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insult offered to her flag in the capture of the Vixen; whereas, from the declarations of our foreign minister, recently made in the parliamentary debate on this question, it would appear that the honour of our flag, with whose maintenance the independence of their coast had become happily identified, would be duly vindicated. It was important, at the present crisis, that they should understand from the lips of an Englishman that England had not yet abandoned them. It was also my intention to join Mr. Bell, my countryman, who was already in Circassia, and who would be gratified to hear that Russia, in all probability, would be taught respect to his rights, now involved so closely with their own, and made to restore his plundered property.

All this, I was sorry to perceive, was so much Hebrew to the Hadji, to whose grosser apprehension nothing but direct and warlike assistance from England appeared intelligible, and who, I saw, would not part with the belief that I was employed by the English government or the Porte. My protestations to the contrary only served to confirm him in it, and I had here a foretaste of the difficulties that awaited me in Circassia. I found it also impossible, with my imperfect knowledge of Turkish, to convey my ideas on political subjects with any degree of perspicuity, and even still

more superfluous to trouble my Greek dragoman "with thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul;" all its contemplations, I could see, were absorbed with the care of my luggage, or in preparations for dinner, or in their highest flight busied themselves about my merchandize; to this, when they had once attached themselves, it was no easy matter to disengage them. I therefore, on my arrival in Circassia, left him jointly in charge of it with the Hadji, and sought a mouthpiece for my political inspirations elsewhere.

Lest the reader should appreciate no better than the Hadji my motives for breaking through the Russian blockade, and penetrating into countries hitherto deemed scarcely accessible to Europeans, I shall here take the liberty of adding a few words of explanation. The accounts which, during my residence at Constantinople, I had received of Circassia, though somewhat vague and romantic, had inspired me with an interest, amounting almost to enthusiasm, in its destinies. Like other Asiatic countries, it had felt the progress of Russian ambition, and had simultaneously groaned beneath the shock and pressure; the collision, however, had been of a different nature to that with its neighbours. With all other states the diplomacy of Russia had availed her far more than her arms, or at least she had employed them alternately. But

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in the Caucasus, where the inhabitants had lived in a state of jealous seclusion for centuries, and where individual independence, established on so broad a basis, presented no handle, as it did with corrupt governments, for intrigue, diplomacy was baffled and found no field,-war, war to the knife, had been Russia's only resource.

Numbers, discipline, science, and combination had been opposed to the natural advantages of position and personal prowess; and if they could boast of no decided triumphs, they might yet exult in a wide infliction of human misery. After many years of heroic resistance, the Circassians had begun to feel the inequality of the contest, and awoke to a painful sense of their own deficiencies; they saw in what the superiority of their enemy consisted-union, riches, and military skill; they despaired of securing these advantages by their unaided efforts, and with conscious humility, for the first time, cast their eyes abroad for sympathy and assistance. Where, however, were they to find them? The Porte, though secretly inclined to favour their cause, had, to secure her own safety, already sacrificed them to the common oppressor: nor were their advances, when their ambassadors had found their way to Cairo, more successful with Mehamet Ali.

Of the power and resources of the European na

tions, of the "yedi Keral," or seven kings of Christendom, as they call them; and foremost among these, of the glory and ascendancy of our monarch,—it is true, notwithstanding the seclusion of their valleys, they had received powerful though indefinite impressions. But how were these to be enlisted in the cause of Circassia? how, even, could her newly-awakened aspirations be made known to them? Without political information of any sort, or, had they possessed it, without political combination to turn it to account, the barriers presented by distance and difference of religion, language and habits, were to them insurmountable.

It was in this state of helplessness and distress that Mr. Urquhart found them when he landed at Soudjak, from the yacht "Mischief," in the summer of 1834. It may easily be imagined what effect the appearance of an Englishman (the first that had visited their country) was, under such circumstances, calculated to produce; it was truly electrifying; and the enthusiasm with which they flocked around him from every quarter, during the three days of his sojourn in the neighbourhood of Anapa, proved that they then already beheld the realization of their wildest hopes. Having obtained a medium of communication, and an intercessor, their simplicity overlooked every other obstacle. But although Mr. Urquhart did his

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utmost to repress the extravagant expectations they had founded on his visit, and though, while receiving and undertaking to present the address which the chieftains drew up and signed for our government, he told them that he could hold out no hopes of immediate or warlike assistance, but that much remained to be done, on their part, in the establishment of union and a central authority, before even political relations could be established, or their independence acknowledged; they have, nevertheless, from that day to this, not ceased to look to England as the power whose protecting Ægis is eventually to be extended between them and their oppressors.

In the meanwhile, the revolution in their ideas already operated by external pressure, was powerfully accelerated by this event. It formed an era from which Circassia might be included in the problem which involves the destinies of the whole East, and in whose solution all Europe, and particularly England, has so much at stake-viz., whether it be in the designs of Providence that this portion of the globe shall eventually become the inheritance of Russia, or that the mere terror of her arms shall effect its regeneration? None of the countries now under the influence of these causes, in a state of transition, presents objects more attractive than Circassia, not only as regards