424 Mr. Bell on the growing power of Russia. 
sian army to cross (but not with heavy artillery) the Hindoo Khoo 
or the Solymanic range, if unopposed, for that has been often 
done, both by Mongols, and Tartars, and Afghans; (but then 
these practicable passes were not defended against the invaders.) 
But I maintain, if the passes be secured by men and officers qua- 
lified to defend them, and prevent the enemy, by any military 
stratagem, from turning the rear of the passes, no Russian army 
can cross them. The dream of an Indian invasion will not be 
realized, if ever, for many years to come ; and if, by that time, we 
are not prepared to prevent their approach in the manner I have 
supposed, and by seizing the passes of the Indus, the fault is our 
own, and we shall deserve to lose a conquest we had valour te 
achieve, but had not wisdom and prudence to preserve. 

Note on the Slave-Trade of the Phasis. 
To the disgrace of Christianity, the natives of both Georgia and Mingrelia, 
though professing the Christian faith, were the most dissolute of mankind, and 
made no scruple to sell their children and vassals to the Mohamedans of Tur- 
key and Persia. Mingrelia alone supplied an annual exportation of 12,000 
slaves to the bazaars of Constantinople. In Chardin’s days, a Mingrelian am- 
bassador arrived at Constantinople with a train of 200 persons, and sold them 
day by day till none were left but his secretary and two valets; and Chardin 
allows that a Mingrelian, in order to obtain his mistress, sold twelve priests and 
his wife to the Turks. The population of Mingrelia, at one time, was ridicu- 
lously estimated at four millions by the missionary Lamberti, and that the - 
Suavi, er mountaineers, could furnish 200,000 soldiers, a single tribe of the 
many that inhabit the Caucasus, and yet Kinnier adopts the numbers of Min- 
grelian population above given from Lamberti. Chardin allows only 20,000 
for the population of Mingrelia. Such is the absurdities of travellers! 
Tote on the Geography of the Isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian. 
Since the treaty of Gulistan in 1813, between Russia and Persia, many maps 
of the Caucasus and the adjacent countries have been published at St. Peters- 
burgh. In 1619, a Russian map, entitled “‘ A Detailed Map of Georgia, and 
the Countries which have been re-united to it, by Lieut.-Col. Verchorski,” 
12 sheets, with a table of contents, was printed. But that performance is a 
shapeless mass, without graduation, and without the indication of mountains, 
or mountain ranges. It is of that kind which represents the Caucasian coun- 
try as one vast plain, without the smallest elevation. Another map, of one 
sheet, is better executed, published the same year, and is entitled, “‘ A Gene- 
ral Map of the Countries situated between the Black and Caspian Seas, with 
the New Frontier Line between Russia and Persia delineated, reduced from 
the most recent maps, by Major-General Khatov.”’ A defective copy of this 
sheet has been inserted in the travels of Chevalier Gamba in Georgia. In 1826, 
there appeared a new map of the Caucasian conntries, under the French title 
of “ A large Map of Georgia, and a part of Persia, by Major-General Khatov, 
published from the general depot of maps at St. Petersburgh, in 7 great sheets, 
3 half sheets, and 2 small sheets.” A part of that large map, considerably en- 
larged and rectified, was re-published in 1827 in Russian, under the title of 
“* The Theatre of the War with the Persians.” These two maps of 1826 and 
1627, are the best that have yet been published of Georgia and the Persian 
frontier, as settled in 1813 by the peace of Gulistan.—See Nowveau Journal 
Asiatique, No. II. p. 148. 
