408 The Hunting Grounds 



resque, or the sportsman instead of forming one of 

 that horde of sight-seers annually discharged on the 

 Continent to take his lounge one afternoon in Rotten 

 Row, and that day fortnight to find himself sipping 

 coffee in the midst of a circle of mountaineers, in one 

 of the romantic gorges of the Caucasus ; where a man's 

 worth is not estimated by the length of his pocket, 

 but according to the gifts bestowed upon him by Nature, 

 and the manner in which he makes use of them. Yes, 

 my gentle reader, notwithstanding the tales you may 

 have heard of the barbarity of the Circassians, in 

 selling their daughters to the panders of Osmanli 

 harems, and the maidens' passive apathetic resigna- 

 tion to such a fate, I maintain that it is the force of 

 circumstances alone that has brought this revolting 

 custom about. It must be remembered that the 

 gallant tribes of the mountains have been engaged in 

 a bloody war, against fearful odds, for the last eighty 

 years : consequently there has been a continual drain 

 upon the male population the number of men fall- 

 ing annually in battle against the invaders far 

 exceeding the number of male children born. Such 

 having been the case for nearly a century, naturally 

 enough there is a great disproportion between the 

 sexes, and, notwithstanding that polygamy exists, it is 

 a matter of difficulty for all the "gentler sex" to 

 obtain protectors ; and, as " antiquated spinsters" are 

 of a genus unknown in the Caucasus, it is not to be 



