6

Welcome a sabre stroke or bullet in these valleys, rather than a downy couch at Sujuk Kaleh,' replied Polaski, boldly. I must go to the camps in the valleys,' replied the Circassian in the same quiet tone, and in the same fluent Russian, so that I cannot accompany thee to a place of safety. But hold!' The mountaineer gave a low whistle, when immediately a fire of dry twigs and mountain-fern was kindled on the shoulder of the hill beneath which they stood, and threw its broad light on the Pole and his companion. The Circassian leaned with his left arm upon the saddle of Polaski's steed, and looked in his face with such a kind and earnest look, that one would have supposed him an elder brother greeting a returned traveller to his mountain home. The Circassian, if his flowing brown beard had been taken away, and his picturesque garb exchanged for that of a Russian chasseur, might easily have been mistaken for Polaski, so much did they resemble each other in height and form; but in the eye of the chief there shone the light of a spirit that had never been subdued, while the fitful gleams of energy that flashed across the face of the fugitive were alternated by that despondent aspect which years of servility had superinduced.

Do not move from this spot until thou art bidden,' said the Circassian, rousing himself from a reverie. 'Thou hast come amongst us at a stirring time, and will be required to prove thy truth otherwise than by words; but true men are ever safe with the Adighe.' The chief waved his hand, and, motioning Polaski to remain steady, vanished in the shade of the dark trees that grew on every hand.

Polaski had time to observe that above him, on the rock beside the beacon-fire, several men reclined, and he was sensible that they observed him, for they looked steadily, but at the same time indifferently, towards the spot where he stood. He heard too the sound of voices in the wood, and he thought he could recognise the tones of him who had so lately accosted him. There was life and motion all around him, and he felt that he had been seen long before he had reached his present position. The mountaineers offered no obstruction to single individuals entering the valleys at night; but wo unto the man that would dare to leave them clandestinely. He had stood in his halflonely, disagreeable position for but a few minutes, when he was again saluted.

"Come,' said a warrior, advancing towards him from the shade, and holding out his hand, thou art welcome. Thou hast fled from bondage; thou hast sought the friendship of Kaplan, whom thy oppressors and his call a tiger, in preference to bearing the tyrant's badge and his musket. Come with me; yonder are Kaplan's friends; this rough rock is Kaplan's Keep, and thou shall be welcome, if Hadgi Bey has any influence in the council.'

I am strong, father,' said Polaski, eagerly grasping the band of the Circassian, and addressing him with much deference; and before I was one of a conquered nation, I was esteemed skilful in several arts. My strength I will dedicate to thy country's service, and my skill I will emplay to oppose the inroads of the Russian.'

The mountain-warrior remained for a few minutes silent; then drawing his scimitar, and presenting its hilt to the fugitive, he solemnly adopted him as a brother Circassian, and then, grasping him by the hand, led him up through dark, broken pass, to the rock where the watchfire was streaming. This is a deer that has broken from the hunDr's tils,' said the Circassian, as he presented Polaski to ka friends; he is a brother of Hadgi Beg; let him be wel

The Circassians are a simple people, if simplicity means truthfulness and openness of disposition; and consequently, without any other introduction or inquiry regarding the new comer, the friends of Hadgi shook him by the hand, and motioned him to be seated, while the youngest of the party spread out the evening's repast, as Polaski's new friend seated himself beside him.

Hadgi Beg was rather under than over the ordinary size of men, and his long flowing white beard gave him more the appearance of a sage than a warrior; but although his frame was spare and his limbs inclining to thinness, his broad shoulders and capacious chest, together with the light, easy, springy motion of his step, showed that he was vigorous, and capable of enduring vast fatigue. One of the most beautiful characteristics of a primitive people is their veneration for age, and to Hadgi Beg, the tall, handsome, and stately men around him paid the most marked respect; his words were listened to in the deepest and most respectful silence, and his opinions treasured as words of wisdom. And there were few assemblies, no matter how high their pretensions to dignity, where the gravity of a council or the proprieties of manly deportment were so well assumed and preserved as in that little assembly of chiefs who bivouacked round the beacon-fire.

