Departing, the distinguished guest is accompanied out of the aoul by a gallant array of horsemen singing in full chorus their war songs; with perhaps a wandering minstrel to chant the praises of some hero; and it may be an astrologer or soothsayer to predict a happy termination to the journey of the guest they speed on his way. With equal comfort, if with less ceremony, is entertained the humbler traveller, who is entitled to ask shoes for his feet and a coat to his back of any man who has a supply of these necessaries; while a party of warriors on their journey may demand no less freely a kid from the flock or an ox from the herd. For there are three virtues, says a Circassian proverb, either one of which entitles the possessor to celebrity—bravery, eloquence, or hospitality—more literally, a sharp sword, a sweet tongue, or forty tables.
Though females are bought and sold in Circassia, and are deemed rather the helpmates than the companions of man, a chivalrous regard for the sex characterizes this race of warriors; and in no nation perhaps is woman in circumstances of exposure more certain of receiving respectful treatment. The warrior may place his arms around the neck of the maiden and let its steel-clad burden weigh gracefully upon her shoulders, but the familiarity which is modestly allowed as if it were that of a father or a brother does not degenerate into insult. And when the fair girl has once won this violently beating heart, and becomes the warrior's bride, she turns as coy as a western damsel in her teens. After marriage the fading of her early maidenly beauty is concealed as much as possible from the uxorious eye; in her white mantle her form is always graceful; by the evening fireside her presence never ceases to be a natural ornament and charm; and thus is kept up through a period of years, in the absence of confidential social intercourse, at least a certain portion of the illusion of first love.
But the principal characteristic of the manners of the Circassian warrior consists in his graceful, manly air and bearing. A strong sense of personal independence, of superiority even, is expressed in his looks, motions, and attitudes. Conscious of physical energy and bravery of soul, he has ever the self-possessed air of a man who knows no fear. The chivalrous sentiments of war fire his eye, distend his breast, and give erectness to his figure. His tread is as light as that of an Apollo; his repose as stately as that of an Aristides. Indeed it could not be otherwise than that there should be a native grace and dignity in the port of such lovers of liberty and their country as, for example, Mansur Bey, who said, "While the soul is in my mouth this country shall never be given to the Russian; when I die, I can no longer help it." The Circassian chieftain's blunt honesty and simple love of truth, his freedom from sordid selfishness and detestation of unmanly indulgences, give to his manners that stamp of heroism which all men admire in a Sickingen or a Cid. Even his vices, his hatred of an enemy, his contempt for a foreigner, his jealousy of rivals, his implacable love of revenge, have in them a dash of barbaric greatness, and nothing of the petty meanness of the vices of civilization and the times of peace.
XXV.
HIS PREDECESSORS.—MAHOMET-MOLLAH.
It was several years after Schamyl had taken his place in society as a warrior of full age, that his name first appeared in the annals of the Circassian war of independence. This was in connection with the siege of Himri, where he served as murid or disciple under the chieftain Khasi-Mollah.
This leader sprang up about the year 1830, and commenced a war of resistance to Russian encroachment in the eastern Caucasus, which was destined greatly to exceed in importance that which since the treaty of Adrianople had been waged by the Circassians proper in the western. For the latter contest, though a gallant and a successful one, has not down to the present time amounted to more than a guerilla, often interrupted by long intervals of quiet, and never prosecuted with any regularity of plan or permanent union of forces.
In the eastern Caucasus the flame of the war which has now been raging for a quarter of a century, was originally kindled at the torch of religious fanaticism. For Khasi-Mollah was a disciple of one Mahomet-Mollah, who was a cadi in the aoul of Jarach, in the khanate of Kurin, and who was reputed to be the wisest alim or teacher of Mahometan righteousness in the territory of Daghestan. The patriotic heart of this learned doctor had long been burning within him when, in the year 1823, he was induced, through the representations of one of his former pupils, to make a visit to another holy man in Schirwan, Hadis-Ismail by name, who expounded the Sufite doctrine to him more fully, and made a practical application of it to the political condition of his countrymen.