friends. His health suddenly but opportunely failed, a change of air,-of water Eastern M.D.'s would say,- became necessary; a journey to Europe was recommended; a passport was taken, rather than granted; and the great Shervashiji, like many other princes, went to try the waters. That the said waters should in a few months have restored his health was quite natural; it was, however, somewhat singular that they should at the same time have had an Osmanlizing effect on his own constitution. Some say they were the waters of the Bosphorus that acted on him thus ; others attribute it to a reaction produced by the waters of the Volga, which, in a visit to Moscow, he drank near their source about this very time. Certainly on his return strange and anti-Muscovite symptoms appeared. His new residence at So'ouk-Soo, the ancestral seat of his independence, rose on a Turkish model; his manners, his speech, grew less Russian. It was noticed, too, that on entering church he no longer uncovered his head, a decided hint, said the Russians, that church and mosque were for him on much the same footing. Perhaps the Russians were not far wrong.

Then came 1864, the great Circassian emigration-i.e. the expulsion of well nigh a million of starving and plundered wretches from their country, for the crime of having defended that country against strangers-was accomplished; in Eastern phrase, the Abkhasian "back was cut," and now came their turn to receive the recompence of their fidelity to Russia and their infidelity to their native Caucasus. The first and main tool of Tiflis had been Michael Shervashiji; he was accordingly the first to receive his stipend.

Too late aware what that stipend was likely to be, he had retired into an out-of-the-way country residence some hours to the interior, behind Otchemchiri. Here, in November, 1864, the Russian "pay-day" found him, in the shape of a detachment of soldiers sent by his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Michael to invite and escort him to the viceregal presence at Tiflis. Whether thinking that resistance would only make matters worse, or reckoning on the deceptive chances of what is called "an appeal to generosity," the Beg at once gave himself up to the troops. By them he was forthwith conducted, not to Tiflis, but to the coast, where lay the ship appointed to convey him to Kertch, whence began his destined journey to Russia and Siberia. A traitor, he met a traitor's recompence, and that, as was most fitting, at the hands of those in whose behalf his life had been for thirty-five years one prolonged treason to his country. Yet that country wept him at his departure he was their born prince, after all, and no stranger-and they wept him still more when the news of his death-the ready consequence of exile at an advanced age into the uncongenial Siberian climate and Siberian treatment, but by popular rumour attributed to Russian poison-reached them in the spring of 1866. His corpse was brought back to his native mountains, and he was buried amid the tears and wailings of his Abkhasian subjects.

They had, indeed, already other cause for their wailings. Hardly had

their last prince ceased to live, than measures were taken by the viceregal Government for the nominal demarcation, the real confiscation, of the lands of the Abkhasian nobility; while the peasants, for their part, found the little finger of Russian incorporization heavier than all the loins. of all the Shervashijis. Russian custom-houses formed a cordon along the coast; Russian Cossacks and Natchalnicks were posted everywhere up the country; the whole province was placed under Russian law and military administration; Abkhasian rights, Abkhasian customs and precedents were henceforth abolished. More still, their religion, the great supplement of nationality in the East-because in its Eastern form it embodies whatever makes a nation, its political and social, its public and private being-was now menaced. Russian chronologists discovered that the Abkhasians had once been Christians, whence the Tiflis Government drew the self-evident conclusion that they had no right to be at present Mahometans. An orthodox bishop or archbishop, I forget which, of Abkhasia, appeared on the scene, and the work, or rather the attempt at proselytism was diligently pushed forward by enticement and intimidation under hierarchical auspices. Lastly, a census of the population,-a process which ever since David numbered the children of Israel and brought on them the plague in consequence, has been in ill-odour in the East, was ordered.

Of the Shervashiji family many remained. Michael's own brother, Alexander, still resided, though without authority, at So'ouk-Soo; George, Michael's eldest son, now a Russian officer, and the Grand Duke's aidede-camp, had returned from Petersburg, where no amount of champagne and cards had been spared to make him a genuine Russian; epaulettes and aigrettes would, it was to be hoped, retain him such. But bred in the bone will not out of the flesh, and he was still a Shervashiji, nor had he forgotten the rights of heir-apparent. Another and a powerful branch of the same family, the relatives of Said Beg Shervashiji of Kelasoor, a Mahometan, and who had died poisoned it was said by his Christian kinsman and rival, Michael, were also in the country, and seemed inclined to forget family quarrels in the common cause. Besides these were two other "houses" of special note, the Marshians and the Ma'ans. The former had, like the Shervashijis, been in general subservient to Russiasome had even apostatized from Islam; but their chief, Shereem Beg, a Mahometan, had married Michael Shervashiji's sister, and state marriages in the East are productive of other results than mere non-interventions and children. The other family, the Ma'ans, staunch Islam, had for some time previous broken off Russian connection: one of them, Mustapha Agha, had even taken service in the Ottoman army. Their head, Hasan Ma'an, had quitted his Abkhasian abode at Bambora, half way between Soukhoum and So'ouk-Soo, for the Turkish territory of Trebizond, where he lived within call, but without grasp.

