advanced age into the uncongenial Siberian climate and Siberian treatment, but by popular rumor attributed to Russian poison-reached them in the spring of 1866. His corpse was brought back to his native mountains, and he was buried amid the tears and wailings of his Abkhasian subjects.

They had, indeed, already other cause for their wailings. Hardly had their last prince ceased to live, than measures were taken by the viceregal Government for the nominal demarcation, the real confiscation, of the lands of the Abkhasian nobility; while the peasants, for their part, found the little finger of Russian incorporization heavier than all the loins of all the Shervashijis. Russian custom-houses formed a cordon along the coast; Russian Cossacks and Natchalnicks were posted everywhere up the country; the whole province was placed under Russian law and military administration; Abkhasian rights, Abkhasian customs and precedents were henceforth abolished. More still, their religion, the great supplement of nationality in the East-because in its Eastern form it embodies whatever makes a nation, its political and social, its public and private being-was now menaced. Russian chronologists discovered that the Abkhasians had once been Christians, whence the Tiflis Government drew the self-evident conclusion that they had no right to be at present Mahometans. An orthodox bishop or archbishop, I forget which, of Abkhasia, appeared on the scene, and the work, or rather the attempt at proselytism was diligently pushed forward by enticement and intimidation under hierarchical auspices. Lastly, a census of the population, a process which ever since David numbered the children of Israel and brought on them the plague in consequence, has been in ill-odor in the East, was ordered.

Of the Shervashiji family many remained. Michael's own brother, Alexander, still resided, though without authority, at So'ouk-Soo; George, Michael's eldest son, now a Russian officer and the Grand Duke's aide-de-camp, had returned from Petersburg, where no amount of champagne and cards had been spared to make him a genuine Russian; epaulettes and aigrettes would, it was to be hoped, retain him such,

But bred in the bone will not out of the flesh, and he was still a Shervashiji, nor had he forgotten the rights of heirapparent. Another and a powerful branch of the same family, the relatives of Said Beg Shervashiji of Kelasoor, a Mahometan, and who had died poisoned it was said by his Christian kinsman and rival, Michael, were also in the country, and seemed inclined to forget family quarrels in the common cause. Besides these were two other "houses" of special note, the Marshians and the Ma'ans. The former had, like the Shervashijis, been in general subservient to Russia-some had even apostatized from Islam; but their chief, Shereem Beg, a Mahometan, had married Michael Shervashiji's sister, and state marriages in the East are productive of other results than mere non-interventions and chil dren. The other family, the Ma'ans, staunch Islam, had for some time previous broken off Russian connection: one of them, Mustapha Agha, had even taken service in the Ottoman army. Their head, Hasan Ma'an, had quitted his Abkhasian abode at Bambora, half way between Soukhoum and So'oukSoo, for the Turkish territory of Trebizond, where he lived within call, but without grasp.

Discontent was general and leaders were not wanting; yet just and judicious measures on the part of the Russians might have smoothed all down; but their Nemesis and that of Abkhasia had decreed that such measures should not be taken,-the exact reverse.

In the month of July, 1866, a commission headed by the civilian Cheripoff had come from Tiflis to complete the survey and estimate of the lands, those of the Shervashijis in particular. This commission had taken up its head-quarters at So'ouk-Soo along with the local military Governor Ismailoff, and a body of Cossacks about two hundred strong. Some of these last were stationed at the coast village of Gouda'outa, a few miles distant. To So'ouk-Soo now flocked all the discontented chiefs, and of course their followers; for no Abkhasian noble can stir a foot out of doors without a "tail" of at least thirty, each with his long slender-stocked gun, his goat-hair cloak, his pointed head-dress, and, for the rest, a knife at his girdle, and more

tears than cloth in his tight gray trousers and large cartridge-breasted coat. Some mezzotints in Hughes' Albanian Travels, old edition, two volumes quarto, where Suliotes, Albanians, and the like are to be seen clambering over rocks, gun on shoulder, in the evident intention of shooting somebody, give a tolerable idea of these fellows, only they are more ragged than the heroes of the said mezzotint, also less ferocious. The commission lodged in the houses about the Meidan; the Abkhasians-for it was summer camped on the Meidan itself, filling it with guns and gutturals.

