the necessary associations

of circumstances, roguery is the last thing probable or natural.

It was all this, and things a thousand times worse, that set my

head in a whirl, as hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed,

spell-bound, on these Chimeras and Typhons--these symbols of the

Destroying Principle. "Poor Vivian!" said I, as I rose at last,

"if thou readest these books with pleasure, or from habit, no

wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong,

and to have a great cavity where thy brain should have the bump of

'conscientiousness' in full salience!"

Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through

time imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to

see, by my watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave

a line, fixing an appointment for the morrow, and so depart,

when I heard Vivian's knock--a knock that had great character

in it--haughty, impatient, irregular; not a neat, symmetrical,

harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock that seemed to set the

whole house and street at defiance: it was a knock bullying--a

knock ostentatious--a knock irritating and offensive--"impiger" and

"iracundus."

But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock: it was

a step light, yet firm--slow, yet elastic.

The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed

Vivian of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he

cast that hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt

to cast when he has left his papers about, and finds some idler,

on whose trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the

midst of the unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my

conscience was so unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the

general suspiciousness of Vivian's character.

"Three hours, at least, have I been here!" said I, maliciously.

"Three hours!"--again the look.

"And this is the worst secret I have discovered,"--and I pointed to

those literary Manicheans.

"Oh!" said he carelessly, "French novels!--I don't wonder you stayed

so long. I can't read your English novels--flat and insipid: there

are truth and life here."

"Truth and life!" cried I, every hair on my head erect with

astonishment--"then hurrah for falsehood and death!"

"They don't please you; no accounting for tastes."

"I beg your pardon--I account for yours, if you really take for

truth and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For heaven's

sake, my dear fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in

England--get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island, if he

squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I

find here."

"How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian sneeringly, "that

you should play the mentor, and correct my ignorance of the world?"

"Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is

something far wiser than they--the instinct of a man's heart, and a

gentleman's honour."

"Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let the poor books

alone; you know my creed--that books influence us little one way or

the other."

"By the great Egyptian library, and the soul of Diodorus, I wish you

could hear my father upon that point! Come," added I, with sublime

compassion--"come, it is not too late--do let me introduce you to

my father. I will consent to read French novels all my life, if a

single chat with Austin Caxton does not send you home with a happier

face and a lighter heart. Come, let me take you back to dine with us

to-day."

"I cannot," said Vivian with some confusion--"I cannot, for this day

I leave London. Some other time perhaps--for," he added, but not

heartily, "we may meet again."

"I hope so," said I, wringing his hand, "and that is likely,--since,

in spite of yourself, I have guessed your secret--your birth and

parentage."

"How!" cried Vivian, turning pale, and gnawing his lip--"what do

you mean?--speak."

"Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway son of Colonel Vivian?

Come, say the truth; let us be confidants."

Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs; and then, seating

himself, leant his face on the table, confused, no doubt, to find

himself discovered.

"You are near the mark," said he at last, "but do not ask me farther

yet. Some day," he cried impetuously, and springing suddenly to his

feet--"some day you shall know all: yes; some day, if I live, when

that name shall be high in the world; yes, when the world is at my

feet!" He stretched his right hand as if to grasp the space, and his

whole face was lighted with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away,

and with a slight return of his scornful smile, he said--"Dreams

yet; dreams! And now, look at this paper." And he drew out a

memorandum, scrawled over with figures.

"This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you; in a few days, I shall

discharge it. Give me your address."

"Oh!" said I, pained, "can you speak to me of money, Vivian?"

"It is one of those instincts of honour you cite so often," answered

he, colouring. "Pardon me."

"That is my address," said I, stooping to write, to conceal my

wounded feelings. "You will avail yourself of it, I hope, often, and

tell me that you are well and happy."

"When I am happy, you shall know."

"You do not require any introduction to Trevanion?"

Vivian hesitated: "No, I think not. If ever I do, I will write for

it."

I took up my hat, and was about to go--for I was still chilled and

mortified--when, as if by an irresistible impulse, Vivian came to me

hastily, flung his arms round my neck, and kissed me as a boy kisses

his brother.

"Bear with me!" he cried in a faltering voice: "I did not think to

love any one as you have made me love you, though sadly against the

grain. If you are not my good angel, it is that nature and habit are

too strong for you. Certainly, some day we shall meet again. I shall

have time, in the meanwhile, to see if the world can be indeed 'mine

oyster, which I with sword can open.' I would be _aut Cæsar aut

nullus_! Very little other Latin know I to quote from! If Cæsar, men

will forgive me all the means to the end; if _nullus_, London has a

river, and in every street one may buy a cord!"

"Vivian! Vivian!"

"Now go, my dear friend, while my heart is softened--go, before I

shock you with some return of the native Adam. Go--go!"

And taking me gently by the arm, Francis Vivian drew me from the

room, and, re-entering, locked his door.

Ah! if I could have left him Robert Hall, instead of those execrable

Typhons! But would that medicine have suited his case, or must grim

Experience write sterner recipes with her iron hand?