FROM THE CIRCASSIAN FRONTIER, 
perhaps not otherwise menacing than that we 
did not understand their language. Irritated as 
they had been by the events of the late war, 
no confidence could have been placed in their 
courtesy, even if any had been manifested; for 
although hospitality among savage nations be a 
sacred duty, revenge is not less an object of 
their veneration 1 . We therefore reluctantly 
retired, and, once more regaining our canoes, 
for ever bade adieu to a country which seemed 
to baffle every project that could be devised by 
mere travellers for its investigation. Nothing 
less than an army, at tips time, could have 
enabled us to penetrate farther : and even with 
such an escort, like Denon in Egypt, our obser- 
vations might have been restricted to the limits 
of the camp in which we must have lived. 
(1) Among the Circassians , the spirit of resentment is so greab 
that all the relatives of the murderer are considered as guilty. Th> s 
eustomary infatuation to avenge the blood of relatives generates nu> it 
of the feuds, and occasions great bloodshed, among all the tribes of 
Caucacasus ; for unles pardon be purchased, or obtained by inter- 
marriage between the two families, the principle of revenge is propa- 
gated to all sueeeding generations. The hatred which the mountainou* 
nations evince against the Russians in a great measure arises from 
same source. If the thirst of vengeance is quenched by a price paid 
the family of the deceased, this tribute is called TIM-Uasa, or Thef fke 
of Hood : but neither Princes nor Vsdcns accept of such a compensation, 
as it is an established law among them to demand blood for blood’. 
Pallas’s Travels, vol. I. p. 405. 