Discontent was general and leaders were not wanting; yet just and judicious measures on the part of the Russians might have smoothed all

down; but their Nemesis and that of Abkhasia had decreed that such measures should not be taken,—the exact reverse.

In the month of July, 1866, a commission headed by the civilian Cheripoff had come from Tiflis to complete the survey and estimate of the lands, those of the Shervashijis in particular. This commission had taken up its head-quarters at So'ouk-Soo along with the local military Governor, Ismailoff, and a body of Cossacks about two hundred strong. Some of these last were stationed at the coast village of Gouda'outa, a few miles distant. To So'ouk-Soo now flocked all the discontented chiefs, and of course their followers; for no Abkhasian noble can stir a foot out of doors without a "tail" of at least thirty, each with his long slender-stocked gun, his goat-hair cloak, his pointed head-dress, and, for the rest, a knife at his girdle, and more tears than cloth in his tight grey trousers and large cartridge-breasted coat. Some mezzotints in Hughes' Albanian Travels, old edition, two volumes quarto, where Suliotes, Albanians, and the like are to be seen clambering over rocks, gun on shoulder, in the evident intention of shooting somebody, give a tolerable idea of these fellows, only they are more ragged than the heroes of the said mezzotints, also less ferocious. The commission lodged in the houses about the Meidan; the Abkhasians-for it was summer--camped on the Meidan itself, filling it with guns and gutturals.

Much parleying took place. The Abkhasians were highly excited-why, we have already seen; the Russians, not yet aware with whom they had to deal, were insolent and overbearing. The fire of contest was, unavowedly but certainly, fanned by many of the Abkhasian chiefs, not unwilling to venture all where they saw that if they ventured nothing they must lose all. Alexander Shervashiji was there in his own house on the Meidan; his nephew George had arrived from Tiflis: the Russian decorations on his breast lay over a heart no less anti-Russian than his uncle's and his father's-so at least said the Russians: perhaps it suited them to incriminate the last influential representatives of the Shervashiji family. There too were many of the Marshians: was Shereem Beg amongst them? Some said, some denied. "Se non è vero è ben trovato," was the Russian conclusion. But more active than any, more avowedly at the head of what now daily approached nearer to revolt, were the two Ma'an brothers, Mustapha and Temshook-the former lately returned from Turkey-both men of some talent and of much daring.

Meanwhile news of all this was brought to Colonel Cognard, the Russian Governor-General of Abkhasia, and then resident at SoukhoumKalé. A violent, imperious man, full of contempt for all "natives," and like many of foreign origin, more Russian than the Russians themselves, he imagined that his presence at So'ouk-Soo would at once suffice to quell the rising storm and awe the discontented into submission. Accordingly, on the first week of August, he arrived on the scene, and lodged in the great house of Alexander Shervashiji-whither, in consequence, the whole attention of either party, Russian and Abkhasian, was now directed.

Throughout the whole of this affair, it is curious to observe how the Russians, men of no great sensibility themselves, ignored the sensibilities of others, and seemed to think that whatever the injury, whatever the wrong, inflicted by a Russian Government, it ought to arouse in its victims no other feeling than resignation at most. Here in Abkhasia the hereditary ruler of the country had, after life-long services, in time of profound tranquillity, with nothing proved or even distinctly charged against him, been suddenly dragged into exile and premature death; his family, those of all the Abkhasian nobility, had been deprived of their rights, and threatened with the deprivation of their property; ancestral customs, law, religion, national existence,-for even Abkhasians lay claim. to all these, had been brought to the verge of Russian absorption into not-being; and the while Cognard with his friends could not imagine the existence of any Abkhasian discontent that would not at once be appeased, be changed into enthusiastic, into Pan-slavistic loyalty, by the appearance of that "deus ex machiná" a Russian Governor-General. Vid. Warsaw passim.