'And where is Kaplan?' thought Polaski, as his eye fell upon the manly form of Arslan of Dogwai, whose clear shirt of chain-mail glanced in the light of the fire, as he sat and gazed on the glen below; but then Gezil of Ozerek, with his tunic of brown cloth, trimmed with silver lace, was as tall and powerful as Arslan; and Tughuz of Anapa was as agile and well-appointed and dauntless-looking as either; wherever his eye fell he beheld a man capable of being a brave and hardy leader of men, and none that was not likely to be the redoubted Kaplan.

Now, my brother,' said Hadgi Beg to his protége, when all had laid them to sleep save the old man, you have come to Kaplan's tower in a stirring time. Perhaps you heard that the chasseurs from Sujuk Kaleh were to leave at nightfall for Ozerek, and that it was determined that the wives and widows of the Adighe should wail before morning upon the hills.'

'I fled from Sujuk Kaleh, father, with the steed of a porutshik named Demdoff, when the mists were gathering on the mountains,' replied Polaski, but I heard not of an expedition; all that I knew was that Kaplan had come to Ozerek.'

Hadgi Beg smiled for a few moments silently, and then replied, 'Brother, you must don the garb of the Adighe, and go to rest, for when morning breaks you shall have to meet your foes, the Muscovs.'

Father,' said Polaski, eagerly, as he threw away the raiment of Russia, and dressed himself in a uniform to which the grave and stately Hadgi pointed, ' are there any of my countrymen with the Adighe?'

'Many,' replied the old man, calmly. It was because I love all the sons of Sarmatia for the sake of one, that I opened my palm to thee.'

Father, dost thou know this hero-this Kaplan?' inquired the young man, as he seated himself by Hadgi's side, and respectfully laid his hand upon the old man's shoulder.

Ah, yes, I know Kaplan well! We have fought together, and have bled together, and we have sorrowed together;' and the aged chief looked even sadly in the face of his catechist as he spoke.

'Does he come from the valleys on the Kuban?' asked Polaski, rapidly; and dost thou know if he opened his divan-door to my countrymen who fled from the forts in the north?'

All were welcome to Kaplan who were unfortunate,' said the old man, quietly-but, hark!' and in a moment his form was as rigid and motionless as the rock beside him, while, with his nervous hand pressing painfully on the shoulder of the Pole, he bent his head over the cliff, and listened for a few minutes to the whispering wind that came sighing on his ear from the valleys below. 'Arslan, Gezil, Tughuz,' said the old man, as he touched the sleep

ing warriors, and awoke them, 'I hear the horns of the scouts at Ambista. Awake, and to your posts; the Muscovs are on the march.'

The sleeping warriors rose in silence, and hurried away, while Hadgi and Polaski followed them down the steep, and soon found themselves amongst a mounted band of the warriors of Ozerek. Polaski and his guide had scarcely time to throw themselves upon their steeds, when a manly voice shouted the word, 'Forward!' and the tumultuary corps of mountaineers was thundering down the valley. 'Keep by me, my brother,' said old Hadgi to his protége, as he gave his horse the rein, and when the sun rises you shall see Kaplan ride into the midst of the Muscov chasseurs, or Hadgi Beg is not the grandsire of his boys, nor the father of that Zeda who fell not a moon since by the stroke of a Russian sabre, to save the father of her children, when he was down and wounded.'

6

Sunrise in any country is one of the most beautiful and interesting of natural phenomena, but in a mountainous region it invests the heavens with a grandeur and sublimity baffling language to describe-varying with the rapidity of light from the first faint streaks of grey dawn to the yellow, purple, and then roseate hues of blushing morn. The sun's precursor beams streamed over the tops of the hills, as if to halo them with a mild, radiant glory, when the band reached the oak woods above Ambista, and halted; and as many of that band had been taught from their communication with the Turks to perform morning ablutions and repeat their orisons, many stern men, who were waiting for the bugle-notes of war, knelt by a little stream, and, muttering their matin-prayers, washed their hands with its sparkling pure water.

