390 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



of the Caspian, which have been mortgaged to her by 

 Persia. If, therefore, Russia intends to relinquish her 

 Eastern policy, she need not care for the subjugation 

 of Circassia, as the country itself is too impracticable 

 to be of any intrinsic value ; but if, as will un- 

 doubtedly be the case, Russia recommences her war 

 with Circassia and the reconstruction of these forts, 

 then we may infer that she has not relinquished that 

 policy, but that she intends again to threaten Turkey 

 when a convenient season offers not this time upon 

 the banks of the Danube, but on those of the Araxes. 

 It is supposed that the rectification of the Bessarabian 

 frontier will secure us against a repetition of the siege 

 of Silistria. The non-reconstruction of the Circassian 

 forts was the only guarantee we could have had against 

 the recurrence of the siege of Kars. It is a pity that 

 the work was left half done. But this is not alL If 

 these forts are rebuilt, that clause of the treaty which 

 announces that the coasts of the Black Sea are for the 

 future opened to the commercial enterprise of all 

 nations will be remarkably restricted. The coast from 

 Anaklea to Anapa will be hermetically sealed against 

 the enterprise of all nations. The Russian troops, 

 posted at short intervals along it, will no more allow 

 a bale of Manchester calicoes to be carried into the 

 country, than they would have allowed a bag of 

 biscuits to be taken into Kars. They will, at all 

 events, bring their blockade within the terms of that 

 clause of the treaty which says, " A blockade, in order 