Nemesis willed it otherwise. Cognard's demeanour was brutal, his every word an insult. The nobles presented their griefs; he refused to recognize them as nobles. The peasants clamoured; he informed them that they were not Abkhasians but Russians. In vain Alexander Shervashiji and the Marshians, sensible and moderate men the most, expostulated and represented that the moment was not one for additional irritation; Cognard was deaf to expostulation and advice; his fate was on him. It did not delay. On the 8th of August a deputation composed of the principal Abkhasian nobility laid before him a sort of Oriental ultimatum in the form of an address; the Russian Governor-General answered it by kicking address and nobles out of doors. It was noon: a cry of vengeance and slaughter arose from the armed multitude on the Meidan.

The assault began on the Cossacks stationed about the house; they were no less unprepared than their masters, and could offer but little resistance. Already the first shots had been fired and blood had flowed when Cognard sent out George Shervashiji to appease those who should by right have been his subjects-whose rebellion was, in fact, for his own father's sake. That he never returned is certain. By his own account, which was confirmed on most hands, he did his best to quiet the insurgents, but unsuccessfully. They forced him aside, said he, and detained him. at a distance while the outbreak went on. The Russians ascribed to him direct participation in what followed; the reasons for such imputation are palpable, the fact itself improbable.

In a few minutes the Cossacks before the gate were overpowered and slaughtered; the Abkhasians burst into the house. Its owner, Alexander Shervashiji, met them on the inner threshold, and implored them to respect the sanctity of their chief's hearth. But that moment had gone by, and the old man was laid hold of by his countrymen and led away-respectfully indeed, but in a manner to preclude resistance-while the massacre

begun without doors continued within. Whatever was Russian perished: the luckless Commissioner from Tiflis first; Cognard's aide-de-camp and his immediate suite were cut down; but the main search of the insurgents was after Cognard himself. A Russian picture, largely copied and eireulated, represents him seated composedly in his chair, unblenched in feature, unmoved in limb, confronting his assailants. Pity that so artistic a group should have existed only in the artist's own imagination. The Colonel had not, indeed, made good his retreat, but he had done his best thereto by creeping up the large fireplace, of Abkhasian fashion, in the principal room. Unfortunately for him his boots protruded downwards into the open space; and by these the insurgents seized him, dragged him out to the mid apartment and there despatched him. His colleague, Ismailoff, had a worse fate. Specially obnoxious to the inhabitants of So'ouk-Soo for the impudence of his profligacy, he was first mutilated and then hewn piecemeal, limb by limb. It is said that the dogs were already eating morsels of his flesh before life had left his body. Such atrocities are not uncommon in the East where female honour is concerned, rare else. At So'ouk-Soo Ismailoff was the only instance.

All was now in the hands of the insurgents, who sacked and burnt the houses of Russian tenants, killing all they found. Only twenty Cossacks escaped, and these owed their lives to the humane exertions of the wife of Alexander Shervashiji, who gave them refuge in her own apartments, and kept them there safe till the massacre was over. A few Georgians and Mingrelians, a Pole too, though wearing the Russian uniform, were also spared. "You are not Russians, our quarrel is not with you," said the Abkhasians, as they took the men's arms, and sent them off uninjured to Soukhoum.

On the same afternoon the insurgents attacked the nearest Russian post, that of the Cossacks stationed on coast-guard at Gouda'outa. Here, too, the assailants were successful, the Russians were killed to a man, and their abode was burnt. The Nemesis of Abkhasia had completed another stage of her work.

"To Soukhoum" was now the cry; and the whole mass of armed men, now about three thousand in number, were in movement southwards along the coast, through thickets and by-paths, to the Russian stronghold. Next morning, from two to three hundred had already crossed the Gumista, a broad mountain torrent north of Soukhoum, and were before, or rather behind the town.

A small crescent of low one-storied houses, mostly wood, SoukhoumKalé lies at the bottom of a deep bay with a southerly aspect. At its western extremity is the Old Fort, ascribed to the Genovese, but more probably of Turkish date, whence Soukhoum derives the adjunct of "Kela'at," or "Castle" (Kalé is erroneous, but we will retain it for custom's sake), a square building, with thick walls of rough masonry and a few flanking bastions; within is room for a mustered regiment or more. From the town crescent some straight lines, indications of roads, run perpendicularly