392 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Scliamyl : one was, that his assistance was never 

 asked ; and another, that he had no army and it 

 is universally admitted that it is impossible for a 

 general to carry on a campaign in an enemy's country 

 without one. Nevertheless our statesmen expected 

 this of Schamyl, and of all the other chieftains in 

 the range ; the fact being that Circassians are guerillas 

 without either land-transport or commissariat corps, or 

 artillery, or infantry, or anything, in fact, but ponies, 

 and are indomitable upon their own mountain-tops. 

 If, therefore, we had expected their co-operation, we 

 should have asked them to do something in their own 

 country block up the Russian passes, for instance 

 and had we sent them a few regular soldiers and 

 some money, we should have had their co-operation 

 most cordially offered. As it was, when we asked 

 the Naib to attack the Eussians, he did, and got well 

 beaten in Karachai ; and when we asked the people 

 of Ubooch to raise a contingent, they did, and their 

 irregular horse accompanied Omer Pasha on the cam- 

 paign, until all the horses died of starvation, as they 

 were allowed neither pay nor rations, and were for- 

 bidden to plunder, and the men returned on foot to 

 their own valleys, to praise the generosity of the 

 Allies, and, after losing their property, to hear from 

 Constantinople that they did nothing to deserve 

 sympathy, and that the forts are all to be rebuilt, 

 which are to exclude them for ever from intercourse 

 with the rest of their species. 



