PREFACE.

THE reader will learn, in the course of this narrative, the reasons which induced the writer to take a voyage to Circassia. Warmly sympathizing with the patriotic mountair eers in their struggle against their oppressors, he as himself, during his twelvemonth's residence among them, too actively engaged and too deeply absorbed in it to find leisure for literary composition It was only on his return to Constantinople tha at the recommendation of his friends, he undertook to draw up some account of what he had witnessed, while his recollections were fresh, and the interest

now awakened at home on the subject might

render it acceptable.

Without entering at present into the causes that have made the soil of Circassia untrodden, if not forbidden, ground to the traveller, it is sufficient. to assert the fact, as an apology for publishing sketches, which, however superficial, have at least the negative merit of novelty to recommend them. All that has been written on the subject of this country may be summed in a few words. Klaproth's work is one of great antiquarian research, and so far valuable, but his account of a country into which he never penetrated is necessarily meagre and imperfect. Pallas, though a lively writer, labours under a similar disqualification. The Chevalier Taitbout de Marigny visited Circassia in times comparatively peaceful and prosperous, and his amiable character harmonizing with the subject, has invested it with a peculiar charm to those who have found the scenes he so faithfully describes a theatre of the most desolating warfare.

Marigny touched at three places on the coast,

but did not travel into the interior. The first person to do so was Mr. Urquhart; but his visit, though itself an era in the destinies of Circassia, was very brief; nor has he favoured the world with the result of his observations. After him came Mr. Stewart, whose journal, as far as it goes, is faithful and spirited. Mr. Bell has also furnished a narrative of his first expedition; in his second, I was for a whole year almost constantly associated with him, and we were in the course of it subsequently joined by Mr. Knight.

I speak advisedly when I say that no other Europeans, besides those I have enumerated, have ever visited Circassia, always excepting the army of the invaders. The landing of an European there is too extraordinary an event not to be deeply imprinted on the recollection of the whole population, nor has such occurred within the memory of man that forms not still a common topic of conversation there.

The vernacular language of Circassia possesses, as far as I am aware, no affinity with any other known tongue, Asiatic or European; and as,

during my residence there, I found Turkish very generally spoken by the chiefs, elders, &c., I took no pains to make myself master of the former; indeed, even among the people at large, many words and expressions have been adopted from the Turkish, or rather Tartar; and this, in addition to the circumstance of being my own medium of communication with them, will account for the frequent insertion of Turkish phrases in the course of the narrative.

It may, perhaps, be as well to add here that I was the Correspondent of "The Times," and contributed to that Journal the slight notices of Circassia that appeared in its columns during my stay in that country, which, however, will not be found. in these volumes.