prone to argue by that wilfully bad logician,
the sword. He is of a fierce, rough nature,
fond of war, by nature predatory and
impatient of even Schamyl's command. He has
been, ever since George the Thirteenth gave
Georgia to the Emperor Paul, a forager, a
moss-trooper, and a vexatious borderer, goaded
to frenzy by the handcuff of Russian forts. In
Constantinople he is a brawling, irascible,
conspiring, dangerous exile, whom the Sultan
dreads, and is daily carting off to Anatolia.

I used to enjoy sitting down on one of the
four-legged low rush chairs, without backs, that
are always piled up for customers round a kibab
stall, which, though more pretentious, because
more patronised, corresponds pretty nearly to
the London hot potato tin, or rather to the quiet
old woman near the Angel and Fiddle, who sits
with a basket of sheep's trotters spread open on a
clean white cloth resting on her knees.

There, rejoicing in the scented smoke, and the
breath of frizzle and burn, I used to sit down
and call out grandly to the obsequious bare
armed Turk, in answer to his insinuating

"Bir shei yemeyah istermisiniz, chilibi?"—
(Do you crave anything to eat, sir?)

"Kibab isterim."—(I want a kibab.) And
then, as a sort of crack of the whip after him, I
cry out the hurrying signal, " Chapuk."—
(Quick.)

Away runs the attendant, and beneath the
umbrella of the kibab stall there is instantly a
sound as of feasting and merriment. The
black oil fizzles. The little red and white
periwinkles of mutton are strung by nimble fingers
on a dozen clean skewers, and laid on the
gridiron bars to hiss and bubble. The flat
pancake, large as a pillow-case, is slashed by the
cook's huge dagger, into sections which are
plunged in dyspeptic oil. The fire is aggravated;
the charcoal blown up into a delicious crimson,
as of a burning and enchanted camellia.
Meanwhile, an attendant watches with smiles, as
if they were his babies, the little kibabs, all
in a row, and alternately slaps the oily cakes
as if they were fritters, and twiddles round,
and winds up, the frizzling skewers; another
attendant, unmeaningly attentive, rubs the chairs
with his apron, and cleans what is already as
clean as it can be, to give an air of business
to the stall. And all this time the whole
market-place becomes anxious about my open-air
dinner, or my late lunch, or whatever you like
to call it. One or two dervishes stand with
paternal interest near me, saying silent graces
and thanksgivings, and telling their sandal-wood
beads. Some Turkish soldiers, engaged in
cheapening a pumpkin, as yellow as a toad's belly,
wait, with the curiosity of schoolboys, to see
the infidel begin his meal; a moollah, who has
been bargaining for quinces, and amusing
himself, at various turns of the discussion, in beating
the helpless Greek salesman about the head
with his bathing clogs, draws near; five Persian
senna merchants, with their high retreating
black caps, order kibabs, too, that they may
have an excuse for watching the fun. I am
going to dine, like Henry the Eighth, in public.
One would think that infidels ate with the back
of the head, or dined, like herons, on one leg,
there is such a crowd of Mussulmans round the
unbeliever.

Now the alchemic moment of ripeness and
perfection has come; the fritter refuses to
imbibe any more oil; the kibabs on the lark
skewers, are frothy and done through. There is
a great sensation as the waiter places a clean
round brass tray with a rim to it, upon a stool
before me, and, upon that, a bowl of kibab, piled
with oily cake, and sauced with pickled cucumbers,
stuffed with rice. Knife and fork there is
none. Red sherbet, like raspberry vinegar, is
brought me from a neighbouring stall. Grapes,
turned here and there to blue raisins, await me.
I dine like Dives, though my linen may not be
so fine.

I have done; my fingers are greasy and
fatigued. I have swallowed the kernels of meat,
I have rolled up in tubes the muffin-like cake,
and bolted it; but still they heap the bowl, and
I shrink before the herculean labour. My
stomach being full, my heart becomes full. I
burn to feed a starving world. I look round for
beggars, and even throw a kibab to one of the
wolfish street dogs prowling near.

There are yonder three Circassian boys: the
eldest about seventeen, the youngest may be
ten: sons of that exile chieftain whom I lately
met by the fountain—at least so I suppose, for
I see him watching them wistfully at a distance,
like Hagar, as I beckon them near, and as they
come in a shy, wild, untamed way.

Djemmal is the eldest, I find; Labazon, the
second; Machmat is the Benjamin. The father,
Hadjo, is a Checknian, and from Schamyl's
favourite fortress at Dargi-Vedenno. Their
high Circassian caps of cream-coloured wool,
have top coverings of red. The eldest, a
broad-faced, Tartar looking, fierce boy, carrying
a tremendous dagger, seizes the food I
give him, ravenously, and devours it without
thanks. After fourpence a month, and melon
rinds, with stray snatches of the bones of swordfish
and buffalo milk cheese, this roasted meat
rejoices the Circassian stomach, so that in a
few minutes they all grow quite greasy and
tame, and father and three sons squat near me,
grinning satisfaction, with mouths full, and, I
may say, swollen with dripping sections of oozy
cake. How few paras all this charity cost me,
after all, I am really ashamed to tell; but, I trust
kindness is not necessarily estimated by its
expensiveness, or else woe be to him who gives but
the cup of cold water, and wishes the poor
wayfarer a mere God's blessing!

I know not how I should have "got off" the
scene, as actors say, had not, luckily, just at
this moment, the Deus stepped in for me, in the
shape of a crowd and tumult at the end of the
street of the Mosque of Sulieman.

We all ran to see what it was, and found it
to be a long and melancholy procession of ox
waggons, laden with Circassians: a jolting,