Much parleying took place. The Abkhasians were highly excited-why, we have already seen; the Russians, not yet aware with whom they had to deal, were insolent and overbearing. The fire of contest was, unavowedly but certainly, fanned by many of the Abkhasian chiefs, not unwilling to venture all where they saw that if they ventured nothing they must lose all. Alexander Shervashiji was there in his own house on the Meidan; his nephew George had arrived from Tiflis; the Russian decorations on his breast lay over a heart no less anti-Russian than his uncle's and his father's so at least said the Russians: perhaps it suited them to criminate the last influential representatives of the Shervashiji family. There too were many of the Marshians; was Shereem Beg amongst them? Some said, some denied. "Se non è vero è ben trovato," was the Russian conclusion. But more active than any, more avowedly at the head of what now daily approached nearer to revolt, were the two Ma'an brothers, Mustapha and Temshookthe former lately returned from Turkey --both men of some talent and of much daring.

Meanwhile news of all this was brought to Colonel Cognard, the Russian Governor-General of Abkhasia, and then resident at Soukhoum-Kalé. A violent, imperious man, full of contempt for all "natives," and like many of foreign origin, more Russian than the Rus sians themselves, he imagined that his presence at So'ouk-Soo would at once suffice to quell the rising storm and awe the discontented into submission. Accordingly, on the first week of August, he arrived on the scene, and lodged in the

great house of Alexander Shervashijiwhither, in consequence, the whole attention of either party, Russian and Abkhasian, was now directed.

Throughout the whole of this affair, it is curious to observe how the Russians, men of no great sensibility themselves, ignored the sensibilities of others, and seemed to think that whatever the injury, whatever the wrong, inflicted by a Russian Government, it ought to arouse in its victims no other feeling than resignation at most. Here in Abkhasia the hereditary ruler of the country had, after life-long services, in time of profound tranquillity, with nothing proved or even distinctly charged against him, been suddenly dragged into exile and premature death; his family, those of all the Abkhasian nobility, had been deprived of their rights, and threatened with the deprivation of their property; ancestral customs, law, religion, national existence, - for even Abkhasians lay claim to all these, had been brought to the verge of Russian absorption into not-being; and the while Cognard with his friends could not imagine the existence of any Abkhasian discontent that would not at once be appeased, be changed into enthusiastic, into Pan-slavistic loyalty, by the appearance of that "deus ex machina" a Russian Governor-General. Vid. Warsaw passim.

Nemesis willed it otherwise. Cognard's demeanor was brutal, his every word an insult. The nobles presented their griefs; he refused to recognize them as nobles. The peasants clamored; he informed them that they were not Abkhasians but Russians. In vain Alexander Shervashiji and the Marshians, sensible and moderate men the most, expostulated and represented that the moment was not one for additional irritation; Cognard was deaf to expostulation and advice; his fate was on him. It did not delay. On the 8th of August a deputation composed of the principal Abkhasian nobility laid before him a sort of Oriental ultimatum in the form of an address: the Russian Governor-General answered it by kicking address and nobles out of doors. It was noon: a cry of vengeance and slaughter arose from the armed multitude on the Meidan.

The assault began on the Cossacks stationed about the house; they were no less unprepared than their masters, and could offer but little resistance. Already the first shots had been fired and blood had flowed when Cognard sent out George Shervashiji to appease those who should by right have been his subjects-whose rebellion was, in fact, for his own father's sake. That he never returned is certain. By his own account, which was confirmed on most hands, he did his best to quiet the insurgents, but unsuccessfully. They They forced him aside, said he, and detained him at a distance while the outbreak went on. The Russians ascribed to him direct participation in what followed; the reasons for such imputation are palpable, the fact itself improbable.

In a few minutes the Cossacks before the gate were overpowered and slaughtered; the Abkhasians burst into the house. Its owner, Alexander Shervashiji, met them on the inner threshold, and implored them to respect the sanctity of their chief's hearth. But that moment had gone by, and the old man was laid hold of by his countrymen and led away-respectfully indeed, but in a manner to preclude resistance-while the massacre begun without doors continued within. Whatever was Russian perished the luckless Commissioner from Tiflis first; Cognard's aide-de-camp and his immediate suite were cut down; but the main search of the insurgents was after Cognard himself. A Russian picture, largely copied and circulated, represents him seated composedly in his chair, unblenched in feature, unmoved in limb, confronting his assailants. Pity that so artistic a group should have existed only in the artist's own imagination. The Colonel had not, indeed, made good his retreat, but he had done his best thereto by creeping up the large fireplace, of Abkhasian fashion, in the principal room. Unfortunately for him his boots protruded downward into the open space; and by these the insurgents seized him, dragged him out to the mid apartment, and there despatched him. His colleague, Ismailoff, had a worse fate. Specially obnoxious to the inhabitants of So'ouk-Soo for the impudence of his profligacy, he was first mutilated and then hewn piecemeal,

limb by limb. It is said that the dogs were already eating morsels of his flesh before life had left his body. Such atrocities are not uncommon in the East where female honor is concerned, rare else. At So'ouk-Soo Ismailoff was the only instance.

