386 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Eussiaii ears. Their country has always been a region 

 of terror to the Muscovites, who have never succeeded 

 in penetrating it ; and with the exception of a Baron 

 Turnau, an officer who had been taken prisoner, and 

 kept in confinement amongst them for some time, 

 it was, prior to our visit, a complete terra incognita. 

 Indeed, as this gentleman was kept a close prisoner, 

 his description of the country was very meagre. The 

 best account of the episodes in which the Uboochians 

 have figured is to be gathered from Russian sources ; 

 for though by no means trustworthy, they are more 

 to be relied upon than the fables of the mountaineers. 

 Dr Wagner, who visited Ardiller in 1843, gives some 

 interesting details which he obtained from the officer 

 then in command. Three years before, this tribe, 

 together with some of the Shapsugh warriors, stormed 

 four Russian forts sword in hand. Out of the five 

 hundred soldiers composing the garrisons, only eleven 

 survived, and these were made prisoners. An enor- 

 mous number of Circassians, however, fell in the 

 assault, and perished in one of the forts, which was 

 ultimately blown up by a Russian soldier. In the 

 following year, the Czar determined to avenge this 

 disaster, and sent a mixed force of about three thou- 

 sand men to Ardiller, who attempted to penetrate 

 into Ubooch, between that fort and Soucha. They 

 no sooner turned inwards, however, than they were 

 attacked furiously by the Uboochians under Ali Oku, 

 the grandson of the old chief just mentioned, and 



