This edifice, though of the simplest structure, being built entirely of wood, bears, nevertheless, both in size and materials, the same proportion to the houses as churches do elsewhere. The minaret to it was, if anything, still more primitive, consisting of a tall poplar, up which the Muezzim ascended, by notches cut in the stem, to a basket that served for a gallery at the top. He had just taken his station there, and was chanting his summons to the house of prayer, as we arrived. The sounds were familiar to us; they were such as hallow the vesper hour all over the East; which I had heard so often as the sun sank over Stamboul, when, from a thousand minarets at once, it burst from as many voices, while Europe and Asia contended to swell it over the Bosphorus ; or at sunset, in the solitude of the ocean, when it seemed rather to blend with than disturb the breathless adoration of nature; but which, often as I had heard and been impressed by it, had never raised the emotion produced by the cry in the wilderness; loud, thrilling, and prolonged, it proclaimed amidst its rocks, caverns, and forests, (the haunts of ancient superstition,) now sinking into deeper shadow, the unity and greatness of the living God, and invited all who heard it (and one would have thought they were few in such a place) to his worship. Nor, indeed, did they assemble in

any great numbers, not because the district was thinly populated, but that Islamism, though professed by all, is as yet, in its duties and observances, but slightly cultivated here: the great majority of the people are uncircumcised both in Shapsook and Natukvitch; and on many parts of the coast the pagan rites and sacrifices I have alluded to have been modified, but not entirely suppressed by it. The religious groves, or Kodosh, as they call them, are still objects of a veneration far more real and sincere than the mosques, and the festivals still solemnized in them draw much greater multitudes than the Namaz. Islamism, countenanced and practised by the chiefs and the effendis, is respected; but paganism, from its associations with their customs, habits, and feelings, is much more popular. At least, this is the case as regards these two provinces and the sea-coast, where, not forty years ago, the whole population were idolators, and have only been recently converted by Turkish missionaries. In the Abbassak, the Cabardas, Great and Little, and the other Kuban provinces, Mahomedanism is of an earlier date, and universally diffused.

The general influence of Mahomedanism in the Caucasus has been most salutary, both in a moral and political point of view. At least, this is my honest conviction, and I state it fearlessly, being

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fully convinced that the interests of Christianity are never promoted by disguising what we believe to be the truth. "The religion of all pagans indiscriminately," says one of our greatest moralists, "has often been written of by zealous Christians in the worst spirit of Paine and Voltaire."

With doctrinal and theological questions, "the reason for the hope that is in them," the multitude here, as well as elsewhere, may not be very deeply conversant; but that which is most practical in religion, and which serves as a foundation to all moral obligation—their responsibility to the God who has created them, and their hopes and fears of a hereafter, are subjects now very extensively felt and understood among them. By submitting it to a superhuman tribunal, whose standard of good and evil is positive and immutable, the duty of man to his neighbour is placed on a basis very different to the sandy and shifting one of expediency; one which the worldly doctrines of the utilitarian would tend to substitute for it, and which, in a country like Circassia, have been the natural consequences (as will be seen in the inquiry I propose to make with respect to its tribes) of its civil institutions.

Where hostile as well as friendly relations prevail in a community, and where retaliation is indispensable for the ends of justice, fraud and

force are naturally constituted into virtues.

The ancient religion of the country, like all other paganism, had little to do with morality. Its divinities were propitiated or appeased as the authors of blessings or calamities, but were not supposed to concern themselves greatly in the actions of mankind. Islamism, on the contrary, is most dogmatical with respect to them, so much so, indeed, that its compatibility with institutions so unscrupulous would be a matter of no small astonishment, did we not reflect that Christianity itself has been engrafted on many a stock comparatively as heterogeneous. Christianity, however, asserts her empire only over the hearts and consciences of men. Islamism claims a temporal jurisdiction, and militates therefore against all that opposes her supremacy. Her levelling principles have destroyed the power of the nobles here, and, notwithstanding the tenacity with which the system is preserved, will, I believe, ultimately undermine the administrative authority of the tribes. Did the limits I have proposed to myself allow of it, the progress of this contest would form an interesting subject of inquiry; as it is, I can only afford a cursory glance at the advantages which Islamism brings with her to it.

One of the chief recommendations of this religion to the people, as well as a voucher of its

1

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sincerity, is its cheapness-it costs them nothing; the functions of the priesthood, of the Imaum or Mollah, are purely honorary, are derived from superior learning or piety, and combined with any other pursuit or occupation. The cadis or magistrates are merely remunerated for the time and attention they give to the affairs of the community. Another source of the favour it has met with is no doubt to be found in its moral precepts, borrowed in a great measure from the gospel itself, and strictly in accordance with the natural dictates of justice and humanity. But the cause which I believe has been of all others the most conducive to its establishment is, the sentiment of equality which the noble zeal of its unworldly professors not only inculcates, but enforces between man and man. To them who really feel their dignity as heirs of a glorious immortality, what are earthly distinctions?

I am aware that this feeling, were the intentions of its Divine Founder duly fulfilled, would be still more powerful with the disciples of Christianity. But how far does the spirit of humility affected by them actually govern their relations of life? Does not the pride of birth, of wealth, or even knowledge itself, prevail over them all? The only pride the Mussulman feels is spiritual; and though it may lead him to despise those whose