All was now in the hands of the insurgents, who sacked and burnt the houses of Russian tenants, killing all they found. Only twenty Cossacks escaped, and these owed their lives to the humane exertions of the wife of Alexander Shervashiji, who gave them refuge in her own apartments, and kept them there safe till the massacre was over. A few Georgians and Mingrelians, a Pole too, though wearing the Russian uniform, were also spared. "You are not Russians, our quarrel is not with you," said the Abkhasians, as they took the men's arms, and sent them off uninjured to Soukhoum.

On the same afternoon the insurgents attacked the nearest Russian post, that of the Cossacks stationed on coast-guard at Gouda'outa. Here, too, the assailants were successful, the Russians were killed to a man, and their abode was burnt. The Nemesis of Abkhasia had completed another stage of her work.

"To Soukhoum" was now the cry; and the whole mass of armed men, now about three thousand in number, were in movement scathward along the coast, through thickets and by-paths, to the Russian stronghold. Next morning, from two to three hundred had already crossed the Gumista, a broad mountain torrent north of Soukhoum, and were before, or rather behind the town.

A small crescent of low one-storied houses, mostly wood, Soukhoum-Kalé lies at the bottom of a deep bay with a southerly aspect. At its western extremity is the Old Fort, ascribed to the Genovese, but more probably of Turkish date, whence Soukhoum derives the adjunct of "Kela'at," or "Castle" (Kalé is erroneous, but we will retain it for custom's sake), a square building, with thick walls of rough masonry and a few flanking bastions; within is room for a mustered regiment or more. From the town crescent some straight lines, indications of roads, run perpendicularly back across the plashy ground for about a quarter of a mile to the mountains;

along these lines are ranged other small wooden houses, mostly tenanted by Russian officers. The garrison-camp, situated on the most unhealthy site of this unhealthy marsh, liest east. Behind is a table-land, whereon in August last there still stood the barracks of a Russian outpost, a hospital, a public vapor-bath, and a few houses. The coast strip is low and swampy, a nest of more fevers than there are men to catch them; the mountains behind, thickly wooded and fern-clad between the trees, are fairly healthy.

At the moment of the first Abkhasian onset, the 9th of August, three Russian vessels-a transport, a corvette, and a schooner, all three belonging to the longshore fleet of Nicolaieff-were lying in the harbor. But the number of men in the camp was small, falling under a thousand, and of these not above onehalf were fit for duty.

Had the Abkhasians been able at once to bring their whole force to bear on Soukhoum-Kalé, town and fort would probably have alike fallen into their hands. At the first approach of the enemy, the Russian garrison had abandoned the plateau and all the upper part of the town, confining themselves to the defensive in the lines along the shore, where they were in a measure covered by the fire of the ships, and in the Fort itself. Meanwhile all the "mixed multitude" of Soukhoum-small Greek and Armenian shopkeepers, Mingrelian and Georgian camp-followers, a few Jews and the like-had fled for refuge, some into the Fort, some on board the vessels in the harbor. But their best auxiliary on this occasion was a violent rain-storm, which at this very moment burst over the mountains, and in a few hours so swelled the Gumista torrent that the main body of Abkhasians mustered behind it were for the whole of the ensuing day unable to cross over to the help of their comrades, the assailants of Soukhoum.

These last had already occupied the plateau, burnt whatever was on it, and, descending into the plain, plundered and set fire to the dwellings of several Russian officers close below. They even advanced some way down the central street, ostentatiously called the "Boulevard" in honor of some little trees plant

ed along it. But here they were checked by the fire of the Russian vessels, and by the few troops whom their officers could persuade to remain without the fort in the lower part of the town.

Two days, two anxious days, matters remained on this footing. But news had been despatched to Poti, and on the third morning arrived a battalion from that place, just as the main body of the Abkhasians, headed by the two sons of Hasan Ma'an, Mustapha and Temshook, crossed the now diminished Gumista and entered Soukhoum.

