to rejoin their brethren. To fill up a country thus rendered desolate, the Russian Government, a year or two ago, invited colonies of Bulgarians to settle down in the deserted vineyards and gardens. After a time, from one cause or another, they became dissatisfied with the change, and went back to their own country. Hundreds of families of Great Russians and Cossacks have since established themselves in the Crimea. Speculators and merchants have bought up at a nominal price the lands vacated by the Tartars. When the projected communication by railroad between Moscow and Sevastopol is completed, the rest of the Tartar population of the Crimea will probably have disappeared, and the palace of Bakcheserai and a few other spots, will be the only relics of the Tartar conquest and rule. Directly this is done, and Sevastopol becomes as it is stated it will become

-a free commercial port, the Crimea will be to Russia what the Isle of Wight is to England-a summer resort, or a winter residence for the nobility and merchants of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Already during the last few years, a number of pretty bathing villages have sprung up along the southern coast, whither sublime scenery and a genial climate attract hundreds of visitors from all those parts of the Black Sea with which there is any communication.

Before entering on any description of the present state of the Caucasus, and of the progress which Russia has lately made in its subjugation, I wish to say a few words as to the sources from which information about Russia and the Russians is chiefly derived.

Everything connected with that country is supposed to be more or less wrapt in mysterious uncertainty. France and England derive most of their knowledge of it from either Polish or German sources. Few Englishmen or Frenchmen, who visit any part of that colossal empire or its dependencies, can speak the language well enough to make their journey a study of politics or society; and without a knowledge of the language spoken by the people of a country, no satis

factory opinion of them can possibly be formed by the traveller. The writings of the Poles on Russia are so prompted by national hatred, facts and figures are so systematically distorted, that to form a judgment thereon would be like consulting the writings or speeches of an Ultramontane Irish bishop for a knowledge of England and the English. The writings of the Poles on the Russians are only good as a check upon the writings of the Russians on themselves. The Germans, from their connexions in Russia, are those whose accounts are the most correct; yet their very connexions generally make them very reserved in their affirmations. So much is Russian intelligencemistrusted at the present day, so prevailing is the impression that Russian accounts are specially concocted for the digestion of Western Europe, that with some people, Russian statistics are even con-sidered as only part of a system to mislead public opinion abroad. This is only one of the many mistakes about that country which are engendered by ignorance. If Russian statistical works were compiled to mislead foreigners, it should be remembered that they must first of all mislead those for whom they are compiled, viz., Russian administrative officials. To suppose this would be absurd. Perhaps in all Europe are not to be found more correct or more complete statistics. than those of the Russian Empire. The fault is that they are not generally circulated, few are translated, while scarcely any are consulted by those who write about Russia and the Russians. There is, moreover, supposed to be a mysterious secrecy attending all Russian official documents. A ready case will prove my meaning.

In the summer of last year, a tourist in the Black Sea obtained, probably from some Russian officer, a navy list. Thinking he had found a treasure, he immediately copied out of it a list of the real and fictitious ships comprised in the Black Sea and Baltic fleets, and sent it in a letter of alarm to the Times. From the Times it was copied into

half the newspapers of England, by many of which it was thought worthy to become the subject of leading articles. Now, what this gentleman considered a secret and most important document, any consular agent, newspaper reporter, or traveller, who can read the Russian language, might have bought, read, learnt, and inwardly digested. Every month there issue from the Government presses, magazines for every department of the administration; one for the army, another for the navy, the Ministry of the Interior, Public Education, &c. From these, any newspaper correspondent may instruct his readers whenever correct information about Russia is desirable. And it is only from a consultation of such official documents, aided by personal experience, that a just conclusion as to the state of Russia and her dependencies can be derived.

Russian geographers divide the country which we call the Caucasus* into three portions, viz., the CisCaucasus, Caucasus Proper, and the Trans-Caucasus. The first portion is a prolongation of the Steppes up to the rivers Kuban and Terek, the former falling into the Black, the second into the Caspian Sea. Caucasus Proper is that part which is occupied by the central chain of the Caucasian Alps, and the two secondary chains, the Andes and the Tchernya Gora, or Black Mountains. This forms a belt of land of about 200 miles in width extending across the isthmus in a diagonal direction from north-west to southeast, parallel with the courses of the Kuban and the Terek. TransCaucasus consists of the ancient Grusia, Imeritia, Mingrelia, and part of Armenia, inhabited by Georgians, Armenians, Kourds, and Persians. For political purposes, these three divisions are subdivided into ten provinces, viz., the Government of Stavropol, and the Tchernomora, or land of the Black Sea Cossacks, which make up the Cis-Caucasus; the Governments of Tiflis, Erivan,

Kutais, and Bakin, forming the Trans-Caucasus, which extends from the central chain to the Persian and Turkish frontiers; the four districts of Kuban, Terek, Daghestan, and Derbend, which make up Caucasus Proper. Of the first two of these divisions I shall do no more than make occasional mention. They were long ago thoroughly brought under Russian domination. The Georgians and Armenians of the South, in the hopelessness of ever regaining their independence, are so far contented that their persons and religion are protected by a strong government from their Mussulman neighbours; while the Cossacks of the northern province are the most active instruments of the Russian Government in the subjugation of the still independent tribes. It is of the four last mentioned districts that I shall chiefly speak; for it is there that these independent tribes dwell.

