Note 1 — CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS.

"Amongst the Caucasian tribes, the interest of Europe has attached itself especially to the Circassians, because they are regarded (in Urquhart's words) 'as the only people, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, ever ready to revenge an injury and retort a menace proceeding from the Czar of the Muscovites.' Urquhart's opinion, which is shared by the great majority of the European public, is not quite correct, the Circassians not being the only combatants against Russia. Indeed it so happens that, for the last four years, they have kept tolerably quiet in their mountains, contenting themselves with small forays into the Cossack country on the Kuban; whilst the warlike Tshetshens in the eastern Caucasus, their chief, Chamyl, at their head, have given the Russian army much more to do. But, in the absence of official intelligence, and of regular newspaper information concerning the events of the war, people in Europe have got accustomed to admire and praise the Circassians as the only defenders of Caucasian freedom against Russian aggression; and even in St Petersburg the intelligent public hold the famous Chamyl to be chief of the Circassians, with whom he has nothing whatever to do."—Der Kaukasus, &c., vol. ii. p. 22-3.