purpose, be it what it might, while we turn to other scenes in our
story, taking the reader across the sea, to another, hut no loss
interesting land.






CHAPTER IV.

VALES OF CIRCASSIA.





Circassia, the land of beauty and oppression, whose noble valleys
produce such miracles of female loveliness, and whose level plains
are the vivid scenes of such terrible struggles; where a brave,
unconquerable peasantry have, for a very long period, defied the
combined powers of the whole of Russia, and whose daughters, though
the children of such brave sires, are yet taught and reared from
childhood to look forward to a life of slavery in a Turkish harem as
the height of their ambition--Circassia, the land of bravery, beauty
and romance, is one of the least known, but most interesting spots
in all Europe.

Whether it be that the genial air of its hills and vales possesses
power to beautify the forms and faces of its daughters, or that they