TRAVELS IN CIRCASSIA. 359 



"weighty matter having been settled, we held some 

 interesting discourse with our host, who, like our 

 last, was a pilgrim or Hadji, and who also professed 

 a decided antipathy for the Xaib. He considered 

 that gentleman a great deal too much addicted to 

 forms and ceremonies a sort of Puseyite, in fact, 

 and consequently an object of aversion in his low- 

 church eyes. He said that he was introducing 

 fanatical customs, which were destroying the sim- 

 plicity of the Circassian character, and which had 

 for their ultimate aim and object his own self- 

 aggrandisement. He had an infinitely higher respect 

 for Schamyl, but then Schamyl lived two hundred 

 miles off, and he could afford to respect him; the 

 Xaib Avas his nearest neighbour, and constantly 

 threatening his influence in his own country. More- 

 over, he expressed a very low opinion of the military 

 capacity of the lieutenant of Schamyl, and remarked 

 with a sneer upon the singular custom which pre- 

 vailed with respect to him in time of war. The 

 Kaib, he said, had so great a reputation for prowess 

 in battle, that wherever he was likely to meet the 

 enemy in the field, he was always accompanied by 

 four men, whose business it was to hold him back. 



"We had reason afterwards to congratulate our- 

 selves upon the liberal religious sentiments of our 

 host, who despised that narrow-minded injunction of 

 the Prophet, which commands the women to veil 

 their faces. I happened after dinner to stroll into 



VOL. vi. 2 A 



