HOUSE OF INDAR OGLOU.

69

in front by an orchard, the fruit-trees of various kinds extending their ranks, as the valley widens, on a carpet of the brightest verdure, down to the margin of the stream. In the shade of some large walnut-trees in front, and by the side of a glassy rivulet, was spread a rug and cushion of silk. We here dismounted, and our horses were as usual tied to the trees. Refreshments were offered to us, which, having only just breakfasted, we declined; but as a temptation it was presumed no Englishman could resist, they produced, with much complacency, what I also refused to swallow -a cup of brandy.

A messenger having been dispatched to the house, Mehemet Indar Oglou himself, supported by two domestics, and attended-by a Turkish dragoman, made his appearance from the orchard. He had risen from his bed to receive me, and there was exhaustion in his languid air and unsettled eye; both, however, were too strongly pronounced for sickness to suppress their character, displaying at once the craft which, during a prosperous life of a hundred years, had steered him through the shoals and quicksands of the most turbulent periods, and (what in the stiffnecked old ouzden was still more plainly developed) the more than Circassian pride by which his fortunes had been so nearly shipwrecked. His head was thrown

back with an air of much hauteur, which was not less discernible in the expression of the mouth and chin, unshaded by anything but a short moustache. He was dressed in a long loose tunic of fine blue cloth of foreign manufacture. After the usual ceremonies, he seated himself near me in the grass, and through the medium of his dragoman began a conversation, which warmed as it proceeded.

"Our only hope at present," said he, “is centred in England; the Sultan has deserted us. At one time I thought it preferable to have the Russians for friends instead of enemies, but I was deceived; their only intention is, and has ever been, to make slaves of us; and that we must resist to the death. It is, nevertheless, difficult for a poor and divided people like ourselves to contend against power and resources like those of Russia. Would to God I could see an English fleet off this coast. I do not wish to live an instant longer. You alone can deliver us, save us from the Russians, and save," he added, his keen grey eyes kindling with the sense of injuries, "oh! save us from ourselves."

Here was fair language and hopeful dispositions, although there might be some lack of sincerity in the one, and a leaven of disappointed ambition in the other. How, indeed, can it be expected that the feelings of a man like this, so long employed

in all their strength and subtlety about the petty interests of his family and his clan, should at once embrace with the same ardour the comprehensive views of the statesman and patriot. I replied to him in almost the same general terms that he had himself adopted; that much remained to be done on the part of his countrymen in the establishment. of order, union, and a recognised authority, before any Englishman could hold out hopes that his government would ever treat with, much less afford them direct assistance. It should be the aim, then, of every man who valued his country or religion to promote these objects as the only means of rescuing their necks from the impending yoke. I finished our conference, in the course of which the old man displayed much real or affected enthusiasm, by pointing to the standard I had brought with me, and which, now planted in the turf before us, exhibited the device I have alluded to; and by telling him at the same time, "when the strength and intelligence of the Caucasus were united in the same manner as the stars and arrows in their banner, wherein they were placed as their emblems, he might hope for everything, though hope in the assistance of England would be then superfluous, for he would have nothing to fear from Russia."

When we had mounted our horses, the brandy was again presented as a stirrup cup, and we

resumed our march. Continuing for some miles to ascend the stream as before, we at length diverged from it by a path to the left, which wound along the sides of the hills. Those to the right now assumed a bolder and more rugged outline, and to one of them, of more grotesque appearance than the others, my attention was drawn by the Hadji. "That hill," he said, "that strange looking hill, elbowing the sky yonder to the left, is possessed by the devil. Yes," continued he, gravely, seeing that I treated his assertion as a joke, "the devil possesses every foot of it; and I would fain see the man that will venture to fetch a stick from the wood at the top, or sow pasta in the fields on its side."

As he proceeded to unfold to me this popular superstition, I naturally took a closer survey of the peak, or promontory, that had given rise to it. Its most remarkable feature was, that it was superadded to the main ridge like a hunch on a camel's back, or rather flung from it, as it were, and suspended, with its waving crest of foliage, like some enormous billow on the cur.. Issuing from this wood occasionally strange noises had been heard. Groans, shrieks, and clanking of chains, now and then diversified by diabolical peals of laughter, had distinctly announced that the very peculiar festivities, vulgarly called "devils' delights," were

kept up in its precincts with great spirit; in short, neither man, woman, nor child, had a doubt on the matter-it was the haunt of demons! Those who had ventured-for some had been fool-hardy enough to intrude on their revels-had either never returned to give a description of them, or, like Bully Bottom, had been "strangely translated," their chins having been brought into juxtaposition with the napes of their necks, and their faces, in that untoward predicament, making on all who met them grimaces at once horrible and ridiculous.

Among other marvels, no less religiously believed, there was reported to be in the circle of this enchanted wood an immense brazen caldron, and that a pretty-" hell-broth," as may easily be supposed, was concocted in it; the greensward where it was placed was also said to be fireproof, and the grass to have resisted every attempt that had been made to burn it. Nor was this all; a white horse, without a rider, was at stated intervals seen amusing itself by galloping backwards and forwards over the ridge of the hill, in a very awful manner; indeed, not that white horses were scarce in the country, or that they were not accustomed to indulge in similar pastimes, but a courser like this, in size a perfect monster, could be of no earthly, certainly (a rather small one, by-the-bye) of no Caucasian, breed.