moved one after the other, on round, three-legged tables, about the size of a joint-stool. A sheep having been slaughtered for us, the mutton was served on a thick layer of millet-cake, instead of a dish; being moist and soft, it is easily moulded into the requisite form—that is, with a deep trench in the centre, containing the sauce, or condiment, defended by a circular mound, itself invested on the outside by substantial pieces of mutton or beef.

The Hadji and myself commenced the attack on these fortifications, having been provided for the purpose with small knives by the Circassians, who, by-the-bye, always wear these, in addition to their daggers, in their girdles. The latter are never used at meals, the former being for the double purpose of carving their victuals and shaving their polls. After meat came the broth, served up in a wooden bowl, or rather a reservoir, of formidable dimensions; its surface frozen over like the Arctic Ocean, not with ice, however, but grease; but by inserting, in imitation of my Hadji, the spoon (and, par parenthese, I must protest in the name of my friends against the statement put forth, that they ever insert their hands,) with a dexterous jerk into the liquid below, I found I could convey it to my mouth in a tolerable state of purity. The ensuing courses were, for the most part, composed of

pastry, caimac, or cream, cheese-cakes, forced meat in vine-leaves, and finally a large bowl of yoghort, or curdled milk, which last, like the pilaff in Turkey, invariably crowns the repast. I was at first surprised to see no vegetables on the table, but I afterwards learned that, although abounding in the country in every variety, the Circassians seldom or never eat them.

A native of this country dining with Scodra Pasha, in Albania, and declining to eat the vegetable which the Turks, odd to say, are as fond of as the Circassians are averse to them, and which, in successive dishes, formed, on this occasion, the staple of the dinner, was pressed repeatedly by the latter to partake of them. He at length told the Pasha, with much naiveté, that none but beasts dine on greens in Circassia.

During the course of our meal, observing that the Hadji handed to the bye-standers and assistants lumps of meat and pieces of pastry, in compliance with the custom, I shewed myself, at the expense of my host, equally generous. On receiving these scraps, the favoured individual retired with great modesty into a corner, and, turning his back to the company, devoured them in secret. As every table was removed, it was taken to our servants, and after they had been satisfied, passed to a crowd of hungry expectants out of doors. About

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three hours after sunset, additional beds and coverlids were brought in for me and my domestics, which, on being spread, covered every part of the floor. I ought to mention that my counterpane was of brocaded silk, and that the whole was the manufacture of Turkey.

Notwithstanding all these appliances, lulled besides by a chorus of nightingales, I could not sleep. The melodious concert was completely marred by frogs and jackals, whose croaking and screaming rose incessantly from forest and fen on every side of us, and became now and then so fearfully clamorous, that it seemed as if our dwelling were threatened with a general assault from them. These noises, not to mention the boza I had swallowed to gratify my host, had the effect of a bad conscience in keeping me awake till morning; and yet, though disagreeable in themselves, they in some measure pleased from their novelty. Indeed, everything I had witnessed during the few hours I had been in the country produced a similar effect. A voyage of a few days had opened a new existence to me. The originality in this people's manners had been preserved by the exclusive character of their institutions, which had been for centuries decidedly unfavourable to the admission of strangers to their mountains, and which had made them, in consequence, a repertory, not only of old

armour, houses, and costume, but of fashions and customs no less obsolete.

It was only since Russia had officiously contributed to this systematic exclusion, by blockading their coast, that, out of a very natural spirit of contradiction, strangers had been invited to explore Circassia, and admitted to contemplate a picture of manners, in the existence of which the progress of civilization, reducing everything to a material standard of interest, must have long since impaired their belief. What, for example, can appear more romantic and improbable than the fact that to every residence in the Caucasus, from the highest to the lowest, is attached a guest-house, where strangers (that is, Circassians or Turks) are received and entertained in the most liberal manner for nothing, and that the host, whatever may be his condition, and whatever the respect he may otherwise claim, must, in his own house, attend upon them in person, and wait their permission to be seated himself?

All this ceremonious, and what we should style elaborate, civility; their boundless hospitality; the devotion of servants to their masters; the punctilios of rank, the more tenaciously observed, perhaps, that all other and more substantial distinctions, are wanting; the scrupulous deference universally paid to age, are virtues-old-fashioned