immediate people, of whom he was at once the High Priest and King. After a time his genius led him to undertake in the Caucasus what Abd-el-Kader had formerly accomplished among the nomads of Africa -a plan of fanaticizing the people against the Russians. Among the most Mussulman tribes he sucIceeded in his endeavours. His Naibs and Murids extended his administration and propagand among all the tribes of Daghestan, while some of them were sent to make like attempts among the Adighe of the West. So despotic and vexatious had the rule of Schamyl become of late years, that his capture by the Russians probably only saved him from falling assassinated by the hands of his own people. As it was, his capture was only the result of a widely-spread treason among his immediate 'followers. Their hatred of his political and religious tyranny has been ably made use of by the Russians for the pacification of the country. The natives have been made to feel that Russian rule is more easy to bear than that of one of their own chiefs. Although there is no doubt that the tyranny of Schamyl was the cause of his downfall, from the hatred his sway aroused among one part of his followers, it is no less certain that since his capture his memory is almost worshipped by another part. In Asia Minor I have often been surrounded by Tchechensi and Lesgians, men and boys, who anxiously questioned me, and eagerly listened to every word which fell from my mouth giving them an account of their hero who was a prisoner in the land of the Russ.

Daghestan is separated from the country of the Adighe by the great military road to Tiflis. Schamyl was most desirous to extend his administration among those halfMussulman, half-Christian tribes. Mohammed Emin, one of the most renowned of his Naibs, a man of not less talent than Schamyl himself, was sent thither to extend the propagand. His policy and power, exercised during twelve years, had the effect of confirming Maho

metanism among one tribe of that people-the Abadzechi. The other two dwelling on the coast, the Ubuichi and the Shansughi, looked on his progress with suspicion. In fact they were equally suspicious of Schamyl, the Turks and the Russians. To this feeling must be ascribed the small success attending the Turkish expeditions to the Caucasus during the Crimean war. 'Ah!' says the Adighe at the present day, if only ten thousand English or French had landed instead of the Turks, the Russians would not be now in Tiflis.' The hatred of the Turks among one half of the tribes, the fanaticism of the other, contain the secret of the supremacy of Russia in these regions.

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The opinion of Oriental peoples as to the Crimean war differs materially from that of Western Europe. Those saw Russia-that powerful and near enemy-beset at one time by three or four great powers, yet able for a long time to resist them, and preserve her own. In their immediate neighbourhood, moreover, they saw the Russians victorious. The result was awaken a still greater fear and respect towards their formidable neighbour. During the course of the war the tribes of the Caucasus were looking on what was passing around them with a mixture of astonishment and irresolution. On the coast the inhabitants took no greater advantage of the interruption in the blockade than by gratifying their propensities for plunder, and rifling the deserted forts. The expeditions of Mustapha Pasha and Omar Pasha found them divided and apathetic. Mohammed Emin, the delegate of Schamyl, was at the head of one tribe; the Tcherkessian chieftain, Sefer Pasha, the selfcalled delegate of the Sultan, was at the head of another, in rivalry with the former. A third large party was adverse to both. The Turkish expeditions were, therefore, to all intents and purposes, failures. Schamyl, it is true, was ready with thirty thousand mountaineers. But Daghestan is remote from the Black Sea; and to have made his co

operation valuable, it was first necessary that the intervening Adighe should take up arms. Mohammed

Emin was the only man capable of putting himself at the head of any confederation; and he would probably have eventually done so had not the peace been hastily concluded. The Turks withdrew; the Russians reoccupied the old forts, and built new ones, while their cruisers once more prowled into every bay on the coast. They gradually renewed their system of encroachments in Daghestan. Schamyl made one grand attempt at defence; but the country, tired of his domination, gave him over to the hands of his enemy. Guneb, his fortified Aoul, where he made his last stand, became, and still remains, a Russian fortress.

Daghestan subdued, the Russians could turn all their attention to the Adighe on the Black Sea. Though coast-roads are there almost an impossibility, still, from the many fortified points, roads were pushed up the valleys, and stanitzas established, interrupted occasionally by some attack of desperation from the mountaineers. One attempt made a year or two ago to confederate these Adighe had anything but a satisfactory result.

In 1858, Prince Czartorysky and Count Zamoisky, secretly favoured by the Turkish Government, fitted out a small expedition, which they sent to the Caucasus under the command of a well-known Polish refugee, M. Lapinsky, or, as he is also known by his Turkish alias, Tesek Bey.* This small body, miserably armed and equipped, landed with a few small cannon among the Shan

sughi, and attached themselves to the party of Sefer Pasha. M. Lapinsky's plan of operations was well imagined. He knew that the army of the Caucasus swarmed with convicts and Polish political prisoners, most of whom would be disposed to desert, were they not deterred from the idea by the barbarous custom prevalent among the tribes of selling back to the Russians all deserters, or exchanging them against their own runaway slaves. If, therefore, he could prevail on the chiefs to hand over to him all deserters to embody in a brigade under European discipline, it would not only be having a reliable force as the rallying point of the Caucasians, but it would materially weaken the forces of the enemy. Unfortunately for his plans, he was unable to overcome the cupidity and jealousies of those he came among. Sefer Pacha soon disgusted him by his treacherous behaviour, and as a last resource he united his force with that of Mohammed Emin. The exploits of the little band were confined to a few guerilla forays into the plain adjoining the Kuban. In 1860, disgusted with their experience, most of them returned to Constantinople, and have probably been engaged since that time in their own country. After their departure, Mohammed Emin gave up the contest, and made his peace with the Russians. Treated with all honour at Tiflis, he was sent with a deputation of the Adighe to St. Petersburg. For some time he was the lion of that city, and when he returned to the Caucasus it was as a partisan of the Russians.