The inhabitants known in the west by the common names of Circassians and Georgians, are classed by the ethnographers of Russia into no less than ten distinct nations, subdivided into innumerable tribes, called after the district or the river near which they dwell. The name of a branch of a nation has thus been often mistaken for the nation itself by travellers able to converse with the natives either in the Russian or their vulgar tongue; while to those who could judge only by the eye, the similarity of feature, dress, dwellings, manners and customs among all the Caucasian tribes would lead to a conclusion that they were all one nation. To understand anything of the country, therefore, it is necessary to know somewhat of the descent of its people.

Three great races of the human family have come into contact, clashed or amalgamated among the valleys of the thousand - peaked Caucasus. To the original inhabitants of the Indo-European race broke in at an early epoch the Semitic nations of Asia Minor, and

established their power in the south. In the north-east, the Tartars some centuries since made their inroads, driving back the Indo-Europeans further and further into the mountains. About two hundred years ago, a mixed race of Tartars, Scythians, and Sarmates, then inhabiting lands bordering the Dnieper, fell back before the dominating sway of Poles and Muscovites, and betook themselves to the mountains. In the present day, therefore, the nations of the Caucasus may be divided as follows:- the mongrel breeds of Tartars and Europeans who are settled down in the military colonies in the north; the Semitic Georgians and Armenians of the south; and those nations which inhabit the Caucasus properly so called, which vary in race from pure Indo-European to every mixture of this, with both Semitic and Tartar blood. Although forming many nations, for practical purposes they may be considered as only twothe Adighe, falsely called Tcherkessi or Circassians, and the Daghestaners.

The Adighe is the common name of those peoples of the northern and western portion of the Caucasus, whose iron-bound and thicklywooded coasts extend from the river Kuban to the Cape called Pissunda, and far into the interior beyond the snow-capped heights of Elbrous. The greater part are of Indo-European race, little alloyed by any mixture of Semitic or Tartar blood. In the early part of our era, having felt the influence of the Greek and the Byzantine, as at a later epoch that of the Genoese, and almost in our own day that of the Turk and the Tartar, their religion is a strange mixture of the dogmas and ceremonies of Latin and Greek Christianity and Mahometanism, with much heathenism interspersed. Their Government is patriarchal, and the different tribes form an imperfect sort of Confederation, which is continually being broken by political and religious jealousies. To these tribes Europeans have given the common name of Tcherkessi-the name of a horde of Sclavo-Tartar banditti who broke in upon the Adighe about two centuries ago.

The original Tcherkessi were a Tartar people settled on the lower Dnieper, and the predecessors of the celebrated Cossacks of the Zaporojia. A race of hardy freebooters, they were at once the terror of the Turks on one side and the Tartars on the other, from whom they reIceived the name of Tcherkessi or brigands. Driven at length from the Dnieper to the Don, they settled near that river at a spot which, in its very name, bears the impression of their passage-Novo-Tcherkask, or New Tcherkask, now the chief town of the Don Cossacks, which was founded by these migrating brigands, and so named in memory of that old Tcherkask which they had abandoned on the Dnieper. As Russia extended her sway southward these Tcherkessi retreated across the Kuban and Terek. Among the more Tartar tribes of the north-east they were quickly absorbed. In the north-west, among the Adighe, they encountered more jealousy; but, at length, their superior weapons and military qualities obtained them admission, and they became Works or military chiefs. Their peculiarities of race and religion still distinguish them among the Adighe. As fanatical Mussulmans they have ever been the chief upholders of the Turkish power in this part of the Caucasus; and, as they have ever played the chief part in all the disturbances of which this country has been the seat, both with the Russians and the Turks, their name has been given to the whole people, among whom they originally came as strangers, and by whom as such they are still considered. Thousands of these Tcherkessi have lately emigated to Turkey; thousands also may be found embodied among the Russian irregular troops.

Four powerful tribes make up the nation of the Adighe. Of these, the Shansughi, the Abadzechi, and the Ubuichi, inhabit a part of that belt of land before mentioned, from the shores of the Black Sea to the Elbrous, and still resist step by step the encroachments of the Russians. To the east of the Elbrous, around the great military road which