Life of Schamyl | Page 4

and latterly as many
as two hundred thousand men under arms. Year after year she has
despatched her battalions to supply the places of those who had fallen

by the shaskas of the Circassians or the still more deadly arrows of the
fever, which in the most sickly seasons has cut off no less than one
sixth of the whole army. She has sent thither also her best generals and
administrators from Jermoloff to Paskiewitsch and Woronzoff. The
emperor Nicholas went himself into these mountains at the risk of his
life, to inspect and encourage by his presence the invading columns.
Every system of attack which the ingenuity of the St. Petersburg
cabinet could devise has in turn been tried; efforts have constantly been
made to gain over by intrigue the tribes who could not be subjugated by
force; the cross, joining its influence to the power of the sword, has
endeavored to bring the native mind under the dominion of a system of
religion more favorable to the aims of the autocrat; a superior
civilization has held out to the comparatively rude barbarians, its hands
full of gifts dazzling and fatal to liberty; but hitherto mostly, if not all,
in vain. The inhabitants of the upper and more inaccessible mountains
have held their independence above all price, fighting for their homes
as the mountaineer only will; and the chieftains who have been tempted
by preferment in the Russian army and the glitter of its epaulettes, by
the honors of the parades at Tiflis, and even by the imperial champaign,
and the sight of the ballet dancers of St. Petersburg, have disdained to
sell a birthright of freedom inherited from a thousand generations in
exchange for these high-flavored sops of an overreaching foreign
despotism.
An intense interest of humanity, therefore, still hangs over this
prolonged contest between the forces of civilization and those of the
primitive state of nature, between the battalions of imperial authority
and the bands of democratic liberty; and the more intense because this
barrier of nature and wall of freemen once completely carried, there
will remain no further hinderance to the victorious course eastward of
that ambition which, possessing already the path to the orient by the
northern snows, covets that also across the sands of the tropics.

IV.
HIS BIRTHPLACE.

Schamyl, the principal hero of this war of independence, was born in
the year 1797. The place of his birth is Himri, an aoul or village in the
district of Arrakan, and in the north-western part of Daghestan, a
territory lying on the Caspian. It is situated on the river, called lower
down where it approaches the sea, the Sulak, but here the Koissu; and
at a point just above where the main stream throws off that one of its
four branches which is termed the Andian Koissu.
All these waters flow down, on the south, from the main Caucasian
range; on the west, from the Andian offshoot; and on the east, from that
of the Kaitach; which two latter running, the one north-easterly and the
other north-westerly until they meet, form the two sides of a triangle of
mountains having for its base the high Caucasus. The apex is just
below Himri, and consists of the escaped cliffs of two summits called
the Touss-Tau and the Sala-Tau; while through a gorge between them
is precipitated the whole volume of the united branches of the Koissu.
Himri, accordingly, together with the neighboring fortified aoul of
Akhulgo, is one of the keys of this triangular region of well-watered
highlands, which is inhabited by a considerable number of warlike
tribes known collectively as the Lesghians, and which, with the
territory of Daghestan on the east, and that of Tchetchenia on the north,
is the principal theatre of the great military achievements of Schamyl.
The aoul of Himri is placed like an eagle's nest high on a rock
projecting from the mountain side. From the beautiful vale through
which winds the Koissu, a narrow path cut out of the rock is carried
zig-zag up a height of two or three hundred feet, and is exposed to be
swept by stones let loose from above of any enemy that might be
daring enough to attack this strong-hold. A triple wall supported by
high towers adds the defences of art to those of nature; while above, the
place is sheltered by the overhanging brow of the mountain.
Standing on one of these towers the native looks down upon the narrow
but fertile valley, divided in twain by the fast-flowing river. Several of
the surrounding mountains are laid out in terraced gardens; while some
are partially covered with oaks and plane-trees; and others again are
entirely bare, having instead of the drapery of foliage only the tints of

gold or purple which the