The picturesqueness as well as the fidelity of his description will, it is hoped, secure for the tale a favourable reception with a public always “novitatis avida,” and whose appetite, now somewhat palled with the “Bismillahs” and “Mashallahs” of the ordinary oriental novels, may find some piquancy in a new variety of Mahomedan life—­that of the Caucasian Tartars.

The Russian language possessing many characters and some few sounds for which there is no exact equivalent in English, we beg to say a word upon the method adopted on the present occasion so to represent the Russian orthography, as to avoid the shocking barbarisms of such combinations as zh, &c. &c., and to secure, at the same time, an approach to the correct pronunciation.  Throughout these pages the vowels a, e, i, o, y, are supposed to be pronounced as in French, the diphthong ou as in the word you, the j always with the French sound.

With respect to the combinations of consonants employed, kh has the gutteral sound of the ch in the Scottish word loch, and gh is like a rather rough or coarse aspirate.

The simple g is invariably to be uttered hard, as in gun or gall.

To avoid the possibility of errors, the combination tch, though not a very soft one to the eye, represents a Russian sound for which there is no character in English.  It is, of course, uttered as in the word watch.

As a great deal of the apparent discord of Russian words, as pronounced by foreigners, arises from ignorance of the place of the accent, we have added a sign over every polysyllable word, indicating the part on which the stress is to be laid.

The few preceding rules will, the translator hopes, enable his countrymen to attack the pronunciation of the Russian names without the ancient dread inspired by terrific and complicated clusters of consonants; and will perhaps prove to them that the language is both an easy and a melodious one.

     St Petersburg, November 10, 1842.

CHAPTER I.

    “Be slow to offend—­swift to revenge!”
      Inscription on a dagger of Daghestan.

It was Djouma.[11] Not far from Bouinaki, a considerable village of Northern Daghestan, the young Tartars were assembled for their national exercise called “djigitering;” that is, the horse-race accompanied by various trials of boldness and strength.  Bouinaki is situated upon two ledges of the precipitous rocks of the mountain:  on the left of the road leading from Derbend to Tarki, rises, soaring above the town, the crest of Caucasus, feathered with wood; on the right, the shore, sinking imperceptibly, spreads itself out into meadows, on which the Caspian Sea pours its eternal murmur, like the voice of human multitudes.