The Caucasian Mountains and their Inhabitants. 103 



like goats the wierd and rugged paths that lead from 

 ravine to ravine and from cliff to cliff. I have had some 

 experience myself with these fine animals, one having 

 swam with me across a dismal lagoon and carried me 

 safely in the darkest of nights through a dense, tangled, 

 pathless forest. I have also ascended the old Syrian 

 mountains on horseback, the beast, like these just referred 

 to, making his sure way up steps that had been cut in 

 the rocky declivity ; and it is at such times, if ever, that 

 one becomes attached to his four-footed companion, for 

 you cling to him then for safety and he does not disap- 

 point, you, and your memory returns gratefully to him 

 when years have glided away. 



With such tribes as these of the Caucasus, with such 

 means of escape, with such almost inaccessible homes, 

 can you not imagine with what terrible difficulties, with 

 what loss of life, with what expense, suffering, and some- 

 time humility, war has long been waged with them by 

 the Northmen. And this struggle has at times been 

 carried on, apparently in mere sport ; but we know that 

 the Russians are not a cruel, but a generous, hospitable 

 people. I am aware, however, that a military expedition 

 was gotten up and sent into the mountains against Scha- 

 myl, the Garibaldi of that realm, to please a distinguished 

 Frenchman. This foreigner, doubtless, wished to see, to 

 know, all the details of these desperate raids, that .he or 

 his master might use the same, if effective, against the 

 Kabyls of Algeria with whom the French were then waging 

 a similar warfare. 



Had the propriety, or humanity, of this thing been 

 questioned, the reply doubtless would have been, that 

 sooner or later it would necessarily have taken place ; 

 and that ordering it and putting it into execution at that 

 particular time, was merely precipitating the affair, and 

 hence could not be a subject of censure. 