Fighting now began in good earnest. The numbers on either side were pretty fairly matched, but the Abkhasians, though inferior in arms, were superior in courage; and it required all the exertions of a Polish colonel and of two Greek officers to keep the Russian soldiers from even then abandoning the open ground. However, next morning brought the Russians fresh reënforcements; and being by this time fully double the force of their ill-armed, undisciplined enemy, they ventured on becoming assailants in their turn. By the end of the fifth day the insurgents had dispersed amid the woods. The Russian loss at Soukhoum-Kalé was reckoned at sixty or seventy men, that of the Abkhasians at somewhat less; but as they carried their dead and wounded away with them, the exact number has never been known. During the short period of their armed presence at Soukhoum they had killed no one except in fair fight, burnt or plundered no houses except Russian, committed no outrage, injured no neutral. Only the Botanical Garden, a pretty copse of exotic trees, the crea tion of Prince Woronzoff, and on this occasion the scene of some hard fighting, was much wasted, and a Polish chapel was burnt. Public rumor ascribed both these acts of needless destruction, the first probably, the latter certainly, to the Russian soldiery themselves.

The rest of the story is soon told. Accompanied by a large body of troops, the Russian Governor-General of the Western Caucasus went to So'ouk-Soo. He met with no resistance. Coguard and his fellow-victims were buried-we have seen their graves-and the house of Alexander Shervashiji, that in which Cognard had perished, with the palace

of the Prince Michael, was gutted and burnt by a late act of Russian vindictiveness. The Nemesis of Abkhasia added these further trophies to her triumph at So'ouk-Soo.

Thus it was in November last. A few more months have passed, and that triumph is already complete. After entire submission, and granted pardon, the remnant of the old Abkhasian nationfirst their chiefs and then the peoplehave at last, in time of full peace and quiet, been driven from the mountains and coast where Greek, Roman, Persian, and Turkish domination had left them unmolested for more than two thousand years, to seek under the more tolerant rule of the Ottoman Sultan a freedom which Russia often claims without her limits, always denies within them. The Meidan of So'ouk-Soo is now empty. Russians and Abkhasians, Shervashijis and Cossacks, native and foreigner, have alike disappeared, and nothing remains but the fast crumbling memorials of a sad history of national folly rewarded by oppression, oppression by violence, violence by desolation.

Translated from the German for THE ECLECTIC. FRANZ LISZT, THE SECOND MOZART. Ir was in the "Landstaendische Saal" of Vienna, on an evening in November, 1822, when a large audience were look ing in expectation on a delicate boy who was approaching the piano. Adam Liszt, the distinguished pianist and violinist, the friend of Joseph Haydn and Hummel, was introducing for the first time his son Franz, then eleven years old, to an audience that had heard Mozart. All the musicians of note were present. Near the piano there could be seen the interesting head of Salieri, the grave Czerny, both the instructors of the boy. The party of ladies present was very numerous, and many considered it a favorable omen for the young artist that his first appearance was, as it were, surrounded by roses.

In the remotest corner of the hall a lady was sitting, whose beautiful, gentle eyes were watching every movement of the delicate, childlike figure, and over whose fair face there was spread a pallor of deep emotion. A black lace veil con

cealed her exuberant golden hair, and a plain black dress covered her slender figure. Around her lips there was an expression of melancholy sadness, and yet they tried to smile, when all at once every sound was hushed and the first notes from the piano were vibrating through the hall. Little Franz was playing a concerted piece by Hummel with a wonderful skill and power. The large audience did not in the least embarrass him, but on the contrary he appeared as calm and steady as the skilful pilot at his rudder on a stormy sea. What then was it that made yonder fair lady tremble and breathe so anxiously? She heard the applause the boy received, she perceived how his face was flushed with joy, when he sat down again by his father's side for a short rest.

The pretty little lady in the white satin dress, and the rose in her hair, who was now singing a fine tremulo, did not receive a single glance from those large eyes with the dark eyelashes; they were all the time fixed on the boy's face.

How pale his finely moulded face appeared with the aristocratic mouth! The lady singer, accompanied by loud applause, was just withdrawing, and in passing by him tapped his head with a caressing smile. Yonder lady with the lace veil observed it with a sigh. Then again the boy approached the piano, and after a short childish bow, his fingers were gliding again over the keys in a concerto in B minor by Hummel. The audience were delighted. Even over the face of yonder lady in the corner a light flush was spreading.

Then, after a short pause, the boy for the last time took his seat at the piano in order to play a fantasia of his own composition. A deep stillness pervaded the hall, as in church during prayer. It was themes of Mozart and Beethoven which his youthful fingers interwove and variated in the most enchanting manner. A proud smile was visible on the wrinkled face of Salieri, but the fair lady in the corner dropped her head on her bosom, and big tears, which nobody should see, were rolling down her cheeks. Her hands were nervously clasped, and a fervent prayer rose to heaven from a pious soul for the welfare of the boy