30 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



descends from father to son in the primitive untutored 

 idea that strength — for which the original GoHath of 

 the tribe was selected — passes with the tribal sove- 

 reignty. The Circassians made no mistakes of that 

 kind. To secure a chieftainship because he was the 

 son of his father, to succeed by heredity to what might 

 have been his by hardihood, to have power fall to his 

 hand instead of by it, to miss the savage dehght of 

 wresting goods from the reluctant gods, to remove the 

 necessity for initiative and incentive was never a part 

 of the programme of a Circassian brave. His motto, 

 if he had one, was " Independence." 



Christianity is supposed to have been accepted by 

 the tribe long ages ago, but they ever possessed their 

 sacred groves and sacrificial shrines, in common with 

 many other of the wild men of the Caucasus. They 

 were what we might call pecuharly enhghtened pagans, 

 and continued to be so long after their gathering in to 

 the Islamic fold. 



The final subjugation of the Circassians took place 

 in 1864, when the conquered nation, beaten but not 

 bound, refused to accept the rule of the long-withstood 

 enemy, which, in justice it must be said, lies lightly 

 on all the Caucasian tribes, whose national character- 

 istics and customs are allowed full freedom, and, 

 receiving the offer of land in Turkey, arranged to 

 depart thither in a vast body. All their wealth lay in 

 impossible-to-move assets, in fertile lands, rich orchards, 

 and many cattle. The once powerful people, there- 

 fore, left their home-land beggared. Small vessels 

 sent from Trebizonde to convey the emigrants were 



