In money matters (this is the weakest side of a Tartar) a ducat is the touchstone of his fidelity; and it is difficult to imagine the extent of their greediness for profit!  The Armenian character is yet a thousand times more vile than theirs; but the Tartars hardly yield to them in corruption and greediness—­and this is saying a good deal.  Is it surprising that, beholding from infancy such examples, Ammalat—­though he has retained the detestation of meanness natural to pure blood—­should have adopted concealment as an indispensable arm against open malevolence and secret villany?  The sacred ties of relationship do not exist for Asiatics.  With them, the son is the slave of the father—­the brother is a rival.  No one trusts his neighbour, because there is no faith in any man.  Jealousy of their wives, and dread of espionage, destroy brotherly love and friendship.  The child brought up by his slave-mother—­never experiencing a father’s caress, and afterwards estranged by the Arabian alphabet, (education,) hides his feelings in his own heart even from his companions; from his childhood, thinks only for himself; from the first beard are every door, every heart shut for him:  husbands look askance at him, women fly from him as from a wild beast, and the first and most innocent emotions of his heart, the first voice of nature, the first movements of his feelings—­all these have become crimes in the eyes of Mahometan superstition.  He dares not discover them to a relation, or confide them to a friend....  He must even weep in secret.

All this I say, my sweet Maria, to excuse Ammalat:  he has already lived a year and a half in my house, and hitherto has never confessed to me the object of his love; though he might well have known, that it was from no idle curiosity, but from a real heartfelt interest, that I wished to know the secret of his heart.  At last, however, he has told me all; and thus it happened.

Yesterday I took a ride out of the town with Ammalat.  We rode up through a defile in the mountain on the west, and we advanced further and further, higher and higher, till we found ourselves unexpectedly close to the village of Kelik, from which may be seen the wall that anciently defended Persia from the incursions of the wandering tribes inhabiting the Zakavkaz, (trans-Caucasian country,) which often devastated that territory.  The annals of Derbend (Derbendname) ascribe, but falsely, the construction of it to a certain Iskender—­i.e. Alexander the Great—­who, however, never was in these regions.  King Noushirvan repaired it, and placed a guard along it.  More than once since that time it has been restored; and again it fell into ruin, and became overgrown, as it now is, with the trees of centuries.  A tradition exists, that this wall formerly extended from the Caspian to the Black Sea, cutting through the whole Caucasus, and having for its extremity the “iron gate” of Derbend, and Darial in its centre; but this is more than doubtful as far as regards the general facts, though certain in the particulars.  The traces of this wall, which are to be seen far into the mountains, are interrupted here and there, but only by fallen stones or rocks and ravines, till it reaches the military road; but from thence to the Black Sea, through Mingrelia, I think there are no traces of its continuation.