Ambista was the last station of the mountaineers, between Ozerek and Sujuk Kaleh. It was a little glen, where perhaps a hundred people dwelt with their flocks, herds, and horses; and, as it was difficult of access from the plain on the sea-coast, but easily invested from the hills, it had hitherto been free from invasion. Now, however, the flames were streaming upwards from its burning homes, and the loud shouts of the chasseurs were echoing in the ears of its frightened inhabitants.

'Dost thou hear them, soldier?' muttered Hadgi, as the sounds of destruction came swelling up the glen, and startled the horses of the band. They are slaying my people and razing their homes.'

Come, father-come to the van-to the van,' said the impatient Pole, as he sprung forward with his sword drawn in his right hand, and the reins of Hadgi's horse in his left; I hear them, the spoilers of my heart and home.'

'Kaplan! Kaplan!' shouted the sons of the Adighe, as Polaski rode to the van; there goes the tiger of the Kuban with his atalek at his side.'

Again the deep manly tones of the leader shouted 'Forward!' and scouring round the shoulder of the hill on which grew the oaks behind which they had ambushed, the Circassians dashed headlong on the foe.

The Caucasian mountaineers are foolhardily brave; they are tinctured so much with the fatalism of the Mussulman as to believe that death comes to man only at Allah's special time, and, impressed with this belief, two Circassians have been known to charge five hundred Russians, cutting their way through their ranks, and returning unhurt to the camp of their friends, to confirm them in their superstition.

'Kaplan! Kaplan!' shouted the horsemen of Ozerek, as they charged with the fury of the north wind, and swept the chasseurs from before their furious onset. Kaplan! Kaplan!' cried the warriors of the north, as, pressing behind old Hadgi, Polaski, and their fair-haired furious chief, they flashed their red scimitars in the faces of the foe. Alas! that the green grass, where, scarce an hour before, the peaceful kine had lain waiting for the milkmaiden, should be dyed with blood, and that blackened ruins and grinning corpses should be seen where happy homes and sleeping children, not an hour before, had been! But ambition and batt'e have no life but in the death of

all that man may love; and as the victorious Circassi ins gazed on their battle-field, and looked at the fruits of even their conquest, they sighed to think that such things should be.

When the route began, Hadgi Beg was seated upon a rock, and the blood was welling from his left shoulder, while over him bent a tall and powerful warrior, who rent his white scarf from his waist, and strove to stanch the gory current.

You are hurt, father,' said the warrior, sternly, as he busied himself in dressing the wound, and you must rest while we go in pursuit. I have bound up your shoulder, and Jantha will bring thy steed till thou returnest to the keep.'

Let my grandson bring the horse,' said the old man, proudly, but I must go with you. I saw the poor fugitive youth fall into the hands of his foes, and if he opens his mouth he dies. By the word of a pshe of Notwhatsh, I shall rescue him or fall.'

It was enough, Hadgi was old, and he must be obeyed. He slung his left arm in his hazir-belt, and drew his sabre with his right, and the warrior to whom he had spoken seizing the reins of his steed, they galloped away in pursuit of the flying Russians. The frequent and irregular discharge of firearms, the shout of triumph, the yell of pain or despair, and the groan of fainting humanity, mingled with the balmy sigh of the west wind and the exhalations of the flowers.

It was as beauteous a morning as ever a clear and sunny heaven looking on a green and scenic spot of earth could in their combined beauty form; but man, full of hate and fury, was there, and the vale of Ambista seemed a theatre of demoniac passions.

About a hundred Russian chasseurs had formed themselves into a square, and, covered by a piece of ordnance, they kept the Circassians at bay, while they slowly retreated down the glen. It was in this square that the fugitive Pole was a wounded captive, and, as his death was inevitable should he be recognised, old Hadgi Beg, who believed his honour to be involved in his rescue, urged his companions to intercept and cut off this phalanx, if possible. Again and again had the wounded old man led his countrymen to the charge, and again and again were they driven back, until almost weeping with vexation, when he saw the Russians about to deploy from the pass of Ambista into the plain of the Euxine. Hadgi turned to speak to him who had bound his wounds, as if to ask him to rush upon the foe and die with him rather than return without the Pole, when suddenly he saw a man, scimitar in hand, spring his horse from a cover, and shouting Kaplan! Kaplan!' cleave a pathway for himself over the chasseurs who opposed him, and bury himself in the Russian square. The echo of his last cheer had scarcely died away when the steeds of the Adighe were snorting among the Muscovite ranks, and their hot breath was paralysing the sword arms of the chasseurs. They were broken, taken, or dispersed, as if a storm had shattered their elements of organisation in pieces, and in a short time the triumphant Circassians were proceeding once more to their stations at Ozerek, bearing Polaski on a litter, which they compelled Demdoff and three of his brother prisoners to bear.

