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and hectoring to no purpose, he abjectly entreated our dragoman to give him back the chains. But these had already been disposed of to others less difficult to please than himself; however, to rid ourselves of his importunity, we gave him one of the cavalry regulation swords we had brought out. This he carried off with great glee, and having swaggered about the province with it for about a month, declaring to all he met that the sword had been sent to him as a mark of personal respect by his Majesty William the Fourth, he sold it for seven hundred piastres!

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the Russian general to Pehat-Superstitions and qualities of the Circassians-The fortress of Aboonmedanism in the Caucasus.

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that general, agreeably with ven to the Circassians, coma to Pchat. The first serious Acountered was in the Valley of ose locality I have already described. began to close on his troops, a gall

ing fire was kept up from the wooded eminences by which they were overhung; and his artillery having failed to silence it, his progress was for a few days arrested. His only resource, therefore, was his riflemen, a large body of whom had, for the first time, accompanied the army, and were now directed to clear the woods of these skirmishers, a task which, after the Circassians had xhausted their powder, they at length succeeded

accomplishing, and as the rest of the army adnced, continued to protect their flanks on the ights above.

Deeming it of the greatest moment that the rriors by whom we were attended should join,

soon as possible, their countrymen already gaged with the enemy, I was surprised to serve the very leisurely pace at which we rode. e fact was, that the route and intentions of the Issian general having been ascertained, the rm which had at first pervaded the whole country tended now no further than the threatened disict, and our band, sure of overtaking the enemy it last, were unwilling to fatigue their horses by unnecessary exertion. Nobody would have imagined, to have seen them, what the nature of their expedition was sometimes scattered over the field like a hunting party riding to cover-sometimes

very teeth of the astonished and paralyzed Circassians, when Djanboulat, unable to brook this unheard-of complication of loss and disgrace, suddenly flung away his sabre and unsheathed his cama, exclaiming, "If that cannot slay you, beslemeh (nursling) of the devil, this shall! Bismallah!” rushed to the encounter. The sword of his wizard antagonist was received, as it descended, on the gauntleted arm of the Circassian, who, grappling with him forthwith, buried the blade of his cama in his heart. With the fall of their leader fell the hopes and courage of the Tehernamortsies, and the war-ery of the Circassians rose with deafening shrillness from all sides of the plain as they charged and finally put them to the rout. The pursuit was hot, the road strewed with corpses to the Kuban, which few on that day, as the minstrels relate, were destined to repass.

The proceedings of the council had occupied four or five days, in the course of which we had repeatedly changed our residence, ascending from verdant stage to stage the stream of Adheneum. So great an assemblage of people on one spot was necessarily, in the absence of all public funds for the purpose, a heavy tax on their entertainers; no wonder, therefore, they sought to lighten the burden by shifting it as often as they could to the shoulders of different individuals. The country

through which we passed was exceedingly fertile, and, as we again approached the mountains, very picturesque. It is everywhere intersected by inclosures, some composed of quickset hedges, and some of the trunks and branches of trees closely interwoven; so that in its general appearance, as well as in the quality of the soil, a rich black loam, covered with the most luxuriant verdure, the face of the country between the mountains and the plains bore a striking resemblance to that of England. Inclosures here form the only title-deeds to an estate; when once obliterated, the land reverts to the common stock, and may be appropriated on the same conditions by anybody who is disposed to cultivate it. The Circassians cannot see how, except for immediate use, anybody can claim an exclusive right to the soil; with them all the elements are in common, earth as well as air, fire as well as water, since fuel may be had in any quantity for the cutting. Property here consists in the hands employed in cultivation, cattle, and produce already realized. Their ideas with respect to it apparently indicate a nomadic origin. It is true they have houses instead of tents, but they are of the simplest and most uniform construction, mere cages of wickerwork plastered with clay, the same in pattern and materials that have been used for

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