The Caucasian Mountains and their Inhabitants. 119 



silks, cotton goods and various wares, which find their 

 way from the city of the sultan to these sterile cliffs, the 

 sandales, which bring to the former that gentle, flut- 

 tering, living freight we have been contemplating, carry 

 back those arms and ammunition which have enabled the 

 Circassians for so many years to maintain their successful 

 war against the Russians. 



In this last named traffic, lie the strongest incentives 

 the invaders have to stop the Circassian slave trade ; and 

 if they can be persuaded by their priests that it is for the 

 good of the souls of these willing emigrants to have them 

 arrested and made to serve involuntarily, those whom 

 they detest as the desolators of their homes, the murderers 

 of their fathers and brothers, of course the moral influence 

 is presumed to be the paramount one; and perhaps the 

 generous large-hearted Russians persuade themselves that 

 it is so. 



God's light falls mid the deepest shadows of a tangled 

 forest ; there are germs of beautiful life in the meanest 

 sod of our common earth ; should we not then look 

 gently, compassionately, affectionately even, on those 

 compelled to live so far beneath our own good fortunes; 

 for they have souls, but only sparse and flickering light to 

 make them lovable ; they have capacious intellects, but 

 no golden book of wisdom in which to read of higher, 

 brighter things. 