The wounded man was conveyed to the height where he had first bivouacked with Hadgi, and, by some strange and latent impulse, the fair-haired chief of the expedition tended him with indefatigable care and patience. If he murmured water, Kaplan, the proud and the dauntless, would bring it from the stream, and hold it to his burning lips with tender hand; if he raised his head and looked around him in wonder, the tall and athletic chief would kiss his fevered brow, and pillow his head once more upon his garments; and if he muttered of home and kindred, the tear would start into the tiger of Circassia's eyes, and he would answer him back in his own native tongue, with blessings in a brother's name.

'Ay, Ernest Polaski,' he would say, while he bent over him and spoke to him words of comfort and love, little

and this mode of burial prevails, we know, amongst what are generally called savage nations, as well as the most civilised at the present day. Yet the children of men, when they fell from the condition of purity and life in which they were created, departed in this, as in all their nature and habits, from that state which was a state of unity, and purity, and consistency, and truly fell into a condition of sin and misery, of moral perversion, and of physical suffering.

The nation of whom we have the earliest authentic accounts is Egypt, and consequently the funeral customs of the Egyptians are the most ancient upon record. This people, influenced by the belief in the resurrection of the body, and persuaded that a second and eternal principle of life would come to reanimate the human form, embalmed and dedicated it to the god Osiris, before they consigned it to the private catacomb, public necropolis, or kingly pyramid, to await the fiat of a second life. The funeral rites of the Egyptians were important parts of their social economy; and as they were both interesting and complicated, involving an amount of curious actions and strange superstitions, we purpose to give our readers a more detailed view of them in a future number than would be possible in this article, and shall consequently pursue our intention of noticing the different customs of nations rela tive to funerals.

In Scotland, it is the office of the next of kin to close the eyes of the departed one; and this is a custom which prevailed amongst the Jews. When one among that ancient and peculiar people died, the corpse was washed and embalmed, and then the deceased was mourned for during | threescore and ten days. It is probable that the process of embalming was acquired by the Israelites during their sojourn in the land of Egypt, for Jacob is the first mentioned in Scripture as having been buried after being subjected to this process. The patriarch was mourned for during the number of days already mentioned, thirty of which his body lay in nitre, and during the other forty he was anointed with gums and spices, thus fulfilling for him 'the days of them which are embalmed.' This process was one of great tediousness, and it involved great pecuniary expenses, and gradually fell into desuctude, as the Jewish | nation became subjected to those trials and that poverty incidental to her conquered position. The custom of embalming gave place to the simple mode of wrapping a linen cloth round the body, and consigning it, with spices of myrrh, balm, and sweet aloes, to the grave which had been prepared for it and its kindred dust. The Jews, when mourning, went bareheaded and barefooted-the first, that they might scatter dust and ashes on their heads, and the second, in sign of humiliation. They closed their lips in silence, and closely muffled them up. They partook of a funeral banquet, called the bread of mourners,' or the 'bread of men,' and they drank of the cup of consolation.' They removed all the hair from their heads, clipped their beards, arrayed themselves in sackcloth, and, in accordance with a ferocious custom which they had been taught | by the priests of Baal, they gashed their hands and bodies, and employed mournful music. The custom of mutilation was one of those barbaric innovations which the perverse Israelites were so prone to adopt, in despite of the warnings and denunciations so frequently conveyed to them by their prophets, and it was expressly forbidden in Leviticus xix. 28. It is sometimes inferred, from passages of the Old Testament, that the Jews occasionally burned the bodies of their dead. This custom was not of frequent use, however; and the Rabbinical commentators are of opinion that the burning spoken of referred not to the actual consuming of the corpses, but to the burning of spices over the graves of the deceased-to the burning of their beds or personal utensils, or to the lighting of funeral lamps upon their tombs. Carnal interment, as we have already said, seems however to be the most ancient mode of sepulture. Indeed, there is a tradition in the East that Adam was buried near Damascus, on Mount Calvary. It is certain, however, that Abraham, who purchased from the children of Heth the Cave of Macpelah as a tomb, and his successors the patri

