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R Hamerton,

INTERIOR OF A CIRCASSIAN HOUSE

Fublished by Henry Colburn, Great Marlborough St. 1840.

A YEAR

AMONG

THE CIRCASSIANS.

TOTHES

BY

J. A. LONGWORTH, ESQ.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1840.

599.

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 mountaineers in their struggle against their oppressors, he was 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 that, 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,

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