106 77. Caucasian Mountains and their Inhabitants. 



The domestic life of the Circassians cannot, in a short 

 paper like this, be fully portrayed. I must, however, 

 touch upon those habitudes which mark them as a pecu- 

 liar people. In the iirst place, education is hardly known 

 among them. There may be a village schoolmaster who 

 teaches the boys to read and write sentences from the 

 Koran or from the Zend-a-vesta, the sacred book of the 

 Guebers and Parsees, for there are still some fire-worship- 

 era among the Caspian cliffs of the Caucasus; hut a well 

 educated person is probably not to be found among any 

 of the tribes of this entire territory. The girls are espe- 

 cially neglected, for the men say they cannot Bee of what 

 possible use learning can he to the gentle sex ; and, 

 situated as they are, ignorance may he bliss. But fancy 

 if you can such a state of thing- and the necessary 

 sequence. If they were of a low type, like those in the 

 interior of Africa, our dreams of a mundane paradise and 

 a millenium would be banished both from our Bleeping 

 and our waking hours, and a gloomy grave for humanity 

 would seem to open before us; but here an' a people 

 w 7 ith finely shaped heads, and large well developed brains, 

 and what is to be done with them '( If one cannot read, 

 and there are few or no shopping exactions, no pleasanl 

 streets for a promenade, what remains bin domestic cares 

 and the toiletU .' For these then they are valued, and for 

 these alone, though in the word Unbette I would embrace that 

 beauty, abstract or otherwise, which its arts are designed 

 to enhance. That they are strong, healthy wives, careful, 

 affectionate mothers, 1 cannnot doubt: and it is possible 

 that their position may be an enviable one. if we compare 

 them with the picture recently drawn of our fair Christian 

 BOX, by the able and elegant writer, W. K. Alger; for 

 he says, "There never were so many morally baffled, 

 uneasy, and complaining women on earth, as now, be- 

 cause never before did the capacities of intelligence and 