Since that time, the death-blow

has been given to all hope of independence among the Caucasians by the great emigration which has taken place among them. At first sight it would seem an act of political madness on the part of the Turkish Government thus to depeople the Caucasus of the sturdiest of its defenders, and open the way to any future expeditions of the Russians into Asia Minor. But on looking deeper into the matter, it has no doubt acted with political wisdom. The Turkish population in Europe and Asia Minor has been decreasing for years. From among no people could be obtained immigrants more sympathetic than the Tcherkessi and the Daghestaners. For centuries the slave trade in women between the Caucasus and Turkey has been so extensive that there are few Turks who have not Circassian blood in their veins. Male slaves have also been readily received, many of whom have risen to the highest ranks in the state. The Christian population beginning so to predominate may have been a great inducement to the Porte (seeing that its sway over the Caucasus was irrevocably gone), to encourage the immigration of this brave and warlike race. Their Mahometanism might be lukewarm at first; but surrounding influences would soon correct that, and transform them into the most faithful and fanatic. The total immigration of the Caucasians into Turkey during the last few years cannot be estimated at less than 300,000. Many families have been planted among the Christian Bulgarians of the north, while others are found in great numbers in the province of Anatolia. The immigrants, however, from what I saw of them, did not seem to be benefited by the change. Numbers, having sold even their arms to support themselves for a time, were starving. Many wished to return to Russia, but the Government of that country was too politic to allow them to do so, except on certain conditions.

This emigration has wonderfully lightened the arduous task of Russia. The aptitude of her agents in taking advantage of the feuds and

treachery of the natives, and in using that treachery against them; her policy in treating the tribes already subdued with tolerable justice, and of forming out of them a well-trained militia to extend her conquest further; the planting of military colonies in every convenient spot; the invitation and encouragement given to European (Russian and German) immigrants to settle down as agriculturists and traders, all show that she is pursuing a course which can have but one result-the ultimate quiet possession of the country.

The destiny of Russia is to revolutionize and civilize-perhaps to subdue the whole of Northern and Central Asia. Her policy and her Church are both suitable for the purpose. Her power in these parts is as unlimited as it is uncontrolled. Here alone she has no rival. The Caspian and Aral Seas are Russian lakes over which no flag hostile to her supremacy can ever wave. The shores of the Black Sea may be harassed by the cruisers of her enemies, the mountains of the Caucasus are an insuperable barrier behind which she can always recruit her power. Her frontiers are here well, marked and appropriate, and beyond them the wildest ambition of a despotic ruler would scarcely strive to extend.

It has become too much the fashion of late for one imperial nation to heap abuse on another imperial nation for their respective treatment of barbarous or semicivilized peoples, which one or the other may have brought under its sway. Any one who has travelled much, or who has been accustomed to compare the feelings of different European States by a study of their newspapers, may have remarked how often France and England have abused the Russians for their treatment of the Caucasians, how England and Russia have pointed with indignation at France for smothering Bedouins in a cave, or how France, Russia, all Europe, have hooted at England for blowing rebel Sepoys from the muzzles of her guns. All this recrimination is as unworthy of great nations as it is absurd in itself.

The inconsistencies in all foreign policies would be frightfully ludicrous, did not their origin lie in national interests. We see Russia encouraging the Christian Montenegrins against their Turkish suzerain. We see Turkey doing the same thing among the Mussulman Caucasians under Russian subjection. We see our own country fostering the feeling of independence among the Adighe, and doing all to suppress the same feeling among the Montenegrins. National policy may offer a reason for this, but it should not be an excuse for one nation abusing another for what it is at the same time doing itself. While we admire the undaunted patriotism and bravery of a people striving to uphold or regain its freedom, the fact should not be lost sight of, that all nations pursuing a career of conquest adopt almost the same system; that though that system may be repugnant to our civilized ideas conceived in the library, it becomes one of national urgency when we are brought face to face with the object on which it is intended to be exercised. A rule of mercy and moderation over a less civilized people is only possible when that people is really subjected. During the process of subjugation, abominable cruelties are committed by the one, while, on the other side, severities having the appearance of cruelties become a necessity, when exercised as a punishment or example. The horrid and sometimes loathsome cruelties committed by the Circassians on the Russians can only be surpassed by similar enormities during the great mutiny in India.

The fear which Russia inspires among other nations is, that her government has received such a

direction as tends to universal dominion. The fear, in England especially, is, that her intentions are directed against Turkey in Europe and the north-west of India and China in the East. That we have not seen the last attempt to make the Black Sea a Russian lake I do not much doubt. That China will still further feel the presence of Russia I also think very probable, without, however, going to the extreme of some writers in predicting the total conquest of China. As I said before, there is no European power which can put its veto on the encroachments of Russia in Central Asia. The ground is all her own; and we have no reason to doubt that her influence in those regions will be anything but civilizing to their barbarous or nomade peoples. As regards India, there are too many geographical objections in the way; miles of barren and waterless steppes are not to be traversed with facility by any army, as the Russians found to their cost in their famous expedition to Khiva. Another and a loftier Caucasus intervenes between the plains of Asia and the British possessions of India. Besides the supposition of a conquest of India by Russia, is a depreciation of British administration and British energy, which the morale of our society does not at all warrant. Russian intrigue may push on Persia against the mountaineers of the north-west frontier, where, however, there is enough firmness to cause an elastic rebound. The wisdom, as well as the interest, of both England and Russia, in the East, is to follow parallel lines, that each may work out its well-marked destiny without interference and without awakening a petty jealousy which is unworthy of either people.

H. A. T.