Sometimes the Circassians dash through between the forts without stopping to attack them, and suffering, perhaps, somewhat from the cross-fire, gain the country beyond the line, where they find more abundant spoils and no resistance. But on their return, they are sure to encounter the Cossacks drawn up at the ford, or some other point convenient for disputing the passage to an enemy encumbered with booty. These Russian hirelings, however, the freemen of the mountains despise, and with superior horses ride them down. Only when the espionage which is maintained among all the tribes on the border—for everywhere there are souls which can be bought for gold—succeeds in procuring for their enemies information of any incursion before it takes place, is the foray rendered unsuccessful and the troop cut off.
XXIX.
RUSSIAN MODE OF WARFARE.
The Russian mode of conducting the invasion of the Caucasus has been different at different times. When the Emperor Nicholas, after the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, revived the old war with Circassia in order to compel by force of arms the acknowledgment of those pretended rights of supremacy which by that treaty had been made over to him by Turkey, he supposed that his Cossacks, aided by a small force of infantry, would be sufficient to intimidate the mountaineers and to accomplish his purpose. Earlier in the century, Russia had acquired from Persia the vast provinces of the southern Caucasus, and had afterwards, partly by the consent of the tribes and partly by force, succeeded in keeping open the two great routes to these possessions, the one along the Caspian, and the other over the centre of the chain by the pass of Dariel. It remained therefore to subjugate only that portion of the Caucasus not included in the territories adjacent to these two roads, and lying the larger portion of it south of the Kuban, and the smaller south of the Terek.
Nicholas accordingly sent his proclamations into the mountains saying, "Russia has conquered France, put her sons to death, and made captives of her daughters. England will never give any aid to the Circassians, because she depends on Russia for her daily bread. There are only two powers in the universe—God in heaven, and the emperor on earth! What then do you expect? Even though the arch of heaven were to fall, there are Russians enough to hold it up on the points of their bayonets!" At the same time, while the Cossack colonies which had been planted in line along the northern banks of the Kuban and the Terek were reinforced from the hordes of their brethren on the Black Sea and the Don, the long spears of these united horsemen were strengthened by the bayonets of a few thousand infantry—the vanguard of hundreds of thousands who were to come after them.
But the Circassians heard with incredulous ears the big words of the lieutenants of the czar. They knew not, besides, why he should pretend to rule over them. The Turks had indeed enjoyed the privilege of establishing fortified places of trade on their coasts, and as most of the tribes had been converted from paganism by Mahometan missionaries, they looked upon the sultan as their spiritual head and Allah's vicegerent, but they did not consider their free mountains as in any sense his domain, nor liable by any treaty stipulations to be transferred to another superior, much less to the unbelieving Padischah of the "flax-haired Christian dogs," and their old enemies, the Muscovites. Accordingly, like true and independent men and the sons of sires who without let or hinderance had pastured their flocks in these mountains since the days of the patriarchs, they refused to give up the ancient freedom of their homes, built on the rocks, at the bidding of the minions of the autocrat of the North.
The Cossacks who came galloping across the steppes on small, shaggy horses, and armed with unwieldly lances, the mountaineers looked upon with contempt. They sabred them and rode them down. As for the Russian infantry, they were terror-struck at the sound of the yell with which these centaurs of the mountains dashed into the thickest of their ranks, shooting them down with pistols, striking back their bayonets with their sabres, leaping from their saddles to poniard them, and the next instant gone on a gallop with the wind. The soldier who had been at the retreat from Moscow, and at the crossing of the Borodino, and who was a good and true grenadier, sturdy, brave, obedient to the word of command, felt all his forces desert him before the onset of such reckless riders and accomplished swordsmen. Once across the Kuban or the Terek, he never felt sure of his life, for there was always a Circassian lying in wait for him. When the column was wending its way through the narrow valley wherein nature held her supreme and silent reign, save that the tiny brook ran with gurgling sounds over its rocks and pebbles, or the nightingale made the thickets vocal with its song, or the bees flitting from flower to flower diffused through the air a pleasing murmur, wherein the oak spread its peaceful branches against the sky, the beech leaning over the path shed a grateful shade, and the vine hanging in festoons from elm to maple invited the weary soldier to refresh his lips with their purple clusters, there lay hid in this sweet solitude a hundred men and more armed for battle; and when the invaders no more suspected danger from the peaceful hill-sides than the bird from the snare of the fowler,
| Instant, through copse and heath arose Bonnets and spears and bended bows; On right, on left, above, below, Sprung up at once the lurking foe. |