archs, followed this process of burial. The tombs of the Jews were generally hewn out of the solid rock. They were six cubits in length, and four in breadth, and contained from eight to fourteen niches, which, as they were filled, had the entrance to them closed by large stones, which were rolled to them. The entrances to these tombs were kept very clean, and whitewashed with the greatest care-a superficiality of ornament which, when metaphorically applied to the Pharisees, contained a deep and powerful reproof. These tombs were generally built in secluded places, or in fields, and afforded asylums for those tormented with devils, or for robbers and assassins.

The funeral rites of the modern Jews differ from those

of their ancient progenitors. According to the rabbi, Leo of Mordena, who wrote in the seventeenth century, the corpse is first laid upon the ground, with the feet towards the door, being wrapped in a sheet, and the face covered. A waxlight, in an earthen pitcher, or vessel full of ashes, is placed at the head; and the body is then washed in warm water, with chamomile and dried roses, and dressed in fine linen. A white nightcap is placed upon the head, and over the body is thrown a square covering, with four pendants attached to it, which vestment is called a taleth. For men of high repute, the coffin is made sharp-pointed; for a rabbi, it is covered with books; and as soon as it leaves the residence of the living, the house is carefully swept. It is considered meritorious to attend a funeral, and assist to bear the dead to their final resting-place. Sometimes torches are borne in the funeral procession, and hymns are chanted. An oration is spoken over the corpse at the grave; a prayer is offered up; just judgment is delivered, beginning with the fourth verse of the twenty-third chapter of Deuteronomy; a little bag of earth is placed beneath the head of the deceased; and the coffin, hitherto left open, is then nailed down, and consigned to the earth. In some places, the custom is to lay the coffin near the edge of the grave, and then, if the deceased be a man, ten persons go seven times round it, repeating a prayer for his soul. The nearest kinsman then slightly rends his garments, and, the coffin being lowered into the grave, all present assist in covering it with earth. On their return, each individual twice or thrice plucks a turf from the ground, and casts it over his head, repeating at the same time the sixteenth verse of the ninety-second psalm. After this, they wash their hands, and sit down and rise up nine times, repeating the ninety-first psalm. The burying customs of the modern Jews, despite of the exclusive character of that widely-scattered people, have of course been considerably modified, according to the practices of the various nations amongst whom they sojourn. The above is, however, the general mode of procedure. There are various other customs connected with the funeral formula, such as feasts of mourning and consolation, and the setting apart of the personal raiment and utensils of the deceased, all of which accord with the practices of old times.

Amongst the Greeks, sepulture was a subject of the greatest social importance, and an act of high religious piety, and was considered to be necessary for the repose of the deceased's spirit. The soul of the unburied was supposed to wander for a hundred years on the bleak and sterile banks of the dark and rolling Styx, before it could cross that infernal river; and it was the very utmost extent of malevolence to which a Greek's spirit could attain, when he wished that his dead enemy might never find a tomb. In consequence of this belief in the necessity of burial, the Greek dreaded shipwreck as one of the greatest of calamities; and, in his estimation, man's inhumanity had scarcely a darker phase than that of leaving exposed a corpse whom the waves might niggardly cast in his seabeaten path. The erection of monuments to their honour was supposed to alleviate in some degree the post mortem agonies of those who perished in circumstances that precluded the possibility of sepulture, and of these monuments spirits were invoked to become the guardians. If the fate of the Greek whose corpse was not consigned to the earth was supposed to be miserable, so was the destiny of hin considered to be bright and happy who was laid to rest