THE FAIR CIRCASSIAN. 
721 
day, I took advantage of such fair quarters, and lay down to sleep. 
By the time morning had pretty far advanced, our party were all 
a-stir again; and I was standing out with the rest, enjoying the clear 
freshness of the air, when a band belonging to my old acquaint¬ 
ance, Abul Hassan Khan, (then Persian ambassador in London,) 
approached the village. The people were on their return from 
England to Teheran; and with them in charge, mounted on a sorry 
post-horse, was the celebrated fair Circassian ! His Excellency 
had purchased her at Constantinople, in his way to the west; 
where, I understand, both in Paris and London, she was noticed 
by our European ladies with much kindness ; but the style in 
which I saw her now, produced a sad contrast to what she must 
then have experienced. When the poor creature in approaching, 
discerned my Frangy appearance, in the gladness perhaps of a 
grateful recollection, she was riding forward to address me; but 
in a moment the rough fellow, who was her conductor, laid his 
whip over her shoulders, with so terrible an admonition besides, 
that closing both her lips and her veil, she travelled on with 
doubtless heavy recollections. To interfere in behalf of a woman 
so situated, would cast a sort of contamination on her ; and there¬ 
fore have the effect of Don-Quixotic interruption of the boy’s 
castigation from his master, — only redouble the stripes. 
At three o’clock we obtained horses. Our course lay S. 70 
W. through an undulating country of a similar pasture-surface 
to that described before. Not a tree broke the perfectly smooth 
down. When we had ridden three miles, we passed the village 
of Sachah, which stood rather to our left; and at the end of nine 
more, we arrived at the pretty little town of Chirkiss, embosomed 
in a fine wood, and situated near a very ample stream, crossed by 
a stone bridge. The inhabitants are reputed to be 3000, and 
4 z 
VOL. II. 
